How to Offer Care Without Disconnecting

Two people sit face-to-face in a dim, teal-lit space. Their hands gently touch between them, anchoring a moment of quiet connection. The image evokes intimacy, attunement, and the courage to reach toward another—even in shadow.

Care has been one of the deepest studies of my life.

Not in an academic sense, but in a relational, embodied one. I’ve been tracking its presence and absence, since 2018, when a therapist gently reflected, “You need care.” That sentence landed in my body like truth. Not as a diagnosis, not as a wound to be fixed, but as a human need that had long gone unmet. From that moment on, something in me began watching more closely: what care feels like, where it’s offered, when it’s withheld, and how it moves, or doesn’t, through the spaces we call relationship.

Recently, I’ve been reflecting on the connections I’ve stepped away from. There were gestures of care, yes—but rarely steady, rarely mutual, and too often only offered on someone else’s terms. And the more I’ve listened to my body, the more clearly I can feel the difference between care that nourishes and care that performs.

That’s the thing: care felt is very different from care spoken.

Over the past year, this theme has touched every corner of my life: through friendships, professional dynamics, moments with strangers, and within myself. I guess you could say life has been offering me a curriculum on care. The lack of it has been painful, yes, and also clarifying. It's shown me what I want to embody in my relationships, what I will no longer ignore, and how much attunement truly matters.

We live in a culture quick to discard, quick to center self-preservation above all else. Western psychology often reinforces this: Set the boundary. Know your capacity. Don’t people-please. Take care of yourself first. And while I believe in the importance of boundaries and regulation, I don’t think that’s the full story.

What’s often missing is care.

We act as though tending to ourselves and tending to others are mutually exclusive. As if care is a finite resource, and offering it to another somehow depletes us. But what if the real work is in building the capacity to hold both? To honor our own needs and stay present with someone else’s?

So often, what we call “capacity” is actually avoidance.

We turn away from hard conversations not because we can’t engage, but because we don’t want to sit with what they might reveal about us. We avoid being seen in our messiness because it threatens the version of ourselves we’ve worked so hard to curate. And yet, we convince ourselves we’re being boundaried, regulated, wise.

Lately, I’ve been noticing how much therapy-speak has crept into our relationships, and how often it’s used to shut things down rather than open them up. Words like triggered, dysregulated, capacity, safety, nervous system, boundary—these aren’t inherently harmful. They’re tools. But when we wield them without nuance, they can become weapons. We use them to deflect accountability, to avoid discomfort, to spiritualize disengagement.

We mistake avoidance for discernment.
We call disconnection a boundary.
We justify our inability, or unwillingness, to sit in the discomfort of relational repair by invoking our nervous system as the final word.

And I get it. These concepts can be life-saving. Understanding our physiology is critical, especially for those of us with trauma histories. But we have to ask:
Is this language deepening our relationships, or is it making us less willing to be human with each other?

There’s a difference between a boundary and a wall.
A boundary says, “This is what I need in order to stay connected.”
A wall says, “This is too uncomfortable—I’m done.”

Boundaries are relational. They create the conditions for trust and safety to grow. They say, “I want to stay in this with you, and here’s what I need to feel okay doing that.” Walls, on the other hand, cut off the possibility of deeper connection. They often arise when we’re afraid of being seen, afraid of conflict, or afraid of our own impact. And when we cloak those fears in therapeutic language, it becomes almost impossible to discern what’s actually happening.

We say, “I don’t have the capacity.”
But sometimes, what we really mean is: “This is hard. I’m scared. I don’t know what to say.”

This isn’t about abandoning our own needs or bypassing our nervous systems. We absolutely need to know our limits. But it’s also true that real intimacy asks us to stretch.
Not to overextend, but to grow. Not to collapse our boundaries, but to build the capacity to stay in relationship while tending to ourselves.

And this can be especially complex for those of us with developmental trauma.
When you’ve lived through long-term disconnection. When your needs weren’t met over and over again in subtle, eroding ways, your nervous system learns to survive without closeness. Often, there’s no clear moment of rupture. Just the slow, repeated absence of attunement, care, repair.

So it makes sense that when trauma survivors begin to heal, the first expression of agency often looks like hard, inflexible boundaries. I’ve done this too. In my own healing, I’ve swung to the other extreme. Cutting people off quickly, creating rigid rules around what I would and wouldn’t tolerate. And while that was an important stage, I can now see that it was still a form of disconnection. A wall, not a boundary.

This is the heartbreak of developmental trauma: we long for connection, but connection is what feels most dangerous. We protect ourselves so fiercely that we sometimes shut out the very thing we’re aching for.

Healing asks us to move toward the relational edge.
To practice boundaries not as barricades, but as bridges.
To let them breathe, move, adapt—like a woven piece of hemp. Something with form and integrity, but also flexibility. Something that lets connection in while still honoring where we end and another begins.

This is the deeper work of repair.
Not just knowing how to say no, but learning how to stay in, without abandoning ourselves or each other.

Care is not just what we say.

It’s how we show up. How our presence is received in the body of another. You can say all the right words, offer thoughtful gestures, even show up in visible ways, and still, something can feel off. Because care isn’t a checklist. It’s a frequency. It’s the energy behind the action. And the body knows the difference.

Care that’s real feels like steadiness. Like presence. Like someone is with you, not just near you. It’s attuned. Grounded. Quietly devoted. It doesn’t perform. It doesn’t demand recognition. It simply tends.

We often think we’re offering care, but if the other person isn’t feeling it, something’s missing. This is where humility matters most. We can’t assume that what feels like care to us will always land as care for someone else. Especially in our more intimate relationships, we need to be willing to ask:

• Is there a way I can show up for you that would feel more supportive right now?

