#158 How to Stop Obsessing About Someone
In this episode, we’re tackling the challenging topic of obsessive thinking about someone and how to break free from that mental loop that causes suffering.
In this episode, we’re tackling the challenging topic of obsessive thinking about someone and how to break free from that mental loop that causes suffering.
We’ll explore different approaches, including Byron Katie’s The Work as a top-down method for challenging your thoughts, somatic tools to discharge anxiety from the body as a bottom-up approach, as well as the broader work of addressing the insecurities and wounds that often fuel obsessive thinking.
By addressing your thoughts, calming your body, and working through your deeper emotional wounds, you can find peace and clarity in your relationships.
How to Stop Obsessing About Someone: Breaking the Cycle of Rumination
Obsessing over someone, whether due to romantic interest, rejection, or any other interaction, can be draining and counterproductive. For those with anxious attachment styles or heightened anxiety levels, these obsessive thoughts can feel overwhelming and inescapable. However, learning to manage and diffuse this cycle of rumination can significantly improve emotional well-being and mental clarity.
Recognising the Cycle of Obsession
Understanding the nature of obsessive thinking is the first step towards breaking free from it. Often, these thoughts stem from feelings of anxiety or insecurity, leading us to fixate on people or situations in an attempt to process or resolve those emotions. Whether it’s a minor social interaction or a significant relationship dynamic, these thoughts pull our energy and focus, often exacerbating feelings of stress and anxiety.
Questioning the Validity of Your Thoughts
One effective technique to combat obsessive thinking is drawn from Byron Katie's "The Work," which involves four crucial questions:
Is it true?
Can you be absolutely certain that it’s true?
How do you react when you believe this thought?
Who would you be without the thought?
By applying these questions to your obsessive thoughts, you can create a mental and emotional distance. Questioning the veracity of your thoughts helps dismantle the power they hold over you, allowing you to see them as transient and not necessarily reflective of reality.
Shifting from Victim to Empowered Observer
Obsessive thoughts can often make us feel like helpless victims of our own minds. Shifting perspective from a powerless participant to an empowered observer of your thoughts can be incredibly liberating. Visualising thoughts as clouds passing by can help to reduce their intensity, and rather than engaging deeply with them, learning to witness them impassively can break the cycle of obsession.
Addressing Underlying Anxiety
Obsessive thoughts are frequently a manifestation of underlying anxiety, which is a bodily experience more than a purely cognitive one. Recognising this connection can be a game-changer. Anxiety often places us in a heightened state of fight or flight, leading to a faster-paced, more intense thought process.
Physical activities like brisk walks, runs, or even simply shaking out your limbs can help discharge this anxious energy from your body. By addressing the physical root of anxiety, you can reduce the mental swirl of obsessive thoughts.
Cultivating Self-Compassion and Healing
At the heart of many obsessive thoughts lies a wound—whether it’s a sense of unworthiness, fear of rejection, or some deep-seated insecurity. Healing these wounds involves a longer, ongoing process of cultivating self-compassion and working towards greater emotional security.
When you feel secure in yourself and possess a robust sense of self-worth, the need to obsessively analyse others' behaviours diminishes. This doesn’t happen overnight but is a gradual shift resulting from consistent inner work and self-reflection.
Integrating Tools and Practices
Combining both cognitive and somatic approaches can offer a holistic way to manage obsessive thinking. Using the questioning technique from Byron Katie along with physical activities to manage anxiety creates a well-rounded strategy. Ensuring that you have these tools readily available provides quick access to self-regulation whenever obsessive thoughts start creeping in.
The Role of Greater Emotional Security
Over time, developing emotional security naturally reduces the tendency to obsess. When we are clear in who we are and compassionate towards ourselves and others, the stories of victim and villain lose their appeal. We begin to see situations with more nuance and less black-and-white thinking.
Emotional security fosters a balanced approach to relationships and interactions. Confidence in oneself makes the ‘need’ to obsess over others less pressing, freeing up mental and emotional space for healthier engagement.
Conclusion
Breaking free from obsessive thinking is a multi-faceted process, involving both cognitive reframing and addressing underlying anxiety. By questioning the validity of your thoughts, tending to your body's signals of stress, and working towards greater emotional security, you can significantly reduce the grip of obsession and rumination on your life. In time, this holistic approach can lead to a more balanced, peaceful, and empowered state of being.
Questions for Discussion & Reflection
Do you often find yourself feeling imprisoned by your own thoughts? Reflect on the ways in which this impacts your daily life and overall well-being.
