Relationship & Wellness — “Your Body Keeps Score… and So Does Your Heart”

By Lisa Maria Haynes | Resilient Roots

Here’s the truth:

Your relationships don’t just affect your emotions—

they reshape your health, your hormones, your sleep, your digestion, and the pace of your healing.

Black women, hear me clearly:

Your nervous system remembers every relationship you’ve survived. Your heart records the unspoken, the unsaid, the unfinished.

Your body is often the narrator of a story your mouth hasn’t told yet.

We think we’ve moved on. We say we’re “good.”

But our body whispers the truth:

• The tightness in your chest
• The knot in your stomach before a conversation
• The exhaustion that arrives without warning
• The headaches after emotional labor
• The bloating or digestive chaos after a stressful day

This isn’t random.

This is relationship residue.

The Heart and Body Talk to Each Other

We don’t often realize this:

When you’re in an unhealthy, inconsistent, or emotionally unavailable relationship, your nervous system is working overtime trying to predict, protect, and perform.

That constant vigilance becomes inflammation. Inflammation becomes imbalance.

Imbalance becomes dis-ease.

Not because you’re weak — but because your body loves you enough to warn you when your spirit is tired.

Love Shouldn’t Make Your Body Sick

Healthy love regulates. It softens you.

It lowers cortisol, expands breath, and steadies the mind.

It helps your digestive system relax and your immune system strengthen. Unhealthy love does the opposite.

The question isn’t just:

“Does he love me?” The real question is:

“Does my body feel safe with him?”

Your wellness is not separate from your relationships—it is shaped by them.

Healing Means Rewriting the Relationship Contract

To heal, you must:

• Listen to what your body has been trying to say
• Release the relationships that keep your nervous system on surveillance
• Stop negotiating with people who won’t grow
• Choose relationships that honor your peace, not just your presence
• Stop shrinking to maintain closeness
• And re-learn partnership from the lens of emotional and relational intelligence

Because your wellness journey is not just about food, supplements, or steps walked.

It is about the people you love…

and the ones you’re still trying to heal from.

You Deserve the Kind of Love That Supports Your Health

The love that helps you sleep at night,

not the kind that keeps you up overthinking. The love that calms your spirit,

not the kind that confuses your soul. The love that says,

“I see you,”

not the kind that makes you fight to be noticed.

Black women, your health and your relationships are intertwined. Protect both.

Your body is speaking. Your heart is whispering. Your soul already knows.

Choose wellness in love. Choose wellness in life.

Choose wellness in who you allow into your sacred space.

Your roots deserve nourishment— and so do you.