So I have been going through something interesting over the last month that I wanted to share with you. A relationship that has taught me so much. First of all about how I was still willing to abandon myself on a deep level to have attention and affection, but secondly, and perhaps more interestingly, it gave me an inside look at how attachment styles can create nervous system dysregulation, and how this can lead to us feeling that the very thing that we say we want from a conscious level, actually feels unsafe for us to experience. Listen to this episode of The Living Through Heart Podcast for more on this, my story, and what I learned from this experience. I hope you enjoy it.
So I have been going through something interesting over the last month that I wanted to share with you. A relationship that has taught me so much. First of all about how I was still willing to abandon myself on a deep level to have attention and affection, but secondly, and perhaps more interestingly, it gave me an inside look at how attachment styles can create nervous system dysregulation, and how this can lead to us feeling that the very thing that we say we want from a conscious level, actually feels unsafe for us to experience.
Listen to this episode of The Living Through Heart Podcast for more on this, my story, and what I learned from this experience. I hope you enjoy it.
Hi, it's Donna Joy Usher from Living through Heart and welcome to this 59th podcast episode.
And today I want to talk about when secure attachment feels wrong.
So I'm going to talk about some learnings and what secure attachment is, and different insecure attachment styles.
So you can understand where I'm coming from.
And then I'm going to take you through a story of something I've been through recently, for the last month, so it's possible, warning, I may get emotional.
I may not, we'll see what happens.
I'm just giving you a warning.
Okay, so I recently had an experience, myself, for the first time of coming into relationship and being able to be in secure attachment in myself, in my own being.
So I'm going to talk about that and what happened.
But for those of you who don't understand what I'm talking about, with secure attachment, I want to really quickly talk about and I have done a whole series on this like five I think episodes in my podcasts and videos on an insecure attachment styles and what's going on.
And it's basically how we relate to people and how we are in relationship.
And our attachment style ability is formed when we're very small, in our formative years.
And it's formed because of how we've had to bond to our caretaker.
So being in secure attachment means that we can be attached to someone without our nervous system going, being dysregulated.
So we can feel safe in attachment with somebody.
And sometimes like you could be in secure attachment, able to secure attach to women, but not to men, or vice versa, depending on what your relationship with your primary caretakers were like when you're a child.
And, and obviously there can be moments in time for you know, infants and children where they really were not safe.
And this can, this can cause an insecure attachment type that can be called disorganized, where they had to bond to somebody that they weren't safe with.
And there's this whole like, the need to be with someone but they want to get away from them.
And that's a that's a very, very hard insecure attachment to be in.
And that requires a lot of very deep healing, going back to this moments and time to give that child what they actually needed for them to be able to let go and move on and increase their window of tolerance.
And to be able to be secure within themselves, so that they can be secure in relationship.
And reall this what this is all about right?
If we're not secure within ourselves, and we can't give ourselves what we need, then we can't be secure in relationship with others, and we're always needing something from them.
So the two main, insecure attachment styles, and what I'm going to talk about today are the anxious and the avoidant.
So the anxious is the one who didn't get what they needed, who didn't get the love, didn't have their caretaker showing up.
And this can be so subtle, it can be, it's not even like the caretaker was trying to not give this child what they needed.
But it might just be that they weren't there for them emotionally.
They weren't there for them, even physically, like a dad who was always working and when he was home, he was always caught up at work and then he wasn't there emotionally, to be able to give the love and the attention to this child that they needed.
And this is a big one for daughters they often have this anxious attachment style with men because dad just wasn't there for them.
And sure, dad was being the breadwinner and he was bringing in the money and he was creating the secure space and on the very lower limits of what they needed from like having a shelter over their house and having food on the table and having water, their basic security needs were being met, but not their emotional needs.
So this forms an insecure attachment of anxious where they're always
"Am I lovable?"
"Am I worthy?"
This is going on.
Now the other style is the avoidant.
And the avoidant is the one who needs the freedom.
Puts boundaries in place, which actually, walls comes up with ways for which they just can't be something or when they come into a relationship and someone is being loving towards them, they just can't handle it makes them feel very insecure, very unsafe, and they need to get away because they just can't breathe in their place and we're smothering them.
