The Addiction To Being Loved: Anxious Attachment

A meditation on anxious attachment as literal addiction—with full honesty about the shadow behaviors, obsession, and desperation.

If you check your phone obsessively, need constant reassurance that's never enough, feel panic when someone pulls back, or have done things you're ashamed of to keep someone close—this meditation offers real understanding.

What You'll Explore:
• Anxious attachment as brain addiction (dopamine, withdrawal, tolerance cycles)
• The shadow side: manipulative behaviors, testing, using sex/closeness strategically
• The obsession: why you can't stop thinking about them
• Why unavailable people feel like "chemistry" (intermittent reinforcement)
• The rage and resentment underneath the neediness
• Where this started: childhood inconsistency and conditional love
• Family constellation view: inherited anxious attachment patterns
• Somatic practice for the part addicted to being chosen

Transcript

So welcome everyone,

And thank you for listening.

Let's explore anxious attachment today.

If you've ever checked your phone obsessively,

Waiting for someone to text back.

If you've ever felt like you might actually die if this person leaves you.

If you've stayed up at night analysing everything they said,

Every shift in their energy,

And trying to decode,

Am I still safe?

Do they still want me?

If you've asked for reassurance over and over,

You felt uncertain,

You felt anxious.

If you've done things you're not proud of to keep someone close,

If you've felt desperate in a way that scares you,

Like you'd rather have someone that's not good for you,

Than have no one.

This is not about being needy,

Or dramatic,

Or broken.

This is about your nervous system operating like an addict,

Literally.

And we're going to talk about it honestly,

Including the parts you're ashamed of.

Because understanding what's really happening,

Is the first step to having a relationship with it,

And eventually changing it.

So we'll understand anxious attachment first,

And then move into a gentle practice.

Wherever you are,

Just settle in.

Let me explain what's actually happening in your brain when you're anxiously attached.

When you're in a relationship,

Or even just interested in someone,

Your brain releases chemicals.

Dopamine,

Oxycontin,

Endorphins.

And these are the exact same chemicals involved in drug addiction.

They make you feel amazing,

Calm,

Like everything finally makes sense.

Like you finally matter.

And when that person texts you back,

Smiles at you,

Touches you,

Tells you that they love you,

Your brain lights up.

You get a hit,

You feel relief,

You feel safety.

Like you actually matter and exist.

And when they pull back even slightly,

When they don't text back right away,

When they need space,

When they seem distant,

Your brain goes into withdrawal.

Actual withdrawal.

The same thing that happens when someone stops using drugs.

Your nervous system panics,

Your body floods with stress hormones,

And you feel like you can't breathe.

And maybe your mind races,

What did I do wrong?

Am I losing them?

Are they leaving?

And then you do what any addict does in withdrawal.

You seek your next fix.

You text them,

You reach out,

You create connection,

You ask for reassurance,

Directly or indirectly.

You analyze their behavior,

Trying to figure out how to get them to give you that feeling again.

And this is not weakness.

This is simply a learned conditioned nervous system response.

But the panic is real.

The withdrawal is real.

And just like drugs,

You develop tolerance.

The reassurance that worked last week doesn't work this week.

You need more.

More attention,

More validation,

More proof that you're still wanted.

But it may never be enough.

Because the problem isn't actually about them.

The problem is that your nervous system may have learned long ago.

Love is unreliable.

People leave.

And your worth depends on someone chasing you.

Without external validation,

You don't exist.

So you're not trying to maintain a relationship.

You're trying to maintain a sense of being okay.

Your sense of being real.

Your sense that you matter.

Now let's talk about something that nobody wants to talk about.

The shadow side of anxious attachment.

The behaviors that you're ashamed of.

And the manipulative things you do even without meaning to.

You're not a bad person.

But when we are in this state,

When we are in survival mode,

When your nervous system believes that losing the person means you'll die,

You do things,

Things you're not proud of,

Things you wouldn't do if you felt secure.

Maybe you've used guilt,

Not consciously but in a subtle way.

I was really hurt when you didn't text me back.

