New Year’s Resolutions for Healing Trauma and Relationships

Each new year provides an opportunity for reflection. Perhaps this year, you’re looking back on the last twelve months and sensing dissatisfaction with the state of your relationships. Maybe you feel confused or lost about how you arrived at this place. Or maybe you recognize that you get in your own way sometimes and have contributed to relational challenges.

But, you feel stuck and you’re not sure how to change. You’d love to set goals for the new year but you’re not sure where to start.

Here are three things to focus on if your 2024 goal is improving relationships:

1. Own your part

Part of healing relationships is taking accountability for your part in the dynamic. The age-old adage, It takes two to tango, is accurate. The longer you spend focusing on how everyone else is at fault, letting you down, or holding you back, the longer you’ll feel stuck, digging yourself deeper and deeper into your patterns of social isolation or relational discontent.

The hard part about owning your role in a relationship is that it often feels like you wouldn’t react negatively if others would change and be better. This is accurate. If others did their part to change and heal their own toxic patterns and were able to understand you and meet your needs consistently, it’d likely have a really positive impact on you. However, you can’t control others choices, so making the decision to work on your part is really the only control you have in creating change.

The other hard part about owning your role is that your flaws are really not your fault. You learned how to be in relationships based on what your caregivers growing up taught you, and what you observed in them. Your parents gave you a relational imprint that you subconsciously use as a template with other relationships. For example, if your mom was very emotionally reactive and you had to be calm and good so as not to upset her or set her off, you might find yourself backing away from a partner who expresses anger, disappointment, or sadness. You are subconsciously using the template of mom to navigate your partner’s emotions, which in this case might lead to your partner feeling distant from you or getting the impression you don’t care about their emotional needs.

While it’s not your fault that you are this way, it is your responsibility to choose what you’re going to do about it. Childhood trauma healing might be your next step.

2. Work on your part

You might be thinking, “Well, I didn’t experience any childhood trauma. My parents were married, they didn’t fight, our physical needs were met and they told me they loved me.” While your childhood is “normal” to you, it might have still left an unhelpful mark on how you see yourself and relationships. Here are some signs that you might have childhood trauma that you weren’t aware of:

• A history of failed relationships or difficulty establishing and maintaining relationships

• Lack of self-confidence

• Low self-esteem

• Body image issues

• Perfectionism

• Trouble setting limits with yourself or others

• Difficulty with boundaries

• Emotional dysregulation

• Anger outbursts

• Patterns of isolating

Many adult issues related to how one views themselves and how they relate to others tie back in to childhood patterns. Sometimes it just takes a fresh look at the past to see it a bit more clearly. Once you can identify how your past impacted you, you can discern what areas need to heal.

This can be valuable work to explore with a trauma-informed therapist that has an attachment-based lens. Attachment is referring to how we connect with others and influences the partners you feel attracted to and how you navigate conflict, intimacy, and distance in relationship. Reach out today to schedule a free consultation if you’re looking to get started.

3. Foster safe connections

A crucial part of healing relationships is establishing a variety of safe, trusted connections. Of course, this is hard to do when you find it difficult to establish or maintain relationships. Learning about the characteristics of trustworthy people can be a great starting point. Look for people who are honest, reliable, emotionally regulated, and share similar life values as you. You’ll want to surround yourself with people who can encourage you in the midst of your healing.

You’ll want to prioritize making these relationships reciprocal which means giving as much as you’re receiving in relationship. You’re likely to find that it’s hard to be consistent in adult friendships when the person isn’t naturally within your social circle, so consider joining a group or activity where you’ll regularly be in contact with them.

While our deepest wounding happens in close relationships in childhood, our deepest healing can also occur in close relationships in adulthood. Don’t set out to do this work alone. Find a community, connect with a trusted friend, or sign up for therapy.

You deserve to heal and have thriving relationships!