#81: What anxiously attached people need to develop more security in relationships

Welcome back my love to another episode of Embracing Her and this week we will start a little two-part situation in which I will first of all talk about what anxious people need in a relationship in order to thrive in order to develop a more secure attachment style over time and next week we will look at what avoidant people need in a relationship in order to thrive and develop more secure attachment patterns over time. If you have a disorganized attachment pattern both of these episodes will be really valuable to you. Also have an eye on the direction that you lean in more. If we have a disorganized attachment pattern we actually do tend to lean anxious or avoidant more. Sometimes we flip-flop, sometimes it changes depending on the dynamic that you in. Have an eye on that and then again look at which episode might be more applicable to where you're at. In general I hope that these episodes are going to help you understand yourself a little bit better, understand a little bit better what you want to look for in a dynamic, what you want to create what you want to stand up for and also the kind of dynamics that you might want to stay clear of, that you might want to really avoid so that you do give yourself a good chance to develop secure attachment over time. The other thing is that I hope that these episodes might also give you a bit of a better understanding of your partner. If you are in an anxious, avoidant dynamic, listen to these episodes together or both listen to these episodes and then have a conversation about okay what works, what is happening in our relationship, what do we want to work on, what do we want to still create for ourselves and each other. With that let's go, we'll explore what do anxiously attached people need to thrive in their relationships. As a little reminder, our attachment style is a set of beliefs and subsequent behavioral patterns which are based on experiences that we have made in attachment, in connection to others and especially in that early relationship to our primary caregivers. So we develop a form of insecure attachment because we have experienced connection as unsafe in some way shape or form. So much so that we had to create protective mechanisms that allowed us to basically survive in that setting where connection wasn't safe. We adapted to dysfunction. So all of these behavioral patterns that you see with insecure attachment that could be anxious attachment, disorganized attachment, avoidant attachment, doesn't matter any form of insecure attachment comes with protective mechanisms that are meant to keep you from having to experience that same pain that you have experienced in the past again. Because of that, the person that we're partnered up with, they are characteristics and therefore the dynamic that you guys can co-cruiate is either going to help you make different experiences, new experiences that don't expose you to that same pain or we're actually going to co-cruate a dynamic that again and again and again puts you face to face again with that same experience, which is going to have a negative impact on the way that you are behaving in relationships because it's reaffirming those initial insecure belief systems. So in the example of anxious attachment, we have experienced connection as unreliable, as inconsistent as something that we can't trust or count on. So connection felt good and we wanted connection but we just didn't get enough of it and we wanted it and then it wasn't there. And that right there is the pain that then gives rise to all of those behavioral patterns that you see in anxious attachment like us being really hyper vigilant, constantly kind of being on the lookout for a threat to the connection and we constantly feel that disconnection looming over us somehow and this is why we claim this is why we're constantly needing reassurance, this is why distance is really hard, this is why we constantly want to be in contact, this is why we maybe get jealous really easily or feel insecure within ourselves, am I good enough? Very easily, this is why we might people please and try to somehow keep the peace and just pretzel ourselves to be exactly what the other person might want so that they stay. This is also why we might have really intense experiences of urgency in moments of conflict where we're like we need to figure this out now because I'm so utterly terrified that this connection is not going to last. This right there is you basically experiencing the fear that you experience in childhood where the connection or lasting was a matter of life and death. Now obviously it's not if the guy we've been dating just runs away we're not going to die but as a child our nervous system saw the connection to mom and dad as existential because it was and this intensity, this urgency that you experience in those moments when your anxious attachment patterns kick in that is exactly you experiencing that pain from the past again. So with that setup of your attachment system what you first of all really really need to experience in order to be able to develop more secure attachment over time is consistency. This is the first thing that you're going to want to have an ion. You need to have a relationship in which you are no longer exposed to the very thing that made you feel insecure in connection in the first place. I mentioned that in the last episode that when we ask ourselves that question is my relationship so triggering that I can't heal in it that's the thing we need to have an ion. Am I actually making new experiences or do I continue to make the same experience that I already probably had in childhood that is reaffirming my limiting beliefs and when it comes to anxious attachment a big big shift that we need to make there a new experience that we need to make is that there is consistency in connection because