How Unhealed Childhood Wounds Sabotage Intimacy (and How Shadow Work Heals Them)

Chapters:

1. Why Avoiding Shadow Work Creates More Pain in Relationships
(shadow work, relationships, avoidance)

2. Getting Triggered Is Inevitable — Here’s Why Intimacy Brings Up Childhood Wounds
(triggers, childhood trauma, intimacy)

3. When Small Moments Create Big Emotional Reactions
(emotional triggers, disproportionate reactions)

4. The Trauma Narratives That Keep You Stuck in Dating and Partnership
(trauma narratives, dating patterns)

5. “I’m Unlovable” and Other Unconscious Beliefs Running Your Love Life
(unlovable belief, attachment wounds)

6. Why You Keep Attracting the Same Relationship Dynamics
(relationship patterns, attraction)

7. Shadow Work in Partnership: Healing Without Blame or Collapse
(shadow work in relationships, accountability)

8. How to Stop Personalizing Triggers and Start Creating Emotional Safety
(emotional safety, regulation)

9. Somatic Healing: Letting Emotions Move Through the Body
(somatic healing, emotional processing)

10. Why the Purpose of Relationship Is Pleasure — Not Just Healing
(pleasure, conscious relationship)

11. Choosing a Partner You’re Willing to Do Shadow Work With
(conscious partnership, intimacy)

12. Receiving Boundaries Without Spiraling Into Rejection
(boundaries, rejection triggers)

13. How to Heal Without Losing Yourself in Relationship
(sovereignty, codependency)

If you're listening to this podcast, I already know you're doing shadow work. Otherwise, you wouldn't be attracted to what I'm offering here. But what I want to share with you today is actually just a little bit of extra motivation. I want to paint a big picture of like, what are the results of not doing shadow work, even feeling resistant to shadow work in your relationships? Spoiler, it just creates a lot of unnecessary suffering. And I'll share a little bit more about how. And so understanding the impact of not doing shadow work can be a little more motivating. If you feel some resistance to doing shadow work, maybe it brings up shame for you, or maybe it just feels like work. You know, it has the name work in it. You know, it can feel heavy if you relate to it as being heavy. But honestly, you can choose how do you want it to go? It could even feel easeful if you really wanted to, believe it or not. You know, it all just depends on your attitude and how you're approaching it. So the more you dig your heels in, the more heavy it's going to feel. There's that saying, what you resist persists. They say it for a reason. And, you know, the more you can understand how doing shadow work benefits your relationship, the easier it's going to feel emotionally to be like, well, fuck it, whatever. Let's just do it. Let's do some. Let's go there. So let's get into it. What if your sacred partnership could be a source of pleasure and stability amidst the chaos of these times? I'm your host, Forrest Williams, certified relationship coach and disciple of love. And I help you learn the art of trust by waking up from unconscious patterns so you can enjoy the pleasure of relating.

So here's the thing. Regardless of who you're dating, inevitably being in a human body on earth, what is going to happen is you're going to get triggered in your relationships. And particularly, it's going to bring up some triggers from childhood trauma. even if you grew up in like a pretty stable home, I think, you know, within a culture of empire, a culture where war is normalized, there is just an absence of like emotional skills. So even if you grew up in a safe home, chances are there was some emotional need that was unmet for you or otherwise just some kind of need that was unmet, you know. And people have different degrees of like how upsetting that was for them or how impactful it was for them. But what I'm saying is like nobody's had a perfect childhood, not when we're living in the state of the world as it is. I'm sure that's possible maybe in the future or in a different dimension. But in this 3D earth paradigm that we're all coming out of, you had something coming up in your past and it's going to be confronted in your relationship. Regardless of who that is.

