Disagreeing without Disconnecting
Disagreements are part of every relationship—but disconnection doesn’t have to be. Learn how to stay emotionally connected, even in the middle of conflict, with simple, practical tools you can actually use.
By Maraya Pena, Marriage and Family Therapist, Intern
Disagreement Fatigue
There can be moments in arguments that feel familiar, and in the same sense you might feel everything shift. Conversations can quickly turn into layers of tension that is often cooccurring with signs of defensiveness, tone changes, and overall fatigue from the cycle starting again.
Suddenly, it can feel like you are two partners who are not on the same team anymore and the disagreement turns into disconnection. That is the part that can sting the most. Naturally in life, stress will come and disagreements are bound to happen. It’s not necessarily about if or when you will disagree (again it is a natural part of existence) its about how you disagree.
The Quicksand of Disconnection
Disconnection isn’t always a random act, but it can happen when our protective factors step in. When something feels threatening (like criticism, rejection, not being understood), your nervous system might react through:
you defending
you shutting down
you getting louder
or you emotionally pulling away.
Then you find yourself getting stuck in quicksand disconnection. This doesn’t mean you don’t care, but these protective signals might contribute to the distance you’re afraid of.
How do you argue?
I want to be clear that arguments are naturally going to occur and even the healthiest couples do disagree. The goal isn’t to just completely avoid conflict, but more to stay connected inside of it. Connection can be the bridge to make repair possible.
What it can look like to disagree without disconnecting:
Pausing more
Staying curious instead of assuming
naming your feelings instead of attacking
letting the conversation slow down
These small intentional changes can lead to creating space for staying connected and seeking to understand during hard conversations.
4 Ways to stay Connected during Conflict
Slow down the moment: When things escalate, speed increases.
example: “I want to talk about this, but I can feel myself getting overwhelmed. Can we slow this down?”
Slowing down creates space to still feel connection.
Share what is happening underneath: Most arguments aren’t about the surface issue.
example: instead of “you never help around the house”
try: “I think I have been feeling overwhelmed and unsupported.”
This shifts the conversation from blame to vulnerability.
Stay on the same team: Conflict can quickly turn into “me vs. you”.
example: “it feels like we are getting off track. i want to figure this out together”.
This reinforces connection, even in disagreement.
Take breaks without abandoning: sometimes space is needed but how you take it matters.
Instead of shutting down or walking away without explanation:
“i need a little time to calm down, but i want to come back to this.”
Distance without reassurance can feel like rejection and distance with intention can build emotional safety.
You wont get it perfect, and that is okay! You might still say things that you didn’t mean, get triggered, or miss each other in conversations. We are all human. What matters most isn’t avoiding mistakes, but its being able to come back, repair, and connect again.
Final Thoughts
Disagreements don’t always have to mean complete disconnection. You can feel frustrated, hurt, or misunderstood and still choose to stay emotionally present. Over time, those small intentional moments (pausing, softening, coming back), are what build trust, safety and a deeper connection. Conflict may not disappear completely, but you can learn how to move through it together.
Ready to Take the Next Step?
If this resonates with you, therapy can be a place to begin reconnecting with yourself in a deeper and more intentional way. Whether you are feeling stuck in old patterns, disconnected in your relationships, or unsure of who you are in this season of life, support is available.
Reach out through the contact page to schedule a consultation and take your next step toward healing.
About The Author
Maraya Pena is the founder of One Percent Counseling, LLC. She helps individuals and couples navigate anxiety, relationship challenges, emotional overwhelm, and life transitions with greater clarity, self-awareness, and connection. Her approach is grounded, compassionate, and focused on helping clients create meaningful change one step at a time.
Love Is There…But It Can Still Feel Like Tug of War
Love can be present in a relationship and still feel difficult. This blog explores why relationships feel hard even when you care deeply and how small emotional shifts can help you reconnect and feel understood.
By Maraya Pena, Marriage and Family Therapist, Intern
Love Can Also Feel Hard
Sometimes there are external expectations or even a quiet kind of confusion that can show up in relationships that looklike they should be working. A lot of times, you do love each other and you care deeply. Maybe you keep trying different ways of connecting and yet…it still feels a bit hard.
The hardest part can sometimes be communication, feeling close in the ways you want to and even feeling understood. A natural thought may even cross your mind from time to time of “why does this feel a bit difficult if we love each other?”
