#137 Self-Soothing for Anxious Attachment
In today's episode, we're talking all about self-soothing and anxious attachment. For most anxiously attached folks, self-soothing and self-regulation can be a real struggle. This typically shows up as an over-reliance on others (often a partner) to be our sole source of safety and reassurance when we experience emotional distress, and an accompanying sense of helplessness and panic if and when they are not available to perform that role.
In today's episode, we're talking all about self-soothing and anxious attachment. For most anxiously attached folks, self-soothing and self-regulation can be a real struggle. This typically shows up as an over-reliance on others (often a partner) to be our sole source of safety and reassurance when we experience emotional distress, and an accompanying sense of helplessness and panic if and when they are not available to perform that role.
We'll cover:
Why anxiously attached people struggle to self-regulate
How an inability to self-soothe impacts our relationships
Mindset shifts and practices to start building your self-soothing toolkit
Learning to Self-Soothe: Navigating Anxious Attachment through Inner Regulation
Self-soothing is an integral skill that plays a pivotal role in how we navigate relationships, especially for those with anxious attachment. Whether it's a relational rupture or a general sense of stress, the ability to self-soothe can significantly impact our well-being and the dynamics in our relationships. In this article, we'll delve into the concept of self-soothing within the context of anxious attachment, understanding its roots, and exploring practical techniques to cultivate this essential skill set.
Understanding Anxious Attachment and Self-Soothing
Anxious attachment often stems from early developmental experiences, influencing our ability to regulate emotions and seek comfort within ourselves. From birth, humans are reliant on caregivers to co-regulate their emotions, creating a sense of safety and security. However, individuals with anxious attachments might have experienced inconsistent or insufficient co-regulation, leading to heightened anxiety and a lack of self-soothing skills.
The Impact of Early Experiences
Our early experiences form the foundation of our attachment styles. If we didn't receive consistent co-regulation as children, it might translate into challenges with self-soothing as adults. Anxious attachment can manifest as a constant need for proximity, reassurance, and fear of abandonment. This often translates into feeling helpless and powerless when facing relational stress or emotional overwhelm. Consequently, it's crucial to acknowledge that struggling with self-soothing isn't a personal shortcoming but rather a developmental outcome with roots in early experiences.
Developing Self-Soothing as a Skill Set
The good news is that self-soothing is a skill that can be nurtured and refined. By understanding the origins of our attachment styles and the impact of early experiences, we can begin the journey of cultivating self-soothing capabilities. By developing this skill set, we empower ourselves to regulate our emotions and find comfort within, complementing the external support we seek from relationships.
Exploring Self-Soothing Techniques
Self-soothing techniques are diverse and unique to each individual, emphasizing the importance of a personalised approach. Practices such as deep breathing, mindfulness, and sensory grounding exercises can be invaluable tools in managing anxiety and emotional distress. Engaging in movement, whether through exercise or a simple walk, can help dissipate stress energy, promoting a sense of calm and stability. Moreover, utilising the senses, such as touch, taste, and smell, can draw our focus back to the present moment, aiding in emotional regulation.
The Trial and Error of Self-Soothing
As we embark on the journey of enhancing our self-soothing abilities, it's important to adopt an experimental mindset. What works for one person might not necessarily be effective for another. Embracing trial and error fosters a deeper understanding of our individual needs and preferences when it comes to self-soothing. It's about discovering a personalized toolkit of techniques that resonate with us, providing comfort and grounding during moments of distress.
Proactive Self-Soothing Practices
An essential aspect of self-soothing is its proactive application. Rather than viewing it solely as a reactive response to overwhelming emotions, integrating self-soothing into our daily routines and checking in with ourselves elevates its effectiveness. By consistently tending to our emotional well-being, we reduce the likelihood of reaching a tipping point of distress, promoting a sense of control and agency over our internal state.
Cultivating Internal Safety and Reassurance
As we navigate the realms of self-soothing, we embark on a transformational journey of self-care and emotional resilience. Recognising the power we hold to comfort ourselves, we reshape our internal dialogue from helplessness to empowerment. Effectively self-soothing involves creating internal safety and reassurance, bridging the gap between our emotional needs and our capacity to meet them.
In conclusion, the art of self-soothing is an invaluable skill, particularly for individuals navigating anxious attachment. Understanding its roots, embracing diverse techniques, and fostering a proactive approach significantly enhances our emotional well-being and relationship dynamics. By cultivating this essential skill set, we embark on a journey of self-empowerment, inner resilience, and a deeper sense of emotional security within ourselves and our relationships.
Through the lens of self-soothing, we unearth the transformative potential of reclaiming agency over our emotions and nurturing a profound sense of internal safety and reassurance. As we continue to explore the multifaceted layers of self-soothing, may we find solace in the potent ability to comfort and regulate ourselves, transcending the challenges of anxious attachment and anchoring ourselves in a space of emotional resilience.
Questions for Discussion & Reflection
What does the concept of self-soothing mean to you in the context of relationships and attachment?
Have you ever felt overwhelmed or vulnerable in a relationship due to a lack of self-soothing techniques? How did it affect the relationship?
In what ways do you think your early experiences of co-regulation have influenced your ability to self-soothe as an adult?
What practical self-soothing techniques have you tried in moments of stress or anxiety? How effective were they for you?
Reflect on a recent stressful or anxious moment in a relationship. How did you attempt to self-soothe, and was it successful?
How do you differentiate between self-regulation and co-regulation in your own relationship dynamics? Do you feel more reliant on external reassurance or your own internal soothing mechanisms?
