“Since we realized I’m all of the above (unhealthy attachments), I guess I need to work on the healing process for all 3?” my client asked with apparent willingness mixed with curiosity.
“I actually recommend that even when you’ve identified your primary unhealthy attachments (with one usually being the primary), it is helpful to do the healing steps for all 3. It certainly won’t hurt anything. And it’s often helpful in getting to healthy attachment much easier and much more quickly!” I affirmed.
“Quick and easy works for me!” my client commented with true enthusiasm.
Seeing our need is the same as halfway there.
Come along … and let’s together see ourselves clearly in order to become more of ourselves.
Our BEST selves!
Before we dive into healing steps for anxious (or fearful) attachment, let me say this…
Moving from any unhealthy attachment style to a healthy attachment style is 100% possible for 100% of us!
Let that be the mantra of your heart and mind.
Please don’t waste time trying to assess “how bad” or “not that bad” you are.
There’s no benefit to you, and the steps are the same.
I work with someone often in my executive coaching practice who spends way too much time trying to assess how ‘bad’ he is, in order to say, it’s too much to deal with …” Or how ‘not that bad’ he is to deem the healing work unnecessary.
My advice?
Don’t be like him!
Do the steps!
-Your marriage…
-Your relationships with significant others…
-Young children
-Adult children…
-Friends, family, coworkers…
ALL your relationships depend on you doing this work.
They can all be rich, healthy, fun, loving, supportive…all the qualities you desire in great relationships.
But you simply must do the work.
Not just “think it through”.
Not wonder if it works.
The work has a way of changing you even when you don’t think it can!
I’ve watched this very thing happen every time someone allows their heart to search for the answers and surrender the outcome.
I know that the vast majority of my readers, are deeply committed to their personal growth and an abundant life.
If this was the only issue you addressed, it would move…
-The quality of your life…
-Your relationships…
-Your fulfillment…
To a whole new level.
So, I hope you will dive in and start your healing process NOW!
Doing?
You lose nothing.
Not doing?
You lose…period.
When I worked with Tony Robbins, he would ask us all the same question often (and it’s a mind twister):
“When would NOW be a good time?”
There’s only one answer: NOW!
Jump in and let’s do this …
TOGETHER!
Become Self Aware – Without Judgment
“I am getting better about ‘owning my stuff’… but why can’t I shake the judgment of myself?” my client asked.
I validated: “Great question!”
“When we judge ourselves, we’re normally engaging in a pattern that we’ve been running in our lives for years. It’s our groove…. we’ve found our groove when we (unbeknownst to us) let it define us.”
“And patterns only continue when there’s a payoff …” I assured him. “So, ask yourself, what do I get out of judging myself?”
He paused for a moment … then half stated, and half asked: “Beating anyone else to the punch?! …”
I nodded.
Then the list began to pour out:
To make it too hard and move on and avoid the work?
To make it too easy so I think it doesn’t apply…to me?
To make myself feel like a P.O.S because that feels familiar?
To get sympathy?
To be a victim so I can excuse…myself?
His list went on.
Find your payoff for judging yourself and lay it aside.
How?
By first asking yourself, “Who’s judgement is/was it to begin with?”
10 out of 10 times it was someone else’s negativity they felt the need to espouse.
They didn’t know either.
There’s zero benefit to negative judgements of ourselves!
Doing a 180 (or as we’ve heard in church ‘to repent’) is to see the good we need in order to move on from the judgmental.
Then you can more readily identify yourself and see your unconscious behaviors that make relationships difficult.
I gave him an abbreviated list of symptoms and asked him to assess himself on a scale of 1-5 for each of them. (1 indicating that he rarely feels, struggles with, or displays the symptom … 5 indicating that it’s an ongoing battle regularly).
I’d like to ask you to do the same.
_____ Becoming emotionally dysregulated if not responded to in a ‘fairly’ short amount of time
_____ Needing to be acknowledged for things you do and becoming anxious if you don’t receive it.
_____ Craving intimacy but struggling to let it in for fear that it will disappear.
_____ Being jealous and/or suspicious.
_____ Feeling threatened when others want solo activities or time alone.
_____ Becoming a people pleaser.
_____ Allowing yourself to be treated with less respect than you deserve.
_____ Idealizing your partner and missing their dysfunctional behaviors … resulting in tolerating more things than you should.