you're just going to struggle to make any kind of progress when it comes to your attachment patterns if you're still exposed to connection just not lasting and yes that does require us to make different choices because as you might know if you have been here for a while anxious attachment makes you choose more of the same right we choose people that are inconsistent because this gives us a similar familiar experience right that's what our nervous system likes it chooses what is familiar not what is healthy not what is actually factually safe okay so making new choices here that is a big part of getting yourself to a place where you can even start to heal your attachment pattern and yes sometimes that means we have to go through a little bit of discomfort there around us not being used to a reliable connection this is where we sometimes start to self-sabotage where we then cause all the drama where we just go like oh my god maybe it's just too boring right now and this is where we really need to kind of challenge ourselves into making choices that we consciously know are good for us and it's a certain way leaning into our discomfort there I know that crazy off and on inconsistent rollercoaster things with somebody that we are massively attracted to that feels like home that feels exciting that feels like the drama that we love and it is also the thing that will absolutely stand in your way of making any kind of progress when it comes to this work. Now when I talk about consistency, what do I mean? This is not about constant communication. This is not about spending twenty for seven all day always together. No. This is about not being left guessing. It is about being able to count on what the other person says. It is about not having to question or over analyze or assume because you know. It's about even when there's distance you know what's going on. There is containment around distance. It's not disappearing. It's not dropping off the face of the earth. It's there's distance there and I know why because they're busy because they're working because they're with friends. Whatever. There's containment there. There's never that sense that you're just hanging in the air and you don't know what is going on. And experiencing that consistently and choosing connections where you get to experience that. That is what will help you make new experiences. That is what will help you gather evidence for the fact that you can trust connection. So here make sure that in a relationship you're choosing someone who is capable and willing of offering that kind of consistency who might even be forthcoming when it comes to consistency. A person that doesn't have a problem sending you a little message. For example, when I don't know they went out with their friends and then they send you a message when they get home safe. Someone who instead of just not answering when they're busy maybe goes like, "Hey love, I'm busy. I'll text you or call you whatever later on." Stuff like this literally takes like 10 seconds to do. And having someone who is willing to offer those kinds of moments of reassurance there is really valuable because you get to see that you can trust that even if there is a little bit of distance there the connection will last. You're not losing anything. And very connected with that the other thing that you're going to want to look out for and ask for in a connection is clear communication of needs and boundaries. Empty spaces of communication will always be hard for people with anxious attachment patterns because those are the spaces when we spiral. Those are the spaces when we start to overthink when we start to somehow brace up because we're like, "Oh my god, this is the moment when they're going to run away for me." And all of that urgency starts to kick in and we start to chase and we start to cling and we start to want to somehow get a hold of the person. You need someone who is willing to not take three business days to take you back. Okay, you need someone who doesn't just withdraw and go cold when they have an issue but someone who is going to just tell you, "Look my love, this is what is happening, this is what I'm needing." This is really important. Why? Because you already have a tendency to overthink and to over-analyze and to have an I and absolutely everything that might be happening in your relationship so that you can manage, right? So that you can make sure I'm taking care of everything that's happening in the relationship. I can see the threat coming from like three miles away to make sure that I won't be abandoned. This is a lot of responsibility that you're putting on your shoulders. It's not your job to read their mind, it's not your job to know what's happening for them. This is a responsibility that you get to share. So having someone where you can trust if something is wrong, they will tell me, "I don't have to monitor the entire relationship all the time and make sure I catch it but I know I can trust that this person is going to tell me if something's off and we're going to have a conversation and then things are going to be fine." And again, something like this doesn't mean you have to be communicating 24/7. That is not healthy, that is not going to help you actually in healing your attachment style. It is about learning to be able to deal with moments of distance but we can only learn that if we have a secure, consistent connection to fall back on. You're not going to learn to feel okay with these moments of distance in a dynamic in a relationship that is not consistent, right? Where there are moments where the person just disappears, where there are moments where they just drop off the face of the earth and you don't know what's happening, where there are moments where they just go cold. If you want to teach your system that distance can be okay, you need a connection that's actually safe, right? Where distance is in fact okay and