Ever felt ... "The Ick"? Maybe it's been small, maybe you felt like you've been repelled by your partner for no clear reason (and even sometimes, for very obvious ones)? You love them. You’re committed. But the ick is real. In this raw and eye-opening episode, Lauren Dry breaks down what the “ick” really is—and why it’s not shallow, random, or a sign your marriage is broken. Spoiler: it has everything to do with your Nervous System.
We’re diving deep into:
Why the “ick” often hits women harder in long-term relationships
The biology of safety, and how it drives attraction more than we realize
What resentment and emotional load do to your sense of desire
Why your Nervous System might be confusing “safe” with “boring”
And why so many of us chase chaos or emotionally unavailable partners—even when we know better
Whether you’ve ever felt shut down, disconnected, or even confused about your own intimacy triggers, this episode will help you understand what’s actually going on under the surface—and how to start resetting your connection at the root.
This is the one to send to your partner. Or maybe even listen to with them.
Inside the episode, we explore:
What your body is actually asking before intimacy
The role of unconscious patterns and familiar dysfunction
Why emotional safety is the true foundation of physical desire
How to begin shifting out of resentment, even when life feels overwhelming
Resources Mentioned:
Learn more about RISE Into Regulation™ – the skillset for connection, communication, and Nervous System safety in modern marriage
Follow Lauren on Instagram @the.connection.catalyst
Enjoyed this episode?
Share it with a friend, leave a review, or tag Lauren with your thoughts and breakthroughs. You never know who might need to hear this today.
Did this episode hit home? There's a beautiful Reset Exercise I've prepared to get you out of your head and into your body again, in the next episode in this series - "Overwhelmed? Parts Work may be your Key to Compassion".
If you need any support and to chat further, come and hang out with me in instagram at @the.connection.catalyst
Sharing with you my BIGGEST love
Lauren x
Find Me:
https://www.instagram.com/the.connection.catalyst/
Work With Me:
https://tr.ee/ZZ8e0CUUH3
Free Training:
https://tr.ee/f6HdNyp23Q
Parenting, Repair, Work and just day to life - when you're completely Overwhelmed with Relationship stress - can feel debilitating. Despite our best of intentions, it feels like connection can be impossible and shame spirals from even the smallest of mistakes can take over completely.
Come and walk with me today as we walk through a beautiful, supportive and wonderfully vivid visualisation that will help you get to the root of your protective patterns, and come back into compassion and curiosity again at the root.
Here are the steps:
- Take a break, give yourself grace, and have a moment to get curious about your internal environment
- Write down the language of your Protective Patterns from the example that recently caused you stress. This language may sound like "I can't get anything right" "No-one will help me" "I'm completely alone" or any other negative challenge
- Visualise *clearly* what the part of you that is saying these things looks like (a 'protective' part of you). What is this part of you wearing? How old are they? What is their body language like? Get super clear. The more detail the better.
- Ask this part: How do you feel?
- Ask this part: What do you need?
- Somatically (using your body) meet the need. For example, if the need is CARE, the somatic gesture may be a gentle self hug, or rocking
- Ask this version of yourself to take a break, have a rest, maybe sit down and relax for a period
- Ask this version of yourself if it's okay now to talk to the 'inner child' that the protector part is shielding
- Repeat the exercise while visualising the 'inner child' self
After this whole visualisation is complete, revisit what happened earlier that caused you stress, with new eyes and a more compassionate and clear perspective
If you need any support and to chat further, come and hang out with me in instagram at @the.connection.catalyst
Sharing with you my BIGGEST love
Lauren x
Find Me:
https://www.instagram.com/the.connection.catalyst/
Work With Me:
https://tr.ee/ZZ8e0CUUH3
Free Training:
https://tr.ee/f6HdNyp23Q
In this episode of The Connection Podcast, we’re uncovering one of the most overlooked challenges in modern relationships: Hypervigilance. While it may feel like a survival skill, Hypervigilance often creates disconnection, eroding trust and intimacy in ways that can go unnoticed.
We're going to dive deep into:
- How hypervigilance shows up in relationships and why it’s so common today.
- The hidden ways it keeps us stuck in cycles of defensiveness and emotional burnout.
