Why do we get defensive in conversations with the people we care about?

Sometimes defensiveness looks like arguing or pushing back. But it can also show up in quieter ways: freezing when someone makes a request, explaining ourselves over and over, or trying to control the situation so we don’t feel uncomfortable.

In this episode, I explore two common relational moments: one where someone freezes when a request is made, and another where a couple gets caught in defensiveness and subtle power struggles around autonomy and values.

Defensiveness isn’t something “bad” about us. It’s a form of self-protection. Our nervous system is trying to protect something important—our dignity, our autonomy, our belonging.

The question isn’t how to eliminate defensiveness.

The question is how we can learn to work with it in ways that create more understanding and connection.

Listen to Learn

• Why defensiveness often shows up as freezing, explaining, or controlling rather than arguing

• How to respond skillfully when requests trigger a defensive reaction

• A simple shift that helps conversations move from power struggles to understanding

For ongoing practice and deeper learning, I warmly invite you to become a member of The School of Human Connection.

Twice a month, I host live calls where members bring real relationship dilemmas. We slow things down and I'll help you see what's actually happening and how to respond with more integrity, strength and care.

You will find a safe space for live discussions and a supportive community of like-minded, open-hearted humans.

Stay updated on new episodes and resources by subscribing wherever you listen to podcasts or visiting yvetteerasmus.com.

Here are more ways to connect with me:

• Join the School of Human Connection
• Hop on my free Wednesday live call
• Follow me on YouTube

Sometimes the most compassionate thing we can do after a breakup is not to force a friendship too quickly.

Because friendship requires emotional neutrality… and if our nervous system still recognizes the other person as home, we have a mismatch.

In this episode of Conversations from the Heart, a listener named Dave asks a thoughtful question: Is it possible to stay friends with an ex—and if so, what makes it work?

Dave and his former partner went through a conscious uncoupling process and are now attempting to rebuild their relationship as friends. But as they reconnect, they find themselves slipping back into familiar patterns that once strained their romantic partnership.

Dave wonders whether there might be blind spots in how he’s showing up—and whether understanding those blind spots could help them move forward with more ease. Ultimately, we arrive at a hard truth: You cannot create a low-intensity friendship with someone whose nervous system still experiences you as an attachment figure.

In this episode we explore:

•Can exes really stay friends after a breakup?

•Why emotional timelines rarely match after relationships end

•How attachment wounds can keep relational patterns alive

•The difference between observing a situation and participating in it

•Why intention and impact can feel so different in communication

•The challenge of staying authentic without over-managing another person’s emotions

•Boundaries, grief, and emotional “dosage” after a breakup

For ongoing practice and deeper learning, I warmly invite you to become a member of The School of Human Connection.

Twice a month, I host live calls where members bring real relationship dilemmas. We slow things down and I'll help you see what's actually happening and how to respond with more integrity, strength and care.

You will find a safe space for live discussions and a supportive community of like-minded, open-hearted humans.

Stay updated on new episodes and resources by subscribing wherever you listen to podcasts or visiting yvetteerasmus.com.

Here are more ways to connect with me:

• Join the School of Human Connection
• Hop on my free Wednesday live call
• Follow me on YouTube

Listen as I sit down with Michaela and Carol for a spacious, grounded conversation about what matters most when certainty falls away.

Rather than rushing toward answers, our dialogue unfolds slowly. You’ll hear me modeling deep listening, encouraging more relational maturity, and drawing on our courage to stay present with complexity. Together, we explore how our values are often clarified not through rules or scripts, but instead through our attention, integrity, and lived experience.

This episode isn’t about fixing anything. It’s about listening for what matters, for what wants to emerge, and for what becomes possible when we stay human together.

Read more on the blog.

For ongoing practice and deeper learning, I warmly invite you to become a member of The School of Human Connection.

Twice a month, I host live calls where members bring real relationship dilemmas. We slow things down and I'll help you see what's actually happening and how to respond with more integrity, strength and care.

You will find a safe space for live discussions and a supportive community of like-minded, open-hearted humans.

Stay updated on new episodes and resources by subscribing wherever you listen to podcasts or visiting yvetteerasmus.com.

Here are more ways to connect with me:

• Join the School of Human Connection
• Hop on my free Wednesday live call
• Follow me on YouTube

This week's episode is a conversation about grief as an ongoing, relational experience rather than something to “get over.” In this episode, we explore ambiguous loss, nervous system capacity, and what actually helps when grief doesn’t resolve neatly.

Together, we reflect on:

•Why some forms of grief don’t have clear endings—and why that’s not a failure

•How grief lives in the nervous system and shapes our capacity for connection

•The difference between presence and fixing when someone is grieving

•What it means to stay human, relational, and honest in the presence of loss

This episode invites a slower, more compassionate way of being with grief, one that honors presence over solutions, and meaning over closure.

Read more about grief and ambiguous loss: Grief That Doesn't Resolve

For ongoing practice and deeper learning, I warmly invite you to become a member of The School of Human Connection.

Twice a month, I host live calls where members bring real relationship dilemmas. We slow things down and I'll help you see what's actually happening and how to respond with more integrity, strength and care.

You will find a safe space for live discussions and a supportive community of like-minded, open-hearted humans.

Stay updated on new episodes and resources by subscribing wherever you listen to podcasts or visiting yvetteerasmus.com.

