Why You’re Stuck in the Same Fight on Repeat (and How to Break the Loop) Ep. 116

Are you having the same fight over and over in your non-monogamous relationship—and wondering why nothing ever changes?

You’re not broken. You’re in a pattern. And until you understand what’s underneath that pattern, it’ll keep showing up again and again.

In this episode, we’re diving into trauma loops—how they form, why they’re especially common in non-monogamous relationships, and how to start breaking the cycle for good.

💥 Whether you're navigating jealousy, communication breakdowns, or emotional overwhelm, this episode will help you:

• Spot the signs of a trauma loop
• Understand how your subconscious is running the show
• Use clarity as your North Star to shift patterns
• Explore tools that regulate, reconnect, and reset your emotional responses
• Learn why support accelerates healing—and how to find the right kind

https://elleciapaine.com/call

Transcript

0:00

Why do we keep having the same fight over and over? If you've just asked yourself that, if you've ever asked yourself that question or felt like you're trapped in this never ending loop of the same argument, then this episode is for you. Hey friends, welcome back to Nope, We're not monogamous. If you're feeling stuck or confused or just over it, take a breath with me. You're not broken. You're in a pattern. And those patterns, they're sneaky. Especially in non-monogamous relationships where your past wounds can show up dressed as everyday conflict. Right. So today we're pulling back the curtain on trauma loops, what they are, how they work, and most importantly, how you can break free from them. Because clarity isn't just helpful, it's your way out. So let's break this down together. A trauma loop is what happens when your old pain hijacks the present moment, right? It's your nervous system reacting not just to what's happening now, but to what happened back then. So these reactions can feel completely overwhelming and they're confusing, right? Because a lot of times they don't seem to match up with the situation that's happening, like on the surface. Like you're like, I, I don't know how many times I've heard. I don't know why I keep reacting that way. And in non-monogamous relationships, trauma loops tend to have like this very specific texture. Maybe it's an unexpected wave of jealousy when your partner gets a text from someone else or a sudden drop in your stomach when they leave for a date. Like your body thinks it's gonna be left behind forever. Or maybe it's like intense emotional shutdown when you hear about an intimate moment they had with someone else. And so like your logical brain might know that nothing is wrong. Like we agreed on all this. It's all good, but your body is sounding alarm bells, and that's the trauma loop. It's overriding your logic. It pulls you into fight, flight, freeze, or fawn before you even realize that it's happening. So I wanna tell you about one of my clients, Emily. Um, every time her partner made plans with someone new, she started spiraling, right? Her chest got tight. Her thought her thoughts were racing. She was convinced that it meant she wasn't enough. She started picking fights and pulling away and then blaming herself afterward. And on the outside it looked like just jealousy. It's just jealousy, right? But underneath. She was caught in this trauma loop that echoed early abandonment wounds from her childhood, and when we named it, when she realized that this wasn't the sign that her relationship was broken, but that something old was literally asking to be healed, then everything started to shift. And honestly, genuinely trauma loops don't mean that you're broken. They mean you've been hurt. And that the moment you become aware of the loop is the moment you start to reclaim your power and start making changes. Because awareness and clarity is the first step to liberating yourself from this. You can't choose a different path until you can see the one that you're on, and then you can start rewriting your story, right. So if this resonates for you, I wanna offer you a moment of like gentle reflection. Find a quiet space, place a hand on your heart and ask yourself, when have I reacted strongly in my relationship? And then later wondered, where did that even come from? Right? What was the trigger? What emotions rose up really quickly in me? And can you trace them back to an earlier pain or fear or unmet need anytime in your life, and this isn't about judging yourself, okay? This is about noticing what's happening, getting curious and creating space between your reaction, your emotional reaction, and your truth. Because every loop that you can name is, is a loop that you can start to untangle. And awareness of it like really softens the grip of the subconscious. It gives you power to like pause and reflect and choose differently, different reactions, and you don't have to fix everything at once. But naming your patterns is how you start healing, and you don't have to do it alone. So let's pause and really sit with what this ongoing confusion and spiraling is actually costing you. Because it's not small, right? It drains your energy. It chips away at your joy. It keeps you on edge, and second guessing, your every move, every argument that circles back to the same place. You just keep having that same argument over and over, and it's leaving a mark and not just on your relationship, but your sense of self. You start wondering, am I too much? Am I too emotional? Am I too insecure? Am I too jealous? Am I not enough? Is something wrong with me for feeling this way? Am I just not cut out for this? Am I wired differently? Right? This loop that we, that you go into starts to erode your trust in yourself, your trust in