How do you react when you start to believe thoughts that cause you suffering? Consider how you typically respond emotionally and behaviourally to these thoughts.
Have you tried the 4 questions by Byron Katie from this episode? What insights did you gain from exploring whether your thoughts are true and how you'd feel without them?
When you notice yourself obsessing about a person or situation, what physical sensations do you experience in your body? How might this relate to your anxiety levels?
What are your current go-to strategies for self-soothing when you are feeling anxious? Reflect on which methods have been most effective for you and why.
How does the idea of being the observer of your thoughts, rather than experiencing them as absolute truth, resonate with you? How might this perspective shift affect your relationship with your thoughts?
Reflect on a recent experience where you felt rejected or hurt. How did your pre-existing insecurities play a role in magnifying this feeling?
How might moving your body in times of stress or anxiety help to alleviate obsessive thinking? Consider the types of physical activities you enjoy and how you can incorporate them into your routine.
In what ways do you find yourself making victim stories about situations or people in your life? What do you notice about the patterns these stories follow?
How does compassion for yourself and others influence your tendency to ruminate? Reflect on the role self-compassion plays in interrupting negative thought cycles.
UPCOMING EVENTS:
Byron Bay Retreat - Apply now! 🏝️
Sydney Workshop (November) - Buy tickets
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Check out my couples course, Secure Together (& save $200 with the code SECURE)
Save 50% on my Higher Love break-up course with the code PHOENIX
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
[00:00:00]:
In today's episode, we're talking about how to stop the endless cycles of obsessing and ruminating about someone or something. So if you're someone with anxious attachment or any sort of level of anxiety, which I think will capture a significant chunk of my listeners, I think this is gonna be a really helpful episode. I'm gonna be sharing a few reframes and techniques, things that I use regularly that allow me to feel free from the thoughts that's been around in my head. And I think that the more we can release ourselves from this attachment to our thoughts as truth, the more peace we have in our lives, the more control we have over our emotions, and the way that we respond and react to things in our lives, is an incredibly valuable thing to practice and hone our capacity for observing our thoughts, being the witness of our thoughts rather than experiencing them as true and all encompassing. So often I hear from people who more or less feel like their thoughts are in control and they are at the mercy of them. This sense of I can't, I can't do anything about it.
[00:01:15]:
I can't help it feeling like a really helpless victim of their own thoughts, almost like they're imprisoned by their thoughts. And I think that's a very common experience and one that can really create a lot of suffering in our lives. And so today's episode, I'm gonna be sharing a few different ways that you can interrupt those cycles and really step into a more empowered place, one of agency, where you are the observer of your thoughts and you don't have to pay so much attention to them. And it doesn't feel like your thoughts are running the show, which I think is very liberating to reach a place where you can watch your thoughts float by like a cloud in the sky rather than feeling like it's this big, heavy, true thing that you have to obsess on. And particularly, I think when you're obsessing about someone else, again, that can feel quite crazy making, I think. And whether it's someone who you're interested in romantically or someone who rejected you, we can so easily make ourselves the victim. And I think it's very juicy and seductive to make ourselves the victim of a situation. And the stories that spring from that are incredibly tempting and can really draw us in, but inevitably keep us stuck in a mode that is not really conducive to our well-being.
[00:02:39]:
So I'm gonna be talking about that today. Now before I do, I just wanted to share, you may have heard me say last week or seen on Instagram that I am holding a retreat here in Australia, in beautiful Byron Bay, in May 2025, so May next year. We've secured the most incredible venue, we went and visited this place last month, and it is just amazing. It's gonna be 3 days, 3 nights, packed with workshops, lots of connection, like minded people in really the most beautiful setting. So if that appeals to you, early bird registration is now open. You can apply by heading directly to my website, or there will also be a link in the show notes. There are a limited number of early bird spots, a number of which have already been taken, so definitely don't delay if you are wanting to join us. I would apply sooner rather than later.
[00:03:30]:
Second announcement, in a similar vein, very excited to share that I'm also holding a 2 day weekend workshop in Sydney at the end of November, so 30th November, 1st December, so that's just a daytime thing on a Saturday and a Sunday. Again, I'll pop all the details in the show notes. If you'd like to come along for a weekend workshop with me, I would love to see you there as well. For any Sydneysiders or folks who want to come to Sydney, check that out as well. Okay, so let's talk about how to stop obsessing about someone or something. Now, I think it's important to say at the outset that when we are obsessing about someone or something and this is so broad in its application because as I said in the introduction, it could be a person who rejected us, it could be an interaction at the coffee shop and we start obsessing over whether we said something weird and the other person thought we were a freak. It could be the person who cuts us off in traffic. It could be something really big in our relationship.
