10 Holistic Tips for Cultivating Secure and Fulfilling Relationships by a Couples and Certified Sex Therapist

by Natalie Cooney

I am a couples, relationship, and sex therapist. My training and education are in relational work with a somatic attachment and sex therapy perspective. This means that when you are in my office with your relationship, I am exploring how your nervous system responds to distancing, closeness, communication, sex, touch, control, power, and all forms of intimacy. Then, I help you and your relationship get relief, clarity, pleasure, depth, and safety.

There are feedback loops in relationships–whether your siblings, parents, children, or significant others–all are prone to ruptures, disconnect, confusion, bitterness, and insecurity.

All relationships slide into negative cycles of hurt and blame at one point or another. We are especially susceptible to negative cycles if the modeling we got from observing our parents' relationships was poor, our stuck survival strategies (that don't often support intimacy), or any unresolved relational and intimacy trauma from our pasts that lives deep in our bodies as a threat response to closeness or distance.

I work closely with relationships to discover how the relationship got off track. I explore where the defensiveness and pain originate from and then help to re-establish safety, communication, and connection in the present. 

Relational work is clarifying work for clients. Usually, it peels back the curtain on how you relate and forces you to “show up, grow up, and shape up” (thank you Tina Schermer-Sellers for teaching me this phrase). Relational work forces us to get out of the rut of old patterns, old beliefs, and old ways of relating that no longer benefit anyone. 

Relationships are integral to our lives. 

For survival, we need relationships. 

For longevity and well-being, we need fulfilling and safe relationships. 

One of my favorite shows, Alone, reflects how so many people go into the wild to prove they can survive alone but soon find that their relationships, the people back at home, cause a heartache that results in pushing the "I'm officially tapping out" button.

In individual therapy, A LOT of people are working on their relationships.

So, how do I help them decipher if they or the people they are engaging with are healthy? I help them develop a secure framework for relating and teach them to regulate their nervous system, and eventually, they find better relationships. Couples therapy is often like this, too. Learning safety, engagement, connection, soothing the threat response, and experiencing intimacy and pleasure.

Secure Functioning Relationships, a term coined by Stan Tatkin, PhD, one of the founders of the couples therapy model PACT, taught me what secure functioning relationships are and how to achieve one myself.

An important note: these guidelines are for all attachment styles. The guidelines provide a target to aim for your intentions for your relationship and your growth. Especially if you have insecure (anxious, avoidant, etc) attachment styles, this guide is for you as it may not come naturally to you to behave, feel, and communicate securely. This will help you get there!

Secure functioning isn’t “securely attached”, it is secure functioning. Think of secure functioning as a tool to develop the relationship to function more securely, no matter the attachment styles of each person. 

Secure functioning, according to Stan Tatkin, is the ability of a relationship to cultivate and prioritize one another, safety, and security. Secure functioning is based on the principles of fairness, trust, true mutuality, and responsiveness. 

In secure functioning relationships, all partners' needs and desires are valued and considered in decision-making, creating a bond based on shared purpose. The aspects of secure functioning listed below are adapted from Stan's "10 Commandments of Secure Functioning" that is part of the PACT training for clinicians and the foundation for his model.

Making these tips approachable and accessible for relationships 50 years, or 3 months, in can make a world a difference. I've also added some somatic and sexuality tips as a bonus. It's yummy stuff indeed!

More respect, prioritizing, and positive cycles of engagement equals more opportunities to get ALL your needs met…wink, wink. More on that later. 

Let's start!

10 Tips to Make Your Relationships More Secure:

1.  Secure Functioning: Partners protect the safety and security of the relationship above all else. 

Secure partners and relationships prioritize safety and security. They are willing to set anything and everything aside to protect and secure their relationship. You choose your beloved as the one who is meant to be on your team, first, every time. You make sure they feel secure and safe with you, and you with them.

Mutual care and safety are prioritized in secure relationships. When someone is feeling unsafe or insecure, there is a responsive attitude of compassionate responsiveness. Secure functioning partners communicate with their words AND ACTIONS in a way that translates effectively to their partner that they care about them and feel that their needs matter.

• You feel anxious; they know how to help you feel more secure. 

• They are nervous about being around your critical mom, so you stand next to them to protect them from your critical mom.

• They start to disconnect, you know why, and you also know how to invite them back. 

• If it's important to you, it means your partner considers and cares about it. 

• If it's important to them, it's important to you.

• If there has been a rupture for them, it matters to you. 

• If your partner feels hurt by something you said or did, it is a problem for you to repair

• Above parents, above work, above friends, above substances, hobbies, above everything and everyone else. 

2. Secure Functioning: Partners prioritize true mutuality. All decisions and actions are for the good of you and your partner. 

Unilateral thinking is one of the most devastating effects of attachment trauma. "I don't need anyone”, “no one is here for me”, “I just have to take care of myself”, “no one can be trusted”, “I am on my own" are holograms of not having the experience of someone having their back. Partners that prioritize true mutuality are healing this rupture: I care and we are doing this life together. I have your back, will you have mine?

Disconnection and self-preservation leave little room for trust, connection, or even bothering with opening up. Often found in avoidant-dismissive attachment strategies, this survival instinct must be unlearned through a gradual opening up to trust, mutuality, and security. Re-do experiences are experiences where partners prioritize mutuality. 