In what ways can you proactively integrate self-soothing practices into your daily life to manage stress and overwhelm before it becomes unmanageable?
Think about a time when you felt a strong need for reassurance and safety from your partner. How can you cultivate that sense of security within yourself through self-soothing?
Consider the impact of self-trust on your ability to self-soothe. How does trusting yourself relate to your capacity for self-regulation and managing anxiety in relationships?
Reflect on how the development of self-soothing skills might influence your experience of anxious attachment and your relationships moving forward.
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're talking all about self soothing and anxious attachment, which I know is one of those areas that so many people have a hard time with. And, you know, if you are someone who identifies with anxious attachment and self soothing, particularly when there are relational ruptures or other things in that relational field that are causing you stress, you are so far from alone in having a hard time with self soothing. That's very much part of the blueprint of anxious attachment is that that is an underdeveloped skill set. But nevertheless, despite it it being, you know, common or normal among anxious attached, as I know that it can cause a lot of overwhelm and stress and vulnerability in relationships when you are feeling anxious, and you feel like you are kind of powerless to do anything about that, that you don't have any tools to offer yourself, and that you're really at the mercy of something outside of yourself, oftentimes your partner, to provide the safety and reassurance that you need in order to calm yourself down. And obviously, you know, depending on the circumstances, if there's been a rupture or you're otherwise feeling disconnected from your partner, that external reassurance might not always be available and that can lead you into a really challenging, scary spiral of emotions that you don't know how to deal with. So that's a really common experience.
[00:01:57]:
And thankfully there's both an explanation for it and there are absolutely things that you can do to build up that skill set. As with so much of this work, the way that we experience relationships, the things that we struggle with, the ways that we've learned to cope are just that the things that we have learned. And that's really the hopeful piece of all of this is that we can learn other ways to cope or even to thrive, to really take care of ourselves in relationships in a way that is much more mature and grounded and empowering than feeling like, you know, a scared vulnerable child, which I think is often what's lurking underneath. And we'll talk today about why that might be and why that actually makes a lot of sense if that's your experience. So before we dive into today's discussion, a final reminder about healing anxious attachment, my signature course. It's been open for registration with the last week or so, and we've had I don't know what the count is at the moment. I think almost 250 people join, which is amazing as always. So exciting for me to see.
[00:03:02]:
So many people saying yes to doing this work for themselves. There are another couple of days before registration will close for this round. And I'm not quite sure when I'll be reopening it. As many of you would know, I'm having a baby in a few weeks time, which is very exciting. But it also means I'll be taking a step back from running programs for, you know, the next few months at least. So while I will be running the course again, I have no set plans or dates, and it will likely be late this year, if not, maybe next year. So if you are someone who struggles with anxious attachment and you are wanting to do something about it and you're wanting a tried and tested framework, definitely check out healing anxious attachment in the next couple of days before registration closes for this round. Okay.
[00:03:50]:
So let's talk about self soothing for anxious attachment. Now I wanna set the scene a little here without going too much into the background, but just to give a bit of context for why anxiously attached people struggle with self soothing. So when we're all born, I said that I was going back a little, didn't I? When we're all born, we don't have the ability to self regulate or self soothe. Human babies are very, very underdeveloped and we have around 25% of our full brain capacity at birth. If you even just think about, you know, other mammals that are much more self sufficient or independent within a few hours of birth than humans are. Human babies are really undergo a whole nother gestation period outside of the womb once they're born, and are utterly dependent and vulnerable on the adults around them for survival. Which is why, you know, these attachment bonds are so vital to our species, and to our programming. That's why they feel so survival driven because they absolutely are.
[00:04:56]:
And there's nothing wrong with that. That's, you know, by design, and it allows us to survive and thrive. Now, in an ideal world, we are lacking that ability to self soothe, self regulate, as babies and infants. We learn that from our parents through co regulation. So we sort of tether to their nervous system and we learn to experience safety via them. So if our caregivers are safe and reliable and consistent and responsive and attuned and, you know, take care of our needs, and we can feel them close, and we don't have, you know, those scary experiences of disconnection and vulnerability at a time when we are so dependent on them. Then eventually we develop a secure attachment, right? We learn that the world is a safe place and we we with others. That's the ideal.
[00:05:56]:
Unfortunately, a lot of us didn't get, you know, enough of that safe co regulation or we didn't get it consistently enough, or there were other things going on such that, commonly happens, the typical origin story when we're talking about, you know, co regulation, self regulation, is that you received enough safe co regulation to know what it feels like and to know that that's what you want and need. But you may not have gotten it consistently or reliably enough to be able to depend on it. And so you become very hyper aware of the need for that co regulation in order to survive and you develop anxiety around the possible loss of that connection, that coregulation, you know it not being available to you when you need it, and so you become hyper fixated on holding onto it at all times. Right? And you might be starting to see how this pieces together with the anxious attachment that you experience as an adult is I only feel safe and reassured when we're connected. And so because I'm so frightened about the possibility of you not being there when I need you, I don't want to even entertain that possibility. So I want to keep you really close. And I become very hyper vigilant to any possible threats to that connection. Anything that could take you away from me.
