Stop Sabotaging Your Relationships- Anxious Attachment Trap

(upbeat music) If you are an anxious attached person or just an anxious person in a relationship or you're with an anxious person in relationship, you are going to want to watch all of this video. I'm gonna tell you why. Most of the videos that are out there and the content that talks about anxious attachment or anxious people in relationship miss out on some very crucial things about what creates anxious attachment and how to actually start to deal with moving towards a more secure connection. You see, anxious attached people are broken. There's nothing wrong with you. There's nothing fundamentally going on that makes you deficient or effective in relationships. And the truth is that moving towards secure attachment is actually quite easy or easier at least than you have been led to think. You see, the truth about anxious attachment is that it's built earlier on in life when you have learned one of two things. Number one, I am not allowed to have my needs met or prioritized in relationship unless the other person is taken care of first. And number two, I need you to be okay so I can feel okay. And what this ends up doing is that for the anxious attached person, there is a tremendous amount of externalization, right? And that externalization is generally around their needs, what they want, what they desire, what they crave, and their sense of security and safety. Now, the hidden saboteur or the inner saboteur of the anxious attached person will usually make you feel like you are constantly chasing somebody for reassurance. It'll make you feel like you're afraid continually that your partner is going to leave. And it'll make you dream up all of these wild scenarios of what could go wrong, why the other person might leave you, why you're not good enough. And this is oftentimes at the very core of anxious attachment. And at the heart of it is just this one piece. I need you to be okay before I can be okay. I need you to be all right in order for me to feel all right. So there's a kind of externalization of internal regulation, right? Your nervous system as an anxious person has been externalized onto somebody else's wellbeing. Now, this isn't your fault. It's not something that you've done wrong. It's not something that means that you're damaged or broken. That's not any of those things. It's that somewhere along the lines in your upbringing, usually in your childhood, you learned that you had to caretake somebody else's internal state in order for you to be all right. You had to prioritize other people's needs before the possibility of getting your needs met in return. This is almost like outsourcing. I'm gonna use a car analogy 'cause I love cars. This is almost like outsourcing the gauge in your car for whether or not the oil is doing okay into somebody else's vehicle, right? And all the while, the alarm is still going off in your vehicle, but you have no idea whether enough, whether you have enough oil or too much or too little or the temperature is way too high. The alarm's just going off and in somebody else's vehicle, they've got your oil temp gauge in it and they're like, everything's totally fine. So we externalize our sense of okayness. We externalize our needs. Now, I want you to be able to recognize some of the red flags. Let's get specific about these behaviors. You probably already know some of them. I'm sure you could contribute in many ways, whether you are the anxious person or you're on the receiving end of the anxious behavior, but a few specifics. What I've seen in working with a lot of anxious men and anxious women in relationships is overthinking is pretty chronic. Overthinking every interaction, every text message, every comment, every hug, every sexual encounter, pretty much everything that happens will get overthought. The next piece is that you need to control inadvertently and have constant contact and connection. For the anxious person, there is often this very deep internal desire to feel close to the other person, but it is out of a need to feel okay, to feel regulated, to feel calm, to feel safe, to feel secure, and for the anxious person, there's all of these criteria that are usually in place that they are unconsciously trying to control and get into place so that they can feel okay, so that you can feel all right. The last piece is that you read way too much into a lot of the behaviors in the relationship, the delayed text message, how the person responds after sex or after the date or how they respond to something that you've said about your childhood or something that you've said about your work, all that type of stuff. There is a reading into how that other person's responding and oftentimes your system is set to misread cues in your partner. The other piece is that there's often this pre-breakup anxiety. They're going to leave me, I'm not good enough, for sure they're going to end the relationship at any moment and there's a part of you that seems to be scanning their behavior, their communication, their actions, their choices, the things they don't choose or don't say or don't do and looking for and having this feeling of impending doom even when everything's going well, even when the other person's saying, things are great, I love being with you, this is a wonderful relationship. This is the constant checking for security. So the anxious person is going to constantly check for a sense of safety, a sense of security and it's this exact behavior that almost always creates the disconnection. So I want you to stay with that piece of information because it's super important for ending the anxious attached cycle and starting to create a deeper level of safety, security, connection and having secure attachment. Now, one last piece I want to talk about before we get into the meat and potatoes of how you actually start to move through anxious attachment, which is why do you seem to always attract the avoidant partner? This seems to happen, you keep attracting the wrong people, the people that are avoidant, the people that pull away, the people that get overwhelmed are too