Love Doesn’t Automatically Mean Ease
We are often taught in culture or society that love should feel natural, effortless, or intuitive. However, love and relating are two very different things. Love is a feeling to definitely be highlighted and enjoyed, but relationships are also a system.
Relationship systems are often shaped by:
Past experiences and previous relationships
Attachment patterns
Communication styles
Emotional safety (or lack of it)
So in a lot of ways, there is a lot of room to absolutely love someone and still struggle to feel connected or understood by them. You are two different individuals and internal beings trying to find a common middle.
Why It Might Still Feel Hard
When love is there but things feel a little bit difficult sometimes its not about how much you love each other, but more about how you experience each other in hard moments. From a Narrative lens, your perspective of the “problem” could be that it is in between your relationship versus the “problem” being externalized from your relationship. In other words, it’s you and your partner versus the problem and you are both facing it together. Not the problem in the middle of you and your partner.
There are often a few common patterns:
You could be triggering each other without realizing it: what feels like “overreacting” is often a nervous system response where one person feels rejected (and becomes critical) and the other feels attacked (and withdraws). Neither is trying to hurt the other…but both of you feel hurt.
You’re both speaking different emotional languages: you both might be expressing a form of care, but in ways the other doesn’t recognize. One might want reassurance through words while the other shows love through actions. Then, it can feel like the love is missing even when it’s present in some form.
You’re protecting instead of connecting: when things feel tense, our instincts are to protect ourselves from discomfort or conflict. In most cases, this cycle of protection (defend, attack, withdraw like we discussed before) creates distance.
The relationship feels heavy instead of safe: love thrives in emotional safety. If the relationship starts to feel like a repetitive argument or walking on eggshells, even strong love can feel exhausting.
This Doesn’t Mean The Worst
If it feels hard, it doesn’t automatically mean that you’re with the wrong person or that the relationship is failing or that love isn’t enough. Sometimes it means that you haven’t learned how to navigate each other’s emotional worlds yet. I am a believer that you don’t have to rely on a huge overnight “fix”. Meaningful change is through the “trial and error” and the small one percent shifts.
Slow the moment down to create awareness and instead of reacting quickly, try:
“why am i feeling this way”
“what might my partner be feeling”
Get curious instead of defensive:
instead of “why are you doing this” try “help me understand what is coming up for you”
Name the cycle and not the person (turning you into a team vs. the problem):
shift from “you always shut down” to “we keep getting stuck in this patter where i push and you pull away”.
Emotional safety is built when people feel heard and understood, not judged. Sometimes the most powerful shifts can be as simple as “i see why you would feel that way”.
Final Thoughts
Love is important, but sometimes it isn’t the only thing that makes a relationship feel good. Most relationships (even non romantic) require a level of understanding, emotional attunement, repair, and intention.
If that feels hard right now, it doesn’t erase the love that is already there. Sometimes it just means there is something in the way you are connecting that needs more attention.
Ready to Take the Next Step?
If this resonates with you, therapy can be a place to begin reconnecting with yourself in a deeper and more intentional way. Whether you are feeling stuck in old patterns, disconnected in your relationships, or unsure of who you are in this season of life, support is available.
Reach out through the contact page to schedule a consultation and take your next step toward healing.
About The Author
Maraya Pena is the founder of One Percent Counseling, LLC. She helps individuals and couples navigate anxiety, relationship challenges, emotional overwhelm, and life transitions with greater clarity, self-awareness, and connection. Her approach is grounded, compassionate, and focused on helping clients create meaningful change one step at a time.
You’re Not Just Fighting About the Dishes.
Most arguments in relationships aren’t actually about what they seem. What starts as a disagreement about something small like the dishes or responsibilities, can often reflect deeper emotional experiences like feeling unsupported, unappreciated, or alone. In this post, we break down why couples get stuck in the repetitive cycles and how understanding emotions underneath can create meaningful shifts in conversation.
By Maraya Pena, Marriage and Family Therapist, Intern
Is it Dishes or Disappointment?
If you read last week’s blog, you might already be familiar with how easy it is for couples to get stuck in the same argument loop. Even when it’s a different day with a different topic, the same exact feeling can still exist in our brains or bodies.
This week, we are going to slow that down even further because most of the time you’re not just actually fighting about the dishes.
The Surface Argument
Common arguments might sound like:
“Why do I always have to ask you for help?”
“You said you’d do it and you didn’t.”
“Its just dishes, its not that big of a deal.”