And this often is with men who were very smothered by the mother.
And so what happens is often the mother was also not getting her emotional needs met by her husband.
And then she has a son and she tries to get it from him.
And then quite often she will have the daughter in the same paterning with her well, the daughter was kind of backing up her belief system of why she's not getting this and the daughter was then also taught to be you know, doing everything and being the housekeeper and being the best is this and the cook and so the daughter is getting this anxious attachment style built into her because she's learning from her mother.
And she's not getting what she needs from her father.
And then the boy is being smothered by the mother who was trying to get her return, of her masculine need of attention and love from her son.
And I don't mean in a sexual way, although, you know, there are moments of that out there within society, definitely.
But it can just be, you know, doing up his shirt and combing his hair and like when he's a teenager, you know, and then my mom get off me, and just her energy.
And so this is all about energy, right?
And because our actions show our energy, how we show up in the actions that we have, are showing the energy.
And that's very important, because that's only just kind of clicked into place for me.
You know, when you're in relationship with someone that, you know, say actions speak louder than words, right?
Because the action is actually the result of the energy that is there, right.
So when we have this energy of this need, for somebody to make us feel safe, to make us feel loved, to make us feel worthy, then we're smothering them with that energy.
That's an anxious attacher.
And then the avoidant is like, has this need to get away, to have freedom and then that's then stimulating the anxious attachers need for like, oh my God, and I don't feel loved, I don't feel worthy.
Now, what happens is that obviously, these two energies that are so different to each other sort of coming together almost create this whole, right, it's like they fit into each other, and they create a polarity so they're attracted, which is great.
Except it's unhealthy.
It's unhealthy dynamic of attraction, this push-pull starts to happen, and all of the energy, all of this person's attention, and rather than being able to be out energetically in the world, creating, it all comes back to this relationship and then needing to be safe within this relationship.
And so the anxious attacher,
like when they first come together, it's like oh, amazing.
I feel finally seen, I feel finally heard, oh my god, this person gets me, it's my twin flame or my soulmate.
And it's like they feel right, it feels right, there's a deep rightness within.
And this is from this energy.
And the anxious is finally feeling love.
Finally feeling seen, finally feeling heard.
And the avoidant at this point is like, like, you know, because the avoidant wants love as well.
And sometimes an avoidant is actually created by an anxious that has been hurt so badly that they just put a wall up and they won't let anybody in, right.
And at the end of the day, we all just want to be loved, right?
So it's like this, this person who's so loving, and so giving and the abundance, like, oh, I can have this and then it starts to get a bit too much, right?
So what's happening is that we have these needs that are within us from our foundational belief systems that were created when were was small, like, I'm not lovable, I'm not worthy. I'm not, you know, important enough, I'm not good enough.
I can't have I'm not allowed these beliefs that are in us.
There's a whole heap of them, right, that have formed within us and we have, you know, don't have all of them or we have some that are stronger than others.
And when an anxious and avoidant comes together, it's like this, the voice in the head and sometimes it's not even a like an audible voice but it's like this unconscious like energy.
It calms, the nervous system calms.
It's like, ah, I'm safe, right?
Because what we're recognizing is the energy of what we're used to.
Of what we learned was normal when we were young, what we learned to stay safe with.
So for an anxious attacher when they had this avoidant male turn up, let's just stereotype here that's a female and a male right?
For an anxious attacher when I had this this masculine stereotype turn up. And he's got this avoidant energy, which was the same energy that they felt in the caretaker, their primary caretaker, probably their father when they were young.
It's like, ah, and the unconscious mind is like, oh, we're safe.
We know how to navigate this.
We know how to like exactly how this game works.
Yep.
Unconscious Mind, it doesn't give a shit about whether or not we're happy.
t just keeps us in a situation that it knows how to navigate, because all its interested in is keeping us alive. So they come together, the anxious and the avoidant.
And there is this energy within this play that they recognize from their childhood and it makes them feel safe.
And for this brief, glorious moment in time, they feel they're in love.
And I have a theory about in love, which I'll share in a moment.
They're in love, right?
It's glorious.
I can jump tall buildings.
I feel amazing.