If you have any symptoms that you score 2 through 5, ideally, you should follow the next two steps.
My client commented after seeing many 3’s, 4’s, and 5’s on his scoring list, “I find it interesting how many of these are things I struggle with that no one would guess I did!”
That’s not an uncommon statement.
Many of us do our best to keep our struggles internal for the most part.
But as I went on to share with him: “You might do quite well keeping it ‘stuffed’ in professional settings, but I can assure you that your wife sees and experiences more of them that you might guess…”
He nodded … knowing it was truth.
May I also ask you to join me on this mission.
And if you see someone who appears to struggle with fearful or anxious attachment, would you be willing to lovingly share this with them?
It’s not fun to do life with this attachment style.
And I can assure you that if you share it with them, they’ll be very grateful!
Learn to self-regulate, self-soothe, and take thoughts captive.
“I don’t want to sound resistant, but all that soothing and regulating stuff sounds a little frou frou …” my client was saying, but the expression on my face must’ve taken the wind out of his boastful sails.
I laughed and then followed with: “It may sound ‘girlie’ … but I can assure you that there are as many males as females who need to learn to do this. It looks very different when men do it … but the healing process is the same!”
As someone has said, “Life is a struggle for one thing…a healthy sense of in-to-me-see.”
We collect our own sense of intimacy and run that internally …
Unless we decide to stop and change the victim loop in our heads.
Both men and women who struggle with anxious attachment wounds tend to dysregulate easily, although they often show it differently.
When concerned about the state of a relationship, both males and females can dysregulate.
Women “act that out” with what looks like fear, severe worry, or ongoing nervousness.
Men tend to “act that out” with grumpiness, complaints, and frustration.
First, we must become aware that we’re dysregulating when we’re experiencing things such as:
Anxious, racing thoughts
Emotional overwhelm
Difficulty sleeping
Disturbed sleep
Irritation
Grumpiness
Accelerated heart rate (feeling like it’s beating out of your chest)
Brain fog
Inability to focus
Digestive issues
Jaw clenching
Sensory overload (reaction to bright lights, sounds, etc.)
At those moments…
-We need to practice things that will regulate or soothe us…
-Knowing it’s different for everyone…
-And you’ll need to try various things to see what’s effective for … YOU.
Here are some suggestions to start experimenting with:
Breathing exercises. (My favorite is breathing in through your nose to the count of 5, holding to the count of 10, exhaling through your mouth to the count of 15. Count at the pace that allows you to do all through, using the same pace for counting the 5, the 10, and the 15.)
Journaling. (I find for me that journaling three gratitude’s brings the quickest relief. Whether it’s 3 things that happened today, yesterday, or 10 years ago does not matter.) Write about what it was, how it felt, what it meant to you …
Music. (I have a few songs that bring soothing for me. Find yours at a time when you don’t need them, so you can pull them up immediately when you do need them. (Mine are: “It’s A Wonderful World”, “I Speak Jesus”, and “Let It Be”.)
Go out into nature. (Take a walk in the park, feed some ducks, watch the sunrise or sunset. Listen to the breeze in the leaves of a tree. Pick a flower. Nature is so grounding and so calming. I love it that I live on a golf course, and can take my shoes off in the evening and walk on the grass.)
Countdown. (Five things to make you smile. Four things that made you laugh at some point. Three people you admire. Two thoughts that would help you at this moment. One prayer. asking for peace).
Take a warm shower or a bubble bath. Or sit in a hot tub. Water is soothing.
Watch a short video that calms you. I like music video’s. I also watch “shorts” that are calming.
Try other things and find what soothes you.
When you feel dysregulation rising…
-Because you don’t know why he isn’t home yet…
-Or you don’t know who she’s with after work…
-Press pause on your thoughts about them…and take care of … YOU!
Learning to take thoughts captive is one way of self-soothing.
It also begins a huge healing process.
At the first moment you realize that your thoughts are spiraling you can take the thought captive by imagining you are pulling it out of your brain by writing it down.
My client gave me permission to share his exercise around this with you.
He shared that his wife was telling him about her promotion at work and all that her manager had said.