Somewhere along the way, these surface arguments escalate and you might notice that the tone starts changing, defensiveness starts kicking in, and someone might start shutting down. Then all of a sudden, you’re not even talking about the dishes anymore…you’re talking about almost everything.
What is Actually Happening Underneath?
Arguments like this start leaning away from the task itself, but start to mold into what the task might represent in the relationship.
The dishes might mean:
“I don’t feel supported.”
“I feel like I am carrying everything alone.”
“I don’t feel important to you.”
“I feel like I have to manage everything for us.”
And on the other side it might feel like:
“Nothing I do is enough.”
“I’m constantly being criticized.”
“I can’t get it right.”
“I feel controlled or micromanaged.”
So instead of one person asking for help and the other responding, now you have one person expressing hurt (through frustration) and the other hearing failure (and reacting defensively).
Different Topic, Same Fight
This is where it connects to last week’s conflict cycle:
One partner pushes (often through criticism or frustration)
The other defends or shuts down
The first partner feels even more alone and pushes harder
The second partner withdraws more
Whatever the initial context or task was suddenly moves to the background, because now it’s shifting to feeling overall disconnected.
The Emotional Experience (what it might feel like inside)
Underneath the words tone, and the constant back and forth, there is also a physiological experience that might be happening. This experience can happen fast and instead of expressing hurt, fear, or a need of support it comes out as something more frustrating or defensive. Not even because you don’t care, but sometimes the emotions are harder to say out loud.
For one partner it might include:
a tightness in your chest when you realize you’re the one bringing things up
a sense of exhaustion from carrying the same responsibility
a thought that sounds like “I don’t think i matter as much as i want to.”
For the other partner it might feel like:
a sinking in your stomach when the conversation starts
a rush of pressure to “fix it” or get things right
a thought that might sound like “I’m already failing before i even try.”
Why This Part Matters
When we miss the emotional experience, we stay stuck at the surface. We try to solve the problem (“just do the dishes” or “communicate better”) without understanding what the moment actually means to each person.
Intentional and gradual recognition can help shift the conversation:
“this isn’t just frustration, I’m actually feeling alone.”
“this isn’t just criticism, I’m feeling like I’m not enough”.
Small shifts can allow for reactions to slow down just enough to allow the conversation to soften and make more room for a meaningful connection. This part doesn’t necessarily feel “easy” or “calming”. A lot of the time our instinct is to jump to the solution so we don’t have to face uncomfortable emotions or needs.
Simple Reframe
The goal isn’t to perfectly communicate every feeling. But even a small shift can change the direction of the conversation and future outcomes.
Instead of: “You never help me.”
Try: : “I think I’m feeling overwhelmed and I could really use support right now.”
Instead of: “Why are you making this such a big deal?”
Try: “I feel like I’m getting it wrong, can you help me understand what you need?”
These might not be perfect in every situation, but they can help you shift from blame to understanding and from defense to connection.
Next time an argument starts, pause and ask yourself: “What is this really about for me?”
Is it:
Feeling unseen?
feeling unappreciated?
feeling like you’re doing things alone?
That question alone can be the one percent shift and what it takes to interrupt the conflict cycle.
Final Thoughts
The dishes aren’t always the problem. Even the argument itself is not always the problem. What is bubbling up underneath could potentially be disconnection and a yearning for a certain need wanting to be met or a certain emotion needing to be named.
Once you start taking one pause to understand what is actually being communicated or expressed, you can begin to respond to each other differently and seek to understand vs seeking to respond. Maybe not perfectly or even all at once, but just one percent at time.
Ready to Take the Next Step?
If this resonates with you, therapy can be a place to begin reconnecting with yourself in a deeper and more intentional way. Whether you are feeling stuck in old patterns, disconnected in your relationships, or unsure of who you are in this season of life, support is available.
Reach out through the contact page to schedule a consultation and take your next step toward healing.
About The Author
Maraya Pena is the founder of One Percent Counseling, LLC. She helps individuals and couples navigate anxiety, relationship challenges, emotional overwhelm, and life transitions with greater clarity, self-awareness, and connection. Her approach is grounded, compassionate, and focused on helping clients create meaningful change one step at a time.
Why Every Argument Feels The Same
Why do arguments in relationships feel like they repeat themselves? Many couples get stuck in a conflict cycle of defend, attack, and withdraw leaving both partners feeling misunderstood and disconnected. This post breaks down why it happens and how small shifts can interrupt the pattern.
