Why You Keep Attracting the Same Relationship: Nervous System Habits Behind Your Love Life
TL;DR:
Your body isn’t broken—it’s brilliantly wired to seek what feels familiar, even if familiar hurts.
According to Imago theory, we subconsciously seek out partners who mirror the emotional landscape of our childhood—what we felt and what we longed for.
This “homing beacon” for love is run by your nervous system, not your logic.
This is not bad- This is why devotional love is a rocketship for expansion and growth.
Somatic healing helps you rewire this pattern—not by rejecting it, but by learning from it.
When you learn to find home in yourself, everything changes: what you see, what you choose, and what you attract.
Why Do I Keep Ending Up Here?
You meet someone new. It’s electric. The chemistry is intense.
And six weeks—or six years—later, you’re back in the same old story.
Maybe they’re emotionally unavailable. Maybe you’re walking on eggshells. Maybe it’s that gnawing, relentless feeling that if you could just be better, or less much, or finally enough, then they’d love you the way you long to be loved.
You’re not imagining it. You are stuck in a pattern.
But it’s not because you’re broken.
It’s because your nervous system is doing its job—by scanning for what’s familiar.
Imago Theory: You Fell In Love With Your Past
Harville Hendrix’s Imago theory offers a stunning insight:
Every one of us walks around with an internalized “Imago”—an idealized image of love, shaped by the people who raised us.
This image is built from two things:
The parts of our caregivers that we associated with love (even if it came with control, distance, criticism, or chaos).
The parts we longed for but didn’t receive (attunement, play, safety, presence, admiration).
So if love in your childhood meant inconsistency, self-abandonment, or emotional volatility…
Your nervous system learned to equate those things with love.
And unconsciously, that’s what it seeks out again.
Even if it hurts.
Even if you know better.
Because here’s the thing:
Physiology will always trump psychology.
Your body is powerfully wired for survival—not logic.
So even if your mind says, “This isn’t good for me,” your nervous system says, “But we know how to survive this.”
And it wins.
This is why somatic coaching matters.
You can’t think your way out of old patterns. You have to befriend your body.
Reclaim its immense capacity—not as an enemy to battle, but as a powerful ally that can be rewired, re-attuned, and brought back into relationship with your deepest truth.
The Body Chooses What It Survived
Here’s where this all comes together.
Your nervous system doesn’t prioritize what’s healthy.
It prioritizes what’s familiar.
So your body becomes a kind of homing beacon:
Drawn to the familiar tension. The familiar ache. The familiar hope that maybe this time it’ll be different. That you’ll finally be seen, loved, chosen.
This is the seed of every trauma bond.
But here’s the magic…
You’re Not Failing. You’re On the Path.
These patterns aren’t punishments.
They’re portals.
Each one is a chance to meet the part of you that never got what it needed.
This is why sacred agreements and devotional love are a rocket ship for healing.
Our partners hold the exact medicine—and the exact trigger—that stirs up the old stuff in us.
Their very presence can bring up our deepest fears and unlock our greatest expansions.
And not just romantic partners. Every relationship is part of this curriculum.
What About the Addiction to Intensity?
Many people carry a secret fear about healing:
Will my life get boring? Will my relationships lose their spark?
No.
But it might feel that way at first—if your baseline is addiction to chaos.
Because here’s the truth:
We often confuse intensity with aliveness.
You might feel lit up by emotional rollercoasters or dramatic connection.
You might say, “We just have this thing,” even though it costs you your peace.
You might mistrust someone who feels too calm, too safe, too steady.
But intensity, when it's driven by survival energy, isn’t intimacy.
It’s a distraction or escape from the emotions your nervous system hasn’t learned to hold.
On the flip side, people also fall into flat, semi-dead relationships—not because they’re truly safe, but because they’ve numbed out their passion. Shut it down. Swallowed their aliveness to survive.
So it starts to feel like those are the only two options:
🔥 Chaos or 😶 Numbness.
But there’s a third way.
It’s the path of regulated intensity. Of devotional fire.
Of learning to stay with your emotions—without collapsing or exploding.
It’s real intimacy.
It’s not boring—it’s breathtaking.
How to Shift the Pattern
Here’s where the healing starts.
1. Notice the Pattern
Start to observe what keeps showing up.
Do you always end up chasing?
Do you freeze when someone gets too close?
Do you fall for intensity over intimacy?
And get curious:
What are you hoping this person will finally give you?
Safety? Validation? Proof you’re lovable?
That’s not a flaw. That’s a map.
2. Feel What You’re Projecting
We don’t see people as they are—we see them as we hope they’ll be.
Or as we fear they are.
Your longing might be real. But so is your projection:
“If they just stay, I’ll be okay.”
“If they choose me, I’ll finally believe I’m enough.”
That’s not love. That’s outsourcing your sense of home.
3. Come Home to Yourself
You don’t need to abandon your longing—you need to reclaim your power from it.
This is the heart of somatic healing:
Feeling your grief.
Releasing bottled-up emotion.
Learning to be with yourself, in your body, with presence and safety.
From there, everything shifts:
You stop over-functioning in relationships that drain you.
You start recognizing red flags sooner.
You feel what a “yes” feels like—not just mentally, but in your gut, your chest, your nervous system.
4. Transform One Relationship
Start anywhere. It doesn’t have to be romantic.
Set a boundary with a friend.
Tell a coworker how something impacted you.
Let yourself be more real in a safe relationship.
How you do one relationship is how you do all of them.
When you shift even one, your whole relational field begins to change.
Devotional Love Wants to Grow You
Here’s the big secret:
The point isn’t to avoid triggering people forever.
It’s to build the resilience and awareness to recognize when you're being pulled into the old familiar—and choose something different.
But that’s just the beginning.
As you reclaim your power and come home to your body, something profound begins to shift:
You stop craving the junk food of addictive, exhausting, repetitive, illusory connection.
Because your system gets rewired to want something deeper. Truer. More alive.
You begin to ground a new baseline—one where safety and magic aren’t opposites.
Where your nervous system isn’t swinging between chaos and numbness, but is actually available for presence.
For you.
And for connection that meets you there.
You no longer have to choose between passion and peace.
You can feel safe and alive in the same breath.
You can let someone all the way in—not just into your bed or your calendar, but into your core.
You can feel their presence inside your system—not as a threat or a distraction, but as a sacred, nourishing expansion.
Devotional love doesn’t flatten you.
It frees you.
To feel more.
To become more.
To open more.
Not because you’re finally good enough…
But because you’ve stopped waiting to be.
Because your body has remembered what it’s like to be home.
And from there?
You can create love that doesn’t just feel different—it is different.
Built not on fear or fantasy, but on presence, power, and the ever-expanding wildness of you… and You +1.
If This Is You (Or Someone You Love)
If this feels familiar—if you’ve lived the cycle of falling hard, losing yourself, and waking up in the same dynamic all over again—I want you to know:
You’re not broken.
And you’re not alone.
This pattern isn’t a flaw—it’s a survival strategy. Your body’s best attempt at returning to love using the map it was given.
But that map can change.
This is a huge part of my work. I support men and women in Boulder, Colorado and beyond to interrupt the trance of trauma bonding, reclaim their power, and build relationships rooted in presence, devotion, and deep safety.
If you’re ready to stop repeating the same pain in love—and start creating something real and alive—I’m here.
👉 Apply to work with me or learn more about somatic relationship coaching.
There’s nothing wrong with you.
There’s just more of you ready to be welcomed.