Whether you know it or not, your relationship with others is influenced by something called Attachment Styles. The style in which we attached to others can cause us great joy, or great pain. Over the last two episodes I spoke about how attachment styles form, and then I talked about Secure attachment - which is what we should be aiming for to have happy, healthy relationships with ourselves and others. This week I am diving into something very close to my heart - anxious attachment. This was triggered up in me very deeply about 6 months ago and it has been a long, painful journey as I make my way out of the shadow of it, and into secure attachment. Although this is something I learned when I was studying to be a therapist, I have had 2 main mentors who have really helped me to understand this and how it plays out in our lives; Georgia Rose and Chantelle Raven. You can find out more about Georgia here on Facebook: www.facebook.com/georgiaroseevents and here on on Instagram: @georgia_liberate And Chantelle here: embodiedawakeningacademy.com/ Here also are 2 different questionnaires on attachment styles for you to find out which dominant style you are: https://www.attachmentproject.com/attachment-style-quiz/ https://traumasolutions.com/attachment-styles-quiz/
Whether you know it or not, your relationship with others is influenced by something called Attachment Styles. The style in which we attached to others can cause us great joy, or great pain. Over the last two episodes I spoke about how attachment styles form, and then I talked about Secure attachment - which is what we should be aiming for to have happy, healthy relationships with ourselves and others.ย
This week I am diving into something very close to my heart - anxious attachment. This was triggered up in me very deeply about 6 months ago and it has been a long, painful journey as I make my way out of the shadow of it, and into secure attachment.
Although this is something I learned when I was studying to be a therapist, I have had 2 main mentors who have really helped me to understand this and how it plays out in our lives; Georgia Rose and Chantelle Raven. You can find out more about Georgia here on Facebook: www.facebook.com/georgiaroseevents
and here on on Instagram: @georgia_liberate
And Chantelle here: embodiedawakeningacademy.com/
Here also are 2 different questionnaires on attachment styles for you to find out which dominant style you are: https://www.attachmentproject.com/attachment-style-quiz/
https://traumasolutions.com/attachment-styles-quiz/
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Welcome to the Living Through Heart Podcast. ย
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I'm Donna Joy Usher. And I'm an analytical hypnotherapist, psychotherapist, a spiritual healer, a magnetic mind coach and a multi award winning best selling Author. I believe that everybody is capable of creating whatever they want, if they can just get out of the beliefs and stories in their head. This podcast is an audio blog of my thoughts as I go on a journey to heal my soul, surrender into my feminine power, and to live from the present moment in heart. I hope you find it amusing, interesting, thought provoking, touching, raw and inspiring.
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Hello, it's Donna Joy Usher. And welcome to this 30th episode of the Living Through Heart Podcast. So this is part three out of five, of a series in the podcast I'm doing on attachment styles. ย
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And last time, we talked about secure attachment. The time before that, I just basically talked about attachment styles in general, what they were, how they formed, sort of the psychology behind them. ย
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And today, I want to talk about one that is very close to my heart, because it was my attachment style, my primary attachment style, which is anxious attachment. So this may also be known as ambivalent attachment. ย
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Anxious attachment is formed when basically when we talk about the circle of trust for the child, for the baby, and the baby has a need, the baby lets the need be known. So there's an arousal and then the baby's need is met. When there's a breakdown between the baby, it lets the need known and the baby's need is met when that is broken down, sometimes. So not all the time. So sometimes their need is met, sometimes their need is not met. And it starts to form anxiety within the child because the child is unsure as to whether or not their need is going to be met. So it's basically a result of an inconsistently responsive caregiver.