easy, the people that shut down, why does that keep happening? Well, you are more than likely repeating a cycle that feels very similar to the environment that created your anxious attachment in the first place. The emotional distance from dad, the shutting down from mom, the criticism and the judgment that maybe a parent had around your behavior growing up. You are recreating, unfortunately, a very, very similar dynamic. Now, the thing here that's important is that for a lot of anxious attached people, maybe like yourself, your picker is often set on the wrong settings. And so you sometimes, quite often, will be attracted to people who are going to reengage that anxiety, the person that feels just a little bit too out of your league, the person who feels like they're perfect on paper, the person who has a little bit more of a hyperindependence or a little bit more sovereignty or a really grounded sense of who they are, a person who might pull away or shut down or start to stonewall when conflict happens. You are set and designed as an anxious partner, unfortunately, to choose the people who are going to activate that anxious questioning inside of you. So the key here is that when you're choosing a partner, if you are single, is to look for someone that actually helps you to feel safe and secure, that actually allows you to feel a sense of ease. Now, that's not gonna be perfect. It's not their job to do that for you, but it is your job to date for safety, date for a sense of security, date for a sense of stability, whatever word lands for you. I've said this to many, many men that I've worked with who have an anxious attachment, and I say, date a woman where you feel a sense of stability within yourself, because so often, I have worked with men who have high levels of anxiety and who they pick are women that activate the living crap out of the anxiety that already exists inside of them. So you have to start to understand in order to move through your anxious attachment, some of your specific anxious behaviors. All right, with all that said, let's talk about breaking this cycle. Let's talk about some practical strategies for you as an anxious person, as an anxious attached person in a relationship to be able to move through some of this and move towards secure connection and secure attachment. The first thing I want you to focus in on is interrupting the pattern of anxiety. So when you start to externally reach out for security to that person, you want them to tell you that everything's okay, you want them to reassure you, you want them to reinforce that things are going well, you just feel that upwelling of like, is everything okay? Are you pulling away? Are you shutting down? Are you creating distances? All of that type of behavior, I want you to reach out to a friend. I want you to find an internal practice of starting to self soothe and create self stability. 'Cause again, the anxious attached person, what it is represented by is I need you to be okay before I'm okay, I need you to be all right. And so we have to draw the nets in of chronically asking whether the other person is all right and searching for that evidence and searching for that information and start to develop that knowing, that belief, that experience within yourself. You have to start to develop that in yourself. So when that anxiety starts to come up, if it feels over like, you know, you can't manage it, that's when you bring it to a friend, a therapist, a coach, and you start to say this anxiety is happening again. I'm really worried that they're gonna pull away. It feels like they are shutting down. It feels like my mind is running wild again that they are going to break up with me. And you can have somebody else that is supporting you as a reality check is what you're saying truly an indicator that that person is pulling away. Now caveat to this, don't go to other anxious people. I know that might sound so obvious to you, but I am shocked, shocked by how many anxious people try and get dating advice, try and move out of anxious attachment from other anxious people, from other anxious therapists, from other anxious friends, from other anxious family members, or colleagues or coworkers that end up reinforcing, yes, you should be concerned. Make sure that somebody that you are getting accountability from a friend or a coach or a therapist that really is stable and secure. And that is a huge part of the process. The next thing is you can communicate that you are feeling anxious, but I'm going to give you a very specific way to do it. And I only want you to use this when it feels like you have used some of the other options and you just need to share what you are experiencing. Now this is key because for a lot of you anxious folks, when you're feeling anxious, you don't say anything. You start to go to all of these other behaviors, the over texting, the over communicating, the over checking in, snooping through their stuff, trying to make sure that everything's okay. You move to all these subversive, passive ways of trying to build that security instead of just communicating what's happening inside of you. Now, I'm going to give you one more caveat, which is this expression of what's happening inside of you is best done if you have a secure partner, okay? It's best done if you have a secure partner. If you have an avoidant partner, it's a little tricky, but it's still possible. So when you are feeling anxious, if you've used some of the other tools that we're going to talk about, you can say, I want you to know something about how I'm feeling, and I don't want you to have to do anything. I don't actually need anything from you. I just want you to know that I am feeling anxious so that I'm not alone with it. I just want you to know that I feel anxious so that I'm not alone with it. And I do not need you to do anything about it. This frame is going to be super helpful for secure people, but also for avoidant people to know where you're at, to know what you're feeling without them feeling like they have to try and fix it, solve it, take care of it for you, move you out of that space. Because for a lot of you anxious folks, sometimes you find yourself in a relationship with people pleasers or nice guys, or women that want to completely remove any of your anxiety and they want to take care of it for you and they end up becoming a mother who then resents you. They feel like your mom and they're constantly emotionally processing for you and it can create all kinds of challenge. But if you share what you're actually experiencing, you can then begin to shift it. It can begin to change. 