does not mean we're losing each other. And I know that even if you are in a relationship where you have a partner that is quite forthcoming in the way that they communicate and they're being consistent, if we have deep, anxious attachment patterns, even in those kinds of dynamics you're going to be scared and you're going to be anxious and that is okay but that is where your walk is at, right? That's where then we need to learn to sit with our anxiety where we need to learn to talk to our inner child where we need to learn to self-soothe and to deal with our experience because we are in fact in a dynamic that offers us a new experience. If you are in a dynamic where your partner still runs off all the time and you never know what the fuck is happening and then you want to repair and you're in a child that doesn't make sense because you are experiencing the very thing that you're in a child's get off, right? So that's really two things that you need to have an eye on, search for that, ask for those things. Look at your relationship and go like, do I feel like I consistently know where I'm at, what is happening? Do I feel like I can trust the fact that this person will tell me if something's off, they're telling me where they're at, what they're needing so that I don't feel like I need to constantly hold the relationship and have an eye on everything that's happening so that it doesn't fall apart. Then the next thing that you need if you have anxious attachment patterns in order to heal in a relationship is safe conflict experiences. Conflict for people with anxious attachment patterns can in a start where we really land into waves, there are those people that tiptole. So we're so anxious that we're like, I can't even bring anything up, I never want to experience conflict because I'm so scared that if I rock the boat they're just going to run away. So conflict is really perceived as this gigantic threat to connection or you and this is something that I see quite a bit with this organized attachment as well. Where we feel actually quite comfortable in conflict, almost a bit too comfortable because it's chaotic and intense, but that is almost like the only place in which we know how to communicate our needs. When it's exploded, when it's with shame and blame and judgment and intensity, when we're kind of attacking the other person, that seems to be the only way in which needs can ever be expressed. Which then often ends up overwhelming the other person and they end up running away, which again reaffirms our initial belief system that connection will not last they will leave me. Now, if you want to heal your anxious attachment pattern, you need to make new experiences in moments of conflict. Secure attachment is not the belief that there will never be conflict. Secure attachment is actually about I trust that connection can withstand moments of disagreement, moments of disconnection, moments of conflict. Secure attachment is not about happy days all the time. We trust that we can repair. And this is something that we need to experience in order to develop secure attachment over time. If you are in a dynamic where conflict always ends up being days of you guys being kind of not really connected and ignoring each other and being mad at each other. in maybe days of them just running off and you don't even know what's going on. on. If moments of conflict always create these gigantic blowouts and somebody is threatening the connection and actually maybe saying, "I can't do this anymore, I'm running off, I'm done." If it always turns into these gigantic blowouts, you are not making the experiences that you need to basically convince your brain that connection is safe. You don't need perfect conflict. I, in my relationship, do not have perfect conflict. Like, we have moments where it does not go the way that we would like it to go. But we figure it out afterwards. We talk about it. We come back to a place where we both take responsibility for what we did wrong and what we would maybe like to do better next time. And then we get to a place where we are closer than we were before the conflict. So conflict never means I'm going to be more distant than I was before. You need to experience conflict as, of course, activating conflict will always be activating but not like an existential threat to the relationship, not like this gigantic overwhelming experience every single time. And again, if you are in a relationship with someone who is more on the avoidant end of the spectrum, make sure that even when they need to take space, which is normal for their form of insecure attachment, make sure that when they take that space, it's space that is contained. It's not just running off. It's, hey, love, I'm overwhelmed. I will go for an hour, four two hours and then I will come back and we will have this conversation. It doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be contained so that the intensity of the conflict is not that high and that you can actually come back together and have a conversation. You need to experience continuity of connection. If you have days on end where you guys don't talk, that is not going to help you in any capacity to build a more secure attachment style there. And then another thing, and this is also really important in the moment of conflict, you need someone who can give you validation and reassurance. This is such a powerful thing to experience for anxiously attached people because they often have experienced the opposite quite intensely. Where we often had the experience of being told that we are somehow too much, we are too sensitive, we're too emotional, we need to tone it down. And that's where all of that predestined comes from, where we keep things inside, we question our own experience. Do I get to feel this? Am I being dissensitive right now? This is where we have this overbearing empathy for other people and relax consideration