One of my clients recently asked me for concrete examples of emotional availability and vulnerability.

She said something like this: “I show empathy. I validate people. I listen. I’m curious. I really try to be there. So why do I keep ending up with emotionally unavailable people?”

It’s such an honest question. And it’s one I was perplexed by for years before…

When Other People’s Feelings Feel Like Yours

One of the most common themes I see with my clients and one I lived inside for decades is this experience of feeling other people’s feelings.

It’s hard to explain unless you’ve lived it.

It’s like being permeable. Like there’s no membrane between you and the emotional world around you. Other people’s emotions don’t just register. They enter. They move through you. They take up…

One of the most painful patterns I see, both in my own life and in my work with clients, is this
we often end up sabotaging the very thing we want most.

Nowhere is this more true than in romantic relationships.

We long for connection, security, belonging, intimacy.
And yet, without realizing it, we behave in ways that quietly undermine those very desires.

Let me show you what I mean.

First…