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So the thing about anxious attachment is that the child learns to settle for the bare minimum. So they learn not to be too much, that they are not enough. And they may feel like they're walking on eggshells, and be hyper vigilant about any behavior that's going to push love away. So they're basically anxious all the time. ย
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Now, if you deform into the anxious attachment style like I did, now, it doesn't mean that you have an anxious attachment with every single relationship in your life. So you can have secure attachments with some people. And you can have even avoidant attachments with others, or you move into avoidance. ย
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So for instance, if you had somebody who was pursuing you, and you weren't interested in them, then you would go into avoidant. But when you get into an intimate relationship with somebody, then what ends up happening is the anxious attachment is triggered up. ย
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So this is how and when I learned I didn't realize I had an anxious attachment style in an intimate setting until recently, about six months ago, when this all started for me and I had my anxious attachment was very deeply triggered up. And basically what ended up happening is that I was in pain all the time, in mental and physical because of the sensation in my body, the energy of the anxious attachment, pain all the time and I just had to sit. I made myself sit within it because I could observe that was happening within me it was not healthy. So rather than giving in to the needs that were crying out of me to have my need fulfilled and to have my pain soothed, I basically sat with the pain and worked my way through it. ย
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So I was doing self hypnosis, analytical hypnosis, taking myself into the pain, into the trauma, back into the memories that had created this. So back basically into things that had happened in my childhood, that had created us anxious attachment, but more also as a young teenager, and a young adult. Things that had amplified my belief system that created it. ย
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So basically, you know, we've formed these belief systems, these patterns when we're in our unconscious stage between zero and four, and then we spend the rest of our life amplifying them, showing them up, strengthening them. Because it's the way we perceive the world, we perceive the world through the lenses that are created by this belief system, this perception, and then we are consistently proving it to ourselves again and again and again, by our perception. ย
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So I was able to go into this again, over and over again, into the trauma and start to release it and start to see what's going on. And this is basically what led to me getting interested in attachment styles and starting to work with Georgia Rose, who's one of my mentors over here in the tantra space on Attachment Styles. ย
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So if we're going to use an analogy of basically a car, what an anxious attachment looks like is it's like a pedal to the metal. So you're always accelerating towards connection. Like you're always wanting that connection, you're always on the chase, you're always going after it, going after others, but not catching up to them. Right. And but if someone moves towards you, then you slam on the brakes. Because not only are we wanting to be loved, we're scared to be loved. Because as an anxious attacher, we have this fear of rejection. And that's the biggest thing that shows up, it's this terror of rejection. ย
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So if we were to show up as 100%,
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if we were to show up as ourselves, and then be rejected, then that is the most painful thing of all. So we desire to be loved, we crave to be wanted and loved. You know, we want to be adored and worshipped, but if somebody actually steps in and offers to do that for us, we back off and can even go into avoidant at that point, because we're terrified of that rejection and the pain of that can often keep us moving away when someone does start to move towards us. ย
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So the key qualities of an anxious attachment in a person is a big fear of rejection and abandonment, or fear of being abandonment, and we often create this because what happens is that anxious attachers a naturally attracted to avoidant and avoidants are very good at rejecting and abandoning people because of their own attachment style. Their own fears, which is a loss of freedom. ย
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So an anxious, there's a real push pull dynamic that happens between anxious and avoidance and we're always fulfilling each other's.... it's like a self fulfilling prophecy. You know, the anxious has a fear of rejection, the avoidant has a fear of loss of freedom, and the two of them get together, it's fireworks at first, because of the polarity it's created between the two of them. You know, the anxious goes in and is everything to everybody and has no boundaries, right? And flows right in and like is wanting to, basically, you know, be the perfect partner and do everything and be the caretaker and be so loving. And you don't make the other person feel amazing, right until they feel almost like this energy is smothering them. ย