[00:07:18]:
So for the anxiously attached baby child, what tends to happen is because you're so focused and fixated on this need for closeness and, you know, the separation anxiety that can come alongside that is that the self regulation piece tends to get a little neglected or underdeveloped. And, you know, that neglect or lack of development of that skill set can then, you know, follow through to your development. And even as an adult, you can find that you maybe lack that skill set. You don't have that felt experience of being able to soothe and comfort yourself because it's just not something that you ever really learned how to do. If we briefly contrast that in this episode isn't really about the avoidant attachment experience, but just because it's interesting, what we can see is for avoidantly attached folks, often they didn't have enough safe co regulation to begin with, that they never really learned to reach for it or they learned not to reach for it. They actually learned to not need it, to shut themselves off from it and to over index on self regulation, to become really, really reliant on their ability to create safety for themselves without connection to other. And so, whereas anxiously attached people tend to be you know, overly focused on co regulation from a really survival driven place, to the detriment of their ability to self regulate, we can see that avoidant folks tend to go the other way. So they don't really know how to safely co regulate with others or maybe, you know, co regulating, connecting with others just isn't synonymous with safety in their system because they never had that imprint.
[00:09:03]:
You know, they tend to be really overly focused on self regulation, self soothing as their way of creating safety whenever they feel threatened or overwhelmed. So that's a bit of a backdrop of, you know, why you're not just, you know, crazy or pathetic or stupid or desperate. If you're someone with anxious attachment and you really struggle to self regulate, this goes back a long way and you may just not have had the early experiences that you needed enough of the time in order to develop that skillset. Now, as I said, the great thing about all of this is that it is a set of skills and it is something that we can learn and practice and cultivate within ourselves in that inner relationship so that we feel more resource. We feel like we have things that we can reach for in those moments of overwhelm, of stress, of anxiety, rather than defaulting back to this helpless child kind of energy of, you know, I'm panicked. And it's almost like if you, you know, ever got lost in a department store or a supermarket or something, that panic sense of, like, I can't find my parent. Where are they? You know, I feel so scared and vulnerable. What am I gonna do? And you do have that very visceral fear and helplessness.
[00:10:18]:
I think for anxiously attached people in relationships, if something feels threatening, if something feels overwhelming, it can have a very similar emotional imprint to those kinds of experiences of like sheer panic, and separation anxiety that you may have experienced when you're a kid. So what do we do about all of this now? I can't even begin in a short podcast episode to give you the full download on self soothing tools and tips for anxious attachment. It's something that I go into a lot of detail in in my course. I think there's, you know, a couple of hours of video trainings just on your nervous system and self soothing in its own module because it really is that foundational to this whole process. And it requires, you know, a lot of unpacking. But what we can do is start to understand that I think this is really important. There are so many things that I could give you in terms of, like, things that you can do and try to, you know, regulate your system. So things like breathing techniques, things like stretching, other ways to activate your body and to create safety in your body when you're feeling overwhelmed.
[00:11:29]:
And knowing, like, based on where my nervous system's at, if I'm feeling like an 8 out of 10, what kind of tool would I reach for in that setting? Versus if I'm feeling like at a 4 out of 10. If I'm feeling very, very anxious, I'm gonna reach for something different than if I'm feeling, you know, depressed and vacant. And it's actually about trial and error and figuring that out for yourself in large part, knowing what tools work for you and knowing that there are things that you can do and offer to yourself at any moment. Things that take 2 seconds and things that might take an hour. So, you know, something that might be appropriate if you're sitting at your desk at work might not be appropriate in another setting and vice versa. So a huge part of doing this work and learning to self regulate, to self soothe, is knowing that you have so many options and and really equipping yourself with as many tools as you can, so that you feel spoiled for choice almost. Right? I often say to people, to students and clients that like the number of times throughout the day where I will pause and check-in with myself and go, what do I need? If I'm noticing that I'm even a little bit dysregulated or scattered or, you know, just don't really feel grounded and kind of in my my window of tolerance, if you're familiar with that term, I'll stop and I'll go, what do I need? And maybe it's just, you know, getting up and stretching or walking outside and having some fresh air, maybe it's getting a glass of water, Maybe it's lighting a candle. Maybe it's changing the music that I'm listening to or going from listening to nothing to listening to something or vice versa.
[00:13:11]:
Again, it's just tweaking what is going on around me, my environment, both internal and external, in order to bring myself back into more regulation and presence and groundedness. And ideally, what we want is for this to become a practice that is not only an emergency response, which I think is how so many people I mean, certainly when I'm getting questions from people about self soothing, it's almost always like, you know, give me the fire extinguisher so I can put out this, you know, big burning fire of my overwhelming emotions when it gets too much. And of course, yes, we wanna be able to resource ourselves when our emotions get very big and very overwhelming and it, you know, shows up as panic or, you know, a big anxiety spin out. Yes, we wanna have tools for that, but we also wanna be constantly in this process of turning towards ourselves and checking in, so that we don't get to that boiling point as often. And we're really actually just checking in with ourselves throughout the day every day so that we're staying grounded and anchored rather than, not really noticing until it all gets too much. And then we have the big blow up and we feel like we're not in control of ourselves anymore. Because I think that's what happens for a lot of people, when, you know, self regulation, self care is treated as, only a reactive thing rather than a proactive thing. You know, it's something I do when I'm burnt out or when I have a panic attack, you know, in the same way that, hopefully, you treat your health as something to be proactively managed.
[00:14:53]:
So too should you be treating, you know, your nervous system health and your mental well-being, your emotional well-being as something to be proactively taken care of rather than only something to, you know, pull out the the emergency response for when it all gets too much. So to give you a few specific things for self soothing, for anxious attachment and, you know, again, I think that like the actual tools that you'll use will vary from person to person. But it really is anything that can bring you back into presence. Okay? Because when we are in that stress response, when we're in a threat response, we tend to spin out and everything becomes very global and catastrophic. And it's not just right here, right now. What do I know to be true? Where am I? You know, am I safe? There's this sense of like everything is doomed and I'm going to be alone forever. And, you know, it's not just I can't reach my partner right now. It's, you know, they're having an affair or they're cheating on me, and they've been lying to me about everything.
