#171: How to Transform Your Life
For our first episode of 2025, we're exploring the journey of creating a life that feels deeply authentic and aligned with who you truly are. Moving beyond societal expectations and the hamster wheel of constant striving, this episode challenges you to embrace courage, honesty, and personal responsibility to make meaningful changes in your life.
For our first episode of 2025, we're exploring the journey of creating a life that feels deeply authentic and aligned with who you truly are. Moving beyond societal expectations and the hamster wheel of constant striving, this episode challenges you to embrace courage, honesty, and personal responsibility to make meaningful changes in your life.
Key topics covered:
Why honesty with yourself is essential for transformatio
The power of action—and why inaction is a decision too
How to reconnect with your deepest desires and yearnings
Building capacity for discomfort as a tool for growth
Practicing courage and embracing fear as part of the process
If you’re ready to step into agency, responsibility, and bravery in 2025, this episode is for you.
For those wanting deeper support, I invite you to join me in Homecoming, a six-month mastermind for creating a life filled with joy, freedom, and abundance.
How to Transform Your Life: Practical Steps to a Fulfilling Journey
January heralds a fresh start and invites reflections on how to transform one's life. It's an opportunity to step into courage and authenticity, paving the way for a life that feels more aligned and true. It's not about chasing societal expectations or ticking off milestones but rather reconnecting with one's deeper desires and yearnings. Here are some practical steps to help you embark on this transformative journey.
Embrace Radical Honesty
The bedrock of life transformation is radical honesty, being truthful with yourself about what's working and what isn't. Take a moment to audit your life. Are there aspects that feel unfulfilling or even soul-destroying? Are you maintaining a status quo because it's comfortable, even though it no longer serves you? Identifying these areas can be daunting, but it offers clarity on what needs to change. Honesty shines a light on the path and gives a clear vision of what’s holding you back.
Understand That Inaction is a Choice
One common trap many people fall into is the belief that inaction carries less responsibility than action. In reality, choosing to do nothing about a situation is still a choice. If you find yourself paralysed by indecision, remind yourself that inaction perpetuates more of the same. Recognising this can mobilise you into taking responsibility and making proactive changes. You are the author of your life; every non-decision is a decision for the status quo.
Get Intimate with Your Desires
Many people shy away from articulating their desires for fear of vulnerability or potential failure. However, understanding and expressing your true yearnings can be incredibly empowering. Spend time reflecting on what you genuinely want from life. How do you want to feel in your relationships, in your work, in your daily life? Creating a vivid picture of your desired feelings and experiences is a powerful step toward manifesting them. Allow yourself to dream big and give voice to those dreams, even if it’s just to yourself.
Build Your Capacity for Discomfort
To transform your life, you must build your capacity for discomfort. Capability is the antidote to anxiety. The more you face and overcome challenges, the less anxious you become, as you trust in your ability to handle life's ups and downs. Stop expending energy trying to avoid discomfort. Instead, seek out opportunities to push your boundaries. Each time you step out of your comfort zone, you expand it. Embrace the process of doing hard things and let it build your resilience and self-efficacy.
Practise Courage Regularly
Courage is not the absence of fear but taking action despite it. Practising courage is essential for transformation. Every courageous act, no matter how small, builds your 'courage muscle'. Whether it’s making a difficult decision, expressing a long-held desire, or taking a leap into the unknown, each act of bravery strengthens your confidence and resolve. Remember, courage is a skill that grows with practice. Embrace the moments where fear and bravery intersect; these are the seeds of significant change.
Accept Responsibility and Agency
An empowering truth is that you have the agency to affect change in your life. Even when external circumstances seem overwhelming, focusing on what you can control is transformative. Accepting this responsibility can be intimidating, but it also liberates you from the victim mindset. You have the power to make choices aligned with your values and desires. Trust in yourself to navigate challenges and seize opportunities for growth.
Create a Supportive Environment
Surrounding yourself with supportive people and environments is crucial for sustained transformation. Seek out communities, mentors, or friends who encourage your growth and hold you accountable. Positive influences can provide invaluable perspectives and motivation during challenging times. Whether through formal programmes, like masterminds, or informal networks, building a supportive environment can make the journey more enjoyable and less isolating.
Set and Follow Through on Standards
Transformation is not an overnight event; it’s a process marked by consistent choices and actions. Set clear standards for yourself and follow through on them. This might include daily habits, boundaries in relationships, or career goals. Each small step compounds over time, leading to significant changes. Hold yourself to these standards with compassion; occasional setbacks are part of the journey, but staying committed to your path is what ultimately brings transformation.
Embrace the Journey, Not Just the Destination
Finally, remember that transformation is an ongoing journey, not a final destination. Celebrate your progress and learn from your setbacks. Each stage of the journey offers valuable lessons and growth opportunities. Embrace the twists and turns with curiosity and grace, knowing that every experience shapes you into a more authentic and fulfilled version of yourself.
The start of a new year is a time brimming with potential. By embracing honesty, taking responsibility, and practising courage, you can set the stage for profound transformation. Build your capacity for discomfort, get clear about your desires, and create a supportive environment. Each step taken with intention brings you closer to a life that feels deep, fulfilling, and authentically yours.
Questions for Discussion & Reflection
Reflect on a time when you felt disconnected from your true desires and followed a path that others set for you. How has this shaped your sense of fulfilment?
Can you identify areas in your life where you’ve been pretending to be satisfied but deep down know you’re not? What emotions arise when you admit this to yourself?
Think about a significant life change or decision you made in the past couple of years. What motivated you to take that step and how did it impact your sense of agency and satisfaction?
How do you currently handle feelings of fear and discomfort when faced with a major decision or challenge? Can you think of a recent instance where you acted courageously despite feeling afraid?
In what ways do you feel you might be lying to yourself about your needs, desires, or current life situation? What steps can you take to confront these truths compassionately?
Describe a scenario where inaction has led to maintaining the status quo in your life. How does recognising inaction as a decision itself change your perspective on that situation?
How often do you allow yourself to dream about what you truly want from life? How can you incorporate more space and time for envisioning and clarifying your desires?
Consider a person or situation from which you’ve been seeking approval instead of trusting your own gut feelings. How do you think this reliance has impacted your personal growth?
