This morning, I had a small conflict with a friend, who I\u2019ll call Piper. Although I\u2019m on a tight book deadline for a book that\u2019s due February 1, she\u2019s also on a tight deadline to write her essays for her grad school application, and she\u2019d offered to pay me $200 to help her write those essays. I had planned to spend this morning working on the book, but I acquiesced to her request.<\/span><\/p>\n She\u2019s a great writer and a beautiful storyteller, with a lot of personal insight and an admirable willingness to self-disclose. So for me, it was easy to help her edit what she\u2019d already written. But it took a couple of hours out of my productivity time. Because my dog doesn\u2019t get along with our housekeeper, who is cleaning the house, I asked her if I could sit outside her house with my dog in the sunshine and work on my book until the housekeeper leaves. She said \u201cSure.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Then just as I was getting settled in her front yard, she came out and backtracked. No, she said, she\u2019d changed her mind. She wanted me to go home and leave her and her teenage son alone so they could have some quality time together.<\/span><\/p>\n Couldn\u2019t I just go somewhere they wouldn\u2019t even see me- out in the yard beyond earshot or eyeshot, I asked? My dog goes ballistic when the vacuum cleaner scares her, and I\u2019d have to find someplace else to go if I couldn\u2019t stay there, I reasoned.<\/span><\/p>\n She said no. She didn\u2019t want to be distracted from being present with her son, and knowing I was out there might put her attention elsewhere, she explained.<\/span><\/p>\n I felt this knot in my belly and sadness behind my eyes. I had given up my morning to do her a favor and what I was asking for was so small. I felt the emotions of a young wounded child part threatening to take me over, but I promised that part I\u2019d come back and attend to her later. My pre-therapy self would have just kept quiet and licked my wounds privately. But Piper and I are close, and we\u2019re both IFS people. So I risked speaking up.<\/span><\/p>\n I said \u201cOuch\u201d and told her I felt sad and disappointed. It didn\u2019t feel fair to my parts that I\u2019d extended myself a lot at a time when I didn\u2019t have a lot of bandwidth. In my mind, my request in return was such a small one, just a place to write without vacuum cleaners. I wasn\u2019t needing any of her attention and I was happy to just go find a quiet corner to leave her and her son alone. Couldn\u2019t I just stay?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I didn\u2019t know until later that, in her mind, it was a huge ask because she felt her son needed alone time with Mama, without someone else lurking around. So she said no- in an abrupt, harsh way. So I took my stinging eyes and heart and walked away, starting to feel the emotions of that wounded part rising up again. Who was that part? She said she always puts everyone else\u2019s needs first, and then when all she\u2019s asking for is breadcrumbs in return, her needs don\u2019t matter. She just felt sad and used.<\/span><\/p>\n That was about as far as I got before Piper came running after me, looking sad and confused. She said she didn\u2019t know what to say. She wanted to prioritize this time with her son, and she wasn\u2019t sure how to focus on him if I was in her yard. She worried that she\u2019d feel split in her attention and that he might feel it. She also explained to me that she was getting ready to leave, but that her son wasn\u2019t leaving at the same time, and she was afraid he\u2019d feel awkward if I was in their yard, and he was home alone.<\/span><\/p>\n But she also didn\u2019t want to let me down.<\/span><\/p>\n I told her I\u2019d always respect her boundaries, but that sometimes her boundaries felt blunt and abrupt. I knew she\u2019d struggled in the past to set boundaries, and I didn\u2019t want to bully myself past her boundaries. But I told her I might sometimes have feelings about her boundaries. She said \u201cThat makes sense\u201d and appreciated me for telling her the truth and also for respecting her limits.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhat if you come back in an hour?\u201d she suggested, as a compromise. Could I find someplace else to write for an hour, and then when she and her son were leaving, it wouldn\u2019t bother her at all if I sat in her yard. I accepted her compromise and thanked her for considering a way to meet my need to stay away from the vacuum cleaners.<\/span><\/p>\n She owned the fact that her boundary setting could sometimes be abrupt and feel unkind, since it\u2019s a skill she\u2019s still learning to develop after an abusive marriage to someone very narcissistic, who she enabled and let stomp all over her boundaries. I validated that her boundaries matter very much to me and that she\u2019s doing a good job learning when to say no and how to take care of herself and her son\u2019s needs. She said she felt confused after I left, and she didn\u2019t know what to say or what to do. I told her she did it exactly perfectly, that \u201cI\u2019m confused right now and I don\u2019t know what to say or do\u201d is a perfectly valid response.<\/span><\/p>\n We hugged, I felt instantly better, I appreciated the trust-buliding moment, and now I\u2019m in her front yard, writing this before I get back to writing the book.