That's just how it works, you know. So the idea here is whatever happened in childhood, most people in their childhoods just didn't have the capacity or the skill set or understanding of how to metabolize what happened. And so there's naturally just these kind of like lingering emotional wounds that exist in our auric field. And we carry those with us. Fun fact, your memory is actually stored in your auric field. It's not stored in your brain like the 3D mainstream paradigm believes. It's kind of a cool fact. But inevitably, you know, as particularly you're in an intimate, committed partnership, that of course is when all of that childhood stuff is going to come up and out because there's something that is unresolved. And so, you know, it's going to keep showing up until it's able to resolve itself. And the blessing about being in a close committed partnership is that ideally, like if you're here on this podcast, you're in a safe relationship. And it is safe to actually resolve that, to heal it, to play it out and let it complete. And that creates so much ease and abundance, not only in your life and your emotional world, but particularly in your relationship. Cause, you know, we've all been there regardless of where you're at in this moment. We've all been in a place where, you know, maybe something somewhat mundane happens in the relationship. Like let's say your partner holds a boundary with you and it just devastates you. It takes you out. You feel so deeply rejected, so deeply upset. You're crying and it feels miserable. Like you're suffering, you know, it could be the smallest little trigger, just a mundane thing, and it can create a huge emotional reaction. Or maybe your partner is like not anticipating your needs and so you feel unloved. You know, it's like, why you should know this. Why don't you know this? And these aren't conscious ways of relating. These are just whatever unconscious kind of residue from childhood, like unresolved trauma that manifests in these different ways.

So the thing is when you're unwilling to do the shadow work, it can create some really hard, like impermeable narratives that you can actually kind of get trapped in like a prison and that can create some suffering. So I'll give you a few examples. One example is this narrative that can form around. I can't get too close to people because people are crazy or people are like not to be trusted or something like that.

But, you know, maybe that can be true, like if that's the kind of person you're attracting. But what happens is, you know, your inner world is what you're projecting outwards into your reality. And, you know, energetically, like you attract the people who are vibing on a similar frequency as you. Maybe you don't see it, but that's what's happening, you know, in like quantum physics. The fields can be sensed and that's part of where this feeling of attraction comes from. It's like, how much are you an energetic vibrational match for each other?

And so if you continually repeatedly attract people who are crazy or whatever, you know, whatever the narrative is, people who don't respect you. If you're feeling like unrespected that that that's a big trigger for me is like, I'm feeling so disrespected, but really I'm just playing out how disrespected I felt in my home growing up and that's just getting triggered. But if you keep attracting people like that, what it's really speaking to is what is within yourself that is unresolved, you know?

And so the way these narratives formulate of like, well, it's not me, it's them. People are too crazy, so I'm not going to get close to them or I can't trust people. And so what's the point of dating? I'm not going to do it. You can perpetuate that narrative if you really get hooked into it. If you can't zoom out and essentially take some responsibility for your side of the equation, you know, because maybe someone's actually disrespecting you. That could be real, you know? And at the same time, there's that piece of what in me, what energetically is unresolved in living in my work field, my energy body that I need to resolve in order to feel more respected in my life. So it's both sides of the equation. It's not just the other side. It's not just your side. It's both. But what happens when you're resistant to doing shadow work, you're really resisting that self-reflection.