By Maraya Pena, Marriage and Family Therapist, Intern
Conflict Cycles
Have you ever walked away from an argument thinking, “How did we end up here…again?” It could be a different topic with different words, but it all leads to the same outcome, the same feelings, and sadly the same disconnection.
This can feel confusing in any relationship, especially when the underlying truth is that both people genuinely care about each other.
But here is some perspective: most couples aren’t arguing about what they think they are arguing about. They’re just caught in a pattern that shows itself in so many different communications.
The Real Problem: The Cycle, Not the Topic
On the surface, arguments might look like they are about:
Who didnt help enough
Tone of voice
Time spent together
Texts not being answered
But underneath that context is often something a bit deeper such as:
Feeling unappreciated
Feeling unseen
Feeling disconnected
Feeling like you don’t matter in that moment
When those feelings get triggered, most couples tend to fall into a predictable cycle that repeats itself over and over.
Most Common Conflict Cycle: Defend - Attack - Withdraw
Let’s breakdown some of the most common patterns that show up in relationships (that I have also seen in practice):
Defend
This often starts when one partner feels criticized or blamed, even if that wasn’t the intention. So they might respond by:
Explaining themselves
Justifying their actions
Saying “thats now what i meant” or “you misunderstood me”.
What could be underneath: “I don’t want to be seen as the bad one”.
Attack
One partner now feels dismissed or not heard so they might choose to escalate by:
Raising their voice
Bringing up past issues
Using statements like “you always…” or “you never…”
What could be underneath: "I need you to understand how much this hurts.”
Withdraw
At some point or another, one partner shuts down which might look like:
Going quiet
Walking away
Emotionally checking out
What could be underneath: “This is too much. I don’t feel safe here.”
And from there on, the cycle continues to reset and nothing actually gets resolved. Both partners leave feeling misunderstood, frustrated, and even more disconnected.
Why This Cycle Feels So Stuck
Because each part of this response cycle triggers the next one, defensiveness starts to feel like dismissal that leads to attack. Attack feels overwhelming and leads to withdrawal. Withdraw feels like abandonment and leads back to attack or even criticism.
This pattern becomes less about the original issue and more about reacting to each other’s reactions and over time couples start to automatically anticipate this cycle or a “here we go again” response.
One Percent Shift Awareness Before Change
Before trying to fix communication, solve the problem, or “say the right thing” you can try to start by noticing the cycle:
Where do you typically land? Defend, attack, or withdraw?
What do you feel right before you react?
What are you actually needing in that moment?
Awareness is the first one percent shift where you can name the pattern you create just enough to create space to respond even slightly different.
You don’t have to completely change how you communicate overnight. Some small changes or focuses can include:
If you tend to defend: try pausing before explaining and stay “I want to understand what you’re feeling first”.
If you tend to attack: try softening the start: “I feel hurt when…” instead of “you always…”
If you tend to withdraw: try staying just a little longer and saying “Im overwhelmed, but I don’t want to shut down.”
These aren’t perfect response or “the right answer”, but they don’t have to be. They are interruptions to the cycle in order to facilitate small change.
Final Thoughts
If your arguments feel repetitive, it doesn’t mean that your relationship is broken, but most likely that there is a pattern that hasn’t been totally named yet. Arguments will come naturally and the goal isn’t to completely eliminate them, but to better understand what’s happening within the argument.
When you can see the cycle clearly, you can stop turning against each other and start turning toward the problem together. Those small shifts can add up to more understanding, more emotional safety, and more connection one percent at a time.
Ready to Take the Next Step?
If this resonates with you, therapy can be a place to begin reconnecting with yourself in a deeper and more intentional way. Whether you are feeling stuck in old patterns, disconnected in your relationships, or unsure of who you are in this season of life, support is available.
Reach out through the contact page to schedule a consultation and take your next step toward healing.
About The Author
Maraya Pena is the founder of One Percent Counseling, LLC. She helps individuals and couples navigate anxiety, relationship challenges, emotional overwhelm, and life transitions with greater clarity, self-awareness, and connection. Her approach is grounded, compassionate, and focused on helping clients create meaningful change one step at a time.
Rebuilding Self-Trust One Percent at a time.
Rebuilding self trust after self loss starts with small, intentional changes. Learn practical ways to reconnect with yourself one step at a time.
By Maraya Pena, Marriage and Family Therapist, Intern
Repairing Self-Trust
At the heart and core of self loss is often something quiet, but impactful: a disconnection from your own sense of self-trust.