and empathy for our own experience because we were actually never told by anyone that our experience is okay. And then they believe us and that what we experience matters. And this is at the end of the day also why so many people with anxious attachment patterns have this problem that they keep things inside, they keep it inside, they keep it inside, they keep it inside and then they explode because again, we are not allowing ourselves to have our experience in the very beginning. We keep it inside, we question it, we deny it ourselves right, we kind of stand in our own way there until we literally can't hold it anymore and then it goes kaboom, then because it goes kaboom and it's not really expressing a very skill of a way, the other person can't hold it at all and that again gives us the same experience that probably we're even going to say things like you need to calm down, what are you doing, you're so intense, you're way too sensitive right now, right, we get the same experience again, even though we could have had probably a different outcome if we gave ourselves the chance to just express what we're feeling before it got that intense. Right. So having a relational dynamic in which you are met with validation where a person actually goes like, wow, you know what, I'm interested in your experience, I'm interested in what you're feeling and I care about what you're feeling. Even if they don't agree, even if they have a different perspective, but them being interested, being curious, being yes, I might not agree with this and I still care about how this lands for you. That is a really, really powerful experience because it is a new experience. It's the opposite of the experience that you made that gave you your anxious attachment patterns in the first place. These are moments that can teach you that you're not too much, that you're not too sensitive, that your emotions and your needs are not in conflict with connection, but that actually in a healthy connection, the other person wants to hear, they want to know what is happening for you and what you're needing and what you're wanting because they love you and they want to be there. And this is even where it is extremely healing to share your anxiety, to share those anxious moments where you feel insecure with your partner. Not from a place of desperation, not from a place of "I'm completely exploded all out of control over here and you need to regulate me now." But from a place of "Hey, love, I'm noticing I'm really anxious right now about this thing or I'm really anxious when you go out with your friends. Can we talk about that? Can we maybe find a way in which you can help me with that?" That is a very centered way, very self-responsible way of communicating your experience. Having a partner that is capable of meeting you there is super, super healing because again, it gives you a new experience that yes, even if you feel things like "I'm anxious and I feel like I should about myself right now," I will have the person there that goes like "Yep, okay, make sense. Let's figure something out." Instead of what we might have experienced in the past, where us expressing our uncomfortable motions would have led to them shaming us, blaming us, judging us or running away. Making sure that you actually experience validation in your relationship is super, super important. You're not, again, kind of here, you're anxious attachment. If you are with someone who's incapable of validating you, it's not going to happen. And of course here, I want to give a bit of a disclaimer here. This does not mean that we now use our partner as our personal regulation machine, right? And we're like "You need to hold me and when I explode over here and I can't hold myself then, you should be able to do it." No, your partner is not your parent. Your partner is not responsible for your emotional regulation. Your partner does not have to hold you when you're having a crush. It's not their responsibility and that is really where I know that from myself and from many women that I work with, that's where we kind of lose it a little bit sometimes, where we expect too much from our partner, where we are really exploded. We are expressing ourselves very unskilledfully and we still expect them to just stand there and hold it all. No, it's not their job. We're not children. We're not little toddlers that throw a tantrum and daddy is going to keep us together. No, we're not toddlers. We're adults. So we need to learn to regulate ourselves. We need to learn, "Okay, right now I'm losing my shit. I need to take a couple of deep breaths. Maybe I need to remove myself for a moment to calm my farm so that I can express that valid experience that you're having in a skillful way, right? Not in a demanding way, not in a desperation of I can't live without you kind of vibes, but in a way where we are actually centered. Where we're like, "Hey, love, I'm anxious. I'm really scared right now about this thing. Can we talk? Can you help me with that? Can you witness me in that?" That is the kind of moment where we are giving our partner a good chance for them to be able to hold us and to validate us because it is intensely difficult to validate someone who is completely uncontained in their emotional expression. It's scary, especially we will talk about that more next week. especially for partners that are avoidant, these kinds of crash outs, they are really, really scary. And extremely hard to deal with because in avoidant attaches, there is just not a lot of capacity around holding emotions, right? They're avoidant for a reason because they lack capacity when it comes to emotions. So when we confront them with this in like huge wave of intensity, they check out and not because they don't care, because they're cold, because they can't. Their nervous system literally goes into phrase and there's just nothing happening anymore. So this is a big