Interrupting Your Negative Cycle: Chapter 5 (Part 1) of the Secure Love Book Club
Chapter Five: Interrupting Your Negative Cycle (Part 1)
This week in the book club, we began unpacking Chapter 5 of Secure Love, and because there’s so much to explore, we’ll be spending two full sessions on it. In this first part, we looked closely at what it really means to interrupt a negative cycle in real time—and why that’s such an important step toward building safety in a relationship.
As I shared in the meeting, my goal isn’t to help couples avoid every conflict (that’s not realistic). Instead, it’s to help you become more skilled at recognizing when you’ve dropped into a negative cycle, and how to hit the pause button before things escalate.
The Goal Isn’t Perfection. It’s Interruption.
Most couples won’t eliminate their negative cycle altogether—but they can learn to notice the signs earlier and change the outcome. Whether you’re the one withdrawing, criticizing, shutting down, or trying to fix things too quickly, you’re often responding to a deeper unmet need. The problem is, those needs get buried under reactive behaviors.
In our discussion, I emphasized that interrupting your negative cycle means doing something that feels counterintuitive: slowing down. When you feel the urge to defend, attack, or shut off emotionally, that’s the signal to pause and tune in to what’s really happening in your body, your emotions, and your attachment system.
Use the Reframe to Make Space
We spent a lot of time exploring the “reframe” tool—one of the ways I help couples organize what’s happening in a cycle. Here’s a simple version of it:
When I get the message ____, I feel ____.
That makes me feel ____ inside, and I want to ____.
But when I do, you get the message ____.
Then you feel ____ and do ____.
And then I get the message ____… and we’re off.
Using this format isn’t just about insight—it’s about transforming a fight into a moment of connection. It gives both partners a map to see how each of you is trying to stay safe in ways that can unintentionally trigger the other.
This isn’t about blame—it’s about pattern.
You Can’t Fix What You Can’t See
If you take nothing else from this session, take this: You can’t interrupt a cycle you haven’t identified. That’s why the work in Chapter 5 begins with recognition. By noticing your triggers, naming your body’s response, and understanding how your moves impact your partner (and vice versa), you’re doing the hardest part: becoming conscious.
From there, you can begin choosing vulnerability or healthy assertion instead of old protective strategies. Whether it’s taking a well-communicated break or naming the cycle with compassion, these moves start building the muscle memory of secure functioning.
We’ll dive even deeper next week into strategies to do that.
See you soon,
—Julie
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