Self-trust doesn’t usually disappear overnight, and it actually tends to fade pretty gradually through things like people-pleasing, minimizing your feelings, staying in situations that don’t align with you, or constantly looking outside of yourself for validation.
And because it fades slowly, rebuilding it doesn’t happen all at once either. The first shift in rebuilding self-trust is recognizing you are not stuck, you are not unfixable, and you can learn who you really want to be once percent at a time.
What Rebuilding Self-Trust Means
Rebuilding self-trust means learning to come back to yourself more gently, more consistently, and more intentionally.
It’s the process of:
Listening to your internal cues instead of ignoring them
Honoring your needs, even when it feels uncomfortable or inconvenient
Following through on the small promises you make to yourself Giving yourself permission for your voice to matter again
The goal is not about becoming perfectly confident or never having moments of second guessing yourself, but more about creating a relationship with yourself where you feel safe enough to rely on you.
What the Process Can Look Like
Change can definitely feel uncomfortable and even overwhelming at times, especially when you have been disconnected from yourself for a while. The focus of this conversation is not about a dramatic transformation, but more so about the small intentional shifts.
One percent shifts might look like:
Pausing before saying “yes” and asking yourself if you actually mean it
Noticing when something feels off (and letting that feeling count as something)
Saying “I need time to think about it” instead of reacting immediately
Following through on one small commitment to yourself each day
Choosing rest without needing to justify it
Speaking up in a low-stakes moment
Letting your preferences exist, even if they are different from others around you
These moments may seem small and obvious, but they send a powerful message internally that I can trust myself to show up for me.
Tangible Ways to Rebuild Self-Trust
If you’re not sure where to start, here are a few grounded and maybe practical ways to begin:
Keep small promises to yourself. Start with something realistic like drinking water in the morning, going for a short walk, or journaling for five minutes (even if it’s a brain dump, there is no right or wrong way to journal). Consistency with these small promises builds trust over time.
Practice checking in before responding. Before agreeing to something, pause and ask yourself: Do I actually want to do this? Create space before your decisions to notice what your initial instinct is. Noticing is a meaningful part of the process and is a step forward.
Name what you feel without dismissing it. Instead of minimizing things that you have been able to tolerate before or resorting to “its not a big deal”, try: This actually matters to me. Your feelings don’t need to be extreme to be valid.
Set one boundary at a time. Boundaries don't need to happen all at once or in a perfect way. Create space to have just one moment where you choose yourself differently.
Reflect on what you followed through on. At the end of the day, ask yourself: Where did I show up for myself today? This will allow your mind to notice trust-building moments and their impact.
Let yourself be a work in progress. Self-trust isn’t built through perfection, but it is built through a lens of flexibility and repair. In moments that you override yourself (especially if it is second nature), try to notice it and try again next time. Trying isn’t failing, and progress is not linear.
How Rebuilding Self-Trust Helps
When you begin to trust yourself again, things can start to shift internally and externally.
Over time, you may notice:
Less overthinking and second guessing
Clearer decision making
Stronger boundaries without as much guilt
A deeper sense of stability within yourself
More alignment in your relationships
A growing sense of confidence that feels grounded and not forced
Building self-trust can mean that you stop outsourcing your worth and your direction, and instead you can begin to feel more anchored in yourself.
Final Thoughts: Closing the Self-Loss Series
Self-loss doesn’t mean you are broken or beyond repair, but it often means that you have adapted in ways that helped you survive, belong, or maintain connection. At some point, all of those constant adaptations can cost you your sense of self.
This series has explored what self loss can look like in relationships, through people pleasing, quiet resentment, disconnection, and the slow drift away from your own needs. Noticing these patterns can be the first step in internal repair. Rebuilding isn’t about becoming a completely different person, but more about returning to yourself and who you want to be.
That return doesn’t always have to be rooted in overwhelm, but it can be subtle, imperfect, and through small shifts that can create meaningful change over time. Through the one percent shifts, you can reconnect and rebuild a relationship with yourself that feels steady, supportive, and truly your own.
It’s okay to begin again and rebuild self-trust.
Ready to Take the Next Step?
If this resonates with you, therapy can be a place to begin reconnecting with yourself in a deeper and more intentional way. Whether you are feeling stuck in old patterns, disconnected in your relationships, or unsure of who you are in this season of life, support is available.
Reach out through the contact page to schedule a consultation and take your next step toward healing.