[00:15:57]:
And, you know, all of this stuff that catastrophising can be very intense and very persuasive. So, I think recognising that when you're in that state, the state of your nervous system is going to dictate the thoughts and feelings that you are having. And so working with your body, 1st and foremost, and with your nervous system to try and bring down the heat or bring down the pressure is a really good starting point, rather than just trying to outthink those big scary thoughts. I think a lot of the time, something as simple as going for a walk or a run, moving your body when we have that amount of, you know, stressy energy, when we've got that amount of activation in our system, Just trying to calm ourselves down can actually be counterproductive because we've already got the adrenaline going, and just trying to switch it off or dull it. It's already kind of pumping through you, so sometimes actually leaning into that, and, you know, shaking or moving or walking or going to the gym. You know, if you're someone who already enjoys exercise, you'll know that the the feeling after a work out is often a very calm and grounded one, because you've cleared out a lot of that sympathetic activation, that stress energy. So anything to do with movement is good. Anything that feels grounding using your senses.
[00:17:23]:
So again, when we're really in that spinning out place and we're really feeling not grounded, bringing ourselves back to, you know, where am I? What can I touch? What can I smell? What can I taste? What can I hear listening to music or, you know, some sort of like, even meditation tracks or binaural, sounds, binaural beats? I love listening to stuff like that. I find it very grounding. But again, it's really about learning to match your tools to your state. And something that works for me when I'm at a 5 out of 10 might be absolutely not helpful for you at all if you're at a 5 out of 10. And so it's like, can I experiment with this and almost play with it? Going, oh, like, what helps to bring me back into my body? What helps to bring me back into a little bit more safety and space and groundedness, based on how I'm feeling and where I'm at? And that really is a bit of trial and error, but it's, you know, an incredibly empowering process for you to go through to start figuring out what that might look like for you. And just even the process of turning towards yourself and going, okay, what do I need? That in and of itself is really, really powerful in rewiring that experience of I am helpless and there's nothing I can do, because you're acknowledging and asking that question of like how what can I offer to myself? You're already acknowledging that, like, you care and you are there and you are attuned and responsive, and you are going to be able to take action to support yourself. And even being able to do that can shift you out of that sense of helplessness and, you know, despair and overwhelm and frozenness that you might otherwise be feeling when you're in that state of, you know, really panicking trigger activation about something in your relationship. So I hope that that has been helpful in in giving you a bit of a sense of what we're talking about with self soothing.
[00:19:19]:
I know that, you know, some of you will be wanting a formula. And as much as I could give you that, I don't think it's actually what you need. I know that's an annoying answer. But as with all of these things, I think so much of the process and particularly around something is foundational to our relationship with self as self soothing and self regulation. So much of it is that process of getting to know yourself and not having it dictated to you the things that you need to do, because that actually cultivates more of a reliance on something outside of yourself. So if I just tell you exactly what to do and then, you know, you do it and it doesn't work for you, then you come back and go, well, now what do I do? Right? There's still that sense of dependency and helplessness. So it's actually much more empowering and helpful, for you to go through that process of figuring it out for yourself. Of course, with the guidelines of you know, some of those foundational tools around bringing more regulation into the body, you know, movement, sound, breath, senses, all of those things that we know are really good for grounding the nervous system.
[00:20:27]:
So I hope that that's been helpful. As I said, if you want to do a really deep dive on this and and everything else to do with anxious attachment, definitely jump into the course before registration closes in a couple days' time. We've also got a live Q and A with me later this week, which is obviously a great opportunity if you're interested. But otherwise, thank you so much for joining me, and I look forward to seeing you again soon. Thanks, guys.
[00:20:54]:
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, self soothing, anxious attachment, relationship coach, insecurity, thriving relationships, co regulation, anxious attached, relational ruptures, vulnerability, relationship, secure attachment, nervous system, nervous system health, emotional well-being, self regulation, grounding, nervous system, breath, senses, mental well-being, proactive self-care, panic attack, emotional well-being, emotional imprint, avoidant attachment, self-dependent.
#136 20 Traits of the Anxious Attachment Style (Part 2)
This episode is part two of a two-part series on 20 Traits of the Anxious Attachment Style. I'm going to be running through some of the less obvious expressions of the anxious attachment style, as well as the underlying drivers of these patterns.
If a recent episode of “On Attachment” left you nodding along and feeling seen, you're not alone. As we continue to explore the intricate web of anxious attachment traits, it’s clear that understanding our relational patterns and dynamics isn't a one-size-fits-all pursuit. Join us as we delve deeper into traits 11 to 20, providing insights and guidance to shine a light on our attachment styles and embark on a journey towards healthier, thriving relationships.
Trait 11: The Breakup Conundrum
For those with anxious attachment patterns, navigating breakups and endings can be an excruciating process. While recognising when a relationship needs to end, the emotional entanglement and the process of disengaging from a loved one can be especially distressing. If you find yourself ruminating and struggling with the emotional fallout of a breakup for an extended period, you're not alone. Recognising and navigating the impact of endings is an essential part of healing anxious attachment.