- The role of the Nervous System in fueling this state of constant alertness.
- Practical steps to calm your Nervous System, rebuild trust, and create safety in your connection.
If you’ve ever felt like you’re constantly on edge or exhausted from trying to "stay ahead" of potential conflict, this episode is for you. Tune in to learn how to reset at the root and create a relationship where both you and your partner can finally exhale.
Ready to break free from survival mode? Let’s get started.
Big love
Lauren X
Find Me:
https://www.instagram.com/the.connection.catalyst/
Work With Me:
https://tr.ee/ZZ8e0CUUH3
Free Training:
https://tr.ee/f6HdNyp23Q
Introducing the Amazing Diana Todd!
In marriage we say for richer and poorer - but what happens when money really does come in the middle?
What is the effect of your own - and your partners own - limiting beliefs around money, abundance, scarcity and the practicalities of where your spending styles meet? And clash.
We're going to dig into the statistics around how heavily this can effect our marriage - and what to do about it!
Diana Todd is the business accountant who cures tax anxiety and ensures her clients feel seen, heard, understood, and in control of their business money. Diana’s award-winning online accounting firm, Balance Tax Accountants, delivers stress-free tax services to the Australian small business community. Diana’s Higher Money coaching programs support purpose-led entrepreneurs in building wealthy, sustainable and profitable businesses.
Lauren Dry is The Connection Catalyst, helping Modern Marriages Reset at the Root by sharing with you the Missing links in between Modern and Traditional Therapies for Connection. Using the #1 Reset Skillset that's found in the RISE Rewiring System - claim back grounded and playful connection in a way that fits in with your busy life and works to support you to get back to enjoying what you've built.
Come and find Diana on Instagram at @itsdianatodd
Lauren is waiting here @the.connection.catalyst
And if you're ready to get stuck into your RISE free training guide, join us here https://riseintoregulation.mykajabi.com/4-keys-video-training-sign-up
Big love,
Lauren X
Today we're going to be covering all things SOMATICS and all of the most common questions we get around what Somatics are, and what they have to do with Marriage?
Big Welcome to our first guest on the Connection Podcast: Becky Aste! Becky Aste is a Trauma-Informed Somatic Marriage coach and the host of “Your Breakthrough Blueprint”, a top 5% globally ranked podcast. She is the CEO and creator of the company“I Do Breakthrough” and wants ambitious wives to be empowered with the knowledge that Whether it’s betrayal, addiction, abandonment, abuse, neglect, grief or something else we’ve survived - our body keeps the score. Becky works with Somatics to get to work to clear those blocks OUT and move trauma out of the body
Becky and I connected deeply over:
We're going to answer together some of the most common questions that we're asked around Somatic therapy, which include:
Instagram
In one of my most Highly requested episodes - We cover all the things you REALLY need to know, when it feels like it's over.
There's a tonne of information out there about what to do with the house, the finances, the car, the schools... but what about the Nervous System?
What about how to trust your own intuition again?
What about if when your heart and mind are tearing you in different directions?
How do you come home to SELF, and have the ability to make grounded (not reactive) and supportive decisions from here on out.
Now. It may seem unusual as primarily a marriage coach to discuss what to do in the event of a separation. But as we say at the start of every episode - the purpose of this work is not simply to keep you glued to another person irrelevant of whether that’s the right decision or not. The purpose of this work is to rewire your old and new patterns for safe and successful connection, even after years of chaos and even of only one person is doing the work.
We're going to Cover here:
1) What the term "Splitting" is in relation to the Nervous System, and how to avoid it
2) The 3 steps here that are going to help you to differentiate between Survival vs Grounded decision making behaviours
3) The 2 Tools that you’re going to use moving forward, so that no matter what happens from here, you can begin again in a new way, that let’s you Reconnect in deeply with yourself FIRST, and Repair those old Ruptures in the Relationship with Self that allowed toxic relationship patterns to flourish and be tolerated either in your own or the other persons patterns at all.
Take a deep breath for this one - If you've ever been on the receiving end or been involved in a form of betrayal in your relationships, this is something you're going to need to tune into.