Identify a small, manageable challenge you can undertake to practise building your capacity for discomfort. How do you believe overcoming this challenge will influence your overall resilience?
Think about a recent moment when you felt genuinely courageous. What specific actions did you take and how did it feel to stand in your courage? How can you build on this experience moving forward?
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
[00:00:04]:
Welcome back to another episode of On Attachment and Happy New Year. I had had every intention of recording podcasts between my last episode and this one. If you listened to the last one, you would have heard me say that I would have another one around Christmas and it just didn't happen. So we had an unintended podcast hiatus for the past few weeks and so I hope that since I last spoke to you here, you've had a joy filled and restful holiday season. Today's episode is how to transform your life, which sounds like a big topic to tackle in a 20 minutes or so podcast.
[00:01:06]:
And it is. But I always like to, at this time of year, record a podcast that is hopefully inspiring and that calls people forward into courage, into bravery, into their desires and their yearnings for what they life might be. And of course I don't do this from a place of wanting to fuel the machine, of making people feel inadequate or feel like their life is not enough, or that they need to be constantly improving and striving and doing more, but rather an invitation for those who are feeling the pull to maybe expand into something that feels more deeply aligned, a life that feels more in integrity, a life that actually feels good. I think so many of us spend so much of our lives chasing goals or yardsticks or milestones that were maybe never really our true desires to begin with. We just got set upon a trajectory that society determined for us, or maybe our family determined for us, the people around us. And without even really thinking about it, we assume that when we get to XYZ Milestone, then we will be happy, then we will be fulfilled and we find ourselves on a hamster wheel of striving that actually leaves us feeling pretty hollow and empty and disconnected from ourselves. Maybe that's something that resonates with you. It certainly used to be true for me and is true for many of the people that I work with.
[00:02:40]:
For those who don't know much about my personal story, I used to be a corporate lawyer and mergers and acquisitions lawyer, so a far cry from what I do now. And there were parts of that job that I really enjoyed. Don't get me wrong, there was some exhilaration to it at times. It was quite fast paced and unpredictable. I look back on it now and see it mostly as a bit of an addiction to chaos and drama. That whole zero appeal to me nowadays. But at the time I did enjoy it. But I also had this deep knowing that I couldn't let that be my whole life and that if I continued down that path, because in many ways it was the easy thing to do.
[00:03:21]:
I knew what the path in front of me was. Even though it was taxing work, it was also relatively straightforward in terms of, you know, show up, do my job. It was low risk, maybe is a good way of putting it. I had this deep knowing that if I settled for that life, I'd be doing myself a great disservice and I'd be betraying my. My soul's yearning. Maybe that sounds a little esoteric for some, but I suspect at least some of you will know what I mean when I say that. So I'm going to share with you a few tips in today's episode about how you can set yourself on a path that feels more true, that feels more integral and aligned, where you can really come into a sense of authenticity around your life. Who you're being, what you're spending your time doing, who you're spending it with, really allowing the choices that you make and the actions that you take.
[00:04:17]:
That was an unintentional rhyme to feel true to you rather than feeling like you are performing or you're living someone else's life or a life that someone else has decided for you. Because I think sooner or later that catches up with us and there's a really deep grief that comes from living a life that isn't ours. And maybe the opportunity cost of the things that we didn't do because we were scared or because we were uncertain or because we didn't trust ourselves to be able to handle all of the trials and tribulations along the way. So that's what I'm going to be sharing about today. Before I dive into that, I wanted to share a little bit more with you about Homecoming, which is my six month advanced level mastermind. It's a hybrid small group and one to one programme. So our coaching calls are in a small group, but you also have private voice message access to me, so it's sort of like having me in your back pocket for voice message support when you need it. The energy that I'm bringing to Homecoming this time round, this is the third time I'm running, it is I want to invite people into that group who are ready to create a really Almost like a pinch me kind of life.
[00:05:34]:
It's not a programme for people who are wanting to simply feel less anxious, for example, or less insecure. It's actually a programme for people who want more. More joy, more vitality, more ease, more pleasure, more abundance, more freedom. And that's really what I'm feeling so passionate about helping people with at the moment. And not to detract from the folks who are wanting support with feeling less anxious or working on their anxious attachment. That is certainly important work and it's work that I'm really grateful to be able to support people with through my courses. But Homecoming is not that. Homecoming is really the next level.
[00:06:18]:
It's not about going from stressed out and strung out and barely getting by to a bit better. It's going from like, everything looks really good on the outside, but maybe it doesn't feel good. Maybe the success you've achieved feels hollow and you're ready to create a life where you feel truly free and alive. That's what I'm looking for for this next round of Homecoming. So if that resonates with you, I would love to have you in the group. I'll put the link in the show notes. But you're also most welcome to send an email to me or reach out to me on Instagram and we can have a bit of a chat about whether it's a good fit for you. But yeah, I'd really love for you to join.
[00:06:56]:
If those words really reverberate through your being and you're feeling like now is the time for you to make some big moves, to do scary things, maybe to rip the band aid off in one or more areas of your life and you're looking for some support and community in that journey. I'd really love to have you there. Okay, so let's talk about how to transform your life. Now, transforming your life is not an overnight thing, right? And I think that we would all love it to be. Like we could just do something hard once and then everything unfurls girls, in a really elegant way and the hard stuff's over. And then we get to enjoy the spoils of, you know, being brave or making a hard decision or whatever. And of course that's not reality. Of course.
[00:07:42]:
Transforming your life is a process. Making changes, all of that is a process. And it is, you know, the cumulative impact of choices and actions. Things we say yes to, things we say no to, the standards that we set for ourselves and our follow through on those standards. And so it's not an overnight thing, but it's also something that I've been reminded of this quite a bit recently. That change can happen pretty quickly. When I look back on my own life in the past, even three or four years, my life looks radically different to what it did not that long ago in the scheme of things, in terms of my work situation, the scale of my business, my financial situation, my relationship. I've had a baby.