[00:04:27]:
It could be a family dynamic. It could be something about work. There's just so many different arenas in our life from the very minor to the very major where our thoughts can run wild and tell stories and lead us to swirl around in obsession and rumination in a way that's really unhealthy and draining and counterproductive. And it really does pull our emotion and our energy in the direction of all of those things, anxiety and stress and shame sometimes worry these emotions that take up a lot of space within us and prevent us from feeling well and being able to show up as our most confident authentic selves because we're so knee deep in all of that thinking. I recently saw a quote which I forget who it was from, but it was to the effect of, most every spiritual tradition could be boiled down to the practice of letting go. And I think that that's very true and maybe in our modern Western world, we pay so much attention to our thoughts and we can be very individually focused and it all feels very big and important. Whereas a lot of spiritual traditions, Eastern traditions have recognized the mind as being very unreliable and our thoughts as being just like mindless, endless chatter that will often, if we believe those thoughts, leave us feeling worse off. So I just wanted to sort of frame the conversation there.
[00:06:05]:
And what I wanted to offer you as a first tool is not actually from me, but from Byron Katie, if if you've been in one of my programs in the past couple of months, you might've heard me speak about this. I've been really revisiting Byron Katie's work since re encountering it in another book that I was reading. But she has these 4 questions that she puts to people when they notice that their thoughts are causing them suffering. So again, this is very broad in its application, but, you know, an example might be, my partner is so selfish and he doesn't care about me. Right? I do everything. My partner doesn't pull his weight. He just doesn't care about me at all. If he cared about me, you know, he would do x y zed thing.
[00:06:52]:
So that kind of story that we tell ourselves that again is so seductive and we can really, if we allow it to just run amok inside us, it is so powerful and so persuasive and inevitably alters our emotional state in a negative way. So her 4 questions are, the first one is, is it true? Just simply yes, no, is it true? So this question of my partner doesn't care about me, is it true? Now you might say, yes, it's true. Okay. The second question is, can you be absolutely certain that it's true? And usually even if you've been confident at question 1, that it's true, you might start to falter a little on question 2, because absolute certainty, particularly when it's about someone else's emotional state or something. So often our stories are, no one cares about me or I'm not good enough or no one's ever gonna love me or people can't be trusted. These big sweeping generalizations and judgments that we make. And when we ask this follow-up question of, can you be absolutely certain that it's true? That's a very high threshold. And we start to realize, okay, maybe maybe I can't quite assert total absolute certainty about the truth of this thought.
[00:08:03]:
So going back to the example of my partner doesn't care about me, you might say, okay, I can't be absolutely certain that it's true. Then the third question is how do you react when you believe the thought? So what does it do to me to believe this thought? Who do I become? What does it do to my body? What does it do to my emotional state? So, again, when I believe that my partner doesn't care about me, how do I react when I believe that? Maybe I get really angry and hurt and rejected, and I start protesting or feeling sorry for myself, or becoming resentful and indignant and all of these things really righteous. That's what it does to me to believe this thing. How do I react when I believe that? Maybe I lash out at them, maybe I get really passive aggressive. All of these things that flow from me believing this thought, this judgment that my partner doesn't care about me. And the 4th question, which is so beautiful, is who would I be without the thought? Right? Who would I be without the thought that my partner doesn't care about me? If I were to just sort of take that off, pluck that out from my mind and put it to the side, who would I be? What would be possible for me if I were to let go of that thought and not be carrying it around? And almost invariably for me at least, when I ask those 3rd and 4th questions, the lightness that I feel in my being is almost instantaneous, I feel the shift. How do I react when I believe the thought and who would I be without it? Is a really, really powerful circuit break for me at least. So these four questions from Byron Katie's The Work to me are a really very powerful way to shift out of obsessing and ruminating.
[00:09:43]:
Because that obsession of rumination, it needs a circuit break. It needs something to interrupt it because otherwise it's like a whirlpool that just sucks you deeper and deeper. Because the thought affects how we feel in the body and how we feel in the body reinforces the thought and so on and so forth, and we just keep spiraling. So having these questions that you can reach for and being really familiar with them and just going, wait, I need to check myself here. I need to interrupt this pattern and run myself through this. It just frees up so much space and so much possibility in a way that for me at least is very, very liberating. So that's the first thing that I want to offer you insofar as stopping this cycle of obsession and rumination. The next key piece is recognizing that oftentimes obsession and rumination being stuck in your head overthinking is a function of anxiety and anxiety is a body experience.