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And then they have this fear of freedom and they back off. And at that point that triggers up the anxious attacher because everything that they feared is coming to pass, like they showed up they loved and now they're being rejected. And then the more this anxious person backs off, the more fear there is from the avoidant, the more the avoidant backs off, you know, trying to get their freedom, the anxious starts to get even more anxious, because they can see that they're getting abandoned, they can feel that they're getting rejected. And so they they go in more harder, right? Smother this other person like trying to wrangle out of them what they want, which is just to be loved. ย
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Or at that point, they go the other direction, they go, f you and they move off, and they give this avoidant person the freedom that they need, the space that they need, for them to get to breathe again them for them to get to feel safe. And then they come back to the anxious and it says push pull dynamic. ย
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So then they come back to the anxious person, they're given the attention that they're craving, and the anxious person feels loved. And then they come back in, but then very soon, they they're smothering this avoidant person who then backs off. So we end up with this push pull dynamic. ย
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So I don't know if that is ringing any bells for any of you, it might be something that you're feeling in your own relationship, or you can relate to from the past, this dynamic between the anxious and the avoidant person. ย
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And like, neither of them are wrong, right? This is just something that was created in us as a way to stay safe when we were children. So it's not like these people that we call emotionally unavailable, I mean, quite often, you know, we say men are emotionally unavailable, because therefore wanted is avoidant. And it's not that they're doing it on purpose. It's not that they're trying to be horrible. They're just trying to stay safe. ย
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So the attachment style, is actually the solution to the problem is that they didn't feel safe when they were children. And they are trying, then they found like a mechanism, a coping mechanism to deal with that and for the anxious person, it is in just coming in and just trying to be loved. ย
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So the big quality is that that fear of rejection, abandonment, and they can easily become preoccupied and obsessed. Now what I'm talking about now, I'm generalizing broadly, and I'm going like all in on on how it presents in like a major way. Now not every anxious person is extreme like this. And not everybody has all of these different elements. ย
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But this is kind of like an over arching generalization of an anxious attachment style someone with an anxious attachment style.
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So they can become preoccupied and obsessed with their romantic partners. They have codependent relationships where they're overly depend on another for safety, stability, happiness and security. And this for me has been a big thing in the like over the last six months as I've been working on my anxious attachment style and coming back into secure, not needing somebody else to fulfill me, not needing somebody else to make me feel lovable. It's a fine line between being overly dependent on another and then being able to depend on another. ย
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It's like, well, do we need to be able to depend, should we have needs? Should we have wants? And that's the questions I've been asking myself and that are probably addressed with you know, in later podcasts of what my thought process is. ย
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Because it took me a while to actually realize after you know, a couple of years of being separated from my husband and being fiercely, I would have called myself avoidant during that period of time, fiercely avoidant, to realize that you know, what, it's actually human nature to want a partner and to want to be in well, even relationships with friends. To have relationship, to have community, you know, it's human nature to want somebody in your life, and that's okay. ย
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It's okay to have those wants and needs, it doesn't mean that there's a weakness there, which is what I felt, I felt that I should be fine by myself and not need anybody else. And then all of a sudden, I had this massive anxious attachment style triggered up and it was the worst kind of torture for me. ย
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And that is what happens, people who are okay by themselves like I was, if something happens that you know, intimately, then this anxious can be triggered up, and you weren't even aware that it was there. And it can be quite shocking when it happens. ย
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So anxious style people, when they're in that relationship, they tend to over give and overextend themselves to others as a way of maintaining connection, right? But then we harbor resentment because we're not getting the same in return. So we go flow in and we do everything for everybody or for our partner, for our spouse, and we're trying to make ourselves almost like invaluable, right? And then when our needs aren't being met, because we're expecting the other person to either be a mind reader or to be meeting needs within us that we should actually be able to meet ourselves, right?