your partner. It feels isolating. You feel unseen. It like. It has a grip on your throat, like you're silenced by fear that if you name what's really going on, it might push them away. But what I want you to know, the really important thing here is that you're not the problem. Okay? We all have patterns. It's the pattern, and you have the power to interrupt that pattern. So take a deep breath and ask yourself, what is this cycle costing me emotionally? What am I sacrificing in order to stay in this loop? In order to stay in this pattern and let what whatever comes up, just let it be what it is. You don't have to make sense of it right now. You don't have to justify it. You just notice it. Okay? Because sometimes even just like putting words, just naming the weight that you've been carrying starts to lighten that load. Alright? So how do you break the loop? I have one word for you. Clarity. And clarity isn't just like this cognitive realization, right? It's a deeper kind of knowing. It's when you stop being ruled by your subconscious and you start leading your life with intention. Those inner stories. The reflexive reactions. A lot of times they're just echoes from the past. They're not conscious choices in your present. Our brains are really cute and they do really dumb things, and that's why clarity matters so much because this kind of gives you a north star to follow. It's something to guide you. And when you're in these moments of like emotional turbulence, right? Jealousy has a grip on you or fears clouding your thoughts, clarity is what keeps you anchored. It's. The, the quiet truth beneath the noise, it reminds you who you are, what you value, what kind of love you're here to create. And without it, your subconscious, your primal brain's just running the show, pulling you into these loops of defensiveness, projection, disconnection, uh, but with clarity. You get to reclaim your power, your authorship. You stop operating on autopilot. You stop operating on autopilot and start living in alignment. One client told me once I realized my North Star was truth over having control. I was able to pause and breathe and respond to my partner from a place of self-respect instead of out of panic and fear. That's huge, guys. That's the gift of clarity. It doesn't make you suppress your emotions, it guides them. You don't have to be perfect. You just need like the right direction to go in. Clarity helps you have language for your needs. It creates space for compassion. It transforms your reactions into intentional responses and confusion into calm, and more importantly, it reconnects you with yourself, with the part of you that's always known the way you have that, I promise. So can you find clarity on your own? Yeah, sure. Eventually, but honestly, that solo path is slow and it's overwhelming and it's full of blind spots. And you might spend hours like spiraling in your head, reading advice threads, journaling until your hand cramps. You're trying to logic your way out of emotional quicksand, and yet that pattern keeps repeating. Right. You keep having the same fights and to make it even harder, most of your friends are probably monogamous. And even though they might mean well, their advice comes through that lens. So when you share your struggles, you share your challenges. They say things like, oh, maybe you're just not wired for this, or, I could never share my partner, either I don't blame you. And suddenly you feel like you're even more broken, even more alone, and like you're making really weird choices with your life. But you're not broken. You're just unsupported because support isn't about having someone give you a generic answer, right? It's about having someone who like gets it, someone who understands the complexity of non-monogamy and can hold your experience without judgment or oversimplifying it. Support is someone who helps you connect the dots between your reactions and your history, your programming, your conditioning, someone who sees the subconscious patterns that you're swimming in, and then helps you name them and navigate them and shift them. I've watched people transform in days, not because they suddenly like fixed themselves, right, because we don't need to be fixed, but because they were finally being held in a space where their whole truth was welcome, like their whole authenticity, like what was really true at their core and that safety, that understanding. It accelerates healing way faster than any self-help book ever could. Right? Take Mm. Some clients of mine, Sarah and Tom, those aren't their real names, don't worry. Uh, they spent years in the same jealousy spiral, right? They were always walking on eggshells. They were blaming themselves or each other. It's constant. Right, and their friends kept saying, maybe you're just not cut out for polyamory. Maybe this isn't for you. But in just one week of like really focused coaching, they uncovered the real wound, the thing that was really causing all of this. And it was this deep, deep fear of being replaceable and unseen. And they learned how to respond to those fears with compassion and clarity, and that's what aligned support does, right? It cuts through the noise, it collapses the timeline. It gives you tools that actually work. For your relationship, not everyone else's, for your relationship structure, your values, your healing path, and more importantly, and more importantly, it reminds you that you aren't alone. You don't have to do this alone. You aren't some weirdo standing out in a field all by yourself, like you don't have to do it alone. Okay? And you don't have to be the only support person for your partner in all areas of your life. That's just as hard if you're realizing right now that it's time for support, but