[00:10:41]:
Right? So as much as all of those obsessive thoughts appear to arise as our thinking mind, and so we try and solve them from that place. And granted, running through those 4 questions is a top down approach that is using more cognitive entry point to shift our thoughts. Another way to look at it, and you can use these alongside each other, is a more bottom up approach, which is going, oh, if I'm having all of these obsessive thoughts, I am probably in a stress state in my body. I'm probably in my sympathetic nervous system, which is where we are when we're in our fight or flight mode, or we're very mobilized and everything speeds up. And I think that will be a very familiar state for most people with more anxious attachment patterns or fearful avoidant as well. So spending a lot of time in that mode that feels very intense and fast paced. And from that, you can start to go, okay, it is less about the content of the thoughts and more about the fact that I'm in the mode of obsessive thinking that tells me what I need to know, which is I need to do something with my body. Right? So rather than engaging with the content of the thoughts, which is more the approach we took in the first one with Byron Katie's questions, we can just go, look at me.
[00:11:57]:
I'm in this obsessive mode. I've been scrolling my phone thinking about this person or that interaction or this thing that's gonna happen in the future for the last half an hour. I'm clearly feeling anxious. What do I need to offer to my body to shift some of that anxious energy to move and mobilize some of that anxious energy so that I can discharge it? And oftentimes a byproduct of that is that our obsessive thoughts melt away. So if you've ever heard me talk about, you know, in my anxious attachment course, we do a whole module on nervous system regulation and tools and self soothing. And there's a great quote from a woman called Deb Dana, which is that your state creates your story, meaning the state of your nervous system is determinative of the content of your thoughts, the way you perceive the world. And so when you are in a state of anxiety, a felt experience of stress in the body, it bleeds into your thoughts, and really taints your perception of the world around you and your relationships and yourself. So state creates story and then the story reinforces the state.
[00:13:07]:
As I said, we can really spiral there. So rather than trying to change the story first, we can try and change our state and trust that our story will then reflect if we can bring our body into more of a state of regulation. So doing things like moving your body, I think for anxiety in particular, when you've got a lot of energy moving through you, it can be futile to just try and calm down, to try and regulate by doing something like meditation. If your brain is going at a 1000000 miles an hour, sometimes that's just not the right medicine. It might just not be what you need. So really good things for anxiety, moving your body in one form or another. So it might be going for a brisk walk. It might be going for a run.
[00:13:51]:
It might just be like getting up and doing jumping jacks or shaking or something, shaking your arms and legs, going to the gym, lifting weights. Like, any movement that takes you out of your head and puts you into your body allows that energy that is currently being expended on obsessive thinking to be channeled into something that actually allows that energy to move and discharge rather than just swirl around. So that sort of more somatic approach, that bottom up approach is another really powerful way to stop that obsessing about someone. Okay. And the last thing that I'll say about this, how to stop obsessing about someone, and this is not a quick fix to be fair. It's a broader you know, piece of work that you'll do over, you know, weeks, months, years potentially. But recognizing that when we're obsessing about someone or something, it's almost always a product of some wounded part of us, some insecurity. And when we obsess about someone who rejected us, it's because we probably were already obsessing about some story of unworthiness or not good enoughness or some way in which we perceive ourselves to be defective.
[00:15:00]:
And so we just take someone else's behavior as an opportunity for us to keep reinforcing those painful stories. And so what you'll notice as you sort of do this work over a longer period of time to becoming more secure is that you will naturally be less prone to obsessing about things, about people, about situations. Because I think that that strategy, that pattern is a product of the insecure mind and body because it tends to spring from fear and stress and low self worth. And so I think when we become clearer in who we are, we have more self compassion, we have more compassion for others. That whole story of villain and victim, which I think is at the heart of a lot of rumination, it just becomes less seductive to us. It becomes less appealing. We start to see the world in more shades of gray, and we understand that everything is nuanced. And I think that over time, that tendency to just fixate on whatever it might be, that just becomes sort of diluted until it's no longer something that we find ourselves stuck in.
[00:16:13]:
And we have so many other tools and resources, and such a greater capacity to be with discomfort, that we don't tend to go down those mental rabbit holes anywhere near as often or to the same degree as we once did because of all of that other work. Like sort of just a, welcome byproduct, of doing that work to become more secure. So I hope that that has been helpful for you. As I said, these are all things that I have been practicing for some time and continue to lean on whenever I feel I need them, whenever I notice that part of me getting a bit noisy or chattery or trying to drag me into feeling like a victim and getting righteous and blaming everyone around me, which is not an energy that I like to inhabit. So when I notice myself going there, it's really helpful having these tools to quickly check myself and shift into a mode of being that feels clearer and more honest and more integral, and more empowered certainly for me at least. So I hope that's been helpful, and I look forward to seeing you again next time. Thanks guys.