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We shouldn't need everything from our partner there shouldn't be... a partner is not there to heal our wounds, right? Our partner is not there to fill our wound, is the way I should put this. You know, if we've got woundings and we've got stuff like that, that's our job. That's our issue. And we should be working on healing that ourself, we shouldn't be expecting our partner to make that pain go away. ย
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And that's what happens with this anxious attachment style, we go in, and this pain that's always there in the background, this anxiety over not being good enough, or not being lovable, when somebody gives us attention and affection, and that pain goes away. And then when they back off, because we're being smothering or because just basically that, you know, the first few weeks of the relationship where you can jump tall buildings, when that starts to wear off and they back off and start to get some space, then our pain comes back, but it comes back tenfold. Because we may not have even been aware that it was there before. But then when we are rejected, it's amplified. ย
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So anxious attachers have a desperate longing for closeness. Yet it also feels unattainable, which causes them to chase and ultimately to push away that love that we want. And we give and give and give. And we don't get as much back. And that's one, because we're choosing people who might not be capable of giving back. ย
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And two, we're not leaving space for anyone to give back. ย
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And three, we're not letting our needs or our wants be known, we're just expecting them to mirror us and to mimic us in our action. And can't they see that if I do this, then I want that? But they can't see that because they're a totally different person. And they don't realize how we're thinking, you know, people are not mind readers. And that is something which I'll talk about more in future podcasts too, about conversation, how to have really important intimate conversations with people. And it's so weird that we're not taught this. And we don't have conversations with people, and we don't express our needs. And we don't express our wants because we've the fear of rejection, right? ย
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My big one was being if I did express a need or want that I was made to feel high maintenance. So I basically got to the point where I was self sufficient. I didn't have needs and wants, which is why when I came out of my relationship, I thought that I didn't need anybody. ย
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So receiving is really difficult for an anxious attacher, because, I know myself, I used to feel like I had to be doing at least 51% of the work. And more than that, right, just to make sure that I wasn't like, you know, wasn't being high maintenance. Or if someone were to put too much effort into me, then they might not want me and it might cause me to reject it. So I always had to be doing more. You know, we tend to be people pleasers, definitely, of people who have anxious attaches. And we think that that's just a personality type, which it kind of is right. But it really what it is, is this anxious attachment style that's making us people please so that people want us around so that we don't have to get rejected. ย
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So it's all really even when we're doing these amazing things for other people and people pleasing. It's actually self fulfilling, right? It's actually in a way, it's a little bit narcissistic because we're doing it because deep down unconsciously, we're terrified of being rejected. Therefore we try to make everybody want to have us around by pleasing them. ย
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So yeah, it's hard for us to receive, we want it desperately, but it's hard for us to accept it. Because deep down inside, we don't feel worthy, and we don't feel lovable. And you know, that's the wounding that has to be healed. ย
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So we value and prioritize relationships, which can be the entire world. So everything else can be put on hold, because all of a sudden, when we get into an intimate relationship, then that becomes a priority. Because if it doesn't, then I'm rejected. And that's a disaster for us. But within that, it's also easy to feel suspicious if someone does genuinely care for you. All right. ย
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And yeah, I mentioned before where anxious attaches are more attracted to emotionally unavailable and inconsistent people because this feels familiar, right? This is the familiar energy of when we were a child, and our needs were being inconsistently met. That's what we're used to. That's what we're comfortable with. And that's what we know how to survive. We know how much that's going to hurt. ย
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Now, it's interesting because, you know, as an adult with a conscious mind, we know certain things and we know things that will make us happy. And we know things that will make us sad. And we want to move towards happiness and away from sadness. But sometimes we just can't seem to do it. And it can be really confusing as to why not. But the reason we can't is because the unconscious mind is actually running the show. And its job is to keep us safe. It doesn't care about happy and sad, it cares about safe, it doesn't understand happy and sad. All it knows is safe. ย
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So if it learned in the formative years, and when the rules were being written, and the belief system was being created, if it learned how to survive within this needs being inconsistently met, and it knew the energy of that and it knew that it could survive it. then it will keep choosing that. It won't choose what our adult mind consciously wants, which is a deep loving relationship with somebody who you know, ultimately is as secure attacher right? Because one, we're not in secure attachment. ย
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So we wouldn't be attracted to a secure attacher, it's going to be attracted instead to the people that give us the same energy, that same not quite there energy. Almost like there's a lack that we can flow into and we flow into it with our energy and it feels familiar. And it feels safe and it's like that "ah" feeling, but it's actually not what we need, and ultimately not what we want. Which is ironic, right? ย
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Anxious attaches can get very clingy, very possessive, very jealous, and very needy. And they're as needy as their unmet needs are. So depending on how supportive and loving their partner is, if they're, if it's very avoidant, then they're going to be even needy, and more clingy or someone who is kind of giving them you know, meeting their needs and less needy and clingy. What tends to happen though is if an anxious attach ends up with another anxious attacher, then the energy becomes... the polarity is gone. And the appeal goes, that romantic attachment appeal goes and it ends up just being friends, people end up being friends, as opposed to romantically involved. ย
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So anxious attachers tend to give what they most need to receive, but they don't know how to ask for it, right? So they're giving what they most need, and then they resent their partner for not giving the same back to them. So it's like I'm giving you this, hoping that you will then give me the same back. And when they don't, they get resentful. And they romanticize the perfect partner in relationship. So they have this whole big dream built out of what the perfect partner relationship is going to be. And ultimately, you know, how they're going to be lovable within that. And then when something goes wrong, they get really distressed.