And they're getting what they need from this other person.
But then what starts to happen quite quickly these days is that they don't get what they need.
Maybe the avoidant starts to feel a bit smothered by this energy, you know, like you did with the mothering energy.
And this can definitely be and in what I've just been through, it was the opposite.
It was a masculine energy that I was relating with that was an anxious attachment.
And then same is the second flip, right, because by the end of our time together, they become avoidant, right. So I'll go into that story in a moment.
So yeah, it can definitely be an anxious attacher.
And, and, you know, this particular person had a mother who really wasn't there for him.
So he didn't have the smothering energy, he had the absence energy, and that could be anxious attacher in him.
So he's attracted to avoidant women, right?
He needs that, he gets that fixed, that feeling of safety from not being...
like, not getting what he really deeply desires on a very deep, deep level, right?
But when he's first in this, this relationship with an avoidant female, it feels right, it feels good.
And then when she starts to back away, because he feels he's smothering her with his energy, then this feels right as well, right?
Because it's this like this hook that is in us like, and it's this like, you complete me energy initially.
And then when it starts to go away, it's like this, this yearning, because all of a sudden, what we were getting from this person, what we needed, is not being met.
And then brain chemistry, right?
Ah, so if it wasn't bad enough that we say we want to be happy, and we say we want to be this on a conscious level.
But inside we're all hardwired into these attachment styles and how to stay safe in the unconscious mind. Right?
Then the brain is backing it all up with brain chemistry.
And what I mean by this is that the anxious attacher...
and I mean, I'm probably not going to like totally summarize all of the brain chemistry and what's going on here.
I'm just gonna do this on a base leve.l
So the anxious-avoidant dance.
When they first come together, it's just like, ah, amazing, oxytocin, dopamine, adrenaline being released. I feel fucking amazing, right?
And then when it starts to like, I'm being smothered.
This one runs away, the anxious, it's like, no, come back, and then the anxious goes well f*ck you, I'm gonna go over here.
And then the avoidant goes, oh, you're so much more attractive now that you don't want me? Right?
And then it's this dance between them, right?
And it's just brain hormones being released.
So for the anxious attacher, when the avoidant withdraws, it's almost like this dopamine hit is being released.
And even though it's painful, it's right.
And it's almost like their brain is rewarding them for this belief system, that they're stuck in being strengthened because it knows how to stay safe in this moment.
So even though it feels awful, it kind of feels right at the same time, and then being rewarded.
Then when finally the anxious comes back, and then it's like, oh, my God, I am loved. I am lovable.
And then they're getting the oxytocin, the adrenaline, and the brain is rewarding them in a different way.
So whichever way they go, the brain has kind of like, it's like rewarding them for backing up that belief system, but it's like this like Christmas Day, joy, adrenaline, all this stuff's happening when the person comes back.
Okay, so I was an anxious, attach her.
And there's still definitely, you know, things ruffling around about that, you know, on the surface layer, but I'm able to observe it within me now.
And then when I can see the anxious attachment there, I can sit with the energy of it, and go in and find the part of me and find basically, it's like, what am I making this mean about me?
And that's what always, it's always there.
What am I making this mean about me?
I'm not worthy, I'm not lovable. I'm not this and that's where the pain comes from, right?
And then the pain when we resist it, it becomes suffering. And this becomes a state of being.
So and this is all patterned in us and layered up.
And this is like, oh, we're trying to heal through this.
And it's so multi dimensional and multifactorial, because not only is it like this unconscious belief system, but it's hardwired into our neurology, our physiology, and biochemistry, immunology.
And this all has to shift in the healing process.
And that's why we don't heal overnight. That's why one session isn't going to cut it. That's why we often have to come at it from different ways, because not only are we doing this healing, but then we need to integrate and then we need to serve and a nervous system and then this frequency stuff and there's energy that can be released.
It's no longer attached, but a lot of stuff is attached.
Unless we go back to those core wounds at the moment of the attachment, we can't ever fully release them. We can release the pressure, but we can't release the patterning.
So I was a big anxious attacher and that was what I've talked about in the past.
That's what I got shown in when I went into relationship a bit of a year ago, that was this lesson for me of using that relationship as a university of anxious attachment, and moving through that and being in the pain.
