How to Stop Settling in Relationships: Insights from Suzanne Davison

Who is Suzanne Davison?

Suzanne Davison is a seasoned therapist, clinical hypnotherapist, NLP practitioner, and life and business coach with over a decade of experience helping individuals and families transform their relationships. She is the founder of Get You Get Others, a powerful four-step framework designed to help people understand themselves and others to prevent mental health issues before they start. Her approach fuses deep therapeutic insight with practical tools for everyday life, empowering people to break patterns, improve communication, and build emotionally intelligent relationships.

Suzanne’s passion was born from personal experience — navigating complex family dynamics, parenting children with ADHD, and uncovering the gaps in traditional therapy models. Her work now spans from private coaching to corporate team dynamics, all grounded in one principle: when you understand yourself better, you can connect more meaningfully with others.

Understanding the Patterns That Keep Us Stuck

Suzanne joined Will Polston on Make It Happen to explore why so many people settle in relationships — not just romantically, but across family and business life as well. The conversation began with Will’s own relationship challenges, opening the door to a powerful exploration of why we repeat patterns, fail to communicate our needs, and end up with partners who may not truly be compatible.

At the heart of it? Many people don’t understand what drives them emotionally — and without that, they can’t recognise what’s healthy or harmful in a relationship.

The Emotional Blueprint You Didn’t Know You Had

One of the most profound insights Suzanne shared is this: the quality of our adult relationships is deeply influenced by the emotional environment we grew up in. Between the ages of 0–11, we subconsciously absorb our beliefs about love, safety, and communication from our caregivers. These early “blueprints” set the stage for how we show up in relationships later — often without us realising it.

If your parents had poor boundaries, lacked communication, or modelled unhealthy dynamics, it’s likely you’ll unconsciously repeat or reject those patterns — unless you do the inner work to rewrite the script.

Know Your Shape: The Personality Profiling System That Changes Everything

A highlight of the episode was Suzanne’s unique Shape System, a simplified personality model designed to make self-understanding accessible and actionable. Each person falls into one or more of four main “shapes,” each representing a dominant way of processing emotions, making decisions, and interacting with the world:

• Heart – Driven by harmony and keeping others happy. Often neglects their own needs.

• Square – Logical, structured, and detail-focused. Can become anxious or overly controlling.

• Diamond – Fun-loving, sociable, and creative. Struggles with focus and follow-through.

• Circle – Fast-paced, driven, and goal-oriented. May lack empathy and struggle in emotional intimacy.

Rather than boxing people in, this framework allows us to understand our tendencies, see how they affect our relationships, and most importantly — learn to adapt and communicate better.

Opposites Attract… and Then Clash

While many of us fall for people who offer something we lack (e.g., spontaneity, stability, ambition), Suzanne warns that opposites often attract in the honeymoon phase — but later become points of conflict. What once felt exciting now feels irritating. Compatibility isn’t just about chemistry — it’s about whether you can accept the differences rather than trying to change them.

Her message is clear: long-term compatibility requires mutual understanding and acceptance — not just attraction.

Check out the full episode with Suzanne by clicking here.

Healing From the Past So You Don’t Bleed on the Present

Breakups, Suzanne explains, aren’t always about the person who left. They often reopen older emotional wounds — moments where we didn’t feel good enough, safe, or worthy of love. If you’ve never healed those deeper issues, every relationship ending feels like a compound trauma. That’s why healing requires more than time — it requires reflection, ownership, and often, therapeutic intervention.

How to Raise Emotionally Resilient Kids (and Break the Cycle)

For parents, Suzanne offers a powerful reminder: your kids aren’t just listening to what you say — they’re absorbing how you relate. If your children see their parents model healthy love, boundaries, communication, and self-respect, they’ll internalise those standards.

Her top parenting takeaways:

• Prioritise the relationship between you and your partner.

• Understand your child’s emotional processing style — not just their behaviour.

• Adjust your communication based on their needs, not yours.

A Final Word: Don’t Settle. Understand.

Whether you’re single, in a long-term relationship, or recovering from heartbreak, Suzanne’s message is universally empowering: you don’t need to settle — but you do need to understand. Understand yourself. Understand the people you choose. Understand the emotional blueprint that shapes your decisions.

When you “get you,” you can finally “get others” — and that changes everything.

Take Suzanne’s free quiz at getyougetothers.com and start transforming your relationships from the inside out.

Suzanne Davison Directory

• • Website
  • Instagram

P.S. If you haven’t already I would encourage you to take my quiz to discover what type of business owner you are, knowing this can help take you from where you are now to becoming more successful personally, professionally and financially – quickly, efficiently and effectively.