How to Make Stable Love Feel Safe 🧠
Why your nervous system mistakes anxiety for attraction and how to retrain it (8min Read)
TL;DR Summary
If calm feels boring and anxiety feels magnetic, you’re not broken; your nervous system learned the wrong cues
Intensity and safety are driven by different neurochemical systems
Many people confuse arousal with attachment, especially after attachment trauma
Safety often feels unfamiliar (or dull) before it feels good
You can retrain your nervous system to recognize secure love on purpose
Making Stable Love Safe
If calm feels boring, if safety feels confusing, and if anxiety feels like attraction…
You’re not broken.
You’re just addicted to the wrong neurochemicals.
Intensity and safety feel similar cognitively, but are completely different in the body.
At this point, I’ve taught hundreds of people how to make stable love feel safe.
Not by “lowering standards.” Not by forcing yourself to settle.
But by retraining the nervous system, which is what decides what chemistry feels like long before your logic gets involved.
Today, we’re gonna break down both sets of neurochemicals and what you can do to reset your brain!
Let’s dive in.
The Mistake Most People Make in Relationships
Most of my clients think they’re bad at relationships.
What they’re actually bad at is distinguishing intensity from safety.
And that’s not a character flaw, it’s a conditioning problem.
Your nervous system doesn’t care about relationship advice. It cares about familiar states.
So let’s map the difference.
Intensity ≠ Safety (Why chaos feels like chemistry)
Think of intensity like a slot machine.
Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose.
But the unpredictability is what hooks you.
The Neurochemistry of Intensity
Intensity-heavy connections are fueled by:
Dopamine (anticipation, novelty, craving)
Cortisol (stress, vigilance)
Adrenaline/Norepinephrine (arousal, urgency)
Intermittent Oxytocin (breadcrumb bonding, especially after sex)
This cocktail creates high arousal without regulation.
Your brain lights up, but your nervous system never lands.
How Intensity Feels in Your Body
I want you to notice how none of these feel like peace…
Tight chest
“Butterflies” (which are often anxiety)
Restlessness
Hyper-focus on the person
Obsessive thinking
Can’t eat, can’t sleep
A constant sense of waiting
From the outside looking in, it’s obvious your body is braced.
Like it’s leaning forward, ready for impact.
But on the inside, it feels intoxicating to you.
Thought Patterns That Accompany It
“Why haven’t they texted?”
“I need to figure this out.”
“This feels intense; it must mean something.”
“If I just say or do the right thing…”
This isn’t romance.
This is your nervous system oscillating between threat and reward.
That’s not chemistry.
That’s survival with a dopamine drip…
Ok, Cody, then what AM I looking for?
Glad you asked.
Safety/Connection (Why it feels unfamiliar at first)
Now let’s look at the other side, the one most people don’t recognize until later in life.
The Neurochemistry of Safety
Secure connection is driven by:
Oxytocin (bonding, trust, warmth)
Serotonin (emotional stability, self-worth)
Endogenous Opioids (felt comfort, soothing)
And yes, Dopamine, but tonic, not spiky
This system prioritizes regulation over stimulation.
How Safety Feels in the Body
These things are rarely noticed, and generally taken as a negative sign if you’re not used to safe connection.
A spontaneous exhale
Warmth in the chest or belly
Slower pace
Less urgency
Grounded presence
You’re here, not scanning for signs
Nothing is pulling you forward or pushing you away.
You can just… be.
Thought Patterns in Safe Connection
“I feel steady around them.”
“I don’t need to perform.”
“I know where I stand.”
“I can be myself.”
This is what your parasympathetic nervous system sounds like when it’s online.
Dr. Aimie Apigian calls this state “Calm Aliveness,” which I love!
Why Do You Confuse These? (Read This Twice)
If you grew up with emotional inconsistency, neglect, chaos, unpredictable caregiving, on/off love, or conditional attention…
Then, safety will not feel like attraction at first.
It will feel unfamiliar. Sometimes flat. Sometimes, even wrong.
That doesn’t mean it is wrong.
It means your brain learned to confuse arousal with attachment.
This happens when early bonding pairs oxytocin with stress hormones instead of calm.
Your nervous system wires love activation.
So when love shows up without chaos?
Your body doesn’t recognize it yet.
Luckily for you, your nervous system is extremely plastic, and you’re not stuck this way!
Through repeated safe connection, your nervous system can gradually remap what ‘love’ feels like.
Here’s exactly how to start this process.
How to Retrain Your Nervous System for Safe Love
This is not about “forcing yourself to like boring people.”
It’s about recalibrating your baseline.
Step 1: The 30-Day Dopamine Fast
Not forever. Just long enough to reset.
For 30 days, stop dating and eliminate:
Situationships
On/off texting
Sexual intensity without emotional safety
Emotional breadcrumbing
Why?
Because you cannot learn what safety feels like while constantly spiking dopamine and cortisol.
You’re trying to learn stillness while standing in a wind tunnel.
30 days gives your nervous system time to come back to baseline.
Step 2: Interoception + Pattern Audit
During the fast, ask yourself daily:
When do I feel activated vs. calm?
What feels familiar vs. regulating?
Am I drawn to intensity… or availability?
These questions shift you out of the prefrontal cortex (overthinking) and into the insula, anterior cingulate cortex, and somatosensory regions, which co-activate with the insula to help you read internal body signals better.
This is how emotional awareness is actually trained.
Without the constant bombardment of dopamine, you’ll actually be able to notice these things.
Step 3: Practice Safety Chemicals on Purpose
Here’s the part no one likes to hear… You don’t learn oxytocin through dating first.
You learn it through safe connection, period.
