Embodied Relational Knowings

Have you ever reacted in a certain way with others that seemingly happens no matter how hard you try to change it?

Appeasing or people-pleasing; distancing or doubting; shrinking or shielding?

These may be embodied relational knowings – patterns of Self-protection that you implicitly learned throughout your development.

Embodied relational knowings are the implicit, deeply felt patterns of what we learned to expect in relationships.

They are formed in the earliest stages of life, before language, before and even before explicit memory as we usually understand it.

As infants, we make sense of the world through sensation and perception.

Through the mother–infant relationship and then through connections with paternal, sibling, and caregiving figures, the young Self begins to learn how closeness is maintained, how needs are met (or not), and what is required to feel safe and stay connected.

This becomes a kind of internalised map – of what is acceptable, what must be hidden, who we need to be, and what it might cost to belong.

These patterns don’t live in words or logic. They are carried in the body as a felt sense that shapes how we relate, how we protect ourselves, and how we respond to others, often without conscious awareness.

In relationship, especially in moments of emotional significance, these embodied knowings can be reawakened.

A pause in conversation, a change in tone, or an unexpected silence may stir old patterns and predictions. The body recalls what once kept us safe.

This isn’t a sign of failure or regression. It’s an opening. When we can notice these patterns with compassion, we create the possibility to relate differently—not through the old habits of protection, but through new experiences of presence, permission, and connection.