Trait 12: Relationship Strain Overload
When something goes awry in a relationship, it can feel all-consuming for individuals with anxious attachment tendencies. Unlike their avoidant counterparts who can compartmentalise emotions, the anxious partner may find it challenging to see beyond the perceived relationship problems. This trait sheds light on the need for balance and understanding within the relationship dynamic—a journey towards finding a middle ground where emotions and space coexist harmoniously.
Trait 13: The Struggle with Receiving Support
The yearning for support and reciprocity, coupled with a struggle to receive it, often characterises individuals with anxious attachment patterns. Recognising the vulnerability of receiving support and understanding that it's not a sign of weakness can be a crucial step in fostering healthier relationships. Finding that balance between giving and receiving, without feeling unworthy or being overwhelmed, is key to nurturing a fulfilling partnership.
Trait 14: Infatuation at Lightning Speed
The tendency to become infatuated and attached to new people swiftly within early dating stages is a common trait for those with anxious attachment styles. These patterns can also manifest as experiencing crushes while already in a relationship. Understanding and navigating the impulse to create intense emotional connections quickly is essential for fostering stable and balanced relationships.
Trait 15: Privacy vs. Secrecy Dilemma
Distinguishing between healthy privacy and unhealthy secrecy is a regular challenge for individuals with anxious attachment patterns. Fear of the unknown and a tendency to feel threatened by a partner's privacy can lead to difficulties in creating and respecting personal boundaries. Recognising and addressing this fear is essential for establishing trust and promoting emotional stability within the relationship.
Trait 16: Hyperattunement to Partner's Moods
Being hyperattuned to subtle shifts in a partner's mood or energy can be both a blessing and a curse. While this heightened sensitivity nurtures empathy and emotional connection, it can also lead to catastrophic interpretations and spiralling distress. Learning to differentiate between accurate perception and catastrophic meaning-making is essential for maintaining emotional equilibrium within the relationship.
Trait 17: Fear of Abandonment
A pervasive fear of a partner leaving for someone ‘better’ is a common struggle for those with anxious attachment patterns. The intersection of jealousy, low self-worth, and comparison often fuels this fear. Addressing and untangling these emotions is a vital step toward fostering greater inner security and trust within relationships.
Trait 18: The Need for Constant Togetherness
Individuals with anxious attachment patterns often struggle with their partners' time devoted to other relationships or personal pursuits. Recognising the value of personal space and understanding that healthy relationships can coexist with individual pursuits is crucial for promoting emotional autonomy and trust within a partnership.
Trait 19: Adverse Attraction to Unhealthy Patterns
A subconscious attraction to inconsistent and unavailable partners is a common struggle for those with anxious attachment styles. Embracing stability and security within relationships may initially feel unexciting, yet recognising and recalibrating these attraction patterns is a crucial step in fostering sustainable and fulfilling partnerships.
Trait 20: The Quest for Love Through Self-Change
The tendency to believe that changing oneself will elicit more love from a partner is a hallmark trait among those with anxious attachment patterns. Understanding that true love and connection should stem from authenticity and mutual acceptance is a pivotal step in breaking free from codependent dynamics and fostering relationships based on genuine connection and trust.
As we unpack these traits, it's essential to remember that the journey towards understanding and navigating attachment styles is deeply personal and often non-linear. While these traits shed light on common patterns, the healing and growth process is unique for each individual. Recognising these traits is the first step toward fostering self-awareness, understanding relational dynamics, and embarking on a journey towards healthier and more fulfilling relationships.
The intricate tapestry of anxious attachment patterns offers an opportunity for introspection, growth, and transformation—a journey that, when navigated with compassion and self-awareness, leads to profound personal and relational healing.
Join us as we continue to explore the nuanced landscape of attachment, relationships, and self-discovery, opening doors to a deeper understanding of ourselves and the connections we foster.
Remember, understanding and navigating attachment styles is a continual process—one that lays the foundation for authentic, thriving, and emotionally fulfilling relationships.
Questions for Discussion & Reflection
Do you find yourself experiencing difficulty with breakups or other endings in your relationships? How has this impacted your healing process, and what strategies have you used to navigate these challenges?
In what ways do you see yourself being consumed by perceived problems in your relationships? How does this affect your ability to see the positives during difficult times?
Reflect on your experiences with receiving support. Do you struggle to accept support from others? What emotions or reactions come up for you when someone offers you support, and what do you think might be driving these reactions?
Have you ever found yourself becoming infatuated with new people very quickly? How has this tendency impacted your approach to dating or maintaining a relationship? Reflect on any instances where this has led to challenges in your relationships.
Consider your feelings towards privacy and secrecy in relationships. Do you struggle to distinguish between healthy privacy and unhealthy secrecy? How has this impacted your past relationships or your current relationship dynamics?
In what ways are you hyperattuned to subtle changes in your partner's mood or energy? How do you manage the different interpretations you make based on these observations, and how does this affect your relationship dynamics?
Have you ever caught yourself fearing that your partner might leave you for someone better? How does this fear manifest in your thoughts or actions, and what strategies have you used to address these anxieties in your relationships?
Reflect on any experiences where you felt rejected if your partner devoted time to other relationships or areas of life. How did you navigate these feelings, and what insights did you gain from those experiences?
Do you find yourself being drawn to partners who exhibit inconsistency and unavailability? How has this preference impacted your past relationships, and what steps could you take to recalibrate your approach to attraction and stability in relationships?
Consider the belief that changing yourself will make your partner love you more. Have you ever felt this way in a relationship? How has this belief influenced your behavior, and what steps can you take to cultivate healthier perceptions of love and self-worth?