Daily reps of:
Long hugs (20+ seconds)
Warm eye contact
Co-regulation with safe friends or family
Time with pets (especially dogs)
Time in nature
You’re teaching your body: This is what connection feels like when no one is about to disappear.
STEP 4: Processing the Core Wounds
This is the most intense step.
Up to this point, everything you’ve done helps your nervous system stabilize.
But stabilization isn’t the same as healing.
The pull toward intensity doesn’t just come from dysregulation.
It comes from unprocessed emotional learning that taught your body what love is supposed to feel like.
Things like:
Inconsistency
Emotional neglect
Abandonment
Being chosen sometimes, not reliably
Those experiences don’t live in your thoughts.
They live in implicit memory, the emotional, body-based memory systems that shape attraction automatically.
If you only learn to regulate:
You’ll stay calm… but still get hooked when old wounds are activated
You’ll need constant effort to choose safety
Intensity will still feel familiar under stress
Processing does something different.
It allows your nervous system to update the original learning, so safety doesn’t just make sense, it actually feels right.
What “Processing” Actually Means
Processing isn’t venting or analyzing the past.
It’s gently accessing and resolving the younger emotional parts of you that learned:
Love means waiting
Closeness means bracing
Desire means earning
This is where trauma-informed therapy, especially Internal Family Systems (IFS), can be incredibly powerful.
I know, I know, if you’ve been reading for a long time, you’re probably not surprised I’m bringing up IFS…
And for a good reason.
IFS works with the parts of you that adapted to chaos, instead of trying to override them, helping release the emotional burdens they’ve been carrying.
This allows your system to make calm, connected, clear love automatic.
When you do this deeper work first:
Attraction reorganizes naturally
Safety stops feeling dull or neutral
You don’t have to “force” secure choices
Your nervous system is less reactive when dating again
You’re no longer managing triggers in real time; you’ve reduced how often they show up in the first place.
A Gentle Reminder
Wounds that form in a relationship need to be healed in a relationship as well.
Working with a trauma therapist, particularly one trained in IFS, is one of the most effective ways to reach the deepest attachment wounds driving intensity-based attraction.
Not because you’re broken.
Because your nervous system learned under conditions that no longer exist, and it deserves an update.
As always, if you’re looking for an IFS practitioner like me, near you, check out the IFS Institutes website below!
Step 5: The Re-Entry Plan (This Is Key)
Alright, let’s bring it full circle.
If you wanna date better this time around, you need to ask better questions.
So, when you start to date again, don’t ask, “Am I excited?” after the first few dates.
Ask instead:
Do I feel more regulated or more obsessed afterward?
Do I feel grounded or activated?
Do I feel clearer or more confused?
Attraction that grows with safety often feels boring at first…
Until your nervous system realizes it doesn’t have to fight.
What Happens When Safety Starts to Feel Good
When you do this work, regulating and processing, something subtle but powerful shifts:
Calm stops feeling empty
Consistency starts to feel reassuring
You feel less pulled, less hooked, less frantic
You don’t have to convince yourself to choose better
Secure love doesn’t knock the wind out of you.
It steadies you.
And eventually, that steadiness becomes deeply attractive.
Not because you forced it to be, but because your body finally recognizes it as safe.
The best relationships don’t feel like fireworks at first.
They feel like relief. Like your shoulders dropping. Like your breath slowing.
Like being able to show up without bracing for impact.
That’s not boredom.
That’s your nervous system realizing it doesn’t have to fight for connection anymore.
The Truth You Take With You
You were never “too much.” You were never “bad at love.”
You were responding exactly as a nervous system shaped by inconsistency would.
And the moment you learn the difference between intensity and safety, not just intellectually, but in your body, your entire dating life changes.
Not because you lowered your standards.
But because you finally raised your capacity for secure love.
And that’s not settling.
That’s coming home.
Until next time… Live Heroically 🧠
Want to Work With Me? Here Are a Few Ways I Can Help You
Going through a breakup? Check out She Rises. It’s a post-breakup protocol based on neuroscience to help you regulate your nervous system in the days and weeks right after a breakup.
Check out my FREE webinar on The ONE Skill That Attracts Secure Love Fast. If you’re smart, attractive, successful, and self-aware, but love still feels like a minefield, this is for you!
Grab my new ebook: Exactly How to Become Emotionally Available: It’s a step-by-step guide for attracting and keeping the love you seek, built for the success but single among us!
Become a paid subscriber to the Mind, Brain, Body Lab Digest: You’ll get subscriber-only video posts, email replies, access to my entire blog archive, early access to new products, workshops & tools I create!
Supporting Research
Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and loss: Vol. 1. Attachment. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Porges, S. W. (2011). The polyvagal theory: Neurophysiological foundations of emotions, attachment, communication, and self-regulation. New York, NY: Norton.
Feldman, R. (2012). Oxytocin and social affiliation in humans. Hormones and Behavior, 61(3), 380–391.
Insel, T. R. (2003). Is social attachment an addictive disorder? Physiology & Behavior, 79(3), 351–357.
Schore, A. N. (2012). The science of the art of psychotherapy. New York, NY: Norton.
van der Kolk, B. (2014). The body keeps the score. New York, NY: Viking.
This article is educational in nature and not a substitute for therapy. If attachment wounds or relational trauma are impacting your wellbeing, working with a trauma-informed therapist can help your nervous system relearn safety in connection.
This framing of intensity vs safety is honestly one of the clearest breakdowns I've seen on attachment patterns. The slot machine analogy for unpredictable relationships realy clicked for me. I went through that dopamine fast approach after a toxic situationship and it was wild how much quieter my nervous system got after just a couple weeks.