I guess I'm just too sensitive.

I don't know if I can handle this anymore.

These statements might be true,

But they're also designed to get a response.

To pull the other person closer.

Maybe you've tested them as well.

Set up situations to see if they'll choose you.

Not call to see if they'll reach out first.

Maybe mention someone else to see if they'll get jealous.

Just creating little dramas to measure their reaction.

Maybe you've also used sex and intimacy.

Not in a healthy I want to connect with you way,

But as a tool,

As a way to keep them close,

To make them need you.

To prove that you're valuable.

You've given your body hoping it would secure their love and make them stay.

Maybe you've become someone you're not.

Hidden parts of yourself.

Thought they wouldn't like.

Laughed at jokes that were not funny maybe.

Agreed with things that you don't really believe in.

Making yourself smaller,

Quieter and easier.

Hoping that if you're just right,

They won't leave.

Maybe you've monitored everything.

You've checked their social media.

You've analysed their online activity.

You've noticed when they were active but not texting you back.

Not because you're controlling,

But your nervous system is desperate for information.

Desperate to predict the threat.

Desperate to control what feels uncontrollable.

And maybe underneath all the neediness and the I love you so much,

There is rage,

Resentment,

Anger that they get to pull back and you have to chase.

Anger that they don't seem to need you the way you need them.

Anger that you've made yourself so small and they still might leave.

But you can't express that rage because you're terrified it will push them away.

So you swallow it.

And it turns into more anxiety,

More desperation,

More performing.

And here's the really painful shadow piece.

Part of you knows that this is not love.

Part of you knows that you're performing,

Manipulating and losing yourself.

Part of you can see this relationship might not even be good for you.

But you can't leave because being alone feels worse than being in a painful relationship.

Because at least when you're chasing,

You have a purpose.

At least when you're anxious,

You feel alive.

Without someone to need you,

Without someone to chase and without someone to obsess over,

Who are you?

What's your identity?

And what do you do with all this energy?

This is the shadow.

The parts you don't want to look at.

The ways your anxiety makes you behave that you're ashamed of.

The desperation that scares you.

And I'm bringing this up not to make you feel worse but to help you see clearly what's happening because these behaviours are not you.

They're simply survival strategies.

And this is what happens when your nervous system believes you're in danger.

Let's talk about the mental aspect of this addiction.

The obsession.

If you're anxiously attached,

You know what it's like not to be able to get someone out of your head.

You replay conversations.

You analyse their tone.

You look for hidden meanings.

You imagine scenarios.

What they're doing,

Who they're with,

Where they're thinking about you.

You check your phone constantly and you may also re-read old messages to get clues.

You notice patterns.

They usually text back in 20 minutes but it's been 21 minutes.

What does this mean?

This feels like love.

Like you care deeply.

But what it actually is,

Is hyper-vigilance.

It's your nervous system scanning for threat.

Trying to predict danger.

Trying to control an outcome that literally feels like life or death.

And here's the cruel part in all this.

The more unavailable someone is,

The more you obsess over them.

The more they pull back,

The more you think about them.

Because your brain reads their distance as danger and the danger activates all your survival instincts.

We can call this intermittent reinforcement and it's the most addictive pattern there is.

Sometimes they respond,

Sometimes they don't.

Sometimes they are warm,

Sometimes they are cold.

And that uncertainty keeps you hooked.

When someone is consistently available,

Consistently present and consistently loving,

Your nervous system can actually get bored with that person.

Because there is no uncertainty there,

There's no drama and there's no relief when they finally text back after hours of silence.

There is no hi anymore.

So subconsciously if you carry anxious attachment somewhere in your timeline,

In your body,

In your cells,

You might find yourself attracted to people who are unavailable.

People who are ambiguous,

Hot and cold,

Hard to pin down.

People who need to be fixed by you.

Not because you want to suffer,

But because your nervous system interprets anxiety as chemistry,

As intensity and as proof that this matters.

This may not be love.

It may be an addiction.

It's your body getting a hit from uncertainty itself.

Now real connections,

Real friendships,

Real love,

Secure love feels calm and feels stable.