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n It made me reflect on how miserably unskillful so many people I know are at relational rupture and repair. This whole kerfuffle with me and Piper ruptured and repaired in 5 minutes. Nobody raised their voice. Nobody got defensive. Nobody attacked or assassinated the other\u2019s character. Nobody blame-shifted. Nobody collapsed and engaged in people-pleasing behavior. Nobody did the conflict avoidant passive aggressive silencing. Nobody rebelled against the boundaries or bullied the other to override the boundaries. And a satisfactory compromise was met within minutes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Once I left, I took the time to attend to the part who sometimes gives a lot and doesn\u2019t feel adequately caregiven in return. This part feels unworthy, unloved, and unimportant when someone else doesn\u2019t want to help her get even the smallest needs met. She\u2019s had times when she\u2019s breaking her back for people (not Piper), helping them do something hard, something that\u2019s not at all her responsibility, and then they attack her for even asking for a glass of water, accusing her of treating them like servants. This part cringes with agony in her heart when such small requests get rejected after other parts have overextended themselves.<\/span><\/p>\n Once I had a chance to process how that part felt, I told Piper about that part, as a gesture of trust and intimacy. I know Piper cares about my parts, so that way, she can have some compassion for the part that got activated in me, in case it shows up in our dynamic again.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s not uncommon for that part to light up around Piper, but that\u2019s not Piper\u2019s fault. I sometimes feel like I love her more than she loves me, even though I know she cares. I have other friendships like that, where I\u2019m almost always the one to go to her house, not the other way around. She almost always rejects my bids for connection when I\u2019m the one to initiate, while, at least half the time she reaches out to me for a last minute connection, I make myself available to her, even if it\u2019s not always convenient.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n We\u2019ve talked about that before, the \u201ctiny murders\u201d part that feels a sting of rejection each time I reach out and she says no. She\u2019s so sweet to that part and doesn\u2019t get defensive if I speak on behalf of that part. She doesn\u2019t mean to hurt that part, she always explains. She wants our relationship to be balanced, and she loves me. But I simply have more free time than she does, especially now that I have an empty nest and she still has two teenagers in the house. I know she values me and enjoys the time we spend together. It just sometimes feels like I want her more than she wants me, and that activates my Daddy wounds.<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019m also sweet to the part of Piper who has a tendency to overcommit and overextend, who can say yes when she means no and then regret it and wind up pulling out later. I don\u2019t want her to blend with that part in order to prevent my tiny murders part from feeling rejected. I\u2019d hate it if she said yes when she was really a no and then felt resentful or burdened afterwards. But it\u2019s inevitable that our parts will dance up against each other sometimes. Such is the dance of intimacy.<\/span><\/p>\n I came away from the dynamic feeling proud of Piper and I. I wish relational rupture and repair was as easy with all my relationships as it was with her, but then again, we don\u2019t live with each other- and we\u2019re not lovers. Not to be sexist, but I typically find it easier to repair with my female friends than with my male friends or partners. They get so much less defensive and seem to have such easier access to empathy when I feel an ouchie. I suspect it\u2019s because so many male-identifying people get shut down\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n With Piper\u2019s consent and a few of her additions, I decided to write about this, since both Piper and I struggle in our relationships with romantic partners to repair this easily. I think we need more stories of good repairs. It made me think about a time when I was teaching a group of Covid doctors, nurses, and therapists for a month at Esalen. One the first day, the only male and the only Black queer female in the group had a conflict over privilege and marginalization. Their conflict created a lot of hurt feelings in the rest of the group. The next day, I gathered the group together and asked how many of them had relational rupture and repair modeled for them at home. I was shocked to be the only one there who raised my hand.<\/span><\/p>\n My family does rupture and repair really well, and I can\u2019t imagine not having learned how to do that growing up. We even have a family member in jail for life, after he pled guilty to molesting all the little girls in the neighborhood, but the family still didn\u2019t ostracize him. We don\u2019t do estrangement. But then again, nobody in our family refuses to own their shadow and hold themselves accountable, the way so many abusers do.