29/07/2026
Red flags weren’t invisible. You just had a story that made them make sense.
Something I’ve experienced myself, and which has become even more enlightening since becoming a therapist and life coach, is how we create our own stories for potential partners to suit the ideas we project onto them. These stories are usually unconscious, formed in childhood, maybe from an emotionally unavailable parent, or a parent whose love was conditional or abusive. It becomes a pattern, wired in, because we’re wired for survival but also for connection.
This isn’t just something I’ve noticed in my own life. It’s something I see over and over in the people who sit across from me in session. Bowlby, the psychiatrist who founded attachment theory, called these early blueprints “internal working models.” Basically the mind’s template for what relationships should feel like, built before we could even speak. And once that template is set, we tend to unconsciously seek out relationships that match it, even when it hurts us.
So here’s the question. If connection was founded on a dysfunctional foundation, and it becomes normal, why do we keep hitting the same unfulfilling relationships and think it’s them?
Research tells us something different. Trauma researcher Bessel van der Kolk has spoken about how many of us are unconsciously drawn back to situations that echo our original wounds, because they feel familiar, even when familiar isn’t safe.
It’s how we’re wired for connection. Until we change that frequency on a deeper level, our ability to change the story stays the same.
If this hit home, you’re not broken, you’re patterned. And patterns can be rewired.
If you’re ready to understand your story and finally break the cycle, send me a DM me for me details 😎❤️
Leading Hypnotherapist & Mindset Coach: Former Head Trainer, Transforming Lives for Success & Fulfilment. With a background in training over 16,000 therapists