And holding myself in when I was craving, holding myself apart from this person who was very avoidant, letting them trigger up all the shit that was in me, so I could go in and heal it right?
Painful, yeah, but amazing, right?
So now I've still got the ruffles of it, I've still there.
But I can observe it.
And I can go in and give myself what I need in that moment and give myself that safety and give myself that love.
So I met someone, a really beautiful man, with a really beautiful heart.
And I should have known better, because when I met him, we were friends.
And he was out of a relationship with an avoidant.
And part of what came, we came together through Tantra.
And studying Tantra.
And part of the pain that he was sharing with me as a friend, was this avoidant relationship and the hook that was still there, and the in love.
So this is what I'm going to share my theory of being in love.
To me, being in love, that like, Oh, I'm so in love.
Throw stones at me if you want.
But now I see it as a really unhealthy thing.
Because it's not so much that we're in love.
It's our needs are being met.
And that discomfort, that pain that's inside has gone away for a moment.
And for that moment, because that pain has gone away, we're probably able to touch the trueness of who we are, which is love.
Because underneath all of this layering, we are just love, we are, we're loving energy in this energetic body.
So I think for a moment when that pain is quiet. it's like this balm is put on this wound.
That's our moment, it's quiet, and it's silent.
And we can feel the love within us.
That I think that's what that in love is.
But when we're able to give ourself what we need, which is love, then we can choose to love, we can choose to be loving, and we can choose who we are loving with. And being our power within that we don't just because we can, we don't just love people, alright, we choose in our power, who was going to be able to meet us energetically and show up for us.
And also give us back.
And this has been my big lesson out of this, right.
So I should have known better.
But there was this weird friggin energy, right that was going on.
And obviously this had to happen because of all the lessons that I have learned through the last month about myself, about my willingness still to sacrifice myself.
And I had this big underlying pattern going on, which I'm still working through and observing, which was this always making myself or allowing myself to be a second option.
And realizing obviously, of course, because it's always a dynamic of what we're doing with ourselves, I was still making myself a second option in life and in work and sacrificing myself for others.
So I learned so much through this process of that for the first time ever observing how I was allowing myself to not be prioritized, not being important and then making it okay.
The other thing that I learned was what it felt like to be in secure attachment in a relationship.
Because when I came into this, I was able to observe that that lack of that feeling wasn't there.
But instead what was there was this beautiful person who was loving and giving.
And, and actually, for the first time ever, I was getting exactly what I wanted.
Someone who was showing up for me, someone who was observant of me, somebody who was looking out for me, right and someone who was like, there for me and I was getting attention and affection in a way I've always wanted and craved and had never had before.
So that's another thing I got from this is the the realization that I can have what I want, which is important, right?
Because as I'm manifesting and creating the bigger and bigger like of what I want for me to know that it can be possible and then for me to...
Now just need to tweak a few things about what this feels like, like about myself, not not accepting, not being a priority, not making shit, okay?
You know, fine tuning the manifestation.
And this is all just stepping stones, right?
We don't get it right the first time, but we learn along the way and what we learn is actually about ourselves. And then from that place, it's like we expand and then from the next one, we expand, that's when we're open to learning and to holding ourselves in the pain and not just distracting with another person, another person, another person, which is what most people do.
So for me being in secure attachment in relationship allowed me to actually see this person and observe them as a person.
And not just as in an extension of myself, which I realized that always been there in the past. And it's like a different sort of, you know, like when you see...
when you have a statue that's half carved out of stone.
So the stone is there as a kind of they're almost like they're not two dimensional, but not three dimensional versus a statue that is fully carved out, right?
So always before I had been in this relationship with people where I was kind of observing them through the lens and the filter of what I needed from them, and probably not truly seeing them for who they were, because if I had have, and I'm not saying that these people were not nice people, but I would have seen straight up that they weren't able to actually.
Well, I mean, they'll give me what I need in that moment, right?
Let's face it, because we create what we need in the moment, we create, we create our own life from our choices.
So they were exactly what I needed, right there right then.
But now knowing what I want, I can see how I was shaping them up to be like, seeing them in different ways and, and not seeing what was there to see.
