# 22. The four wounds of dysfunctional love - and the secret of healing Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/love-inside-out-with-adele-testa-7707936/22-the-four-wounds-of-dysfunctional-love-and-the-secret-of-healing Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/love-inside-out-with-adele-testa-7707936/22-the-four-wounds-of-dysfunctional-love-and-the-secret-of-healing.md Podcast: [Love Inside Out with Adele Testa](https://stenobird.com/podcast/love-inside-out-with-adele-testa-7707936) Published: 2026-05-17T00:00:00+00:00 Episode link: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/adelethecoach/episodes/22--The-four-wounds-of-dysfunctional-love---and-the-secret-of-healing-e3jf42p Audio file: https://anchor.fm/s/10c9e84e8/podcast/play/120081945/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2026-4-16%2F424292562-44100-2-ae4e1699faaad.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/love-inside-out-with-adele-testa-7707936/episodes/22-the-four-wounds-of-dysfunctional-love-and-the-secret-of-healing Duration seconds: 1534 ## Resource Why do you push away the people who are genuinely good for you — and feel strangely at home with the ones who aren't? If steady, kind love feels boring, suspicious, even suffocating… if a caring partner has ever made you think "this is too good to be true" … if you keep choosing chaos and calling it passion — this episode will hit close to home. In this episode of Love Inside Out, we explore what happens when we grow up in a dysfunctional family — not an unloving one, just one that quietly handed us some difficult patterns. Using the story of the chained elephant, we will unpack why your nervous system still lives in a world you've long outgrown, and why that "chain" shows up in your romantic life every single day. Together we look at the four wounds a dysfunctional upbringing can leave behind and the crucial difference between what feels familiar and what actually is care. Because confusing the two is how good people walk away from good love. This episode is gentle, honest, and a little tender — but it ends on a turning point. The love you've been running from might be the love you were looking for all along. This week's Heart Work is a four-step reflection exercise to help you start spotting your own chains: name it , separate then and now , redefine home , and get a witness . 🤎 Three standalone newsletters going deeper on this topic are on the Substack — link below. https://substack.com/@unromanticisedlove Chapters: 00:00 - Understanding Dysfunctional Family Dynamics 03:42 - The Impact of Dysfunction on Relationships 07:55 - Identifying Core Wounds from Dysfunction 11:48 - Recognizing Familiarity vs. Genuine Care 16:45 - Relearning Healthy Relationship Dynamics 19:21 - Practical Steps for Healing and Growth Episodes mentioned in this episode: 🔗 E… ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/love-inside-out-with-adele-testa-7707936/episodes/22-the-four-wounds-of-dysfunctional-love-and-the-secret-of-healing/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/love-inside-out-with-adele-testa-7707936/22-the-four-wounds-of-dysfunctional-love-and-the-secret-of-healing.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.