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And then what tends to happen is if we get into a relationship, and then there's that gap there, that void there, that person pulling back, right, we will settle for the bare minimum. Because it's better than being alone. Once that's been triggered up, the thought of being alone or being rejected or had been abandoned is too painful. So we will stay in a relationship where we're not getting what we need, and we're not getting what we want over being alone, because the pain is worse alone. ย
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And what ends up happening is we end up taking these crumbs that are given to us by this person that we're in a relationship with and we turn them into gold and I used to feel like a squirrel hovering nuts and I would take these nuts out and I would polish them and I would think about them and I would oh but he said, or he said that and you know because I was just getting... depending on how generous that person was feeling or how good a mood they were in at the time, I might get dropped a compliment or something nice might get done for me and oh my god, it would just fill me up. And I would just hang on to that. And I would just look at this thing, right? Because there was this huge void around that thing. ย
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So rather than having a loving relationship with someone who was supportive, and who prioritized me, and who thought I was important, I was having to take crumbs and turn them into gold. ย
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The thing is, though, also, if we believe and obviously not everyone has this one, right. But if we believe that we are going to be rejected, and that we're not lovable, and we're not worthy, then there's a path that's always seeking proof of that, right? Seeking proof that their partner doesn't love them. Or maybe he's cheating or lying, whatever, because we're being hyper vigilant in our relationship and constantly scanning for signs of rejection or possible rejection, because we're trying to look for the pain, avoid the pain, but you know, look for when the pain is coming so that we can get ready for it. ย
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We definitely take too much responsibility in relationships, because we do too much, and can be addicted to chaos and drama in relationships. The other thing is that for an anxious attacher, stability, and consistency feels boring. So they wouldn't be attracted to a secure attacher as much because the secure attacher is not into the drama, is not into the the push pull dynamic. ย They don't want anything to do with that. They're very stable and consistent. And that can be very, very deep love, like a very big space held there. But for someone who's in an anxious attachment, and that becomes quite boring. ย
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So anxious attachers have you know, some low self esteem because they don't feel worthy, they don't feel lovable, and they often compromise their authenticity. So they become like a chameleon fitting in to with who they are right, rather than standing in the truth of their own being. ย
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I don't know if you've ever seen that Julia Roberts movie with Richard Gere, not Pretty Woman, but the next one, where... Runaway Bride, that's the one. So when he works out that every man that she'd been with, every fiance that she'd been with, that she'd run away at the altar from, she had eaten, liked her eggs the same way that they had had it. So basically, she was a chameleon, that was just molding into their life fitting into their life, becoming them flowing into them, what they liked, she liked what they did, she did. And this is the anxious attacher. ย
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We become like this other person, because we think that that makes us safe. Because if we become like them, then we're not going to be rejected. It's like, if we can just flow in and be as much like them as possible, then why would they get rid of us?
