Hello and welcome to The Happya Life Podcast. I’m Clare Deacon, trauma-informed coach, positive psychology practitioner, and someone who knows first-hand how utterly disorienting it can be to re-enter the world of relationships when your heart has been broken and your trust has been shattered. Today we’re talking about something tender, complex, and very, very real: love after trauma. Not just romantic love, but the whole messy, beautiful, sometimes terrifying business of letting people back into your world when your nervous system is still holding the memory of what went wrong last time. Maybe you’ve been widowed. Maybe you’ve separated after years of trying to hold something broken together. Maybe someone you trusted betrayed you, blindsided you, or slowly disappeared while you carried the emotional weight of both of you. Whatever shape it took, if your trust has been broken, if your sense of relational safety was lost, this episode is for you.

Because here’s the truth no one tells you: healing from relational trauma is not just about “moving on.” It’s about untangling yourself from the parts of you that adapted to survive it. It’s about learning, slowly and gently, that love doesn’t always have to hurt. And that you, even after everything, are still worthy of connection that feels safe, respectful, and reciprocal. The reality is, trauma rewires your brain. It alters the way your nervous system reads safety, and in relationships, that shows up everywhere. You might find yourself doubting people who are kind to you, while feeling strangely drawn to those who keep you guessing. You might feel anxious when things are calm, or numb when someone expresses real affection. That’s not dysfunction, it’s protection. It’s your brain trying to keep you safe based on past evidence. If love meant loss, betrayal, abandonment or being overlooked, then of course your system is going to brace when something resembling closeness appears again.

You’re not broken, you’re brilliant. And your brain has been working overtime to protect you from pain. But at some point, that protection starts to feel like a prison. You want connection, but you don’t trust it. You crave intimacy, but you flinch when it gets too close. You long to be known, but you hide the most tender parts of yourself because what if they leave? Again. What if they say the right things now, but later it all changes? What if love just means setting yourself up for another heartbreak you’re not sure you’ll survive?

I want to speak to that place. That very quiet, often lonely place where it’s not that you don’t want love, it’s that you’re terrified of what it might cost. And that’s where we begin, not with the answer, but with the question: what does safety in love mean to you now? Not the version of you who survived betrayal or loss, but the version of you who is rebuilding, slowly, messily, but intentionally.

For me, that journey wasn’t clean or linear. After becoming a widow, my heart didn’t just break, it splintered into a thousand versions of who I thought I was supposed to be. The strong one. The composed one. The one who kept going. And in the wake of that, I had to learn not just how to grieve, but how to trust myself again. Because that’s where love after trauma really starts, not with trusting someone else, but with trusting yourself to know, this time, when something feels off. To honour your gut. To not explain away the discomfort. To not abandon yourself to be chosen.

Self-trust is the foundation. And if that feels like a stretch right now, I want you to know, that’s okay. When someone’s broken your trust, it fractures your inner compass. You start to question your judgement. “How did I not see that?” “Why did I stay?” “How can I ever trust myself not to fall into that pattern again?” The shame sneaks in. The self-doubt wraps itself around your voice. And slowly, you shrink. You become careful with your words, your desires, your dreams. You stop asking for what you need because somewhere along the line, needing became dangerous.

But here’s what I want to offer: every time you say, “this doesn’t feel right,” and you listen, you’re rebuilding. Every time you notice a red flag and don’t explain it away, you’re reclaiming. Every time you speak a truth that makes your voice shake, you’re reminding your system that it’s safe to belong to yourself first.

And when love comes again, whether in friendship, romance, or the quiet intimacy of being witnessed by someone who sees you, you get to decide how much of yourself you bring. You’re not obligated to be fully open just because someone offers affection. You’re not required to rush. Love after trauma moves slower, but it moves deeper.

Something I hear a lot is, “I don’t know how to trust again.” And I always ask, what are you trusting them with? Your safety? Your worth? Your identity? Because that’s too much to hand over to anyone. Start by trusting yourself with your truth. “This is what I need.” “This is what I won’t tolerate.” “This is what I’m still healing.” And see how it feels to say those things out loud, even if it’s just to yourself at first.

When we talk about rebuilding trust, we’re not talking about blind faith in others. We’re talking about radical honesty with ourselves. About creating a baseline of emotional safety that doesn’t rely on anyone else’s validation. Because when you know what safety feels like internally, you stop chasing chaos that looks like passion. You stop settling for breadcrumbs because they remind you of a feast you once had. You stop mistaking intensity for intimacy.

And what about vulnerability? That word gets thrown around a lot. But vulnerability after trauma is not about being open with everyone. It’s about being real with the right people. It’s about letting someone hold space for you, not fix you, not save you, just see you. And that kind of connection can feel foreign at first. It might even feel boring if you’re used to drama. But over time, that steadiness? That’s what heals. That’s what allows you to rest, to breathe, to be. And that’s the kind of love you deserve.

So how do you move towards it? With gentleness. With boundaries. With a deep respect for what your body is telling you. If your heart races when someone gets too close, don’t shame yourself, get curious. If you’re tempted to ghost someone who treats you well because it feels too unfamiliar, pause. This isn’t about forcing trust, it’s about creating the conditions where trust can grow. Slowly. Naturally. Without pressure.

And if you’re not ready? That’s okay too. Healing doesn’t follow a timeline. You don’t owe anyone a performance of readiness. You don’t have to be fully healed to be loved, but you do deserve love that doesn’t make your healing harder.

If any of this is resonating, if you’re nodding along thinking, “This is me, this is where I am,” then please don’t stay in that space alone. You can join my newsletter where I share more of these thoughts, tools, and real conversations about navigating this wild terrain of post-traumatic growth. Or if you’re feeling called to do deeper work, the kind that’s gentle but transformative, you can book a no-pressure chat with me at https://happyacoach.com/chat 

You deserve love that doesn’t confuse you. That doesn’t demand you contort. That meets you where you are, with honesty, tenderness, and room to breathe.

And most of all, you deserve a relationship with yourself that feels solid, rooted, and kind.

Until next time, take good care of you.

Clare x