Most of us are wired for negativity. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, for it’s the wiring to notice what’s wrong, missing, or askew that has kept our human race alive for thousands of years. As I’ve shared many times, highly sensitive people were the members of the tribe who were acutely aware of the possibility of danger. We were the ones scanning the horizon, using our hyper-vigilance to alert others of the tiger approaching or the wisps of smoke in the distance that could indicate fire.

But when it comes to relationships, the tendency to over-focus on what’s wrong or missing doesn’t usually go very well. It often comes out as being overly critical and missing the positive aspects of your partner’s personality and behavior. This is one of the fastest ways to close the heart: to criticize and micro-manage, especially around issues that don’t really matter.

And yet… how do we determine what matters and what we need to let lie? And what are the historical and social factors that contribute to the co-creation of a cycle between partners where one person is “nagging” and the other is withdrawing? It’s complicated!

In this episode of Gathering Gold, Victoria and I name the historical, cultural, and societal influences behind the word “nag” or “nagging,” which cannot be uncoupled from patriarchy and capitalism, then circle back to this question: when we are with a loving partner who is doing their best and trying to meet us halfway, and we still find ourselves quick to nitpick, criticize, and attempt to control them, how can we regain intentionality and find spaciousness to chart a healthier path forward?

Zip the Lip

We talk about some of the Love Laws and Loving Actions that I offer in Open Your Heart: A 30-day course to grow love and attraction for your partner, including knowing when to “zip the lip” and when to express a true need. Here are a few excerpts from the episode:

“The course is based on a premise that is scientifically proven: we can rewire neural pathways in our brains that are often wired towards negativity. When we rewire them towards positivity, our hearts stay more open. Such a big crux of my work around love and relationships is that love is a feeling, but it’s not only a feeling; it is also a choice and an act of will and a practice. And that when we practice what I call in this course Love Laws and Loving Actions, we notice that our hearts stay more open.

“A heart is never going to stay open all the time. Hearts open and close like everything else in this life, like our breath, like a tulip in spring, like day and night. But when we commit to certain Love Laws and their subsequent Loving Actions, our hearts stay open more of the time (and we feel more love and attraction for our partner).”

Over-Functioner and Under-Functioner

We cannot separate the cycle of criticizing and withdrawing from the long history of gender roles that we all suffer from under the patriarchal model, which then gives rise to a common relationship pattern of over-functioning and under-functioning. As I share in the episode:

“Regardless of gender, there’s somebody who’s going to take on an over-functioning role in certain areas. And when one person over-functions, it’s just the natural response for the other person to under-function. It takes a lot of awareness to not let the over-functioner over-function, because I think somewhere at the core of all of us, we just want someone else to handle stuff!”

Bringing awareness to our tendencies and cycles is the first step to changing them. There are a hundred ways for the heart to close, and when the heart closes we lose love and attraction for our partner. But there are more ways to open the heart. It takes dedicated practice, but when we commit to the mindsets and actions that keep our hearts open, we experience the connection that we all long for in long-term relationships.

A Roadmap to Grow Love and Attraction

This is what I teach in Open Your Heart: it’s not only a roadmap to keeping the channels for love and attraction open, but when you’re with a group of dedicated learners in a 30-day course, it gives you the motivation to put your intentions into action. This is one of the courses I recommend taking multiple times because we’re so wired to look for what’s wrong that we must regularly re-commit to the habits that help us rewire to look for what’s right. And my guess is that there’s a lot that’s right about your loving partner.

The 21st round will start on Saturday, November 15th, 2025. I only run this course live every two years, so if you’d like to join us now is the time. The live round includes two group coaching calls and access to a highly moderated forum. The two calls will take place on the following dates, but if you can’t join you will receive the recording afterwards:

Call 1: Thursday November 20 at 4pm ET
Call 2: Monday December 8 at 3:15pm ET