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So we compromise ourselves, and we compromise our own wants and needs. And I know that when I came out of my long term relationship, I actually didn't even know what I wanted. I didn't know what I liked doing for myself anymore. Because the thing is, I had actually liked doing all the stuff that I had done with my partner. But they had been his choice. And I had just gone along with it. Because it's oh well, I'll enjoy it anyway. And then the things that I had wanted to do were stuff that he wouldn't enjoy. So we just didn't end up doing it. ย
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So when I came out, like, I actually didn't know what I enjoyed doing myself and what was for me, and what was not for me anymore. So I'd lost myself. I'd lost myself in that relationship. And this can happen. I know with mothers with children as well, right, they lose their identity within their children. This can be the anxious attacher with their own family. ย
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So if you're very insecure, not good enough and unworthy, and we feel as though we're asking too much or can't have our needs met, so we're seeking a lot of validation and approval from others to feel good about ourselves. ย
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Anxious attachers can often have difficulty being alone because of basically what's going on underneath the surface. So in the mind that discomforts that's there that when they're alone, it comes to the surface. And for me, I used to distract myself from this in two ways, one by overworking, like chronic over worker, and the other thing was eating. So I would find myself eating to distract myself from the discomfort. And that's ultimately why I started therapy all those years ago, was to help with my desire to eat things when I wasn't hungry. ย
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And it's interesting when I when I started looking at my masculine, my feminine energies, it was the feminine energy that was doing the eating, and it was the masculine energy that was doing the overworking. So now I'm working with both of them to try and let go of those things. And the overeating is pretty much gone. And the over working is definitely getting better but I feel them, I still feel I'm triggering up sometimes when I have to sit with the discomfort of what's underneath and it's quite often the hollowness and emptiness of fear of being alone. For me where I am right now. Fear of, you know, going into this next phase of my life into, you know, into menopause and beyond, and never having been truly appreciated for who I am, and loved for who I am, because I was, you know, who is choosing, you know, lovely people. ย
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And as I said, there's nothing wrong, we're all we're all just doing the best job that we can, right. But never having been felt truly honored and appreciated and adored, and loved for me and for who I am, and for my identity, as opposed to the identity I become when I'm with someone. ย
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And now, you know, moving to the next phase of my life, a deep, deep fear is there that I'm going to be alone forever, and never, ever be in a deeply connected and intimate, meaningful relationship with somebody who sees me for me, because I spent my whole life not being seen for me, but then wanting it but then too scared to have it right, because that fear of rejection. ย
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So how do we feel about others anxious attachers? Well, we can be instantly trusting of others, we just flow on in and we don't take the time to build the trust, right? But underneath, we kind of it's like this double thing where on one side, we can be instantly trusting but the on the others. Underneath that we generally don't trust others. We tend to project on to our romantic partner. So we project the perfection, the savior, that one and we fall in love really quickly with the idea of that person, rather than actually seeing them for who they are. ย
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And I used to do this, definitely, I'd go on a date, and then I'd be in a relationship. And I would make the best of it, make them you know, flow on in and try and help them and try and, you know, just see all the good qualities of them. Not saying that they were bad people, but they just weren't right for me. Because I just wanted someone there to make me feel loved. ย
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But if our partner, or our friends don't live up to our expectations, they can fall off the pedestal quite quickly. And we can feel a lot of anger and betrayal and hurt. And this is the repetition of the childhood wounding coming up. Because basically, you know, we, what we actually underneath and what we anxiously expect to happen when it happens, then we feel betrayed. ย
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But we've created it as well, right? So we worry a lot about what other people think of us. And this goes hand in hand with that whole people pleasing thing, it can be very painful to think that somebody will think something bad of you. And that was actually something that I had to work through to be able to leave my partner, my ex husband, was to get to the point where I was okay with the idea that people would think that I was the bad person because I was leaving. ย
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So our communication style - anxious attaches overshare. We overshare personal information, right? And then we worry about it, we worry about oversharing, we tend to be highly emotional and reactive. So just remember I'm generalizing here and going sort of this as the making this anxious attachment style as big as possible to talk about it. Can use drama, and excessive emotionality to get attention.