[00:17:29]:
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, anxiety, rumination, obsessive thoughts, emotional control, thought patterns, Byron Katie, victim mentality, self-soothing, nervous system regulation, stress state, sympathetic nervous system, fight or flight mode, emotional state, rejection, mindfulness, relationship dynamics, self-compassion, compassion for others, mental rabbit holes, insecure mind, self-worth, body experience, spiritual traditions, letting go, emotional spiral, negative emotions, cognitive approach, somatic approach, anxiety management, emotional well-being
#157 3 Things You'll Notice in Your First Healthy Relationship
In this episode, we’re exploring three key things you’ll likely notice when you experience your first truly healthy relationship. While healthy relationships are often idealised, they still come with their own challenges.
In this episode, we’re exploring three key things you’ll likely notice when you experience your first truly healthy relationship. While healthy relationships are often idealised, they still come with their own challenges.
We’ll discuss how they invite vulnerability, reveal where we may have been hiding behind dysfunction, and show us that even secure partners can be imperfect. Finally, we’ll talk about how conflict in a healthy relationship doesn’t disappear, but it feels safer and more productive.
Key Points Covered:
Vulnerability: When you're in a healthy dynamic, the absence of chaos can feel unfamiliar, and it may expose areas where you’ve avoided vulnerability by leaning on old, dysfunctional patterns.
Imperfection in Secure Partners: It’s easy to idealise secure partners as perfect, but it’s important to remember that they, too, are human. The difference is in how they respond to their imperfections and how you both handle those inevitable moments of frustration.
Safe Conflict: You’ll realise that disagreements can be handled with mutual respect and a sense of safety, where both partners feel heard and valued, even in moments of tension.
Entering Your First Healthy Relationship: What to Expect
Entering into a healthy relationship for the first time can feel like uncharted territory, especially if past experiences have been marred by dysfunction, high conflict, and insecurity. Yet, as you grow more secure within yourself and cultivate self-awareness, new patterns and challenges will inevitably arise.
Understanding what to expect can help you navigate this new landscape with grace and resilience. Here are three key things you might notice in your first healthy relationship or as you and your partner evolve together into a more secure, healthy dynamic.
Vulnerability: There's Nowhere to Hide
Healthy relationships bring a level of emotional intimacy and vulnerability that can be surprising, even confronting. In relationships marked by insecurity or dysfunction, there’s often a lot of blame and finger-pointing. It’s easy to attribute problems to your partner's behaviour, side-stepping your own areas where growth and honesty are needed.
When stepping into a healthy relationship, all those distractions melt away. You might find yourself feeling exposed in ways you weren't prepared for. This is particularly true if past relationships have seen you as the pursuer, always chasing after someone else's elusive commitment. Being with someone who is fully available and committed can mirror back your own fears or hesitations, illuminating the ways you may have been avoiding vulnerability.
The good news is that this level of openness can foster deeper, more authentic connections. But be prepared: it’s uncomfortable at first. Recognising that this discomfort is a natural part of building a genuine, intimate relationship can make this transition smoother.
Imperfections: Accepting the Whole Person
Even the most secure, wonderful partner is an imperfect human. In a healthy relationship, you might find that even the kindest and most empathetic partner can still disappoint you, have bad habits, or irritate you from time to time.
Many people hold onto an idealistic view that finding a secure partner will eliminate all relational challenges. While a healthy partner may offer kindness, reliability, and empathy, they are still human. They might forget things, act irritable, or have quirks that can be annoying. The idea of never settling might sound appealing, but real relationships require compromise.
Instead of designing a partner in your mind, focus on core values and traits that are non-negotiable, and prepare to be flexible about the smaller details. Embracing this messy, real-world version of love leads to a more grounded and resilient relationship.
Conflicts: Healthy Relationships Have Them Too
Conflict is inevitable in any relationship, including the healthiest ones. The key difference in a secure relationship lies in how conflicts are approached, managed, and ultimately repaired. Insecure relationships often make conflict feel existentially threatening, as every argument might seem like it could end the relationship. This high-stakes environment leads to conflict avoidance and unresolved tension.
In a healthy relationship, conflicts can be addressed safely and respectfully. Disagreements can be aired and frustrations expressed without fear of the relationship crumbling. Skillful conflict resolution and genuine attempts at repair can even strengthen connections. Being able to share concerns and have them validated and handled with care revolutionises our imprint of relational safety.
