01/07/2026
This is brilliant! What a different perspective she has !
Esther Perel said something on podcast that stopped me cold: We don’t experience our narratives as subjective. We experience them as fact.
“This is what happened this morning.”
But that’s not what happened. That’s what your nervous system registered as happening, filtered through your history, trauma, triggers, protective patterns.
And when someone challenges that story? The brain doesn’t get curious, it gets furious.
Because curiosity requires safety, and safety requires regulation.
Post-divorce, I’m learning to befriend a different rhythm that Esther speak about: harmony, disharmony, repair. Not as failure points, but as the normal cycle of relating when you’re regulated enough to stay present for all three phases.
The disharmony isn’t the problem. The inability to return to curiosity is. So is incomplete repair.
When I can pause and ask “What story am I telling myself right now?” instead of defending my version as gospel, that’s when repair becomes possible.
It’s not about being right, it’s about staying relational.
Sometimes that means acknowledging: the fight was never about the bacon. It was about two nervous systems trying to feel safe in the same kitchen.
teaches that conflict in intimate relationships always circles back to one of three themes: power and control, closeness and care, respect and recognition.
The disharmony is obligatory. What matters is whether you can repair together. Drop a 🤍 if you agree and save this post for the next time you are feeling furious not curious, like I was last week!