'Cause what you're signaling to your own psyche and your own emotional body is, I'm feeling this way, it's safe for me to communicate it. And for a lot of you anxious folks, that is not your internal experience. Every single anxious person, man or woman that I have worked with, their internal belief system is if I share that I am anxious, that person will not want to be with me. If they only knew how afraid I was or am to lose them, then that would for sure push them away. And part of the process of you developing secure relationships is to be able to go through a hard time in relationship with that person and come out the other side okay. It's to be able to say to your spouse or girlfriend or wife or partner, hey, you know what? I am feeling a little bit anxious and I don't need you to do anything about it. I just wanted you to know, so I'm not alone with it. And I don't act out. That is going to be super helpful as you share that. This is sort of the same thing when people are going through PTSD, they're struggling with depression, sharing it without having somebody start to treat you as a victim or give you pity or anything like that. It's going to start to support you in just sharing here's what's going on inside of me and it's gonna reinforce I am in charge of it. I am taking responsibility for it. The next thing is beginning to have very clear communication around your needs without being demanding, without being controlling or passive. For a lot of anxious people, you learned that you need to deprioritize your needs. You learned that you have to meet somebody else's entire checklist of needs and everything has to be perfect before you can even say, you know what I would really love? I'd love for us to go out for a date on Friday night. Or you know what I'd really love? I would love some more hugs during the day or I'd love to make out when you get home. So I want you to think about one small need, want or desire that you can start to bring forward in your relationship, but I want it to be super, super clear. You need to be super, super clear. So if you have a good friend, again, coach, therapist, a men's group that you can bring it to, I want you to write out two or three needs that are super clear. What I have come to know in working with a lot of anxious attached people is that when they go to express your needs, when you go to tell people your needs, it's usually super freaking vague. It's almost never clear and direct. And it's usually very confusing. The other person, your partner or spouse, girlfriend, wife, whatever is sitting on the other side, kind of saying like, I think I get what you're asking me for, but I'm not really too sure. And it's not clear and direct. The last piece is self soothing strategies, okay? Self soothing strategies, self stability strategies. These are different things that you can deploy, like different types of breath work, different types of meditation that are going to help you to soothe, ground, calm, regulate, find stability. Now there are many of them that you can use, okay? There's box breathing technique where you inhale for four, hold for four, exhale for four, hold for four, and you repeat that cycle for about four or five minutes. There is the four, seven, eight breathing technique, which is also very, very helpful where you inhale for four, hold for seven, and exhale out the mouth for eight. And that longer exhale out the mouth is going to support you in letting your heart rate move down, letting your breath rate per minute move down. And when you do that, when you move your heart rate down, which when you're anxious, your heart rate is usually pretty high, so as you move your heart rate down, it's going to send signals to your brain to say, stop letting all that cortisol and adrenaline and these stress chemicals and hormones get released as much in the body, and it'll help you to soothe. There's many other things you can do, right? Grounding movement, those types of pieces can help you to soothe and regulate as well. You can have a little bit of a journaling technique that can support you. The biggest thing though is being able to come back and start to train yourself to know I can be okay, even if they are not. This is the aim that you are working towards. I can be okay in myself, with myself. I can feel secure, grounded, calm, peaceful, easeful, even if my significant other is not okay. And, or even if I don't know, you know, maybe if they're distressed, you should feel a little bit distressed, right? That's all right. But what we're moving towards is even if you do not know, and this is the big one that I want you to focus in on, I don't know whether they're okay. Doesn't matter in that moment. Your work is to move towards feeling secure, feeling okay, and as you do that, you will ensure the security and the safety of the relationship. So, men it forward, share this with somebody that you know needs to hear it. Maybe this is a video that you watch with your significant other. And you kind of get some feedback. You talk about some of the best practices that the two of you can use and create some structure around it. If you have, you know, a more secure partner that is willing to work with you on some of these things, create some strategies that the two of you are going to deploy so that you can develop that safety and that security alongside of them without making it fully their responsibility to take care of you and talk you off the ledge of anxiety when you feel it come up in the relationship. So come up below. Let me know what landed in this video for you. And until next week, Connor Beaton signing off. [BLANK_AUDIO]