[00:08:27]:
I was in a different relationship four years ago that was really dysfunctional, bordering on toxic. And I was just starting out in a new business, finding my way. And here we are four years later, and I really do feel grateful every day for what life looks like for me now. I also recently caught up with a former client of mine and she was a one on one client of mine two and a half years ago, and she was in a pretty dark place. Life felt really hard and she had a lot of anxiety. She was in a situationship that was driving her crazy and trying to get this person to choose her and show up and really begging for scraps. And bare minimum, she was working a job that she was very successful at but wasn't particularly fulfilling. And I caught up with her recently and she's now with a new partner, pregnant, has started her own business, and is living this beautiful life of ease and freedom and joy and abundance.
[00:09:30]:
And it was, yeah, it was a really beautiful reminder for me that it really is possible. And just to be clear, I'm not sharing her story to take credit at all for those changes, but rather just to demonstrate that things can change relatively quickly in the scheme of things. So if you're not feeling happy about where your life is at the moment, know that it could look radically different in 12 months or two years from now. But it does require you to step into responsibility and agency and trust that you actually have power to affect change in your life. Okay, so let me get into the advice, the advice that I'm giving you on how to transform your life. The first piece of advice is stop lying to yourself. This is big and it's really broad reaching in terms of how it impacts us. I think when we're being dishonest with ourselves.
[00:10:21]:
And this can be about what's working in our life, what isn't, maybe how satisfied we are or unsatisfied, the things that are blocking us, the ways in which we are contributing to our own suffering or misery or our own ill health or lack of vitality. There's lots of ways that we lie to ourselves, and we all do this to varying degrees. But the More honest you are with yourself, the more ruthlessly you can audit your life and what is working and what isn't working, the more that you get clear about the things you've been avoiding, where you've been making excuses, that reveals the path, right? Because that shines a light on all of the things that you have agency over and you know, all of the things that might be contributing to the way you're feeling about life. Life. And being able to see that all clearly and honestly is sort of like flicking the light switch on in a dark room that shows you where your work is. And it makes sense if that feels kind of daunting to be that brutally honest with ourselves. Because I think again, a lot of us, I don't say this with judgement, it's just reality, right? We like to hold on to the story that we are powerless. Sometimes there's some part of us that feels comfort in that story.
[00:11:33]:
Because as soon as we recognise and are honest about the extent of our agency over our situation, then it feels, feels like it's almost incumbent upon us to take action. And if we feel like we're maybe not ready for that level of responsibility or we're maybe not ready to make a big decision, then the incongruence that we feel, having recognised that we actually do have power, but we're not going to make the change, that can be a really hard pill to swallow. And so oftentimes we create more congruence by telling ourselves that we actually don't have the capacity or there's some reason that's bigger than us, that is stopping us from creating the life that we want. So it makes sense if you have resistance to this, but know that it's a really key first piece in changing your life is getting really honest and looking at your life and going, what role am I playing in the creation and maintenance of a status quo that feels unfulfilling to me, that feels maybe even soul destroying to me. Because really no one is going to do that work for you. No one is going to come and save you from that. Okay? The next one is realise that inaction is as much a decision or a choice as action. Okay? A lot of people who struggle with self trust also struggle with indecisiveness and will spend weeks, months, maybe even years weighing up the pros and cons of a decision, but then feeling like they don't trust themselves enough to pick the right decision or to know what the right decision is.
[00:13:10]:
And so they stay sort of paralysed or frozen and they Put off making a decision or making changes until some future point in time when they tell themselves that they'll know better than they do now. Now, again, this makes sense, but just know that doing nothing about something that's within your control is choosing more of the same. Okay, so if there's something that's within your control, a change that you want to make but you're not sure of not making the change is choosing more of what you've already got. I think that mindset shift, again, it mobilises us into a bit more responsibility and maybe it kind of shakes us by the shoulders and wakes us up to the ways in which we are actively creating and authoring our lives, rather than feeling like we're just passively floating along and that by not making changes, we're not actually doing anything. Therefore, we're not responsible. We are responsible for our inaction as much as we are our action. So get really honest again, get honest with yourself about the ways in which you've been hiding in inaction and convincing yourself that there's somehow less responsibility attached to doing nothing than there is attached to doing something. Okay, the next one is get really intimate with your desires, your wants, your yearnings.
[00:14:34]:
This is something that I think a lot of people shy away from and it feels a little bit edgy. But your desires are actually beautiful fuel and energy. And there's so much aliveness in the things that we want for ourselves. And I think a lot of us maybe resist getting clear about our desires and certainly sharing them with others because we think that to do so maybe solidifies them. Maybe it feels vulnerable, maybe it creates the possibility of failure, because as soon as we've articulated I want to do X, y, Z thing, or I want to quit my job and travel around the world, as soon as we say it, it's like it's out there. And so I feel this pressure to follow through. And again, if we don't trust ourselves to follow through, or there's another part of us that's really scared and wants to pull us back into our comfort zone, having tossed the desire out there and letting it be known, whether that's just writing it down for ourselves, it does activates something within us and it sort of plants the seed. And it's hard to undo once you've declared a yearning or a desire for yourself.
[00:15:50]:
And as much as that can be a bit terrifying, and it can, I think it's also something that you can use to your advantage because it does create this energy. It's like lighting A match, and this little fire or flame starts to burn inside you, and I really encourage you to use that to your advantage. So spend time really getting to the heart of what you want from this life. And if you struggle with that, as many people do, maybe try focusing on how you want to feel. I actually get every client I ever work with, I get them to do this. Tell me about how you want your life to feel, right? How do you want your love life to feel? How do you want to feel in your body? How do you want to feel in your work? How do you want your home environment to feel? Really, like, get the ball rolling and just go stream of consciousness on feeling words. So maybe you want your relationship to feel safe and steady, or maybe you want passion and aliveness and adventure, desire, electricity, eroticism. There's so many feelings that we can touch into, and I really do think that it's very, very fertile ground for bringing something to life, to really know what we're trying to embody in terms of the feelings that we're desiring that underp.
[00:17:13]:
Maybe the goals or the intentions. So spend time getting to know yourself and what you really want and yearn for, and give yourself full permission to declare that, whether it's just to yourself or to someone else, but allow yourself to go there. And certainly if you feel a lot of resistance to that, get really curious. What am I afraid of? What is it about voicing my desire is that that terrifies me so much? Because that will be very revealing as well. Okay, the next thing is build your capacity for discomfort. Okay. I heard a really great quote the other day from Dr. Becky Kennedy, who's actually a child psychologist.