He realized he was spiraling with thoughts about…HIM (the manager).
I asked him to pull that out of his brain and write it on a piece of paper on the tablet I handed him.
He wrote: “I wonder if she is attracted to him.”
Underneath, I asked him to write how that thought was helping him.
He wrote: “It’s not.”
Then I asked him to challenge the thought with truth.
He wrote: “Even if she is, she would never be unfaithful to me.”
Then I asked him to write a better thought.
He wrote: “If I do all the healing I need to do on my attachment wounds, he can’t hold a candle to me!”
Follow that process as often as you can…before you spiral into total dysregulation.
Practice till you…become!
-Wrangle the thought captive.
-Write it down.
-Wonder and write how it’s helping you,
-Wrestle down the thought with truth.
-Wire yourself with a better thought!
Deal with carried fear.
Almost always when someone has an anxious or fearful attachment style, they had a parent or significant caregiver who was either (over the top’ or in denial) of their fear.
This results in what we call ‘carried fear’.
When you carry fear…and you experience fear…you don’t have a spark of fear, you have an explosion of fear or anxiety internally.
Here’s an exercise I use with my clients.
You can do it too, to resolve any carried fear.
Identify these things:
Who does this fear/anxiety that dysregulates you belong to?
What price have you paid for carrying these feelings? (What happens to you when you don’t feel healthy fear but instead you get overwhelmed and dysregulated)
Why do you want to get rid of those and experience the gifts of fear instead? (The gifts of healthy fear are protection and wisdom).
What would be different and better about your life?
After you have assimilated that information, write letters to the people whose feelings you carry.
Now before you get started, this is not a letter you will share or send.
It’s a letter that ‘unearths’ those carried feelings from your soul (that RUN YOUR life).
Here’s the format for your letter:
Dear_______________,
I began carrying your__________(name the feeling/s) when I was a little girl/boy.
It was very unfair because I did not have boundaries yet to protect myself from your overwhelming________________(name the feeling/s).
I am sick of carrying your_____________(name the feeling/s) because: _____________________(list what it has cost you in your life and in negative circumstances, reactions, choices, etc.)
I refuse to keep carrying your__________________(name the feeling/s)
because I want: _________________________(name the positive things that will be different in your life without their feeling/s).
I’m angry that you gave me your____________(named the feeling/s). I have a right to be angry! And I give you back your ___________________ (name of the feeling/s)!
I will never carry it again!
Then sign the letter.
You may have many letters to write.
Write as many as it takes.
Put each one in separate envelope and write either their first name or their designation on the envelope.
For example: Aunt Carolyn, Mom, Coach Nichols, etc.
Seal each one and take them and drop them into a public mailbox.
As you drive away, say these words out loud: “I’m free at last!”
I’ve found through the years that people love reading about this but find it difficult to sit down and write the letters and let the feelings go.
Not just let them go but send them back from whence they came!
However, it’s your only way to break through the dysregulation
you struggle with.
Will you write the letters today?
My client wrote letters to:
-His Mom…
-His Dad…
-His paternal Grandmother.
“I’ve never felt so much peace in my life,” he commented after he’d completed the exercise.
*********
Healing from an anxious attachment style is not only freeing for you, but it gives the relationship room to breathe, grow, and flourish!
“It’s challenging to navigate adult life if you have a history of childhood attachment wounds, but there is hope. You can heal the emotional wounds that are at the root of anxious attachment. You can shift into a more emotionally secure attachment style and experience more fulfilling relationships, a more successful career, and more satisfying creative endeavors.”
As you begin healing, it’s important to begin sharing this with your spouse or partner:
Sharing what it’s been like for you
What you’ve been doing to heal
How it feels and how it’s helping you
Asking for support and understanding.
As you begin to understand how your attachment wounds have negatively impacted the relationship, it is powerful to own those and make amends.
I know this requires work … and if you get discouraged … re-read about healthy attachment (you can access that blog by clicking here: https://bit.ly/HealthyAttachment)
It should provide inspiration for you to stay on the path to healing.
You deserve this, and so does your marriage … and other relationships!
Healing is the mystery that finds all of us, when we give ourselves to the truths that make us free.
Moving from any unhealthy attachment style to a healthy attachment style is 100% possible for 100% of us!