Healthy relationships allow for tension and anger to coexist with an underlying sense of security. The relationship's foundation remains firm, even during rough patches. Embracing this reality reduces the fear around conflict and fosters a more open, honest connection between partners.
Embracing the Journey
Embarking on your first healthy relationship journey can be both exciting and daunting. Remember these points: vulnerability is a sign of depth, imperfections are to be expected, and conflict is normal but can be managed constructively. These elements are not signs of failure but rather indicators of a living, evolving connection between two real people.
As you navigate this path, keep in mind that the strength of a relationship isn't measured by the absence of problems but by the commitment to face and resolve them together. This perspective shift can bring a sense of peace and confidence as you build and nurture a thriving, secure relationship.
Questions for Discussion & Reflection
Have you ever found yourself hiding aspects of yourself in past relationships? What did that look like for you, and how did it affect the relationship?
Do you have any fears or anxieties around being vulnerable in a relationship? How do you think a healthy relationship might challenge those fears?
Reflect on your ideal partner. Are there any unrealistic standards that you might be holding onto? How can you embrace the imperfections in a real partner?
Think about a time when you experienced conflict in a relationship. How was it handled? How might conflict look different in a healthy, secure relationship?
Do you find yourself blaming past partners for issues in the relationship? How can you take responsibility for your own role in past conflicts?
What are some of the core traits and values you are looking for in a partner? Are you prepared to compromise on some of the less important aspects?
Do you have a history of pushing for commitment in relationships? How might being with someone who is equally committed bring up new challenges for you?
How do you usually handle disagreements or conflicts? In what ways can you approach conflict more constructively in a future healthy relationship?
Reflect on any previous experiences where conflict felt like a threat to the relationship. How can you build a sense of safety in future conflicts?
How do you think a truly supportive and validating partner might change the way you view yourself and your relationship patterns?
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Check out my couples course, Secure Together (& save $200 with the code SECURE)
Save $150 on my Higher Love break-up course with the code PHOENIX
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
[00:00:29]:
In today's episode, we are talking about 3 things that you'll notice when you enter your first healthy relationship. So this is one for those of you who have maybe been in a string of not so healthy relationships, the way you've had a lot of dysfunctional patterns, maybe high conflict, a lot of insecurity. And as you do this work of becoming more secure within yourself and building self awareness around your own patterns, learning tools to build healthier relationships and more secure relationships, which is what we're hopefully all aiming for here. And then you enter a new relationship. You'll probably notice a new set of challenges or encounter things that you maybe didn't expect to. I think a lot of us have the misconception that we'll do this work and then we'll enter a healthy relationship with a secure partner and all of that stuff will be behind us.
[00:01:31]:
We'll never have to, you know, come up against those relational challenges again. When really the truth is that we are confronted with different challenges. And hopefully, we are meeting those challenges with the benefit of our enhanced capacity and new tools. And so we're able to alchemize whatever those challenges are with a greater level of maturity. But nevertheless, I think a lot of people are surprised and maybe caught off guard by the fact that secure relationships can bring up different things and can hold a mirror up to us in different ways. And so I'm gonna be sharing today 3 things that you might notice in your first healthy relationship. And even as I'm talking now, I suppose you might even notice this within the same relationship if you've done a lot of work together and you kind of enter a new era of the same relationship as can happen, I think we can have many different versions of a relationship over time with the same partner as we grow and evolve, whether that's joint work or individual work. So you may notice some of these things if you're already in a relationship, but you've been doing some of that work.
[00:02:40]:
So this will hopefully have a little bit of something for everyone. And if you're not in a relationship at the moment, maybe it'll put you on notice for things that you might come up against in the future after you've been doing this work and you enter a healthier relationship. So that's what we're going to be talking about today. Before I dive into that, just a quick announcement. I am really excited to share that I am running another retreat. So for those of you who've been around a while, you might remember that I ran a retreat in Italy mid last year, which was really wonderful. And we have just booked in to do another one in Australia this time in Byron Bay, which is a beautiful coastal town. Some of you may have heard of it.
[00:03:22]:
Many of you may not have, but with a quick Google search, you'll see that it's absolutely idyllic and we booked an incredible property there. The retreat is going to be in May next year, 2025. And we've got a waitlist going for people who want to express interest in that. We're just finalizing all of the details, but it will be 3 nights in May 20, 25. And so if you want to be first to hear about that and we will have an early bird special for the initial period after we've announced it, the link is in the show notes to join that wait list where you can head to my website, and that should be relatively easy to find. So I would love to see people from this community at the retreat and, if that's something that you've maybe always wanted to do or that piques your interest, definitely, pop your name down on the wait list because obviously by virtue of the format of spaces will be very limited. Okay. So let's dive into this conversation around things that you might notice in your first healthy relationship.