But if you are anxiously attached,

Calm can be terrifying for you.

It can be really boring and it can feel wrong.

Because when you're calm,

When you're not chasing,

When you're not anxious,

You have no purpose.

Who are you without the drama?

Now where did this addiction begin in the first place?

It may not have started in your current relationship.

It may have started before you can even remember.

Anxious attachment develops when you're a child and your caregivers are inconsistent.

Sometimes they are here,

Sometimes they are not.

Sometimes they are warm,

Sometimes they are cold.

You never really know what you're going to get on any given day in your household.

So your nervous system learns to stay very alert very early,

To monitor the mood,

To figure out how to get their attention,

Their love and their care.

You learn that love is unpredictable,

That you have to work for it and when you get it,

You better hold on to it tight because it might disappear.

Maybe your parent was overwhelmed,

Stressed and dealing with their own pain.

Maybe they loved you,

But were inconsistent.

Affectionate sometimes,

Checked out at other times.

They were present when you achieved something,

But distant when you needed comfort.

You were not neglected exactly,

But you may have been confused because love felt conditional,

Unstable,

Like something you had to earn and then fight to keep.

And that confusion got wired into your nervous system.

It became your template for what love feels like.

So now as an adult,

When someone is consistently available,

It doesn't feel like love to your body.

It just feels wrong and unfamiliar.

Your nervous system doesn't recognize this feeling.

But when someone is inconsistent,

Unpredictable,

Sometimes there and sometimes not,

Your body recognizes that that feels like love to you because that's what you've always known.

From a family system's perspective,

Sometimes this pattern is even older than your own childhood.

You may be carrying a relational pattern from your mother,

From your grandmother or from a lineage of anxious attachment.

A family history of loving desperately,

Chasing unavailable people and believing that love must be earned.

You absorbed that pattern before you had words.

It's in how you saw relationships modeled.

It's in unspoken messages about love,

Worth and what it means to be chosen.

So this may not be your personal wound.

It's a systemic pattern and recognizing that can be liberating because it means there's fundamentally nothing wrong with you.

You're carrying something that was passed down and you now have the chance to see it and relate to it differently.

So now that we understand what's happening,

The addiction,

The shadow behaviors,

The obsession,

Where it came from,

Let's practice something now.

We are going to drop into your body and meet the part of you that's addicted to being loved.

The part of you that panics when someone pulls back.

The part that would do anything to keep someone close.

We are not going to try to change or fix it.

We are just going to witness it and understand it and see that it made sense.

And we are going to begin to separate who you are from the survival pattern because you are not your anxiety,

You are not your desperation,

And you are not your addiction.

These are strategies you developed.

They can be seen,

They can be understood,

And they can be slowly released.

So adjust your position now if you need to and just begin to notice your breath.

The natural rhythm of inhale and exhale.

Just notice that.

Now let's begin by grounding in your body.

I want you to feel your feet,

Your legs,

Maybe the base of your spine.

And then notice where your body makes contact with the surface beneath you,

Wherever you may be.

Now bring your awareness to your chest,

To your heart space.

Now this is often where anxious attachment lives most intensely.

Notice if there is a tightness here,

An aching,

A sense of longing or panic.

If you notice tension or pain in your chest,

Just acknowledge it.

This is how your body holds the fear of being unloved,

Unwanted,

And abandoned.

Now move your awareness to your belly,

Lower stomach,

Solar plexus.

This is where you hold your sense of self,

Your personal power,

And your internal yes and no.

For people with anxious attachment,

This area often feels empty heavy,

Tight,

Or disconnected.

Because your sense of self has been tied to someone else,

You don't know who you are without someone wanting you.

Notice your throat now,

Where you hold what you want to say but you can't.

The truth you swallow to keep someone close,

The needs you don't express because you're afraid they'll push someone away.

And notice your nervous system now.

Is it activated just thinking about relationships?

Is there a buzz of anxiety,

A sense of vigilance,

Or maybe there is numbness.

Your body is protecting itself from feeling too much.