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Can swing between blame, shame, guilt tripping of the other. And to that all, it's all my fault. So it's all my fault that something happened, and can pick fight or fights over small things, and have difficulty asking for what we need. ย
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So instead, relying on manipulation, hints, and then wanting a partner to mind read us because if they can know intimately, if they can just mind read, just give it to us and it makes us feel better than if we had to actually ask for it right? If we had to ask something, then we get it. It doesn't feel as good as if we just actually got given it. ย
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And you know, we do this to get attention, love, time and presence from the other person. And anxious attachers have very weak boundaries. And we often override our own boundaries. So we have weak boundaries to start with or non existent boundaries. We just flow into the other person we take on. Like we mirror them, we become their life, we take their interests, we take their their opinions, because it's easier, right? And then we don't have a no and we don't have a yes. ย
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And if saying no to somebody means that we could, you know, brings up that fear of really being rejected, then we won't say no. But then we resent them. Because we're not saying no, we're saying yes, but then we're doing stuff we don't want to do and then we're resenting them, and it's a very, very bad energy to be in, rather than just having a boundary and saying no when you mean no, and yes when you mean yes. ย
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So we also feel a deep sense of rejection when someone else tries to have a boundary with us. So because we don't have any boundaries. When someone has a boundary with us, we make it mean something about ourselves that there's something wrong with us. And it's this rejection that comes up when someone puts a boundary in place with us. ย
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And we can often cross boundaries and don't understand personal space. So people who are in your personal space all the time, in your face or touching you when you don't want to be touched, hugging you when you don't want to be hugged, talking when you don't want to be talked to, and you're asking them not to when they're doing it anyway, this is probably going to be an anxious attacher. ย
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So anxious attachers in sexuality... we can use sexuality as a way to maintain a connection. And it's a pathway for emotional intimacy, right, which can also be deeply unfulfilling. So because we're using it as a way to be fulfilled in areas that we should be fulfilling ourselves. ย
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So we tend to use sex to avoid emotional vulnerability. And we often give an aim to please the partner instead of just focusing on our own pleasure and our own sexual needs. And it's almost like we're not allowed to have just take... we're not allowed to just take and have pleasure, right? Always has to be about pleasuring the other partner. And that can be a manipulative thing as well. ย
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And we often cross our own boundaries in this range. So that difficult to say no to things in the bedroom, when maybe you're not interested, maybe you don't want it but the partner does. And we don't say no, because of that fear of rejection. And you know, we just give them what they want, basically. ย
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So our key belief around relationships is, if I am myself, if I show up as myself, I will lose lov. So I won't be seen on, I'll be rejected. And I can't trust in love, because I'm not lovable. And people always leave me anyway. So key beliefs in relationships is if I don't move towards my partner all the time, the relationship will cease to exist. And I'm of least importance to my partner, and my needs always come last. ย
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And there's a belief that they don't really love me, and I know they're going to leave me eventually. So that real insecurity underneath which can lead to that neediness and that grasping as that goes on which can be very unattractive, especially if you are with an avoidant person. ย
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So how do we heal this? How do we heal towards a secure attacher if we are an anxious attacher? ย
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Now interestingly enough, one of the best ways to do this is actually in relationship. And if you are in relationship with an avoidant attacher, and both of you are aware of this, you're aware of your attachment styles, and you're wanting to do something about it, and you're going to heal towards secure attachment together, then that can be the best way to do it. When you're supporting each other, you're able to point out to each other in a loving way when their attachment style is there. But then also able to give that avoidant person, their space and the avoidant person is then also able to give you your wants and needs as long as you're also not just being overly needing and always having all your needs that need to be met by them, but you're working on your own, your own wounding as yourself. ย
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So to do this, you got to get curious about yourself, right, and start deepening your awareness of the anxious pattern. So if you're listening to this, and this is really speaking to you, then you need to sit with it and observe yourself within it, and be the observer of your mind, you aren't your mind, you aren't your thoughts. So when the thoughts are coming up, and when the needs are coming up, and when that craving and that feeling. And feel it in your body, feel into your body what this feels like because there's a definite sensation like a grasping as that goes on in that body, a craving this in your body itself, physical sensation, become curious about this and start to observe it in yourself. ย
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And once you see it, okay, once you feel it, and once you know it's there, it's like, what do I need right now? And how can I give it to myself? What am I needing from this other person? And is it something can I give to myself? Is it this self love, self worth? Can I do something for myself right now that's going to make myself feel loved?