disclaimer here when it comes to this validation piece and getting reassurance from our partner. It is important. You need to experience that in a relationship where you don't get any of that, you're not going to hear anything. And at the same time, there is some work that you really need to do by yourself there around self soothing, around becoming a bit more literate when it comes to your nervous system, recognizing I'm really, really intensely activated right now. And whatever comes out of my mouth right now is not going to be very helpful. So I need to self-soothe and then I will come back into this conversation and express myself then. And then the last thing that I would recommend people with anxious attachment patterns to look for in a relationship to have an eye on is a person that has their own life and that at the same time has a shared vision with you. You need someone who basically serves a little bit as an example in terms of having stuff going on in their life outside of romantic relationships. Anxiously attached people really like to put all the little eggs in one basket and then that makes us even more anxious because we only have one basket with all our eggs. We do not have many different pillars that we are actually serious enough about where we actually get our needs met. We very often once we find someone we like zone in and we're like now this person has to give me absolutely everything. That is a lot. That is a lot for the other person. This is a lot for us because then it makes a lot sense that we get really, really anxious when there's just a little bit of a sign that this relationship might not last because we're going to lose all our little eggs. We don't want that. So having a person that has their own life so that in a certain way you are a little bit challenged to create the same. While you need someone who also is willing to have a shared vision with you and this is where we tend to go a bit wrong because again our anxious attachment likes to make us choose people that cannot actually commit that do not want to define a shared vision. And we choose the people that have their own life and that also like to spend most of the time with their life instead of with us. That is not going to work. You need someone who yes has their own life because you need to learn to do that. You need to learn to put your eggs in many different baskets and you need someone who is committed, who prioritizes you where you can actually go like yep we talked about this. We're looking into the same direction. We have a similar vision for the future. There is buy-in from the other person. Do not try to work on your anxious attachment in a relationship where your partner isn't actually willing to create a vision with you, a life with you. Remember that the core experience that you need to make is that you can count on connection that it will last. And for that you need someone who is in a space in their own journey where they can make commitments like that where they do know this is what I'm wanting and so I also know that this is aligned with what you're wanting. So this is what we are creating together and we actually actively taking steps towards that. And yes sometimes that means for us as people with anxious attachment patterns we need to get to know ourselves. We need to actually define okay what is my vision before you even try to get somebody else on board with this. What do I want? Where am I actually going? Having that time of introspection where we actually go like okay what is going on? What do I want? Where am I going in my life so that you can choose a person that is aligned with that vision. So that you can make an experience of a connection lasting and going somewhere. So let's recap. If we have anxious attachment patterns and we want to heal those and we want to develop more secure attachment we will have to make an effort to expose ourselves to a different experience of connection. One that will not constantly reaffirm those limiting beliefs and those painful experiences that gave us this insecure attachment style in the first place which means we need to make an effort to choose dynamics create dynamics in which we experience consistency. So we're not left guessing we don't float around over analyzing assuming feeling like I don't even know what's happening I'm getting like whiplash from how often this person is coming in and out of my life. Consistency. Very important. You need to experience the connection will last because this is the core thing that you have not experienced right. Your entire subconscious is screaming connection will always run away from me. You need a partner who can offer you consistency. Also clear communication of needs and boundaries. You need a person who lets you in on where they're at or what's happening for them so that you don't have to constantly feel like I need to have an eye on every teeny tiny little sign and the way that they're talking and the emojis that you that they're using so that I can catch if something's wrong. You need to be in a dynamic where you can trust the fact that if something is off they will tell you. Again because you need to learn that keeping a connection going is not just your responsibility. That is a shared responsibility in a relationship. So you need someone who can clearly communicate needs and boundaries also who maybe in moments of conflict when they need space who can clearly communicate that instead of just running off. Hey babe I'm overwhelmed I need some space I will be back in an hour. The other thing here safe experience of conflict. Not gigantic blowouts where the relationship is threatened and we'll run off and we never talk to each other again for the next week. No conflict is always going to be activating but it's not meant to be constantly overwhelming or creating these gigantic ruptures that don't end up in repair. If you notice that this is a problem in