[00:04:20]:
Now the first one is that there's nowhere to hide. So healthy relationships can be really vulnerable. And I think that a lot of us might be surprised by this because we maybe idealize what it means to be vulnerable in relationships. And if you've been in relationships in the past or maybe you're in a relationship at the moment where there feels like there's a lack of emotional intimacy, you might say, and maybe you complain to your partner or to your friends or to yourself, that there's no depth and there's no emotional intimacy. And, and that's something that you really yearn for. But you might find that when you get it, it actually frightens you a bit. And I think this is something that I've seen time and time again, is clients and students of mine will get into a relationship with someone who is, for example, really committed and wants to move forward with the relationship. And if you've always been the person who, you know, pushes a relationship forward against someone else's resistance and you've got someone who's really, you know, maybe has a fear of commitment or doesn't want to talk about the future, and you spend so much time and energy trying to get that from them, you might really be confronted with your own fear of commitment.
[00:05:33]:
For example, if you're in relationship with someone who is totally available and wants to talk about the future and wants to move the relationship forward. So that's just one example. But what you might see is that the things that you've been blaming someone else about or complaining about those points of resistance or someone else's unavailability, you might suddenly be shown all of the ways in which you were invulnerable or unavailable. Because I think there's there's a lot of hiding that happens in dysfunctional insecure dynamics, and it's really, really easy to blame the other person for everything that's wrong with the relationship. And we often do that from a place that we really deeply believe it. That if they just changed x y zed thing, then our relationship would be fine. And as as true as that can feel, it's very rarely the truth. It's very rarely the whole picture.
[00:06:29]:
And it allows us to, I suppose, sidestep taking responsibility for the ways in which we are not being honest, not being vulnerable, maybe we're not in integrity. So it often blocks us from our own authenticity. And so when you're in a relationship where all of those things that you've been complaining about, all of those things you've been blaming someone else for suddenly aren't there, and there's nothing kind of distracting avoidance side coming up if you are someone who's typically being more anxious. And I think that can be a very interesting, very illuminating kind of role reversal to be all of a sudden afraid of vulnerability and find a lot of resistance to that within yourself. And so seeing those anxieties arise for you in a healthy relationship, I think can catch some people off guard and make you question whether it's the right relationship because you're so accustomed to being the pursuer, so accustomed to the chase, if that's historically been your role, that that that's a really comfortable place to to put all of your energy if that's what you've always done. Whereas receiving or even just something that's more balanced can feel a little bit disorienting if that's not been the role that you've historically occupied in your relationship. So prepare yourself for that. Prepare yourself for a level of vulnerability that you have probably never experienced when you get into your first healthy relationship.
[00:08:08]:
And, you you know, all of the things that come with that, there's a beautiful opportunity to deepen in genuine authentic connection with someone, but there is no way to hide there. And as I said, I think a lot of us maybe don't appreciate the extent to which we have been able to hide in dysfunction and blame in our relationships when we've largely been in insecure dynamics. Okay. The second thing that you might notice in your first healthy relationship is that even the most secure, wonderful partner will be an imperfect human. Okay? And so you might realize that you have certain idealistic conceptions of what it means to be in a secure relationship that maybe are not realistic. And a secure partner who is kind and reliable and trustworthy and empathetic and validating all of these things that you have yearned for for such a long time, that same person might disappoint you from time to time. They might be forgetful or they might have a temper or they might be irritable and, you know, they might annoy you. They might have habits that you find a little grating.
[00:09:19]:
And all of that is really normal. But it might again throw you a little if you've had this story that when I finally get into a secure relationship, then everything will be great. And I won't have to worry anymore. I won't have to have doubts. I won't have to have fears. I won't have to have insecurities. All of that stuff's not just going to fall away and evaporate, because you found the perfect person. So much of that is within us.
[00:09:45]:
And the reality is that even a great person will have downsides to them. There is no perfect partner who has every single trait we've ever wanted, but none of the ones that we don't. And so I think that we come to realize in a healthy relationship that there are compromises. I've said before, I think the advice to never settle, which floats around on social media a lot, I don't think that that really captures the reality of relationship and the messiness of it all. And I think the better advice is be very clear about what you're looking for in terms of kind of core traits and values, and then get ready to compromise around the edges. Because you're not designing some person from the ground up. You are entering relationship with a real person with all of their upsides and downsides and their history and their quirks and their annoying habits. And that's part of committed relationship is that you are signing up for all of that.