[00:17:54]:
She has a great Instagram account and book and everything about parenting. But the quote was, that capability is the antidote to anxiety. And I loved it and I wrote it down because it. It's really at the heart of certainly everything I teach about anxious attachment and building self worth, and has certainly been instrumental in my own life, that the more you experience your own efficacy and capability and capacity to do and overcome hard things or challenge or discomfort, the less anxious you feel because you trust yourself to be able to deal with life, and you trust yourself to be able to handle whatever that life may throw at you and whatever emotions might arise in a situation. We spend so much time and energy trying to prevent bad things from happening so that we don't have to feel uncomfortable emotions. And while that's a very natural expression of our protective parts in our nervous system, it's also very taxing And I think there are far better uses of our time and energy than trying to constantly curate our lives so that we never have to experience discomfort. So really actively seek out opportunities to challenge yourself, to experience discomfort, to push the edges of what you believe you are capable of. And bit by bit, that's how we build our comfort zone.
[00:19:20]:
That's how we expand our comfort zone. And all of a sudden, we're not shying away from things that feel big and scary, we're actually stepping towards them courageously. Because fear is no longer a deterrent for us, it's just part of the price of admission for a big, bold, courageous life. And we know that and we trust in that and we trust in ourselves to be able to deal with it. The last one is Practise Courage, and it's along a similar line to the previous one. Again, I heard a great quote. I was listening to the Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown, which is one of her older books, and I've read it a few times before. But I was in the car the other day and I put on the audiobook and there was this line.
[00:20:02]:
I actually think she was quoting someone else else, and I'm not sure who, but she said, you learn to courage by couraging. Which of course is saying, courage is not something we can develop the ability for. In theory, you have to be courageous and do courageous things in order to build your courage and to trust in your ability to be courageous. And of course, courage is not fearlessness, it is feeling fear and doing the thing anyway because it matters and it feels like the right thing. And that is what our integrity and our authenticity is calling us into. That's courage. So it's not like to be courageous, we have to be unafraid. And certainly so many, almost all of the things that I've done in the last five years that have been really formative in creating a life that I have today, I've been shit scared of all of them.
[00:21:00]:
Right. There are still things all the time that feel really edgy and uncomfortable for me and that really require me to practise courage and to trust that whatever happens, whatever the outcome, I can handle it. And it really is a practise. It's just something that you clock reps of and the more reps you do, the more you build that courage muscle. So whether it's little things or big things, and I think it's good to have a combination of both. Practise courage, learn to courage by couraging, and that will be very, very transformative for all aspects of your life because it is ultimately transformative of your inner relationship and that spills out everywhere in the best possible way. Okay, I'm going to leave it there. I hope that this has given you food for thought.
[00:21:49]:
I hope that it has been inspiring for those of you who are a little in need of inspiration or encourage. And I know that conversations around agency and personal responsibility can be a bit confronting. But always know that this advice is coming from not only a loving place, but a place of deeply believing in you and what is possible for your life. And I think sometimes having someone else believe in that when we're a little wobbly can be really helpful in nudging us forward and allowing us to have the self belief to make whatever the changes are that we maybe know we need to or we feel called to make. So going to leave it there. As I said at the start, if all of this is resonating deep in your being and you're feeling the pull to go all in on yourself this year, send me a message about my Homecoming mastermind. Or if you are ready to pull the trigger, you can sign up directly on my website. I would love to have you there and I'd love to walk on that path with you this year.
[00:22:55]:
Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment. If you wanna go deeper on all things attachment, love, and relationships, you can find me on Instagram @stephanie__rigg or at stephanierigg.com. And if you enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a review and a 5 star rating. It really does help so much. Thanks again for being here, and I hope to see you again soon.
Keywords from Podcast Episode
On Attachment podcast, relationship coach, Stephanie Rigg, Happy New Year, podcast hiatus, transform your life, inspirational podcast, practical tools, insecurity, thriving relationships, corporate lawyer, mergers and acquisitions, addiction to chaos, soul's yearning, authenticity, performing, high standards, Homecoming mastermind, small group programme, voice message support, pinch me life, freedom, abundance, self trust, self belief, desires, capability, discomfort, courage, resilience, agency, personal responsibility
#170: Dating Q&A: Early Dating with Anxious Attachment, Navigating Texting Anxiety, Not Attaching Too Quickly, Prioritising Values Over Chemistry
In this Q&A episode, I’m answering your most common questions about early dating—particularly through the lens of anxious attachment. If dating feels like a minefield of overthinking, anxiety, and emotional highs and lows, this episode is for you.
In this Q&A episode, I’m answering your most common questions about early dating—particularly through the lens of anxious attachment. If dating feels like a minefield of overthinking, anxiety, and emotional highs and lows, this episode is for you.
We’ll explore:
Early dating dynamics: Navigating the vulnerability and uncertainty that comes with getting to know someone new.
Not attaching too quickly: Why it happens for those with anxious attachment and how to pace yourself emotionally.
Texting anxiety: How to manage the discomfort of waiting for replies and keep yourself grounded.
Values over chemistry: Why prioritising what truly matters can help you avoid unhealthy patterns and feel more secure.
Navigating Early Dating as an Anxiously Attached Person
Dating can be a whirlwind of emotions, especially for those who lean towards anxious attachment. The early stages of dating bring forth various challenges that can trigger insecurities and make the experience more stressful than it needs to be. However, understanding these dynamics and equipping oneself with practical tools can help ease the process. Here’s how to navigate early dating as someone with anxious attachment, from handling texting anxiety to prioritising values over fleeting chemistry.
Managing the Urge to Attach Quickly
One common experience for those with anxious attachment is the tendency to get attached very quickly. This often involves fantasising about the future with someone they've just met, leading to heightened feelings of attachment before truly knowing the person.
Reminder: You Don’t Know Them Yet
It’s crucial to remind yourself in the early dating stages that you don’t fully know the person yet. Although the initial connection might feel strong, it’s essential to recognise that it’s based on a limited interaction. Both parties tend to present the best versions of themselves in the beginning, which can create an idealised image.