That was that I wasn't being treated the way I wanted to be treated, because I wasn't treating myself that way.
So for the first time, I was actually able to see this person three dimensionally.
And to be amused by things of where we were different, when they were being triggered, just to observe them in the trigger, and to not try to change them.
I don't think I did anyway, it's possible, maybe, in certain ways I was.
And that's another lesson as well, right?
May observe that.
But I didn't want to try and change them.
I didn't try and make them be like me, I didn't try to like force them into things, I didn't need to feel safe in a certain way, I was able to observe that this person was actually different to me, in many ways, and then we had commonalities that came together.
So I could appreciate the fact that we can have these amazing conversations about spirituality.
And we were both reading books.
And we were in the tantra space, growing within that space, and the oneness, the wholeness and coming in and we share just spends it together, and we did all this stuff to get it was amazing, right,
then also to be able to observe this person's differences.
And to just appreciate that in them.
And even though maybe they weren't things that I was interested in myself, being able to be interested in them for them.
And that was, it was different, it felt different.
There was not that that hook, there was not that like, angst going on for me.
And it was a really, really beautiful thing.
And instead of using that anxious attacher to have the polarity, I was able to use the chemistry of the masculine and the feminine instead for myself, and to allow myself to surrender more and more into my feminine with this person and allow them to go more into more into their masculine with me.
Now the problem was that because they were treating me so well, and I was still allowing myself to be a second option, I was ignoring the actions speak louder than words, things that were going on.
So on one hand, they were showing up in a way that was amazing, but there were these little things that were going on, that I should have been aware of.
But I was ignoring because this was so amazing, and I wanted this right?
But what was really happening on their end, they were feeling from the anxious attacher, that there was something missing, there was something lacking.
And it was that hook, it was that you complete me.
So even though they can admit from a masculine-feminine, sexual chemistry, polarity side, things were amazing, right?
There was no attachment to me.
And that was because my energy in security was not needing anything from them.
So they were not feeling needed.
And that was making them feel really unsafe and insecure.
So on one hand, you know, here they were, and one of their pain points when we first met was this pain of never having been chosen.
And yet when, when they were chosen for who they were, which is what I was able to do, because I was no longer needing them,
they couldn't accept that.
Because they weren't in a place where they could be chosen.
And I think this comes down to like, obviously, it's all starts here like with ourselves if they weren't able to choose themselves.
If they weren't able to love themselves, if they weren't able to know their own worth, then there's no way what I showed up, choosing them, loving them find them worthy or giving them compliments, that they were even able to accept that transmission, because it wasn't on the same frequency of where they were.
And so for me, the big lesson was that then, when finally it came to light, that they found something lacking, you know, I immediately went into feeling so stupid, because I just didn't see it.
Even though the signs were there, I was ignoring them because I was so focused on on the amazingness of this thing that I was allowing myself to not follow my intuition.
And then of course I went into like a night of me making it be about me and me being lacking, that there was something lacking in me.
When I step up to the bigger observation I do just know that it just the energy wasn't right, their nervous system wasn't calm, they didn't feel safe within this and then their brain chemistry is now releasing adrenaline and cortisol to make them get away any way that they can, to come up some way that they can still be a really good person and create a barrier, a wall where this can't happen, which is what they did.
But then the truth came out about it just feeling lacking.
And for me, now I'm sitting in the pain of realizing that there's an even smaller pool of people that I can be in relationship with, and meet me where I'm at.
Because, ah, if I'm not energetically needing from them, then they're not going to feel needed or they need to feel needed to feel safe, then they're going to feel that there's something lacking.
And then if it's an avoidant, if I'm then showing up being lovin, that's going to feel so unsafe, and they're going to want to run away.
And so that's sad for me, because it was already a big ask to have somebody meet me.
And to be able to accept me as I am, in all my weirdness, to not be in spiritual bypass, but to be going in and doing the hard work, to be in metacognition, observing themselves and able to be called and to call me so that we can, within relationship grow.
I mean, when, when you're in a relationship where there is love, and all that is not love will show up, right?
