Brett describes the maddening experience of being in a fight where his partner is showing up vulnerably with anger and he’s saying “I’m here, I’m loving you” — while his muscles are tense, he’s not feeling anything, and he’s basically a “vacuous amorphous non-entity.” Joe confirms: this is the weaponization of loving presence.
The distinction is simple: are you in your body or not? Love is a very embodied thing. It’s that feeling of looking across a table at your partner and feeling “oh, I just love you.” That same feeling is what real loving presence feels like during a fight — even when they’re raging. It’s pleasurable, embodied, and you can’t force it.
“To love somebody is a very embodied thing. It’s literally to feel.”
You can’t manufacture this state. What you can do is create the conditions: go into your trauma, respect each other, learn how to fight, and trust builds. Eventually you realize “this is trauma, not us — it’s just weeding a garden.” Brett’s breakthrough came when he finally met his partner’s anger with his own embodied anger — not to manipulate, but as genuine expression. She felt met for the first time.
Related Concepts
- Being held requires dropping the performance
- Dissociation removes your signals
- Every fight can bring you closer together
- Fights can become healing opportunities within relationships
- You must know you can leave to truly love