About The Author
Maraya Pena is the founder of One Percent Counseling, LLC. She helps individuals and couples navigate anxiety, relationship challenges, emotional overwhelm, and life transitions with greater clarity, self-awareness, and connection. Her approach is grounded, compassionate, and focused on helping clients create meaningful change one step at a time.
The Quiet Resentment That Builds When You Don’t Speak Up.
Quiet resentment can build up when you start negotiating your needs.. This post explores how resentment can build through self-loss patterns, how they form, and how reconnecting with yourself can look like small, meaningful changes.
By Maraya Pena, Marriage and Family Therapist, Intern
The Building Blocks of Resentment
Resentment rarely starts fast, loud, and obvious.
Some of the building blocks of resentment can include self-abandonment, unspoken expectations, lack of boundaries (as we have learned), emotional suppression, and lack of reciprocity.
One of the most challenging parts of resentment is that it often isn’t about what others are doing, but more so about the space between what you need and what you’ve allowed yourself to express.
It’s layered, confusing, and hard to name. It can feel like frustration, burnout, or disconnection without immediately being labeled as resentment.
How Quiet Resentment Forms
It often starts small, subtle, and even reasonable. You tell yourself:
“It’s not a big deal.”
“I’ll just handle it.”
“I don’t want to make this into something.”
“They’re just stressed.”
“I can manage.”
Some of these statements might be true and even feel safe, but over a period of time, it can shift to feeling like each moment is more compounded by the next.
Quiet resentment doesn’t always come from one major betrayal. It can build from not expressing a need, over-accommodating, and even minimizing your disappointment. Each moment can seem small, but when you consistently override your internal voice, your nervous system keeps track (even if you don’t consciously). And that is where the internal imbalance begins.
What Quiet Resentment Can Feel Like
On the outside, everything may still look “fine” or “manageable”. You may find yourself still showing up, still being reliable, and still the person other people can count on.
But over time you might notice resentment show up as:
irritability over small things
increased emotional distance from relationships
sarcasm
feeling under-appreciated but unsure how to say it
thinking “I do everything.”
feelin unseen or misunderstood.
Sometimes resentment often sounds like silence on the outside, but on the inside your body is overwhelmed.
Many people who carry quiet resentment can either be deeply caring or even craving the opposite such as seeking more stability, loyalty, reliability, or even support with responsibility.
Resentment doesn’t necessarily stem from selfishness, it can also come from self-loss and most people around you don’t even know its happening.
Why It’s So Hard to Address
Resentment can feel equally confusing and exhausting to carry. On one end, we might deeply care for others or have learned to prioritize others to keep stability in the household, or relationships. A part of you might genuinely want to be helpful, supportive, and easy to be around.
But another part of you might be tired of overextending and feeling like your needs come last.
Speaking up can sometimes feel:
selfish
dramatic
risky
disruptive
or like you’re sparking conflict
Especially if you grew up needing to manage other people’s emotions or “keep things calm”, so silence or pushing away your needs might feel safer until it really isn’t.
Resentment isn’t a personality flaw, it’s often a signal that something important hasn’t been expressed.
What Happens if it Continues
When we choose to under-express our needs , they don’t just disappear and instead they often shift inward and build up causing an increase of dysregulation and inability to focus or function on the day to day.
Unchecked resentment often leads to:
escalated arguments
passive-aggressive communication
scorekeeping
loss of intimacy or emotional pleasure in relationships.
Feeling resentment can be an isolating experience, but can be alleviated by recognizing the internal signals and rebuilding alignment with yourself.
Where it can shift
Resentment doesn’t have to be a permanent state of being and you don’t have to wait until you’re overwhelmed to start honoring your needs.
You can begin earlier, in small meaningful shifts that bring more internal and external awareness to your needs.
In therapy, this might look like:
identifying the moment you actually override yourself
naming what you actually feel
separating fear from values
practicing small, aligned communication
tolerating discomfort.
Putting these ideas into real practice can also take time, but it doesn’t have to be confrontational.
Sharing small truths and building self-trust can reduce resentment and can look like:
“I actually feel overwhelmed.”
“I need help tonight.”
“That didn’t sit right with me.”
“Can we revisit that?”
Final Thoughts
Experiencing feelings of resentment doesn’t mean something is wrong with you. It often means that there is something within you that hasn’t been fully heard yet and is trying to express a need, a boundary, or a truth that deserves space.
Learning to express that doesn’t have to happen all at once, and it can start with small, intentional ways to reconnect your mind with your body. Even taking the time to notice resentment is there can be the one percent shift that leads you to a more aligned version of yourself and understanding what you need.