And so when you're taking no accountability or self-responsibility, then it's easy to point the finger outwards. And as long as you're pointing the finger outwards, you're just looking for evidence to confirm this really like a trauma narrative, a trauma belief of like, I'm not loved. People aren't trustworthy. I'm, I'm undateable, or it's impossible to date in this world because people are undateable, you know, then you start to perpetuate that reality. And that's where the suffering comes in. It's a very disconnecting paradigm. Obviously, I don't have to tell you that, you know, or like, let me give you another example. I know I use this narrative of, Oh, I'm unlovable. And so, you know, maybe what's the point of dating if nobody's ever going to love me. And that scenario, it's a similar kind of formula. It just manifests in a different narrative. So the formula is, I'm unwilling to heal the part of me inside that feels unlovable. And so maybe if you're feeling unlovable, unconsciously, you're not expressing your needs because you're like, Oh, well, I'm not worthy of having needs. Or if I express my needs, then this person's going to walk away because I'm unlovable. And so I have to suppress my needs in order for people to date me or in order for me not to feel alone. So that's like the unconscious trauma narrative. When you're living from that narrative and you're not doing the shadow work, you're not looking at it, observing it, zooming out and working with it, trying something different, moving through it. When you're hooked in that unconscious narrative, you not advocating for your needs is going to perpetuate that paradigm of, Oh, I'm not lovable. Maybe you actually feel disrespected because you're not speaking up for yourself. You're not respecting yourself by honoring your own needs because there's that fear of, well, This person's not gonna want to stick around if I have needs, right? I'm not worthy of having needs. And so that's how getting hooked in these unconscious narratives keeps you in the cycle of suffering. And really it has you stuck in the past. Whereas, you know, you're an adult now, you're not living with your family. Maybe you're living alone or with housemates or you're living with your partner. But the idea is, you know, if you're not resolving what is emotionally unresolved within you from your childhood, it's just going to keep coming up over and over and over again, particularly in your romantic partnership. It can show up in other places, but this is why it can be so fruitful to focus on doing shadow work in partnerships because it's the person you ideally feel the safest with. You have established trust with this person and it's like a really close, intimate relationship. You can go really deep. And doing shadow work in partnership is insanely intimate. It is so vulnerable. It's just like exposing all your wounds and your trauma and saying, here it is. And to be able to do that, like to identify like, oh, this is coming from the past. This isn't in present time. I'm just being triggered by you in present time. You're confronting my mother wound or my father wound or what have you. It is really vulnerable to admit that out loud and to be witnessed in that. And then even furthermore, to be held in that, right? Where you're not engaging in this unconscious reaction. Let's say I'm feeling disrespected and so I lash out and then my partner's like, well, you're disrespecting me. And now we're like fighting. It's like this unconscious. We're getting hooked into each other's unconscious patterns. There's such a deep intimacy and high level of consciousness and just observing like, whoa, I am feeling really emotional. And this is reminding me of my past. And to take some distance from that, even just naming it will create some distance from it. And so you're not getting hooked on it. But what I see people who are maybe like unwilling to do the self-reflection or take the self-responsibility, they can kind of get hooked on this pattern of, well, this chick is crazy. I'm going to leave her like I can't date this person. They're too triggering. It's too much. And the thing is,

it's a pattern that kind of never ends, right? Because like I said, you have to take some self-accountability in order to really feel like you can soften into the relationship and like you're not reliving your past over and over and over again. And so maybe the other person is part of the equation, but they're not the whole part of the equation. So if you're unwilling to look inwards, do some self-reflection, some shadow work, you're never going to find someone who's not going to trigger you because that actually just doesn't exist. And so the conscious way of relating is actually just understanding this paradigm of to be in deep, intimate partnership is to be triggered. It is to face my shadows and particularly to face my past. That part is inevitable. That's just the human design. Like I said, your memories live in your auric field, you know? And so if there is something that was overwhelming or unresolved, it's living in your energy body and that could get activated at any moment, truly. But it doesn't have to feel heavy. Doesn't have to. Because when you understand, okay, I'm going to be doing some shadow work in relationship or I'm going to be having a really hard time. I'm going to be stuck in a loop. I'm going to be taking things very personal, which feels disconnecting. And so when you're living in this conscious paradigm where you understand this, the question is no longer, is this person going to trigger me? The question then becomes, is this the person who I want to confront my shadows with? Is this the person who I want to go into that deep, deep, deep underworld layer of intimacy where they understand my past and my pain, what I've been through, so that we can both hold it together, both not take it personally, but still acknowledge and honor what's coming up because that's how you heal from it. It's like you have to make space for it and metabolize it. And when you're able to heal in relationship, it deepens trust like nothing else that I know. And it doesn't mean your whole relationship premise has to be about healing because that has a level of seriousness as well, right? If it's like the purpose of us being together is to heal, right? My personal philosophy is, like, the purpose of being in a relationship is pleasure, okay? And I don't mean just, like, a superficial sexual pleasure, but I mean the kind of pleasure you feel when your dog greets you at the door, you know, it's that inner warm feeling, or when you see a baby smile. It's that simple pleasure of actual connection, not surface level connection where you have to suppress yourself in order to feel like you'll never be alone again, right? It's not relating from a place of fear, where you're hiding, where you're playing it small, you're playing it safe. The deep, deep pleasure, the true, genuine pleasure of relating comes from the depth. It comes from the rawness, the vulnerability. And so the purpose of the relationship itself is not solely to heal, because then that does become work. It's like, alright, let's get our job done, let's focus, let's get to work. No, the shadow work, it inevitably just naturally comes up in a mundane experience, you know, it's inevitable. It just naturally comes up on its own. And so the primary focus of relating is pleasure. Why else would you be together, you know? You know, some people get together just for survival. I've known people who they're like, yeah, I'm not really in love with my partner, but he gets paid pretty well, and we can send our kids to college. But you're not that kind of person if you're here at this podcast, you know? And so the real purpose of relating is because it feels so fucking delicious to connect deeply. It's really that simple. But it's impossible to connect deeply when you're connecting from a place of just surface level, surface level unconscious patterns, where the primary emotions that you're experiencing in your relationship are those leftover historical emotions from childhood that are being reactivated and just replayed. So the idea is to observe those emotions, and then to respond to them. So you're not getting hooked on their reaction. It's really that simple, you know. And so there's this big question too, right? It's like, well, how do I do shadow work? I'll kind of rephrase some things that I've already said. But to summarize it, you want to observe what's coming up. Even just acknowledging like, oh, my mommy wound is being triggered can create a little bit of distance from it. So you're not just hooking into it and living it from that perspective. But you can kind of be with the feelings in your body as you're observing it. And so you're not turning against each other. You're not personalizing things. You're feeling the intensity, acknowledging it, honoring it, and also just realizing like, oh, I'm processing something from the past right now.