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Join my new 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
[00:00:04]:
Today's episode is part 2 of the episode that I released a couple of days ago, which was titled 20 Traits of the Anxious Attachment Style. So I'm running through some less obvious, I would say, traits of the anxious attachment style, hopefully going a little deeper than your average listicle. What I will say before I dive in is that this is not an exhaustive list, and it's also, not sequential. You don't have to have listened to the previous episode as a prerequisite to being able to make sense of this episode, But if you're interested, you can absolutely go back and listen to the other one as well to give you the fuller picture. So just before I dive into traits 11 to 20 of the 20 traits that I'm gonna run through, I just wanted to remind you that healing anxious attachment, my signature program, opens up in a few days' time. If you're on the wait list, amazing.
[00:01:26]:
I think there are about 1300 of you at the moment, which is just so cool. But if you're not on the wait list and you'd like to be, which just gives you first access, early bird pricing, and exclusive bonuses, which for the first time ever, the exclusive bonuses are gonna include all 4 of my other master classes. So building trust, sex and attachment, how to navigate anxious avoidant relationships, and better boundaries are all included as a bonus master class bundle with the early bird price of healing anxious attachment. So really, really good value. If you are interested, just pop yourself on the wait list so that you have the option. You can do that via my website or the link in the show notes. Hopefully, that's all pretty straightforward. Okay.
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So trait number 11, continuing on from the first ten that we covered in the previous episode a couple of days ago, is you have a really, really hard time with breakups and other endings. So I've spoken about this on the podcast many times. There's an episode from a while back titled 5 Reasons That Anxiously Attached People Struggle With Breakups, so you can obviously do a deep dive into that if you're interested. But for anxiously attached people, for all of the reasons that we've talked about, because the relationship is such a source of safety, a breakup tends to be very, very destabilizing and disorienting, and that's true no matter how much you might know that a relationship needs to end, no matter how dysfunctional or unhealthy, no matter how unhappy you were, going through that process of emotional disentanglement from someone that you love and that you are attached to is particularly excruciating, when you have anxious attachment patterns. So breakups are likely to really throw you, and your recovery time, if we want to call it that, is likely to be longer than someone with more avoidant patterns or even someone with more of a secure attachment. You're likely to really be in that process for a decent amount of time, and you're doing a lot of ruminating and thinking and, you know, wondering whether it was the right thing and wanting to reach out to your ex and still feeling very attached to them. So that's very normal if you're someone with an anxious attachment style. I'll just quickly say I I also had in this one you have a hard time with other endings as well, because I think it's kind of a not really as front and center as something like breakups, but you might also struggle, like, letting go of a job, like, walking away from something, or you might just have a level of emotionality or sentimentality around goodbyes and separation.
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Again, going back to that thing of separation anxiety or, you know, just having a lot of emotion around parting ways, so that could extend beyond, you know, just breakups. Number 12 is you can't help but be consumed by the perceived problems in your relationship. So for anxiously attached people, when something's wrong with the relationship, it really does feel all consuming, and it's likely all that you can think and talk about. So this is by contrast with if you have, for example, a more avoidant leaning partner, they're probably quite adept at compartmentalizing. So you could have a big fight, and then they could kind of switch gears and go off to work and have a totally normal day, and not have that be, you know, weighing down on them. I used to have this dynamic in a previous relationship where, you know, my ex partner was quite avoidant, and we'd be in the middle of an argument, and he would just say, I don't have time for this right now. I need to go like, I need to work. I need to do something.
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And it was always so challenging for me because I was so in the thick of it and so in my emotions that it was unfathomable to me that you could focus on anything else at a time like that. But for him, he was able to just switch it off, and, you know, if anything, I think I interpreted that at the time as, you know, him not caring, but it really is just a a different blueprint. But it can be very hard to relate to as someone with more anxious patterns that, you know, your partner could just kind of put things in separate boxes and function quite effectively even when things are not good in the relationship. It's likely that you don't have that same capacity to, you know, segment yourself internally. So it's likely that, you know, if the relationship is, you know, feeling really strained, that that's taking up most of your field of vision and most of your bandwidth, and and that's going to be really all consuming. The other aspect of that is that you probably struggle to see the good, at those times, in those, you know, seasons where the relationship know, the negativity of whatever is bothering you about the relationship. Know, the negativity of whatever is bothering you about the relationship. Okay.
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Number 13 is you yearn for support but struggle with receiving it. Now we sort of touched on this when talking about the overgiving and self sacrifice in the previous episode, but it's sort of a funny thing. Right? You can often resent being the giver, and you might complain about imbalances in the relationship. You might complain about that lack of reciprocity of, you know, I'm always the one doing this. You know, I am always giving more. I am always thinking about you. I'm always in the caring role, and you never do that for me. And there is this yearning for support, but you do tend to struggle to receive that support if you're more anxiously attached, and you cannot really know what to do with it if suddenly someone showed up and was really ready and willing to support you and asked, you know, how can I support you? You might find yourself a little frozen, not really knowing what to do because you're so unaccustomed to being in that seat of receiving.