Gentle reflection: Where are you currently staying quiet to “keep things smooth” and what might happen if you honored your voice, even slightly more?
Ready to Take the Next Step?
If this resonates with you, therapy can be a place to begin reconnecting with yourself in a deeper and more intentional way. Whether you are feeling stuck in old patterns, disconnected in your relationships, or unsure of who you are in this season of life, support is available.
Reach out through the contact page to schedule a consultation and take your next step toward healing.
About The Author
Maraya Pena is the founder of One Percent Counseling, LLC. She helps individuals and couples navigate anxiety, relationship challenges, emotional overwhelm, and life transitions with greater clarity, self-awareness, and connection. Her approach is grounded, compassionate, and focused on helping clients create meaningful change one step at a time.
People-pleasing isn’t always kindness, sometimes it’s fear: Addressing boundaries and avoidance.
People pleasing often shows up as kindness, but it can also lead to self-loss and difficulty setting boundaries in relationships. This post explores how learning healthier boundaries can help you reconnect with yourself and rebuild a stronger sense of identity.
By Maraya Pena, Marriage and Family Therapist, Intern
What Is People-pleasing?
People pleasing often develops as a form of protection.
At some point in life, prioritizing others may have helped maintain connection, avoid conflict, or create a sense of safety.
One of the most challenging parts of people-pleasing is that it often looks like kindness from the outside. Being considerate, supportive and accommodating are qualities many people value in themselves. But when these behaviors are driven primarily by fear, they can slowly create distance from your own needs and preferences.
Underneath chronic people pleasing is rarely kindness. It’s often rooted in avoidance, not compassion.
Common Fears
Fears associated with people-pleasing can look like:
disappointing someone
being seen as difficult
creating conflict
being rejected
being misunderstood
losing connection
And when fear runs the decisions, resentment eventually follows.
Kindness is a choice and people-pleasing is a reflex.
Kindness often says : “i want to do this.”
People-pleasing says: “i have to do this.”
Kindness feels aligned, while people-pleasing can feel tense.
The Boundary Problem
At its core, people-pleasing is a boundary issue. Not because you don’t have boundaries, but because you most likely override them.
You might notice:
saying “yes” when you feel overwhelmed
agreeing outwardly but feeling resentful internally
avoiding hard conversations
over explaining when you do say no
taking responsibility for other people’s reactions
Boundaries aren’t about pushing people away but more so about protecting your alignment, and without them self-loss can happen quietly.
The Avoidance Loop
Protective patterns of avoidance can develop while trying to avoid discomfort.
Common discomfort you might want to avoid:
guilt
anxiety
tension
disapproval
silence
conflict
Avoidance might work…temporarily.
You might get short-term relief when the moment passes and no one is upset, but the long-term cost can lead to resentment and emotional exhaustion. It can even lead to emotional distance from ourselves and others, setting the path for self-loss.
The discomfort you avoid externally eventually builds internally.
Why It Feels So Hard To Stop
People-pleasing is often a pattern that is learned early.
If you grew up:
managing other people’s emotions
being praised for being “easy”
walking on eggshells
responsible for keeping the peace
Then people-pleasing most likely was an adaptive measure that helped you belong and stay safe. Although your life has most likely moved and transitioned, your nervous system can still feel stuck or believe it’s necessary to find safety through the learned behavior.
Saying no can feel threatening, even when you logically know it isn’t.
What Healthier Boundaries Actually Look Like
When people hear the work boundaries, they often imagine confrontation or pushing people away. In reality, healthier boundaries can be presented quieter, less intense, and more practical.
They are small decisions that can help you stay connected to yourself while still caring about others.
They might sound like:
“I can’t commit to that right now.”
“I need some time to think about it.”
“That doesn’t work for me.”
“I’m feeling stretched thin.”
Healthy boundaries don’t mean that you have to stop being kind or supportive, however they can simply mean that you needs and limits exist in the relationship too.
Pausing before saying yes, allowing someone else to be disappointed, sharing preferences instead of defaulting to others, protecting time and energy, and letting help be mutual can all be helpful in alleviating self-loss and building self-trust.
Final Thoughts
People-pleasing is often talked about as being “too nice”, but many times it’s actually a subtle form of self-loss.
Over time, constantly prioritizing others, their comfort, their expectations, and their approval can slowly disconnect us from our own needs, limits, and identity.