Whatever you find,

Just acknowledge it.

Your body is holding your relational history.

Now staying grounded in your body,

I want you to sense into the parts of you that gets anxious in relationships.

The part that obsesses,

The part that needs reassurance,

And the part that panics when someone pulls back.

You might sense this part as a younger version of you,

Or just as an energy,

Just as a feeling,

Just as a sensation.

However it shows up is fine.

As you sense into this part,

What are they afraid of?

Maybe they are afraid of being alone,

Of being forgotten,

Of not being enough,

Of being abandoned,

Or of existing in a void where no one sees them.

And now instead of trying to fix this part or make them different,

See if you can simply witness and acknowledge them.

Place your hand on your heart if that feels comfortable,

And offer these words.

Receive them,

Speak them silently,

Speak them out loud,

Whatever feels right for you.

I see you.

I see how scared you are,

And I see how much you need to be chosen to be wanted and to feel like you matter.

You learned that love was unpredictable,

That it had to be earned,

That without someone else you didn't really exist,

And that belief has shaped everything.

I see the things you've done to keep people close,

The ways you've performed,

Manipulated and hidden yourself,

The ways you've used your body,

Your words,

Your emotions,

Trying to secure love.

I am not judging you for that.

You were doing what you thought you had to do to survive,

To stay connected and to not be alone.

But I need you to know something.

Your worth doesn't depend on someone else choosing you.

Your existence doesn't depend on being wanted.

You are real even when you're alone.

I know you don't believe this yet.

I know your body doesn't feel that yet.

But I am here now.

The adult part of me is here.

And I am not going to abandon you just because someone else might.

Just notice what happens when you offer this witnessing.

Maybe there's a softening.

Maybe there's a resistance.

Maybe this part doesn't trust reassurance anymore because it's been disappointed too many times.

Or maybe there is nothing and just numbness.

All of that is okay.

This is not about fixing the pattern instantly.

It's about beginning to see it clearly.

Beginning to separate.

This is the wound and this is me.

This is the wound and this is me.

Take a moment now to sense if this anxious attachment is bigger than your personal experience.

Is this something that was in your family?

Did your mother or father love like this?

Or they believed they were not enough?

Did anybody else in your family chase unavailable people?

The body will answer.

Whatever you sense right now,

Offer this acknowledgement.

This may not have started with me.

I may have been carrying this pattern from my family.

I can now choose to relate differently.

I don't have to repeat what came before.

As you exhale now,

Imagine that what belongs to the family begins to return to where it came from.

You are just releasing the burden of carrying this relational wound forward.

If you are still in a process now,

You are very welcome to pause this recording here.

Begin to deepen your breath now.

Gently bring movement back into your body.

Fingers,

Toes and shoulders.

What you've done here is to begin to see the pattern clearly.

To witness the addiction without shame.

To understand that anxious attachment is not a character flaw.

It's a survival strategy that made sense.

Seeing it clearly is the first step to having a different relationship with it.

You are not going to become securely attached overnight.

You are not going to stop feeling anxious in relationships tomorrow.

This is a nervous system pattern that may have been decades in the making.

But you can now begin to notice when you are in it.

When you are obsessing about somebody.

When you are desperate.

When you are performing.

Just notice.

In that noticing you are going to create space.

Space to eventually choose differently.

Not perfectly.

Not every time.

Slowly.

Gradually.

You can begin to untangle your worth from being chosen.

Your existence from being wanted.

And your sense of self from someone's attention.

If your eyes were closed.

You can open them now.

And as we close.

Place both your hands on your body.

Wherever.

And offer yourself this truth.

I am addicted to being loved.

Because I learnt that love was unpredictable.

But I am more than this pattern.

I am more than my anxiety.

I am more than my desperation.

And I am now learning slowly to exist.

Even when no one is choosing me.

Now taking one more full breath.

And when you are ready.

Return to your day.

Return to your night.

Carrying the permission to see this pattern clearly now.

Without shame.

Without judgement.

Just honest recognition of what is.

Thank you for practicing with me today.

And Namaste.

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