[00:10:46]:
And so it can be quite humbling, I think, to realize that you are going to be entering a relationship and potentially making a commitment to a whole person. And that that whole person will annoy you from time to time will frustrate you will upset. You will anger you. And that's all part of it. And so we might have our illusions shattered a little in a healthy relationship around the fact that it's still imperfect despite being, you know, healthy and secure. And that leads me nicely into the third point, which is healthy relationships can still involve conflict. And indeed, they generally will involve conflict. I have said before, I think it's more of a red flag if couples never have conflict than if they have a healthy amount of conflict.
[00:11:32]:
And obviously, there's caveats to that around the way that conflict is approached and managed and repaired. But you will still have disagreements. You'll still have bad days. You'll still have tension. You'll still have rupture. But the real shift that you'll see in your first healthy relationship is that conflict can be had safely and can be repaired skillfully in a way that actually enhances your connection and brings you closer rather than being this really scary thing that feels like a threat to the relationship. And if you are someone with insecure attachment patterns, and that's been the general tone and experience of your relationships to date, you may never have experienced conflict in a way that doesn't feel like it existentially threatens the relationship. Right? A lot of us will have that imprint that every fight feels like it could be the last one, the one that tips us over the edge.
[00:12:27]:
And when that is the tone of your, you know, conflict patterns in your relationship, it's very, very hard for conflicts who ever feel safe because it feels so high stakes. Right? If every fight feels like it could be the end of the relationship, then you'll probably find yourself having a lot of stress around conflict and probably being quite conflict avoidant because everything is being weighed against the possibility of the relationship ending. And so we end up letting a lot of things go that probably do need to be talked about because it's just not worth that magnitude of rupture. So when you find yourself in a healthy relationship for the first time, you will hopefully be pleasantly surprised by the fact that you can talk about things and it doesn't have to snowball into this really big, ugly, disconnected fight with attacking and blame and defensiveness and stonewalling and all of those things that a lot of us know really well. And I think that it's incredibly healing to be able to share something that's bothering you and have it received and handled with care and responded to in a validating way. Those sorts of experiences can really fundamentally shift our imprint around relationships and the emotional safety that comes from that is so conducive to greater intimacy and connection in the relationship more broadly. So that is something that you will learn when you enter your first healthy relationship. Yes, there will be conflict.
[00:13:59]:
Don't expect that you are going to be able to skip out on conflict altogether. But it can be done in a way that is safe and feels safe. Even in the moment you can be having conflict and tension or you can be angry, you can be frustrated, and still feel this really strong foundation of safety in the relationship, and that's a very powerful thing. Okay. So those were three things that you may experience in your first healthy relationship. Just to recap, that is that there's nowhere to hide and secure relationships are really vulnerable and actually show us all of the places that we've been avoiding or denying or maybe not taking responsibility for our stuff. The second one was that even secure, healthy, amazing partners are going to annoy us from time to time. They are imperfect, messy humans like the rest of us.
[00:14:52]:
And 3, that secure relationships will have conflicts just like any other. But the difference is your ability to have conflict in a safe way and repair skillfully. So I hope that that's been helpful, has given you something to think about, whether you're in that space at the moment, or it's something that you might encounter in the future. Hopefully that's put you on notice of what you might expect in your first healthy relationship. If you've enjoyed this episode, so grateful for those of you who leave a review or rating. Also, if you're someone who watches YouTube, I confess I'm not someone who watches very much YouTube, but I know a lot of people do. I'm trying to grow my YouTube channel at the moment. So if you care to jump on over to YouTube and subscribe, share, if you feel so inclined to all of the podcast episodes are being uploaded in video there, so you can explore those as well as some other videos that are only on YouTube. That would be a huge help to me as a way to support my work in the show. Otherwise, thank you so much for joining me and I look forward to seeing you again next time. Thanks guys.
[00:15:58]:
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
attachment styles, secure relationships, healthy relationships, insecurity, relationship patterns, self-awareness, self-improvement, emotional intimacy, vulnerability, fear of commitment, relationship challenges, dysfunctional relationships, personal growth, relational dynamics, conflict resolution, emotional safety, mature relationships, secure partners, relationship advice, practical tools, relationship coach, relational challenges, retreat in Italy, Byron Bay retreat, authentic connection, relationship conflict, relationship repair, relationship maturity, relationship guide, building healthy relationships, secure attachment.