Slow Down the Physical Intimacy
Holding off on physical intimacy can also be beneficial. Since being intimate often amplifies attachment, postponing this until there’s a clearer picture of mutual interest and compatibility can help manage the intensity of attachment.
Self-Responsibility and Boundaries
Be self-responsible by setting personal boundaries around how quickly you allow yourself to get attached. This might mean consciously pulling back and pacing the relationship to ensure that emotions don’t overshadow rational decision-making.
Navigating a Slow Burn
The early dating stages can be especially challenging when things are moving slowly. The uncertainty and lack of assurance can trigger anxiety and make one feel the need to fast-track the process.
Comfort in Discomfort
Recognise that the discomfort of not knowing where you stand is a natural part of the early dating process. It’s important to learn how to hold space for this uncertainty without feeling the need to resolve it immediately.
Focus on Self-Care
Continue to prioritise self-care and maintain your normal routines. Engaging in activities that bring joy and spending time with friends can prevent you from becoming overly fixated on the new relationship.
Set Communication Boundaries
Creating boundaries around communication can help manage anxiety. For instance, if you find yourself constantly checking for messages, setting specific times to check your phone can prevent the anticipation from overwhelming your day.
Balancing Chemistry and Values
It’s easy to get swept up by physical attraction and chemistry, but ensuring that your values align is crucial for long-term compatibility.
Understand Your Values
Clearly define your values and non-negotiables before entering the dating scene. Knowing what you need and what you’re not willing to compromise on can help you stay grounded when chemistry is high.
Act on Intention, Not Impulse
While it’s natural to feel strong attraction, it’s important not to let it cloud your judgement. Stay intentional about assessing compatibility beyond surface-level attributes by focusing on your predefined values and needs.
Validate Your Standards
Trust and validate your standards. Compromising on your core values for the sake of chemistry can lead to dissatisfaction down the line. Prioritising values ensures that the relationship is built on a solid foundation.
Tackling Texting Anxiety
Texting anxiety is a significant challenge for those with anxious attachment, as it can create a cycle of tension and constant validation-seeking.
Recognise the Addictive Nature
Understand that texting can create an addictive loop, where each response provides a dopamine hit, followed by anxiety during the waiting period. Recognising this pattern is the first step to managing it.
Establish Healthy Boundaries
Set clear boundaries around texting. For example, telling your date that you’ll be putting your phone on do not disturb during work hours can create a sense of structure. This reduces the anticipatory anxiety of waiting for a response and helps maintain focus on daily tasks.
Communicate Needs Directly
Communicating directly can also prevent misunderstandings. Letting your date know your communication preferences can set the tone for healthier interactions and reduce anxiety around guessing their intentions.
Focus on Self-Trust
Build self-trust by honouring your boundaries and recognising that you don’t need constant communication to secure someone’s interest. Time and space don’t diminish the connection if it’s genuinely there.
Conclusion
Navigating early dating with anxious attachment presents unique challenges, but it also offers an opportunity for personal growth. By understanding your patterns, setting boundaries, prioritising values, and managing texting anxiety, you can create a more balanced and fulfilling dating experience. Remember, it’s about staying true to yourself and cultivating relationships that align with your authentic needs and values. Warmth, patience, and self-compassion will guide you through the journey towards healthier attachment and loving relationships.
Questions for Discussion & Reflection
Do you find that you often get attached too quickly in early dating? What are some specific situations where you noticed this happening?
How do you typically react when someone you're interested in does not text back immediately? What feelings or thoughts come up for you, and how do you manage them?
Are you clear on your nonnegotiables and deal-breakers in a relationship? Write a list of your top 3 nonnegotiables and 3 deal-breakers and reflect on how well you've adhered to them in past relationships.
Reflect on a time when you got swept up in chemistry and looks. Looking back, how might focusing on values and alignment have changed the outcome?
What are some practical steps you can take to slow down the pace of your attachment in early dating?
When you feel anxiety around texting in the early stages of dating, what self-care practices can you implement to soothe yourself instead of seeking instant reassurance?
How do you differentiate between a healthy boundary and a defence mechanism in your interactions with potential partners? Do you notice any patterns?
Reflect on a past dating experience where you felt unsupported by your partner's responsiveness. What would you do differently now to ensure your emotional needs are met?
Are you able to sit with discomfort and uncertainty in dating without rushing to 'fix' it? What strategies could help you become more comfortable with this ambiguity?
How do your attachment patterns impact your ability to stay present in early dating? Explore how mindful practices could help you stay focused on the here and now rather than future fantasies.
Use these prompts to dive deeper into your attachment patterns and how they shape your dating experiences.
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
[00:00:29]:
In today's episode, we're talking all about anxious attachment and dating. So for a lot of people with anxious attachment, dating is a real challenge. It's a struggle. It very much brings you face to face with a lot of your triggers and a lot of your sensitivities. It really tests you, in ways that can make it all feel like a big swirling pit of anxiety and stress and overthinking and uncertainty. And I know that it's a real struggle for a lot of people.
[00:01:02]:
So in today's episode, I'm going to be answering some questions that I received on Instagram around the topic of anxious attachment and dating, how to navigate things like the pacing of dating as an anxiously attached person. I think anxiously attached people tend to struggle with taking it slow and knowing what to do with that kind of slow burn at the start of early dating. The instinct is very much to jump ahead and try and, know, shortcut all of that early stage where it's a bit uncertain and unclear. I'm also gonna be talking a little bit about texting anxiety, which I know is a big one, and also around being really values driven rather than getting swept up in chemistry and looks and all of those things, and maybe looking past an incompatibility or the fact that it's not really an aligned partnership or an aligned pick for you. So those are gonna be some of the questions that I'm chatting through today. And hopefully, we'll be able to give you some reassurance, some guidance, some practical tools if you are someone who leans towards anxious attachment, and you are currently in the dating pool, and struggling to navigate that and needing a little bit of help. So that's what we're gonna be talking about today. Before I do a couple of quick announcements, a reminder that healing anxious attachment is now open.