We're going to cover:
- My own past and personal experience with Betrayal and how (unknowingly) it had altered the course of all my relationships
- How any involvement with betrayal can neurologically alter the wiring of our Nervous System
- How to differentiate between just 'ticking the boxes' when trying to repair, vs full body reconnection with others and (most importantly) your self
- How not to drop into self betrayal when exploring possibilities for repair inside and outside of a relationship where Betrayal has taken place
- How walking through the true steps you need to fully integrate and heal from any Betrayal experience can ultimately set you up for much deeper, more authentic and fulfilling experiences in relationships than had been possible before
Big love
Lauren x
Come and hang out over on Instagram at @the.connection.catalyst
Come along as we figure out how a debate about a Gift Card got us so off track...
Who Do you think was in the Right/ Wrong?
Let's break it down,
In order to communicate clearly, we need to know what our Values at 3 specific levels (found inside the RISE signature container), here's a condensed version:
1) Write down what you Value in any kind of COMMUNICATION (Kindness, Calm Communication, Swearing)
2) Write down what you Value in any kind of LIFESTYLE situation (so for Parenting - do you Value Gentle Parenting? For work do you Value Flexibility?)
3) Write down what you Value deep in your CORE (Authenticity, Connection, etc)
Once you've done this, ask your partner to do it too. Find out where you're the same? And where you have some work to do to find curiosity and kindness and empathy toward Values that may just be slightly different to your own. And then make a plan to accomodate both!
Need some support? (The CORE Values section can be especially tricky without a guide versed in Unconscious Mind patterns, but it's also the most useful!) Come and hang out over at @the.connection.catalyst on instagram where you can book your free call as an individual or together as a couple
Big Love
Lauren x
If you’re like me you’ve experienced being both wronged, hurt or betrayed, …and you’ve been wrong. Often times being wrong can be something as simple as running late, losing your temper or even not taking something as seriously as you needed to. Many times it can be something more. In those cases we often have awareness that we need to initiate repair, be the bigger person, apologise, move on. But. That five letter word that we know can do so much toward Connection - instead just seems to feel like swallowing razor blades.
Let's Cover WHY this happens, and also the Tools you need to Rewire to be able to know when and how to Connect and Repair, Safely.
How do you teach your Nervous System not to freak out and burn down the house (figuratively) when your logical MIND wants to begin seeing small moments of rupture as opportunities for Reconnection, but your BODY sees every transgression or mistake - that’s made by ourselves or others - as a signal to release all the exact same chemicals that a Tiger is chasing you?
1. We start to get familiar with our Patterns. You can being to start doing this by Journaling about the last mistake you may have made where you wished to repair and apologise, but find that you couldn’t. Ask yourself these questions:
2. We start practicing Somatic exercises to find Safety within our body during stressful moments. This means Taming the "Nervous System Tiger".
3. Start Small. Find a moment where perhaps you may have been able to do better: maybe you were running late, perhaps were a little careless with a close connections feelings or circumstances, and choose - instead of brushing it off - to practice a small opportunity for repair. This can sound something like “Hey, Thanks so much for your patience, I really appreciate it. AND Sorry for not being here on time when we needed to be, I know it’s important to you. (Then use a bridging statement like) can I grab you a cuppa, I love you", or whatever feels reparative.
If apologies can often lead to more intensity and tension and an "opening of the floodgates" - ask these question during quiet moments:
We all know how investing out time or finances in different opportunities can set ourselves or our businesses up for success.
How much time are you taking to invest in the health of your relationship, the same as you would in any other business or goal or plan?
We hope you enjoyed this episode!
Come and connect with Lauren more over on Instagram at @the.connection.catalyst
Do you have something you'd like us to cover on Marriage and Relationships for Modern, Driven Couples? Comment HERE or reach out over at instagram
Big Love
Lauren - The Connection Catalyst
Welcome to the real stuff - where we break down why we broke down. I Hope that having these Keys to where we went off track - and the Solutions we discovered, too - support you on your own Journey toward Hope, Empowerment, Laughter and Regulation, so that you can have it all at Home, too! From Us here at the Connection Podcast
Lauren X
You Can Find me on Instagram at www.instagram.com/the.connection.catalyst
FREE Training: Your 4 Keys to Rewiring your Nervous System
https://riseintoregulation.mykajabi.com/4-keys-video-training-sign-up