your relationship work on that now. The longer that happens in your relationship the worse it is for both of your attachment patterns and the worse it gets for the relationship in and of itself. Remember I always like to look at relationships like an entity in and of itself like a garden. The longer we don't deal with conflict well the more damage you are creating in your little garden and at some point that is going to be beyond repair. So if you notice you're not experiencing safe enough conflict moments where yes you have a little bit of a tip there and then you come back together and you actually feel more connected than you did before that is something to work on because you will not move the needle on your attachment style if you don't experience safe conflict. Secure attachment is all about trusting the fact that I can survive conflict. This connection can survive conflict. The other thing here is you need to be with someone who is capable of offering your reassurance and validation and I see this all the time in women with anxious attachment patterns that come to work with me they date the most utterly emotionally unavailable people and then they struggle to move the needle because they are not actually making any kind of experience of validation. You can't again heal in the same environment. that hurt you. And a lack of emotional validation is exactly the type of environment that gives rise to anxious attachment. Yes, you can be with a person that has an avoid an attachment style, but you cannot be with a person that has an avoid an attachment style and is not interested in working on the patterns that come with avoid an attachment. And a part of that is that incapacity to validate another person in their emotional experience. You need someone who is capable of that or at least someone who's willing to learn. Doesn't have to be perfect again, but you need someone who's willing to learn, who's willing to try someone who just kind of goes like, fuck your experience, babe, not going to help you in any way. And again, it makes it worse. I can't really like say this enough. It is better to be alone than to be in a relationship that exposes you to the same shit that hurt you in the first place. You're making it worse. Being alone is better because you are accumulating less stuff and less pain that you will have to clean up later on. So being with someone who can validate you, who can offer you reassurance and moments where you feel insecure and moments where you are communicating, you are upset in a skillful way. Not of course when you're completely kaboom kaboom. That is really important. You need to make the experience that you're not too much and that your emotions matter and that you need matter to the person that you're with. And then the last thing you need to find someone who is an example for you in terms of having a life outside of the relationship. And at the same time, you need someone who is also willing to really invest in the relationship to commit to have a shared vision, to move the connection forward so that you have something that you can actually again lean on, rely on where you have a substantial connection instead of it kind of being this wobbly thing where again you don't know really what's happening and you don't know if they really committed or not. You need to experience consistency, reliability in connection in order for you to heal and to rewrite the belief systems that you're carrying. And when it comes to anxious attachment that is majorly about I can't trust connection because it will leave. You need to experience the opposite. So I hope that this episode helped you understand yourself a little bit better, helped you maybe see what you want to look for in the connection, what you might want to create more of in the relationship that you're in. Like I said in the beginning, maybe listen to these podcast episodes together next week. We will talk about what avoidant attachers need to thrive, need to heal their attachment pattern. So we will also see it from that angle. Listen to this together. Have a conversation about it. Not again in the blamey shamey kind of way, but in a way where we are being curious about each other. Do you feel this? Do you feel this is consistent? Is there something that I can do that would give you a greater experience of consistency? Maybe you can work on the way that you validate each other in moments of conflict. Maybe you as an anxiously attention person. Maybe this was an episode that again reminded you of the fact that it's important that you learn how to self-suit as well, that your partner is not responsible for holding you through the most explosive and unskilled for expressions of your internal experience. And if you want to dive into your anxious attachment more and you want to really learn the skills that you might need to speak to you in a child in moments where you get anxious. If you want to learn more about how do I communicate my needs, my emotions in a more skillful way. I have an entire course on going from anxious to secure. I will link that below. You can get started with that today because remember creating secure attachment, shifting your attachment patterns is a process. This is not this kind of binary thing where we just flip a switch and then kaboom we're secure. That is not how it works. It's a process. You will have to work with your behavioral patterns. You will have to work with your insecurity, with your anxiety. When it comes up, you need to know how to meet it. That is where the healing is at. It's not in there. I'm just going to get rid of my insecurity and then I'm secure. I wish it was that way, but it's not. So you really need skills for that process because it is a long-term thing. And with that, we're done for today. Like I said, I will be back next week with our episode all around what avoidant detachers need to thrive in relationships. So much love to you.