[00:02:21]:
As I shared last week, I've decided to transition the course to an evergreen model, meaning it is open for enrollment at any time. But today is the last day of early bird pricing, so the price will be rising tomorrow. As I said, you can join whenever now. At least I'll be trialing that model as an alternative to having set launches throughout the year. So you can sign up whenever you want. But if you are interested in joining the course and you'd like to take advantage of the early bird pricing, today's the day to do that as the price will be going up by $100 tomorrow. 2nd quick announcement is just a reminder about my Homecoming Mastermind. So for those who are unfamiliar, Homecoming is my most advanced level program.
[00:03:05]:
It's a 6 month mentorship. It's the most intimate way to work with me at the moment as I'm not offering 1 on 1 coaching. You do get 1 on 1 access to me within the mastermind via voice message. So for that 6 month period of the program, if anything comes up for you, you can reach out to me and have a direct line there for support. As well as a monthly masterclass led by me, 2 monthly group calls, a community space, and free access to all of my programs, which in itself is valued at almost $2,000 So there's stacks of value in this program. And there is an extended 9 month payment plan available at the moment as well. For For anyone who is interested in homecoming, I've opened up a few spots for discovery calls. So if you wanna jump on a call with me and just confirm that it's a good fit for you as a program, I have offered up a few spots for that.
[00:04:00]:
So if you're interested in that, if you could just send an email to my team support@stephanierigg.com, and we can tee that up. Okay. So with that out of the way, let's dive into these questions around anxious attachment and dating. So the first one is how do I stop myself from getting attached too quickly? So I think this is one that a lot of anxiously attached people will relate to. The tendency to go from 0 to a100 in the blink of an eye. You connect with someone and maybe you've only had fairly limited interactions with them, but all of a sudden you're, you're leaping ahead to imagining what it's gonna be like when you introduce them to your family and when you move in together and what are our kids' names gonna be. You're really assessing their suitability as your life partner on the first date or even before the first date. And I think that tendency to skip ahead is very much a trope of anxious attachment.
[00:04:52]:
And I think that's really essential to answering this question of, you know, how do I maybe pull myself back a little? How do I pace myself a little more steadily rather than getting attached too quickly? I think reminding yourself that you don't know this person. When you are in those very early stages, maybe you've only had limited interactions with them. Maybe you've been messaging back and forth. Maybe you've been on a date or 2. You don't know them. As much as you might feel like, oh my god, I know you. We have such an amazing connection. You don't know them.
[00:05:23]:
A very, very limited piece of them that they have presented to you with a view to being charming and being their best selves. As you have them, it's not a criticism of the person. It's just the reality of the context of dating, that we put our best foot forward and we're trying to impress someone, we're trying to get them to like us. I think we all do that and that's fine, but I think we have to go in with an awareness that both we and they are doing that. And so when you find yourself, like, totally smitten with them on the first date, just coming back to, like, I don't really know this person. That doesn't mean that you have to totally discount how you're feeling towards them, but just being wary of the the chemical cocktail that is carrying all of that. And that is leading you to feel very attached to them, but really, you are attaching yourself to a fantasy and a projection. And, obviously, at that early stage, we tend to idealise someone and put them on a pedestal and we can't imagine that they have any faults.
[00:06:24]:
And even if there were any signs of faults, we'd probably look past them anyway and just focus on all of the lovely things that we're very excited about. So just bearing in mind that, like, this person, like every other person, is going to have things that you can't stand, that you just haven't seen yet. So they are not this perfect person. Your whole life doesn't depend on getting them to like you back. If they don't like you past the 2nd or third date, you will be fine. Because again, your life existed long before you ever met this person and it will exist long after, if there is an after. So just, like, bringing yourself back to reality as much as possible. That won't necessarily make the feelings go away, all of that chemical rash and attachment, But you can be really self responsible in anchoring yourself and just reminding yourself, like, okay.
[00:07:15]:
Yes. I recognize that I'm doing that thing where I kind of go full speed into romanticising, attaching, all of that. And I could consciously choose to slow myself down to remind myself that it's okay. I don't actually know this person. My whole life doesn't depend on this relationship working out, on them liking me. My sense of self doesn't need to be tied to how this goes, All of those things. Another practical one that I'll say is, if you know that you are someone who attaches very quickly, and that being intimate tends to ramp things up and really amplify your attachment as it will for most people, maybe hold off on sleeping together until you know them better, until there's clear reciprocity, until you're confident in trusting that they are equally interested in you. It's really easy when you've attached to someone and there's an opportunity to be intimate on maybe, like, the second or the third date to think that that'll lock it in and that that's the opportunity and that that's your kind of window to really cement the bond and the connection.
[00:08:19]:
And of course, there's a lot of desire and attraction and all of that wrapped up in it. But just be mindful that in doing that, you are going to seriously dial up your attachment to them almost certainly. That is a biological thing that's gonna happen. And to be clear, I'm not suggesting any, like, rules around this. I'm not giving out, like, dating coach advice on, don't sleep with them before the whatever date. None of that. But just know yourself and be self responsible. So if you know that you are going to become obsessed with them if you sleep together, maybe don't sleep together until you are comfortable with being really attached to them.
[00:08:56]:
And that might come a little bit later. You might decide to hold off, and trust that the right person who's a good partner, who's a secure partner, isn't gonna kinda get bored and lose interest if you haven't slept together. You don't need to do that in order to kinda maintain their interest and attraction. Okay. The next question is kind of the flip side of the first question in some respects. And it's any advice on how to navigate early dating when things are moving very slowly? So for anxiously attached people, the slow moving stage is very hard. Right? Because you, as I said, want to skip through that part where it's uncertain, where you don't know what they're up to, where you don't know really what they're doing, where you haven't met their friends maybe or you just don't have visibility over their life. You don't have the right or entitlement to expect that they're gonna message you back right away because you're not their partner.