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So it's really about working on your relationship with self. So you need to build your self worth. You also need to be open to receiving, right? Because anxious attachers aren't. And it's really about healing the wounds of the past. And maybe this is something you can do yourself or maybe it's something you need to do with a good therapist. So either a good embodiment therapist or a really good hypnotherapist, somebody who can get you into the unconscious and back into these times and these places and these memories where these belief systems were formed, so that they can be dissolved and replaced with more positive beliefs that are going to help you moving forward within your own self worth and self love. ย
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You need to get to know yourself, what you want, and what you need and value in relationship which is probably something that you're not even aware of, ย right? And you need to explore asserting healthy boundaries, which can be hard if you don't know what you want. If you don't know what you like, then you don't know what your boundaries are. So this is all this self discovery of who am I? What do I want? What do I like? What do I not like? What am I not? What am I allowing in my life that I don't want to allow in my life? And what am I not having in my life that I want? And what boundaries do I need to put into place to correct this? ย
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So it's really really important, the self reflection, the ability to put a boundary in and stand by it. Without that fear of rejection. If somebody can't respect your boundary, then they're not the person for you anyway, right? If you say no and they leave you for it, I know how much it hurts, right. But this is a good thing, because eventually you're going to find somebody who when you put a boundary in place, they're going to respect you for it. ย
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So you need to notice where there is reciprocity and relationships and focus on these ones, because there's probably some unhealthy dynamics just within your friend group as well, where you're being taken advantage of. And you need to start to put boundaries in place with these as well. ย
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So start getting comfortable with consistency, ease and simplicity in relationship. And you want to start giving people who are secure, consistent and reliable a chance and not always being attracted to this avoidant energy, the ones who kind of aren't always there for you where it feels safe. And you need to explore your beliefs around self, others and relationship. ย
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So otherwise, if you don't do this stuff, you're always going to get keep getting caught up in the same patterns, because it's the belief of the past that's creating the pattern of the future. So we need to rewrite these beliefs of the past and and get to know yourself and heal these wounds that you can start to create a different future to what you've had in the past. ย
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So knowing your relationship styles, you start to see how this this inner woundings, this belief system, this attachment style is so important to our happiness in life, and observing and working out your main attachment style is like really important. ย
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Now, in the podcast notes, I've got links to a couple of different attachment style questionnaire so you can start to see your attachment styles. And I've also got links to Georgia Rose, who's my beautiful mentor here in Perth that I have done a lot of work with attachment style, and a lot of on relationship and work on relationship stuff. And also the beautiful Chantelle Raven, who I'm doing my tantric embodiment practitioner training through. Both of these women are embodiment practitioners, and they're also tapped in Tantra. So they're very experienced in Tantra. So the details to them is also in the podcast notes. ย
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So yeah, go find out what your attachment style is. And then start to observe yourself within different relationships. And you'll find that you'll have a main attachment style that you have in intimate relationships and then you might have different attachment styles within different friendships and within different siblings and with different parents and things like that. ย
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And basically, as we heal our woundings, we come back closer and closer into a secure attachment style, because what we're really doing is we're coming into a secure attachment style with ourselves. And we can love ourselves fully 100%, all of ourselves, our shadow and all and when we feel self worth, so that we can have our boundaries and we know what our wants and our needs are and we're ready to stand up for them. But then we can start to create a truly magnificent life. ย
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Okay, I hope you got something out of this podcast episode. So next week, in number four out of five. We're going to talk about avoidant attachers.
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I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Living Through Heart Podcast. To find out more about me and Living Through Heart, check out donnajoyusher.com and livingthroughheart.com. There you'll find links to everything you need, including some free tools to help you and ways you can work with me on your own soul healing journey.