<\/span><\/p>\n This is part of why I\u2019ve created a new continuity program<\/span> LOVE SCHOOL<\/span><\/a>, where we\u2019re going to be teaching healthy relational skills, like how to do a good repair, how to set and uphold boundaries, how to give a good apology, when to forgive (and when not to), what to do when there\u2019s a trust breach in a relationship, how to discern whether someone should be trusted, red flags of antagonistic relationships and how to spot them early and keep your distance, and other things we should have learned by high school, ideally.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Learn more & join LOVE SCHOOL here.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n I feel like relational skills like how to have a good repair should be mandatory STEM classes especially for those with relational trauma in childhood. Trauma inhibits our ability to get what we most need when we have been traumatized\u2014<\/span>healthy relationships<\/span><\/i>. It damages our ability to trust that other humans are safe for connection, co-regulation, compassion, nurture, and comfort. This can lead to the epidemic of chronic loneliness our society now faces, along with the health risks that accompany chronic loneliness.<\/span><\/p>\n Relational trauma in childhood makes it impossible to learn crucial relational skills. With few role models demonstrating equal relationships, and with few if any classes in public schools about how to develop, discern, and participate equally in healthy relationships, many kids, especially male-identifying people, grow up not having a clue how to be in a relationship. If many masculine-identifying persons are socialized to suppress their emotional and physical needs and be sadistic, and if female-identifying persons are raised to be masochistic, throwing themselves under the bus to prioritize the needs of men, children, and everyone else, it\u2019s also true that traumatized, conditioned adults are still doing the teaching. They are passing on to children what has been done to them, perpetuating patriarchal norms and generational trauma. Until we stop betraying our girls by stripping them of their anger, assertiveness, and healthy boundaries, until we stop betraying our boys and requiring emotional and somatic disconnection from them, we\u2019re never going to heal as a culture.<\/span><\/p>\n If it was tennis people who have experienced relational trauma weren\u2019t good at, having received no tennis lessons, they might not berate themselves or loathe themselves for not knowing how to play tennis. But there\u2019s something so foundational about being good at relating that not knowing how can create waves of shame, unworthiness, and inadequacy in survivors of relational trauma. If you didn\u2019t know how to play tennis because nobody had ever taught you, you wouldn\u2019t feel like a complete failure as a human being. But if you don\u2019t know how to relate in healthy, balanced, equal ways, it can make you feel broken, defective, unlovable.<\/span><\/p>\n Especially when society tends to label, demonize, pathologize, medicate, hospitalize, imprison, and lack empathy for the adaptations trauma survivors develop as work-arounds to compensate for their lack of relational skills, even talking about this issue can draw up floods of emotions for those who don\u2019t already have alexithymia, the inability to feel emotions.<\/span><\/p>\n There\u2019s something about not being good at relationships that cuts to the core of our very being and impacts our self-esteem. But we have to think of relational skills as no different than tennis lessons. If you didn\u2019t learn it, and how could you if your caregivers sucked at it and nobody ever gave you lessons, you can\u2019t be expected to know how to be in an equal relationship. But it is your responsibility to take tennis lessons now. It\u2019s also your responsibility to hold yourself and others accountable if tennis lessons are what\u2019s needed in order to participate in equal relationships.<\/span><\/p>\n If this resonates with you- or if you know anyone else who needs help with relational skills, we\u2019re going to try to make it as fun as tennis lessons! We\u2019ll be previewing some of the content from the new book my partner Jeffrey Rediger and I are co-writing, which won\u2019t come out until Spring 2026 but which we\u2019ll be teaching students in Love School how to practice. Anyone is welcome to join, but you\u2019ll find it especially helpful if you\u2019re in a mixed neurotype relationship, if one person is severely traumatized and the other has a lighter trauma burden, if one of you is able-bodied and the other is disabled, if you identify as being in a codependent relationship with someone high on the narcissism spectrum, or if you\u2019re in recovery from a painful breakup and trying to figure out what happened before trying to love again. We\u2019ll be practicing Internal Family Systems together, learning relational tools and trauma healing practices, writing, dancing, and wrestling with good questions in safe, brave community- together.<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lissarankin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/sensitivenature.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nSpeaking On Behalf Of Parts As A Trust-Building Intimacy Practice<\/b><\/h2>\n
How Rare It Is To Have Quick, Easy Relational Repairs<\/strong><\/h2>\n
There\u2019s No Need To Feel Shame If You Never Got Tennis Lessons<\/b><\/h2>\n
<\/span>Learn more and join LOVE SCHOOL here.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n