An empathetic, accessible, research-backed guide to creating healthy, secure, attuned relationships by exploring the roots of your own emotional disconnection. Not only is deep, meaningful connection with others something we yearn for, research shows that connection has profound effects on our overall health. Yet so many of us have feelings of loneliness and dissatisfaction with our personal relationships, feeling misattuned, misunderstood, or emotionally distant--and confused about why that may be. In
Attuned and Attached licensed professional counselor Yolanda Renteria shares practical strategies to help us take a deeper look at our current relationships and identify our emotional disconnections, which tend to present as:
- Hyper-independence, never asking for help
- Highly functional, high achieving, perfectionistic
- Expressions of love by doing a lot for others or gift giving
- Difficulty listening during conflict, difficulty apologizing
- Deep desire for connection mixed with strong instinct to self-protect
Once we know our patterns, we can then:
- Identify safe people and healthy relationships
- Feel safer in current relationships
- Set realistic and healthy relationship expectations
- Enhance emotional connections
- Repair relationships after a rupture or misattunement
- Develop resources to feel connected more often
By blending clinical research with her own experience of emotional disconnection, Yolanda invites the reader on a healing journey through understanding and validation. Emotional disconnection isn't wrong; it's caused by myriad factors throughout one's life. But there is a way forward. Yolanda's work especially speaks to those who feel that they had a fine or "good enough" childhood, but still feel emotionally disconnected, lost, and unfilled in their relationships. Whether you identify disconnection in yourself or in someone close to you, you will learn how to bring more safety and vulnerability into your relationships for nourishing, peaceful, and fulfilling connections.