• What helps you feel cared for when you're having a hard time?

These conversations require vulnerability. They can be awkward, especially if we're not used to asking or being asked. But this is what builds real connection, checking in to see how it’s landing.

Empathy is at the core of felt care.
And empathy is different from sympathy.

Sympathy says, “I’m sorry that’s happening to you.”
Empathy says, “I’m here with you in it.”

Sympathy often creates distance. It centers the speaker’s comfort. It can subtly reinforce separation. I’m over here, and you’re over there, and I feel bad about what you're going through. But empathy bridges that gap. It says, “You’re not alone in this.”

We’ve all likely been in situations where someone insisted they cared. Told us how important we were to them, yet when we were hurting, their actions didn’t match their words. Maybe they disappeared. Maybe they turned it back on us. Maybe they said, “I’m sorry you feel that way,” which can land like erasure instead of care.

Real care doesn’t just sound good, it lands in the body.
It resonates in the nervous system. It feels like attunement, like someone adjusting themselves to meet you where you are, not where they think you should be.

That doesn’t mean we’re always able to show up perfectly. Capacity is real. We can’t be everything to everyone all the time. But we can be honest. We can be curious. We can offer care that’s shaped by the needs of the relationship, not just by what makes us feel like a good person.

Because care is not about being seen as good.
It’s about being in relationship.
And relationships, real ones, are built on presence, not performance.

Care isn’t just a feeling. It’s something we enact.
It moves through small gestures, timing, tone, presence.
Sometimes it’s visible: a check-in, a warm meal, a ride to the doctor.
Other times it’s quieter: staying close through a long silence, remembering a hard date, not rushing someone’s grief.

Care isn’t always convenient.
It often asks something of us.
But it’s not about obligation. It’s about orientation.
About choosing to stay with, not turn away from. About tending to what lives between us.

Here are some ways care often shows up—not as a formula, but as a felt invitation:

• Following through.
  When you say you’ll reach out, show up, check in—do. Care is built in small consistencies. It doesn’t always have to be big, but it does have to be real.

• Listening without defense.
  When someone shares their pain or disappointment of how it feels to be in relationship with you, stay with them. Pause your reflex to explain. Let their experience breathe before you speak.

• Initiating repair.
  If you sense distance or rupture, don’t wait for the other person to bring it up. A gentle, “Are we okay?” can mean everything. Care is willing to be the first one to reach out.

• Asking what care looks like to them.
  We all receive care differently. Some people need words. Others need space. Others need help with logistics or body-based presence. Ask. Learn. Adjust.

• Being with discomfort.
  Care doesn’t always fix. It doesn’t always offer solutions. Sometimes it just sits beside the wound and says, “I’m not going anywhere.” You don’t need to have the right words. Sometimes your presence—unrushed, undemanding, steady—is the most profound offering.

• Tending to the unspoken.
  Not all care is verbal. Sitting with someone in silence. Lying beside them without needing to make it better. Making a cup of tea. Lighting a candle. These quiet gestures say, “You matter. I’m here.”

• Checking for comfort without being asked.
  Small moments of attunement —Are you warm enough? Do you want the window open? Would it help to lie down?—can make all the difference, especially for those who’ve been conditioned to override their own needs. Care doesn’t wait for someone to advocate perfectly. It creates space for ease.

• Making space for difference.
  Real care doesn’t require sameness. It honors another’s pace, their way of grieving, their expression of joy. It doesn’t flatten. It expands.

Care is about staying in the practice, of noticing, adjusting, softening, and staying present to what’s unfolding between us. It’s about letting our love translate into gestures the other person can actually feel.

I want to be clear that I don’t have this all figured out.

I’m not writing this from a place of mastery. I’m writing it from the middle of my own living inquiry. Care has been one of the most ongoing, humbling threads of my life. And I still miss the mark. I still default to self-protection. I still sometimes offer what I think is care, rather than slowing down to ask what would actually feel supportive to the person in front of me.

I’ve been the one who didn’t receive the care I needed.
And I’ve also been the one who didn’t know how to show up for someone else.

This is human. And it’s why repair is such a vital part of care. We will get it wrong. We will hurt each other. What matters is how we return.

While much of this piece has focused on intimate, one-on-one relationships, I’m also thinking about care on a broader scale. How it moves (or doesn’t) through our communities, our collectives, our cultural spaces. I’ve been in rooms where care was spoken about but not felt. Where accessibility was performative. Where people were “saying the right things,” but the energy of the space was disjointed and misattuned.

And I’ve also been in spaces where the tone itself was an act of care.
Where bodies were welcomed, not managed.
Where grief was not rushed.
Where difference was not just tolerated, but deeply honored.

You could feel the attunement, not just from one person, but from the field itself. That is the kind of culture I want to be part of building.

Because ultimately, if we want to change the world we live in, we need to change how we care.
How we care for ourselves.
How we care for each other.
How we care for the planet.

It won’t be perfect. But it can be real.

So I’ll leave you with a few questions that have helped me return to myself when I feel disoriented:

• What makes you feel cared for—deeply, unmistakably?

• What does it feel like in your body when you’re not cared for?

• What stories do you tell yourself about needing care?

• And how do you talk yourself out of that need?

What if needing care wasn’t something to hide or explain, but simply something to honor?
And what if showing care wasn’t about getting it “right,” but about staying in the practice—of listening, of repairing, of showing up with presence?

This is the work and the invitation. For all of us.

With tenderness,

Alexandra Winteraven🖤

P.S. If you enjoyed this post and know of someone who may too, please share.