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So I think there's some work to do for most of us around recognizing the vulnerability of receiving, because it is, for for a lot of us, much more vulnerable to be, you know, to kind of have the spotlight on us and have, you know, us be cared for and have our needs being really recognized and paid attention to, if you're not used to that, then that can feel really edgy in and of itself. So, there's there's definitely some work there around, you know, feeling worthy of the support that you crave and really allowing yourself to take that in. Okay. Number 14 is you become infatuated and attach to new people very quickly. So in early dating, you find yourself going from 0 to a100 at lightning speed, quickly becoming attached to someone before you really know them, which can also apply to crushes while in a relationship. Now I've touched on, you know, jealousy elsewhere, and, you know, there will be a couple of points in, you know, this episode where I'm touching on those dynamics, and I actually think that part of the anxiously attached person's struggle with jealousy stems from their own tendency to become infatuated and attached and develop crushes very quickly. So if you can, you know, see someone at the coffee shop or the gym and suddenly create this whole fantasy in your mind about, you know, being totally obsessed with them, and, you know, you can't stop thinking about them, and you start planning your, you know, days around whether you might run into them or whatever, it can be easy to project and assume that your partner's doing the same thing, and so feel very insecure and jealous around what they're doing and who they're seeing. So I think that this tendency that people with strong anxious attachment patterns have to really, you know, latch on and and become, you know, kind of in that fantasy world of imagining, you know, a whole life with someone or becoming very consumed by this idea of a connection that doesn't really exist, that is certainly an anxious attachment thing, whether it's, you know, in a relationship or outside of 1 in in a dating context.
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Yeah. You're definitely not alone if you've experienced that. Okay. Number 15 is you struggle with trust and feel threatened by your partner's privacy. So I've done an episode before on, you know, the difference between privacy and secrecy, and for anxiously attached people, it feel like there is no difference between privacy and secrecy, that, you know, if you are doing something and protecting your privacy, then that is tantamount to keeping secrets, and keeping secrets feels very dangerous. So, you know, anxiously attached people love certainty, and that element of the unknown that is involved in trusting someone can feel very, very risky and very, very vulnerable. So distinguishing between healthy privacy and unhealthy secrecy, it's almost like that. You know, if you've got nothing to hide, then why do you need privacy kind of mentality can be common among anxious people, and, you know, as you can imagine or maybe you've experienced, when that comes head to head with a more avoidant partner who very much values their privacy, and sees that as very important to their overall sense of self and autonomy, we can really easily clash there because the anxious person can become very suspicious of the avoidant person's attachment to privacy.
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And so, yeah, there's there's some work to do there around figuring out, like, what is a healthy boundary, because the the anxious partner's unlikely to have a baseline respect for privacy or understanding of why privacy is, like, valid or reasonable or important, because it is just likely to be seen as so threatening for them. Okay. Number 16, you are hyperattuned to subtle changes in your partner's mood or energy. So this is both a blessing and a curse. Right? This level of, you know, emotional being really emotionally tapped in, being able to really read the room and feel the energy and, you know, sense if there's a shift in someone's state, that's not a bad thing. Right? There's there's a level of, like, empathy and skill in that that allows you to really connect with people and allows people to feel really seen. The trouble is for anxiously attached people, we can kind of get carried away with the interpretation of what we are then perceiving. So you might notice there's a shift, and that might be accurate, that there has been a shift in the energy or the mood, but then the meaning making tends to be catastrophic.
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Right? So it's, okay, like, my partner's gone a bit quiet. That might just be because they're tired. It's quite innocuous, but for the anxiously attached person, it's likely to be, there's something wrong. They're angry at me. They're upset. Something's happened. And so it's that interpretation, that meaning making step where anxiously attached people tend to lead themselves astray and go into those spirals and then, you know, become quite distressed by it and feel the need to probe or problem solve or fix, you know, pester their partner, what's wrong? No. Tell me what's wrong.
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I can tell there's something wrong, that sort of pattern. So it's important to to recognize that within yourself and try and find some boundaries around, not taking those interpretations to the extreme, when you don't really have, not only the evidence to support it, but when it doesn't really need to be a problem that you have to solve urgently, even though that's how it can feel. Okay. Number 17, you fear your partner leaving you for someone better. So, you know, this is interwoven with so many of the other themes that we've talked about, jealousy, low self worth, comparison, fear of abandonment, you know, this general sense of the relationship is always on a knife's edge, and there's always these looming, lurking threats, and so I need to, you know, be protecting against that. And one of the obvious threats is outsiders. So, you know, whether that's I think I touched on, you know, like colleagues or exes or friends or just other people, really, this sense of they're gonna leave me, and it's gonna be for someone better, and I need to then, like, try and, you know, make myself better so that that doesn't happen, or, you know, try and dampen down parts of myself that I consider to be flaws or unacceptable or unlovable so that my partner doesn't leave me for someone else who doesn't have those same things. So, that's very much a lingering fear for anxiously attached people is that given the chance, their partner will leave them for someone else or someone better, so to speak.
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Okay. Number 18 is you feel rejected if your partner devotes time to other relationships or areas of life. Anxiously attached people will very happily devote the vast majority of their time and energy to their partner in their relationship. That is a very comfortable default position, and often, you know, you'll be quite happy to turn down other invitations so as to prioritize time spent with your partner, or even just to make yourself available on the off chance that your partner wants to spend time with you or someone that you're dating even. So there can be this, you know, like, difficulty understanding why your partner wouldn't wanna do the same. Why wouldn't they wanna spend every waking moment with you? If you loved me, that's what you would want. Right? So because of that, it's easy for people with anxious patterns to feel hurt or rejected if their partner wants to do things separately. So if they wanna catch up with friends and they just wanna have that time with their friends and not with you, whereas your preference might be either to spend time with them or spend time with other people and have them there as well.