Boundaries create space to notice your own needs again and choose responses that are aligned with your values, rather than driven by fear of upsetting someone else.
At One Percent Counseling, we don’t have high expectations to become radically assertive overnight. We honor sustainable, behavioral changes starting with one percent shifts and supporting individuals with the thought of: “Am I choosing this or am I avoiding something?”
Ready to Take the Next Step?
If this resonates with you, therapy can be a place to begin reconnecting with yourself in a deeper and more intentional way. Whether you are feeling stuck in old patterns, disconnected in your relationships, or unsure of who you are in this season of life, support is available.
Reach out through the contact page to schedule a consultation and take your next step toward healing.
About The Author
Maraya Pena is the founder of One Percent Counseling, LLC. She helps individuals and couples navigate anxiety, relationship challenges, emotional overwhelm, and life transitions with greater clarity, self-awareness, and connection. Her approach is grounded, compassionate, and focused on helping clients create meaningful change one step at a time.
When you don’t feel like yourself anymore: Exploring self-loss in relationships
What is self-loss? Learn the common signs of losing yourself in relationships, stress, or life transitions, and how therapy can help you reconnect with your voice, needs, and identity.
By Maraya Pena, Marriage and Family Therapist, Intern
What Is Self-Loss?
Have you ever had the thought, Who am I now?
That question can feel unsettling, especially when you cannot pinpoint exactly when things changed. For many people, self-loss does not happen all at once. It happens slowly, through patterns of overgiving, people-pleasing, stress, caregiving, and trying to keep everything from falling apart.
Over time, you may begin to feel disconnected from yourself in ways that are difficult to explain but impossible to ignore.
What self-loss means
Self-loss happens when you slowly disconnect from your:
voice
preferences
needs
values
sense of direction
It can feel like you have spent so much time taking care of everyone else, managing expectations, or avoiding tension that you no longer know what you want or need.
Common signs of self-loss
You may be experiencing self-loss if you notice:
“I don’t know what I want anymore”
constant people-pleasing
avoiding conflict at all costs
making decisions to keep others comfortable
feeling resentful but staying silent
anxiety when asserting yourself
feeling smaller than you used to
These patterns are often signs that you have been disconnecting from yourself for a long time.
How self-loss happens
Self-loss often develops through:
repeated conflict cycles
fear of abandonment
childhood dynamics
cultural expectations
high-responsibility roles
long-term relationships where accommodation becomes identity
It is rarely intentional. More often, it is protective.
At some point, staying quiet, staying agreeable, or staying focused on others may have felt safer. But over time, those same patterns can leave you feeling emotionally drained and disconnected from who you are.
The emotional cost of losing yourself
When you lose connection with yourself, you may experience:
increased anxiety
emotional numbness
irritability
disconnection from your partner
low self-worth
feeling stuck
Sometimes people come to therapy believing the issue is only communication. But underneath the communication struggles, there may be something deeper happening: identity erosion.
It is hard to speak up when you no longer feel fully connected to your own inner voice.
Healing from self-loss
Healing begins with awareness.
It starts by noticing the moments when you override yourself, silence your needs, or ignore what you feel. From there, the work becomes learning how to reconnect with your voice, your values, and your sense of self.
That may include:
identifying your needs more clearly
understanding patterns of self-abandonment
setting healthier boundaries
building self-trust
making decisions that reflect your values
learning that your needs matter too
This process takes time, but it is possible.
You are not broken.
You have not failed.
You may simply be carrying patterns that once protected you but no longer support the life or relationships you want.
Final Thoughts
If you have been feeling disconnected from yourself, that matters.
Self-loss can happen quietly, but healing can begin with small, intentional steps. Reconnecting with who you are does not require perfection. It begins with noticing, naming, and allowing yourself to take up space again.
At One Percent Counseling, that kind of healing is honored. One step. One choice. One percent at a time.
Ready to Take the Next Step?
If this resonates with you, therapy can be a place to begin reconnecting with yourself in a deeper and more intentional way. Whether you are feeling stuck in old patterns, disconnected in your relationships, or unsure of who you are in this season of life, support is available.
Reach out through the contact page to schedule a consultation and take your next step toward healing.
About The Author
Maraya Pena is the founder of One Percent Counseling, LLC. She helps individuals and couples navigate anxiety, relationship challenges, emotional overwhelm, and life transitions with greater clarity, self-awareness, and connection. Her approach is grounded, compassionate, and focused on helping clients create meaningful change one step at a time.