[00:09:54]:
They're seeing other people, all of these things. That is a very, very uncomfortable zone for anxiously attached people to hang out in because everything in your being says, like, connect, attach, and eliminate uncertainty. That's how I get to safety. So spending a lot of time in that early stage where you can't necessarily guarantee that, and probably you have this lurking awareness that they might still be dating other people and that you are not their number one priority, whether romantically or just in life. Right? Like, they're doing other things. They're not maybe thinking about you all day, every day. That's probably gonna be pretty triggering for your worthiness wounds, your wounds around not feeling prioritised, the parts of you that feel like you need to work really hard to earn someone's attention and affection and approval. Just recognising and being comfortable with the fact that it's not all about you, and the relationship isn't locked down yet, and there are no guarantees, and that, you know, rejection or loss of the connection is a very real possibility, all of that's gonna be hard.
[00:11:05]:
I think as always, just seeing that for what it is and recognising it is a very helpful starting point. So often, we feel things, we feel anxiety, we feel the stress, and we don't really give it much more thought. We just follow the feeling and we act accordingly. I think we can as we grow, we wanna develop this ability to notice the feeling and go, Isn't that interesting? Isn't that interesting? Look at me feeling this urge to lock it down or to leapfrog over this stage of uncertainty. That makes so much sense. Of course, I want that. Of course, this is uncomfortable for me. Of course, I'm struggling to be in this liminal in between space when I am really excited about someone.
[00:11:51]:
But all of these risks are here, all of these vulnerabilities here that I can't necessarily control for or or mitigate the risk of. That all makes so much sense. It makes sense. This is uncomfortable for me. And my work here is to linger in the discomfort, support myself through it rather than panic and try and make it go away, which I think is the default mode. So the more we can practice that comforting ourselves being with that learning to hold the discomfort and the anxiety without racing to try and eliminate it or fix it or solve it, that's a really huge growth edge for a lot of us. And practically speaking, that looks like just continuing to take care of yourself, to do the things that you would do in your life, to make plans with other people, with friends, to continue with all of your healthy routines, all of these things. Put boundaries around your communication with them or your phone use or whatever.
[00:12:49]:
We're gonna come to that in a minute when we talk about texting anxiety. But if you know that, like, you're checking your phone like a maniac every 3 seconds to see if they've messaged you, Put boundaries around that. That's that's your job to be self responsible there, rather than just being like, well, I can't help it because I'm anxious. Okay? Your anxiety is feedback, but it doesn't have to be in control of your life. And it's your job to really step into more of an internal leadership role and consciously choose how you wanna show up. And you will veer off course and that's okay. You just have to course correct and come back to centre and go, okay. What am I noticing? What am I feeling? What do I need? How can I support myself best in this moment? And how can I keep showing up as my best self, as my most secure self? What would the secure version of me do in this situation? All of those sorts of questions are a really good way to bring yourself back when you notice all of that anxiety creeping up in that early stage when things feel a bit uncertain and unsure.
[00:13:52]:
Okay, the next question is how do you stop being swayed by looks and chemistry and focus on actual values, alignment, and what you're truly looking for? So again, this is a big one, but I think what it ultimately comes down to is it's sort of a similar principle. You can feel things and you can't stop yourself from feeling things. You can't stop yourself from being super attracted to someone and feeling intense chemistry with them. You can will that away all you want, but you're gonna feel it. The growth is in not just impulsively acting on whatever you feel. And that's true for anxiety. It's true for chemistry. Right? So being really, really clear.
[00:14:29]:
And I always say to people, do this work before you've got someone in front of you that you're super excited about and you're already attaching to. Be very clear around what am I looking for? What are my values? What am I available for? What am I not available for? What are my nonnegotiables? What are my deal breakers? I frame nonnegotiables as positive things that we absolutely need. So you might say, it is nonnegotiable for me that I'm able to have difficult conversations with a partner without it devolving into a a fight or loss of contact or loss of connection or something like that. So it's something that you actively need. And a deal breaker is something that cannot be present if you are going to be in that relationship. So you might have it as a deal breaker that you don't wanna be in a relationship with someone who takes drugs or someone who doesn't wanna be monogamous. Right? Like, these things that are clear lines in the sand that you can just go unequivocally, that's not gonna work for me. And I don't need to argue with you about it.
[00:15:33]:
If that's something that you want and it's something that I don't, then that's the end of the road for us. I think so many anxiously attached people get themselves stuck in situations where they haven't been clear with themselves where their lines are, what they need, what their non negotiables and deal breakers are. And then they attach to someone, and they start trying to reverse engineer it and questioning their values, questioning their deal breakers, questioning themselves for, should I be comfortable with this thing that I'm not really comfortable with? Because the person that I'm dating is telling me that it's not that big of a deal, but it is a big deal to me. And so I end up arguing with myself and with them about it when I should have just been clearer with myself from the outset and backed myself on what I know to be true for me. So don't make that mistake because you'll save yourself a whole lot of drama, a whole lot of headache and heartache by just knowing yourself and validating what is true for you in terms of what your values are. And then it's over to you to be self responsible, to really build self trust by following through on what you say is important to you and not being blinded by these vanity things, like looks and chemistry and stuff that is not really a great litmus test for compatibility, necessarily. Again, it's not to say that you have to discount physical attraction. I think that that should be an element of of relationships.
[00:16:58]:
Right? I don't think you have to persist with someone where there is absolutely zero attraction and you just know deep down that you don't find them attractive. But I think that being solely guided by that or primarily guided by that in the face of glaring incompatibilities in other departments, that's where we really come unstuck. So it's not like chemistry is a bad thing. It just can't be the main criterion that you're using to make these decisions around the viability of a connection. Okay. And the last question that I'm gonna answer is, in early dating, I'm struggling around anxiety with texting. Please help. Okay.
[00:17:36]:
Texting anxiety is such a big thing. I recorded an episode for probably about 2 years ago now about texting anxiety, and it actually went a little bit viral. So obviously, there's there's a lot of appetite for this conversation. And I think we need to recognize that texting and everything else to do with our phones is designed to be addictive. Right? The notifications, the short messages, it's like being drip fed reassurance. For anxiously attached people, it's like, I feel connected to you every time I get a text and then I fall off the cliff into the void. And so it just takes you on these big waves of dopamine peaks and troughs. Right? And every time I hear from you, I'm gonna get this spike.