My decisions are good for both you and me. I am thinking about you and my words + actions reflect that.

3. Secure Functioning: partners do not threaten the relationship. 

This is a controversial one. When it comes to sexual violation, addiction, financial violation, or infidelity, it is commonplace to go through a period of relationship discernment where one or all parties feel the need to share where they are on the spectrum of staying or leaving. This is normal and often an important part of the healing process. 

The type of threat  # 3 refers to is using "or I'll leave" as a power play or cheap shot at trying to make change happen. 

Cycles of threatening the relationship does the complete opposite of secure functioning. It feeds feelings of abandonment, fear, and insecurity.

Threatening to leave or end the relationship creates an atmosphere of walking on eggshells, abandonment, lack of safety, and dysfunctional power plays. When people reach "or I'll leave," they have either unsuccessfully communicated, haven’t held true to their own boundaries, and are with someone who has not heard (or doesn’t care for) their concern. 

Threatening the relationship is counterproductive. 

For people in relationships who are "waiting” for their partner to do x, y, and z, I help transform their relationships with communication, self-advocacy, and self-activation that doesn't involve threat, shame, criticism, or power plays. 

4. Partners make partners their go-to person for all matters. 

Your partner is the first to know and is in the know about everything of importance. Not your mom or dad, not your bestie, not your sibling, not your child, not your coworker–your partner is in the know about the things that really matter before anyone else. 

This principle of secure functioning increases trust and intimacy. It cultivates a felt sense that your partner is special… the one and only. Your person has your back, knows your secrets and you them.

When partners hide or withhold important information, whether because they are afraid to reveal what is happening to them, don’t trust you with their important information, or intentionally don't want to rock the boat, the relationship starts moving away from intimacy to roommates. 

Authenticity propels a relationship forward.

Facing challenges jointly and openly demonstrates trust, connection, and care. When one or both individuals hold back due to fear, it indicates insecurity in the relationship. 

This principle doesn't have to apply to your chosen coffee for the day or to what pants you want to wear–but to the things that matter: family, kids, sex, work, finances, and, of course, anything that has to do with the relationship–this principle applies. 

5. Secure Functioning: Partners create security through being accessible and accountable day and night. 

Partners are "tethered", attached, and connected, even while apart. Creating this level of security takes work; it involves knowing your partner and yourself. 

In research completed by John and Julie Gottman, partners who felt happier and more secure were in partnerships which included:

• partners responding positively to their partner's positivity

• supporting a partner when they are experiencing stress

• Partners display a distinct care and a compassionate “know how” in dealing with their partner

• Partners display responsiveness to each other easily

• Responsive behaviors demonstrate a desire to increase security. 

This principle ties into attraction and chemistry through having an easefulness to being in connection. Translating this to touch, sexual expression, sexual activities, and affection looks like:

• Pursuing and exploring presence as a form of building heat, eagerness, and relaxation.

• Being accessible and accountable is attractive, it communicates security and confidence. 

• Being conscious and aware of how you touch and reciprocate touch, as well as how you steward your sexuality and sexual desire cultivates what you put into it. If there is selfishness, ego, and linearity that will be felt, so will pleasure, depth, and excitation.

• Bring connected while being apart is an incredible desire builder. Our dear Esther Perel discusses the necessity for autonomy to increase eagerness and mystery in her book, Mating in Captivity (2009). “Absence makes the heart grow fonder” really does work for nurturing eagerness and desire. 

Look out for PART 2 dropping next month! 

Start Relationship Therapy in Golden, CO

Compass Healing Project is a specialized private practice in Colorado and California for integrative somatic psychotherapy for individuals and relationships. Natalie Cooney, the owner and founder, seeks to move couples from mediocre to extraordinary. By incorporating mind, body, heart, and spirit in her intensive work, she bridges the gap for many couples and relationships who have outdated ways of functioning. She supervises and guides her clinicians in this model. Start your journey for yourself or for your relationship with Compass Healing Project by following these simple steps:

1. Fill out this form, email us, or call us at 760-456-7713. 

2. Meet with a caring therapist

3. Start improving your relationships and creating stronger bonds!

Other Services Offered at Compass Healing Project

At Compass Healing Project, we take a holistic approach to therapy, using a range of modalities to support various mental health needs. In addition to relationship therapy, we can help reclaim your nervous system with somatic therapy. We also offer EMDR, Clinical Sexology, hypnotherapy, ketamine-assisted therapy, and embodiment practices—each tailored to help with anxiety, depression, PTSD, grief, and sexuality concerns. To learn more about our services, visit our blog or connect with our compassionate therapists in Colorado and California, who specialize in trauma resolution, emotional healing, and integrative therapy to support your journey to well-being.

Refrences:

1. https://www.thepactinstitute.com/blog/the-ten-commandments-for-a-secure-functioning-relationship

2. Tatkin, S. (2011). Ten Commandments for a Secure-Functioning Relationship. In J. K. Zeig & T. Kulbatski (Eds.), For Couples: Ten Commandments for Every Aspect of Your Relationship Journey. Phoenix: Zeig, Tucker & Theisen, Inc. Publishers.

3. Perel, Esther. Mating in Captivity : Unlocking Erotic Intelligence. New York Harper, 2007.

4. Gottman, John Mordechai, and Nan Silver. The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country’s Foremost Relationship Expert. New York, Harmony Books, 2015.