And the idea with metabolizing the emotion, this is how you heal from it, is you have to have capacity to feel it, to let the emotional charge of it kind of reach its peak and then come back down. That's how you heal, right? Any kind of unhealed residue living in your auric field, it's just stuck energy, right? And so when that energy gets reactivated from a trigger, you just want to create the space for it to go in its intensity and then come back down and then it's done. It's really that simple, you know? And if you have like a really deep or ongoing trauma as a child, like maybe you were never listened to or you felt neglected or something, maybe it's not a one and done, but that practice of knowing what to do when you get triggered in your partnership of just creating the space, let the emotion ebb and then let it flow. You know, you do that enough times, you know, it creates so much more ease and just deep intimacy and connection in your relationship. It's really that simple. And if you would like support going into the somatic processing of it, like I'm saying, building the capacity to feel this in your body, let the charge complete so you can move on. This is something you can do through some of my workshops or some of my classes. Coming up in March, I have a workshop designed to help you receive boundaries with more ease. This is a common trigger that people get hooked on is they receive a boundary from their lover saying like, not right now, or no, I don't want to do that, or no, I'm not available. It can feel like rejection and it can feel deeply painful, you know? And there's no shame, by the way, in like the triggers coming up. It's natural, right? But half the battle is understanding that, okay, this isn't my truth. This isn't in present time. This is pain from the past that is unprocessed. Say that three times fast.

And so doing the somatic work is how you let that fully process. You can come into present time and have way more ease in your relationship. So that's coming up on March 10th. You can register for that on my website, ConsciousRelating. org, or you can look at the link in the description below. And if you want to go even deeper than that, in May, I have a four-week class coming up. It's called Love Without Losing Yourself. And the whole idea is to decondition from these codependent tendencies so you can actually maintain sovereignty in your relationship while deepening your bond. Like, that's actually how you deepen the bond is maintaining your sense of self in your relationship, contrary to pop culture, mainstream 3D paradigm. And every month on the first Wednesday of the month, I offer a free call. It's called Relationship Hour where you can come and ask me anything about relationships. So if you're resonating with the podcast and you have something that's itching you and you want to get actually my perspective on it, come to Relationship Hour. It happens once every month and it's a free event. Come ask me anything and I'll answer your question. That's all I've got for you today. Let me know in the comments, how long have you been doing shadow work and where are you getting stuck in the shadow work? Does it bring up shame or does it feel like really heavy and exhausting? How does shadow work go for you? Let me know. Peace be with you