So I don't want to be in love, in need, I want to be loved and be loving, it's a much more expansive feel, than this container that has created an insecure attachment.
That for me to find somebody now, who is like all the things that I need to be met, while also being their own person with their own interests, entrepreneurial minded, right, because they don't have to have a big successful business or whatever, but to have that, that, that lateral thinking and that, that, that openness, and that creativity within that, but then also to be able to be in secure attachment and to appreciate that, yeah, that's, that's, it's gonna be a big ask I find so I'm, I'm sitting with that, the pain of that at the moment, and knowing that all the hard work I've done actually means it's going to be harder to find someone who can meet me, and, and the fear which I need to move through and occupying the energy of what I want.
But for me, there's a real fear that I'm going to spend the rest of my life alone.
And maybe this was a life that that was it.
So I need to move beyond the fear into, you know, holding the energy of what I want, and then being in the feeling of that now, right.
Because if I can just be in the feeling of what I want energetically, well, then that's really what I'm after.
Anyways, that feeling I have when I have it.
So what I'm realizing through this process is that each moment, each relationship, each time is a stepping stone towards what we really want when we're on the journey. And I mean, a lot of people fall into relationship and then spend the rest of their life to try to make this relationship work. And sometimes it works. And sometimes they have been within that.
And sometimes they're not, majority of the time, they're not.
But then we like, oh, next relationship. And we're indoctrinated through culture and society to get married.
Like this has to be on for life, you know, to commit to someone for life.
Why? Why?
When I get it, when you have kids and family, but when we're unhappy, and dynamically, it's not working for us.
Why?
What's the lesson there?
What's the thing there?
Is it God?
You know, I'm pretty sure that God doesn't want us to be unhappy.
But to be able to be open to the fact that yes, maybe you will meet someone that you can continue to grow together and you can expand together with and that you will end up with forever, then also be open to that each, each relationship is there to bring stuff up in you to observe.
And then as you observe it and as you move through it as you grow it, well then maybe this person has grown with you.
Maybe they're not.
Maybe they're just there for a moment in time to show something to you about yourself, which is what this one was.
And, you know, maybe they just weren't right at the beginning but you're just willing to accept anything which is what I've done in the past I just taking the crumbs even though these were all really beautiful people, right?
It was me not prioritizing my self that created these situations. I know right?
I'm taking radical responsibility and 100% for this, but my willingness to accept like, little bits, rather than going for the whole was what kept me in those relationships.
So being observant of when there is just a crumb when around the crumb is a void, right?
And then we're just holding on to this one little thing making everything else mean, okay?
Rather than being the nothing.
So for those of us who felt something is better than nothing, we need to realize you've got to go through the nothing to have what you want, you've got to be prepared to let go of that thing that you had that is not correct for you, and be in the nothing.
To work on yourself, to be with yourself, to give yourself what you need, to find the safety so that you can have another something and whether it's something will be everything that you want, or whether it'll be just there to give you another lesson on the okay, I see now and then you go back into the nothing.
I remember, Chris Duncan, one of my mentors talking about how you know, you buy this beautiful piece of land, and it's great property, it's got great potential, it's got this really old rundown house on it.
And then eventually, you get to the point where you want to build this beautiful house on it.
But you got to demolish that old house first.
Did it go through the stage of it just seeming all f*cked up?
And, and the pain of that right of moving through it and holding yourself in it, holding that Northstar as you move through and learn everything.
And then the house is gone.
And the land is there, right.
But new house isn't there yet.
And then this is stage of nothingness.
And then a station of creation where you're not quite there yet, but starting to be built and starting to be this and then one day, eventually you have this beautiful house, it is exactly what you wanted, exactly the way you wanted it and it's amazing location.
And then you have the everything.
But it doesn't happen in one moment.
And it doesn't happen if we're not prepared to do the work and it doesn't happen if we're not prepared to be in the fire of the pain, not the suffering, right?
The suffering is different.
The suffering comes from the resistance of the pain. But when we're willing to be in the fire of the pain to go into it, to learn what it is that we need to learn about ourselves.
So that we can shift it heal it, give it to ourselves.
Then eventually, we can have the everything.
Okay, I hope you got something out of this.
And I will see you next time.