Here are more ways to connect with me:

• Join the School of Human Connection
• Hop on my free Wednesday live call
• Follow me on YouTube

Relational leadership isn’t people-pleasing and it isn’t weakness.

In this episode, we explore how to lead with empathy and clarity in high-stakes professional settings. Through two real leadership scenarios involving negotiation and supervision, we unpack how to stay relational without over-giving, avoid power struggles, and focus conversations on impact, responsibility, and shared outcomes.

This is a grounded, practical look at empathy as a leadership skill, not a personality trait.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why empathic leadership is not codependence, people-pleasing, or self-betrayal
• How to negotiate boundaries, fees, and expectations without defensiveness or guilt
• What to do when a supervisory relationship is strained and performance still matters
• How shifting from personality to observable behaviors restores authority and reduces conflict

For ongoing practice and deeper learning, I warmly invite you to become a member of The School of Human Connection.

Twice a month, I host live calls where members bring real relationship dilemmas. We slow things down and I'll help you see what's actually happening and how to respond with more integrity, strength and care.

You will find a safe space for live discussions and a supportive community of like-minded, open-hearted humans.

Stay updated on new episodes and resources by subscribing wherever you listen to podcasts or visiting yvetteerasmus.com.

Here are more ways to connect with me:

• Join the School of Human Connection
• Hop on my free Wednesday live call
• Follow me on YouTube

What do you do when caring for someone in crisis starts to cost you your health, your sleep, and your sense of self?

Today we explore one of the most painful and complex relational dilemmas: how to stay loving and connected with a family member who is suffering, without becoming the container for their pain or sacrificing our own wellbeing.

A listener brings a raw and deeply human question about boundaries with a grieving, traumatized family member who refuses professional help. Together, we unpack the difference between compassion and enabling, support and self-erasure, love and responsibility.

This conversation offers permission where many of us feel trapped by guilt, and clarity where fear and helplessness blur our choices.

You’ll hear how boundaries can be an act of care, how stepping back can be an invitation rather than an abandonment, and why holding someone’s potential may sometimes be more loving than holding their pain.

Key Topics We Explore:

•When emotional support turns into burnout

•Why you can’t heal someone who won’t co-create their healing

•How to step back without walking away

•Boundaries as an act of care, not rejection

•Releasing responsibility while staying connected

Interested in reading more? Find a Companion Guide on the blog.

For ongoing practice and deeper learning, I warmly invite you to become a member of The School of Human Connection.

Twice a month, I host live calls where members bring real relationship dilemmas. We slow things down and I'll help you see what's actually happening and how to respond with more integrity, strength and care.

You will find a safe space for live discussions and a supportive community of like-minded, open-hearted humans.

Stay updated on new episodes and resources by subscribing wherever you listen to podcasts or visiting yvetteerasmus.com.

Here are more ways to connect with me:

• Join the School of Human Connection
• Hop on my free Wednesday live call
• Follow me on YouTube

Does your body tighter when someone criticizes you? Do you start apologizing or over-explaining before you’ve even thought it through?

In this insightful episode, Jaya brings two powerful stories that reveal how early experiences of contempt and correction still live in her nervous system today.

Together, we unpack what happens inside when criticism feels dangerous, and how to work with the shame, fear, and self-blame that so often follow.

We explore the difference between criticism and contempt, how to separate observation from interpretation, and how to develop “pushback energy” instead of collapsing into appeasement.

If you’ve ever left a conversation replaying every word, wondering what you did wrong, this one will bring a breath of compassion and clarity.

Read more on the blog.

For ongoing practice and deeper learning, I warmly invite you to become a member of The School of Human Connection.

Twice a month, I host live calls where members bring real relationship dilemmas. We slow things down and I'll help you see what's actually happening and how to respond with more integrity, strength and care.

You will find a safe space for live discussions and a supportive community of like-minded, open-hearted humans.

Stay updated on new episodes and resources by subscribing wherever you listen to podcasts or visiting yvetteerasmus.com.

Here are more ways to connect with me:

• Join the School of Human Connection
• Hop on my free Wednesday live call
• Follow me on YouTube

What’s the line between loving someone and losing yourself in the process?

This week, we explore the subtle differences between caretaking and compassion.

Khanyilanga wrestles with how to set loving boundaries with a friend struggling with addiction, while Kate faces the fear of hurting others when she speaks her truth.

Together, their stories reveal how easily our empathy can become entanglement, and how to reclaim grounded compassion rooted in honesty, respect, and self-trust.

Listen to learn:

•How to set boundaries without guilt or blame

•Why empathy doesn’t mean self-abandonment

•How to stay calm when others take your limits personally

•How to rebuild safety in your nervous system after relational trauma

If you’ve ever wondered where kindness ends and enabling begins, this episode will bring you home to a more balanced, liberated love.

Read more on the blog.

For ongoing practice and deeper learning, I warmly invite you to become a member of The School of Human Connection.

Twice a month, I host live calls where members bring real relationship dilemmas. We slow things down and I'll help you see what's actually happening and how to respond with more integrity, strength and care.

You will find a safe space for live discussions and a supportive community of like-minded, open-hearted humans.

Stay updated on new episodes and resources by subscribing wherever you listen to podcasts or visiting yvetteerasmus.com.

Here are more ways to connect with me:

• Join the School of Human Connection
• Hop on my free Wednesday live call
• Follow me on YouTube