you're not sure what kind, uh, you don't have to figure that out alone either. So I offer, uh, 30 minute clarity chats for exactly this reason. It's a chance for us to connect. And get clear on what's coming up for you and explore whether working together is a right fit. So, yes, this is a sales call, but it's not pressy, no pressure whatsoever. This is a conversation that's rooted in honesty and respect and your autonomy, your, your ability to make your own choices. Okay? So if, if my coaching is aligned with what you need. Amazing. Dope. I love that. We'll talk about what's next. And if it's not, you'll still walk away with more clarity and and more direction than you came into the call with. So if you've been sitting with a quiet, like maybe. Consider this your little gentle nudge. Okay? The links in the show notes, I'd love to connect with you. Uh, you go to my website, Ellecia payne.com/chat. Okay? So let's bring it back to now, because you're not powerless here. These patterns might feel really overwhelming, but there's tools you have, tools you can use. Okay? Simple grounding, effective tools that can start shifting things today, maybe tomorrow. But like not someday in the future, not after everything's figured out and calmed down, but right now in the middle of the mess, in the middle of the whole world's mess, right? So a couple of practical, powerful starting points, mindfulness practices to calm your nervous system when the emotions flood in. And these don't have to be long or fancy, just taking a few conscious breaths, a grounding touch, a gentle reminder that you're safe in this moment. Uh, compassionate communication scripts that can help you speak your truth without blame. So the kinda language that lets you say what you need clearly without burning bridges or betraying yourself. I've got a free download for that. You can find it on my website. Um, you can use reflection prompts like the ones that you've explored in this episode. Um, being able to reflect helps you uncover what's living underneath the surface of your emotions and your reactions. Those like subconscious stories that are, are creating those reactions and you can find some supportive spaces like coaching with me or someone else, therapy community mentorship, somewhere where your experience isn't too much or too complicated or too outside of the norm, somewhere that you're not just seen, but understood. Find some community. That is, that are some non-monogamous community or support that way. Um, because, you know, here's the thing. These tools aren't just techniques. They're not a thing that you put in your back pocket and save up for a rainy day. Uh, these are are things to do daily. They're reconnections, they're ways to come back to yourself, your body, your needs to stay connected to your clarity, to your north star, to your values. So here's what I want you to try. Choose a moment this week. Where you would normally just react on autopilot and just slow down. And when that tension rises in your chest, when that old feeling shows up again, pause, take three breaths and ask yourself. What am I actually feeling right now? Not what am I thinking, not what is the story I'm creating, but what am I actually feeling? What do I need in this moment to feel just a little bit more grounded? It sounds too easy, but it's not. Okay. This is powerful and it's effective, and you don't need to have a perfect answer. You don't need to like get it right. There is no getting it right. You can't fuck this up. You just like need to ask yourself better questions. That's how you start to loosen that loop. That's how you start to create new pathways in your brain and in your nervous system. I, and remember, you don't have to do this alone. The right support doesn't just make your healing possible. It makes it sustainable, expansive, powerful, and you're allowed to outgrow your patterns. You're allowed to grow and become different and. Behave and react in new ways, to have new thoughts, to have new ideas, and not be stuck in that same loop. You're worthy of everything that's waiting for you on the other side. Hmm. So here's what I want you to remember as we close up this episode. You're not broken. You're not too much. You're not failing at this. You're human. You've lived through things. You've learned to protect yourself in ways that made sense at the time, and now those patterns are just trying to protect you again. They're trying to be seen and understood and are ready to be gently rewritten. You deserve peace, and not just moments of it, but a relationship with yourself and with your partners that feels steady and nourishing and true. You deserve clarity that cuts through the noise and reconnects you to your values. Your North star, your guiding light, and you deserve support that actually fits the kind of love that you're building, the kind of relationships that you're building. If this episode stirred something in you, if you're ready to stop looping, if you're ready to stop looping and start living more fully, I'd love to invite you to take one small but powerful step. Okay? Book a 30 minute clarity chat with me. We will talk honestly about what's been feeling stuck, what you're craving, and whether working together would be a good fit. No pressure, no hard sale, just a spacious, supportive conversation. It just a spacious, supportive conversation that'll help you get clear on your next right step. You'll find the link to book in the show notes, uh, or go to my website, Elleciapaine.com/chat Should get you there. I'd be honored to connect with you. And until next time, take care of your heart. Take care of your partners, take care of. Your whole world, like really be gentle with yourself. Okay? You're not broken. You're good, I promise. Bye.