⭐ MASTER GLOSSARY OF INNER-WORK & RELATIONSHIP LANGUAGE
(CEN • CPTSD • Attachment • Nervous-System Theology • BluVerse Canon)
🧠 CORE TRAUMA + NERVOUS SYSTEM TERMS
CEN — Childhood Emotional Neglect
The absence of emotional response, mirroring, or attunement.
Not abuse by commission — abuse by omission.
Results in: emotional illiteracy, hyper-independence, people-pleasing, boundary paralysis, self-erasure.
CPTSD — Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Trauma caused by chronic relational stress rather than one event.
Long-term exposure to: inconsistency, neglect, emotional danger, chaos, betrayal, or abandonment.
Symptoms:
- emotional flashbacks
- shame spirals
- hypervigilance
- dissociation
- identity fragmentation
- people-pleasing
- fear of abandonment & engulfment
Emotional Flashback
Sudden spike of childhood feelings (shame, fear, panic, helplessness) without a clear memory attached.
A body reaction, not a thought.
Dysregulation
Your nervous system leaves “safe & social” mode and enters survival mode.
Variations:
- sympathetic (fight/flight)
- dorsal vagal (freeze/shutdown)
Logic goes offline.
Language collapses.
Everything feels like threat.
Regulation
Returning your nervous system to safety.
Includes breathwork, grounding, co-regulation, movement, sensory work.
Co-Regulation
Borrowing calm from another person’s regulated nervous system.
Eye contact, soft tone, gentle touch, predictable presence.
Hypervigilance
The nervous system stuck in “scan for danger” mode.
Looks like tone sensitivity, overthinking, misinterpretation, expecting abandonment, bracing for disaster.
Learned in childhood when safety was unpredictable.
Dissociation
A protective shutdown where the mind detaches from reality or feeling.
Feels like floating, zoning out, numbness, or not being fully “in your body.”
Shutdown (Dorsal Vagal Collapse)
Numbness, exhaustion, no motivation, “I don’t care anymore.”
Not laziness — the system is conserving energy to survive.
Emotional Exhaustion
A state where pleas, tears, or conflict stop because the body can no longer try.
Often misinterpreted as “finally calm.”
❤️ ATTACHMENT TERMS
Attachment Style
Your nervous system’s blueprint for closeness.
Formed in childhood, updated through relationships.
Secure Attachment
Comfort with closeness + independence.
Needs expressed directly.
Conflict repaired quickly.
Anxious Attachment
Fear of abandonment.
Hypervigilant to shifts in tone.
Seeks reassurance.
Interprets distance as danger.
Avoidant Attachment
Fear of engulfment.
Closeness triggers discomfort.
Needs space to regulate.
Interprets pursuit as pressure.
Disorganized Attachment
Both anxious + avoidant simultaneously.
Come close → panic → pull away → guilt.
Often rooted in trauma.
Object Permanence (Attachment Edition)
Ability to feel secure even when not physically connected.
Low object permanence = “If I don’t feel you, you’re gone.”
Pursuer–Distancer Loop
Classic relationship pattern:
- Anxious partner pursues (seeks closeness)
- Avoidant partner withdraws (seeks space)
Both are terrified.
Both misread the other.
Attachment Rupture
A moment when connection breaks:
dismissal, tone shift, shutdown, unmet need.
Repair
The act of reconnecting after rupture through validation, ownership, and small behavioral changes.
Secure Base
When one partner’s presence makes the other feel safe, seen, and supported enough to explore, rest, or connect.
💔 RELATIONAL INJURY TERMS
Empathic Rupture
A moment when a partner fails to show empathy when it mattered most.
Often small, but cumulative.
Empathic Wound
Repeated ruptures without repair →
“I am too much” or “I am not worth care.”
This becomes a relational identity wound.
Codependency
Losing yourself to keep connection.
Self-worth tied to being needed.
Regulating others while ignoring yourself.
Confusing self-sacrifice for love.
Caretaker Role
Learned pattern where you:
- fix
- rescue
- earn love through labor
- suppress needs
- avoid conflict
- self-abandon
Often dressed in religious language (“sacrifice,” “service,” “obedience”).
Covert Contract
Unspoken relational bargains like:
“If I’m good, you’ll love me.”
“If I meet your needs without asking, you’ll meet mine.”
“If I do everything right, I won’t be abandoned.”
These always fail.
Future-Faking
Using future promises to avoid present action.
A dopamine-based avoidance pattern.
Walk-Away Wife
A partner whose attachment system has fully deactivated after years of unmet needs, neglect, or misattunement.
Emotional departure happens long before physical departure.
Relational Death / Resignation
The moment when someone stops protesting, stops asking, stops fighting, stops trying.
Attachment deactivation = “I am done.”
Living Covenant
A relationship built on:
- attunement
- safety
- repair
- transparency
- boundaries
- shared rhythms
This replaces “duty-based marriage” with emotionally intelligent partnership.
👶 INNER-CHILD & PARTS WORK TERMS
Inner Child
The part of you holding your earliest feelings: fear, shame, longing, hope, innocence.
Exiles (IFS)
Injured child parts carrying old wounds.
Managers (IFS)
Parts that control life to prevent pain.
Firefighters (IFS)
Parts that numb pain quickly (sex, alcohol, scrolling, anger).
Protector
The part that guards you with defensiveness, shutdown, logic walls, or anger.
Shadow
All the disowned, suppressed, or unexpressed parts: sexuality, anger, ambition, intuition, truth-telling.
Founder (Your Adult Self)
Visionary part that leads your identity, choices, boundaries, and covenant.
Council of Parts / Council of Matts
Internal leadership model where each part has a role, voice, and seat at the table.
🔥 PRIMER-SPECIFIC TERMS
Creative Resurrection
Rebuilding selfhood after collapse using myth, imagination, meaning-making, and narrative authorship.
Covenant Reconstruction
Rebuilding a relationship through safety, clarity, repair, truth, autonomy, and attunement.
Living Presence
The evolved masculine identity that replaces caretaking — emotionally available, regulated, bounded, expressive, connected.
Infinite Game
Your long-term philosophy: life = iterative, creative, evolving.
No winning.
No failing.
Only learning.
💡 Nervous-System Theology Terms
Limbic Hijack
When survival responses (fight/flight/freeze) override rational thinking.
Flooding
Emotional overwhelm — “limbic thunderstorm.”
Shutdown
Freeze mode; the body powers down to survive.
Polyvagal Ladder
States of being:
- Ventral Vagal (safe & social)
- Sympathetic (fight/flight)
- Dorsal Vagal (freeze/shutdown)
Emotional Safety
“You are allowed to be human with me.”
Presence Contract
A small, consistent behavioral commitment that rebuilds trust much faster than promises.
S.A.F.E. Communication
Speak → Acknowledge → Feel → Engage.
The nervous-system-friendly way to talk.
🌙 DECONSTRUCTION & SPIRITUAL TERMS
Religious Obligation Identity
A self built from rules, duty, “holiness performance,” and emotional suppression rather than authenticity.
Spiritual Bypass
Using religion, prayer, or positivity to avoid real emotional work.
Shadow Work
Integrating the parts you avoid so they stop sabotaging you.
Mythic Framework
Using story, archetypes, and symbolism to re-author your life (BluVerse, Council of Matts, Infinite Game).