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There might just not be a scenario in which you would prefer separation over togetherness, whereas, you know, for, I would say, certainly avoidant partners but also secure partners, they might have a very legitimate desire to actually just spend time, you know, in different areas of their life or, you know, devoting time to hobbies or coworkers or something, that doesn't involve you and having a level of space around that. And that can feel like in a bit of an affront, or, again, it's almost like the the privacy thing. It can feel suspicious to someone with more anxious patterns. So, recognizing that that can be a perfectly normal and healthy thing for partners to want, and it's not something that you need to necessarily take personally and make a lot of meaning out of. Okay. Number 19 is you find healthy, consistent, and available would be partners boring. So I talked before on the show about this subconscious drive towards people who are really good at at lighting up all of those triggers, all of those, you know, old pathways within you around working really hard for someone's attention or you're finding that inconsistency to be quite exhilarating and addictive even though it's causing you a lot of stress. For a lot of anxiously in touch people, you know, I hear this so much is, like, the the healthy people, people who are available, who are interested in me, who show that interest, you know, in a sustained way, It doesn't do anything for me.
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It doesn't light me up. I don't feel excited to talk to them or go on dates with them, It just you know, I'm only attracted to the people who don't give me that, who, you know, leave me guessing or make me work for it. And so I think that that is you know, it's a big part of just having, you know, programming around what love looks and feels like, and when we've developed a lot of strategies around all of those things, working really hard, needing to prove ourselves, needing to prove our worth, when that's what we're accustomed to, then that's kind of what we feel most comfortable with when we're in that familiar zone. So there can be a certain recalibration that needs to happen, for you to, you know, know how to be in relationship with someone who doesn't take you on that rollercoaster ride and still, you know, learn to get a lot out of that and to appreciate the stability and appreciate the security, and the sense of peace and calm that comes with that rather than being addicted to the chaos of, you know, unavailability and inconsistency. Okay. And last but not least, you believe that changing yourself will make your partner love you more. So this is very much kind of at the heart of, you know, codependency. Not that codependency and anxious attachment are the same thing, but I think in the Venn diagram, there'd be a good degree of overlap, between anxiously attached people and people who find themselves in codependent patterns in their relationship.
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So this sense of whatever problems I perceive as existing in the relationship or in my partner, whatever behaviors of theirs I see as being an issue or I wanna change, there's a part of me that thinks that if I can change myself, then that will change them and the way they are towards me. So, you know, really just assigning so much responsibility to ourselves to make everything better, and, you know, if I change the way I look or the way that I dress or the way I act or, you know, the things I say or don't say, then all of these things that I want will become available, then they'll show up for me, then they'll be loving towards me, then, you know, they won't lie to me anymore or whatever the things might be. Right? Obviously, there's a huge spectrum of of how that could play out, and, you know, some are obviously on more extreme ends of the spectrum in terms of really unhealthy dysfunctional dynamics. But this sense of, like, if I can just train myself, then that will change you or that will change our relationship for the better, And, obviously, that can lead you down a rabbit hole of endless, you know, shape shifting, people pleasing, performing, striving, trying to earn love, and trying to change yourself to elicit some sort of outcome, with the obvious consequence that you end up really not knowing who you are, and not having a clear sense of that and and having pretty, you know, decimated self worth as a result. So, you know, all in the hopes that that's gonna make you feel worthy and deserving of love. And, you know, spoiler alert, oftentimes, most of the time, I would say that doesn't work, and then you feel unworthy and undeserving of love because despite your best efforts, despite having tried so hard, it still didn't work, and so that can actually reinforce all of those feelings that drove you to those behaviors in the first place. So that can be a really, really painful dynamic, and, you know, it's one that I've certainly played into in the past and very glad to say, you know, mostly it doesn't doesn't really come up for me anymore, but, you know, if that's something that you relate to, know that it's really, really, unfortunately, common among folks with anxious attachment and is a big part of why building self worth and, you know, a stronger connection to yourself is such a big part of that healing journey. Okay.
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That was part 2. That was 11 to 20 on the 20 traits list. I really hope that that was helpful for you. I hope that that's, you know, giving you some more insight into yourself, and your patterns and what drives them and that, you know, big web or tapestry that is anxious attachment because it is so much more than, you know, just listing out a couple of headline traits. We can see how all of those, you know, tendrils or branches, they all kind of connect in this big, you know, web of you know, it does really start to make sense when we can say, ah, yeah, that makes sense in the context of that, and, you know, that fear or that insecurity and that drives this behavior. You know, I think that having that context for ourselves really allows us to not only access more compassion, but, you know, more understanding and allows us to, in turn, be more proactive about, okay, like, I I don't have to feel overwhelmed by this in a really frozen abstract way of just, you know, there's something wrong with me, and I'm broken, and I'm bad at relationships, and I always do this, when we start to be able to fill in the blanks a little and and kind of flesh it out, give some color to that, I think that allows us to feel much more empowered to start making shifts in the right direction. So, as I said, I really hope that that's been helpful, and if these points resonated with you, if you're, you know, nodding along and and feeling very seen, then, as I said, I would love to see you inside healing anxious attachment when doors open in a few days' time. And do make sure to jump on the wait list if you wanna access that exclusive pricing and bonuses.
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So thanks, guys, so much for joining me, and I look forward to seeing you again next week.
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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, relationships, relationship coach, anxious attachment style, traits, insecurity, breakups, emotional disentanglement, avoidant patterns, secure attachment, healing program, trust, intimacy, boundaries, self-worth, privacy, jealousy, hyperattuned, fear of abandonment, codependency, self-compassion, self-discovery, self-improvement, self-love, compassion, communication, emotional intelligence, love, support, self-care