[00:18:19]:
And then I send a reply and then we're back in the void, right? We're back in the space. And I don't know whether I'm gonna get a message from you in 1 minute or 2 hours. And so I'm in this constant state of anticipatory anxiety until I next hear from you, right? That is an absolute hellscape for anxious attachment. Right? It is a recipe for disaster. Because, obviously, as I said, that's designed to be addictive for anyone, same way with our devices and the notifications and the little, you know, red alerts and everything like that. The sounds, all of it is designed to be addictive. When you are someone who fixates obsessively on needing to feel connected and reassured and struggles so much with feeling any fleeting sense of disconnection or uncertainty, having, you know, this constant schedule of intermittent reinforcement around connection is so, so challenging for you because it is going to be so, so addictive. It will consume all of your energy and attention.
[00:19:24]:
It is like playing the slot machine and doing so with a very, very powerful system being your attachment system. So recognising that the odds are stacked against you as far as texting goes and the anxiety that you are experiencing around texting someone in the early dating phase when you are so hyped up on all of those chemicals of attraction, you are going to be fighting against some powerful forces to not be super anxious about it. Okay? And particularly, if things start to shift, I've talked before about how anxiously attached people and the tendency towards hypervigilance and hypersensitivity to any temperature shifts in the communication. All of that means that if they've been texting you every 5 minutes and then all of a sudden there's a change or and they don't reply for 2 hours or they were using certain emojis and then they stopped using those emojis. Or, like, all of these little things that that the average person might not pay much attention to. For anxious attachment, you're, like, super aware and super on high alert to any potential shifts in the direction of less warmth, less enthusiasm, less responsiveness because that feels like the alarm. That feels like the signal of, oh, no. Something bad's happening.
[00:20:41]:
They're losing interest. What do I do? And you feel really powerless because what can you do other than keep texting them. And that doesn't really solve the problem because you texting them doesn't give you the solution. It's them texting you back, which gives you the reassurance, and you don't have control over that. Right? So it very quickly becomes this powerless one-sided dynamic. And in that space where you're waiting for a response from them, your brain is going to be likely interpreting that silence, that space as very catastrophic, as meaning something's wrong. Maybe they're with someone else. Why haven't they texted back? All of these things.
[00:21:18]:
Right? So all that to say, like, be responsible. This is the common thread through all of this advice is, like, you need to know yourself and you need to know your pattern and you need to know where the odds are stacked against you in the process and the realities of that process. And you need to help yourself out. So if that means for you messaging someone in the morning and then saying, I'm gonna put my phone on do not disturb today so that I can concentrate at work. Let's chat later. Right? By doing that, you're not in that anticipatory mode of waiting for their next response because you set the boundaries that then allow you to kind of breathe and feel a level of safety and containment. Like, I can go about my day, nothing's wrong. I don't have to read into the fact that I haven't heard from them because I've put the boundary in place.
[00:22:08]:
There's a reason I haven't heard from them and it's because I have established parameters around that that have provided that level of structure rather than it being this constant open ended conversation where every gap between text feels like this incredibly painful, prolonged pause, question mark, uncertainty zone that is just going to absolutely siphon all of your emotional energy, all of your ability to focus on other things that's gonna keep you tethered to your phone even more than you might already be. None of us need that and it's just not healthy. And it's going to really raise the stakes, right? Because again, this is probably someone you don't know terribly well, And the dopamine rush of all of that is going to hook you in in a way that is disproportionate to the connection and how well you know them, how serious the relationship is. All of a sudden, your body and your nervous system is going to be so invested in something that probably just isn't that big of a deal, that isn't as high stakes as it's going to feel if you allow yourself to ride that roller coaster of constant texting. So that is your job, to be direct in communicating, to be really brave in setting those boundaries and trusting that nothing bad is gonna happen in the 8 hours between the start of my work day and the end of the day when we might touch base again or or whatever. They're not gonna lose interest. As I always say, people actually really respect and are attracted to people who have healthy boundaries. You don't have to be in constant contact with someone in order for them to like you.
[00:23:42]:
They're not gonna forget that you exist if you have a few hours of space from each other. So just trust that you don't have to be constantly connected in order to secure a relationship to lock it down. Okay. I'm gonna stop there. I hope that that's been helpful for those of you who are navigating the dating phase, and particularly the early dating phase, I know it can be a minefield. I know it can be really challenging. But as I've said through all of those responses, it's really on you to know your patterns, to know where your weak points are, and to plan for it and to have that conscious orienting back to what are my values? What are my choices? How do I want to show up in this situation? And not just blindly following a feeling following an impulse, going down a path that you know, is maybe not aligned because my anxiety told me to, right? Our anxiety is powerful, but it doesn't have to be in the driver's seat. And part of growing is really, you know, recognising it and going, okay.
[00:24:38]:
Like, you're here and that's okay. That's to be expected. I don't have to read into the fact that I'm feeling anxious because I should expect to feel anxious in this early dating phase because of the way that it triggers my attachment patterns. And I can choose to maybe try something different to what I would do by default. And that's really where we get to grow and create new patterns. So hope that's been helpful. Next week is Christmas. So I will have another episode out probably late next week.
[00:25:06]:
So it might be a couple days later than usual. I won't be publishing an episode on Christmas day. Wishing you a very, very merry, peace full, restorative Christmas for those who will be celebrating and taking some downtime and sending so much love and thank you as always for the support. I will see you at some point between now and the new year. But until then, thanks so much for joining me.
[00:25:33]:
Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment. If you wanna go deeper on all things attachment, love, and relationships, you can find me on Instagram @stephanie__rigg or at stephanierigg.com. And if you enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a review and a 5 star rating. It really does help so much. Thanks again for being here, and I hope to see you again soon.
Keywords from Podcast Episode
anxious attachment, dating challenges, relationship triggers, early dating, pacing in dating, dating anxiety, texting anxiety, values driven dating, compatibility, attachment patterns, healthy relationships, insecure attachment, practical tools, enrolment, early bird pricing, Homecoming Mastermind, mentorship program, personal growth, relationship coaching, setting boundaries, self trust, emotional energy, dopamine rush, rejection fear, worthiness wounds, attachment tendencies, attachment system, emotional roller coaster, chemical cocktail, nonnegotiable, deal breakers