Well,
Hello there.
My name is Terry Cole.
I'm a licensed psychotherapist,
The author of Boundary Boss,
Too Much,
And Father Wound,
Coming out in October.
In this little education video,
I'm going to be talking about or answering the question,
What is anxious attachment?
And I want you to consider this a bit of a beginner's guide.
So if you've ever found yourself thinking,
Why do I get so anxious if someone pulls away in a relationship?
Or why do I need so much reassurance in a relationship?
This bit of information might be helpful.
So what you're experiencing in that moment is likely not neediness per se.
Let's not look at it that way.
It could definitely be an anxious attachment if this is something that is repeated in your relationships.
So the important part of anxious attachment is that it isn't permanent.
Father wound where we talk about attachment cells.
Don't get a tattoo,
Right?
It is an adaptation.
Which means that it can change.
A lot of this is learned behavior,
But we can do something different.
So how does an anxious attachment develop?
It develops in connection with inconsistency with the caregiver growing up.
So when you were young,
Your earliest experiences,
It might have been that sometimes your emotional needs were met and other times not.
Or sometimes love was available,
But maybe it was unpredictable.
There are so many family situations that create this.
But inconsistency is usually,
Because it could be through drug addiction,
Through being taken away from chronic illness,
Or somebody passing away.
But what happens is your nervous system learns something really important,
That if you want closeness,
You kind of have to work for it.
You have to monitor it.
You have to make sure that you don't lose it.
Like there's a hypervigilance.
That comes along with it.
Anxious attachment.
And so what happens in your relationships is a lot of times your relationships are volatile.
They're very up and down.
They never seem peaceful.
It's like you can't get to that peaceful space.
You might be overthinking the text messages that you're sending to your person,
Or you might need a lot of reassurance that everything is okay,
Or you might see micro changes in expression that to you mean things are not okay and you might want to talk about it.
You might feel panic attacks.
When someone seems distant,
And it could simply be that they're exhausted.
But when you're anxiously attached,
It's almost like we're always looking for evidence.
Of being left.
It's like this incredible fear of abandonment.
And we struggle to trust that love can exist without having constant proof.
And reassurance.
From the outside looking in.
It can look.
.
.
Like overreacting,
Everything being so amplified.
Connection.
Equals safety.
And distance equals danger.
And so sometimes people need distance in relationships,
But that will activate your attachment system.
So this is what your body learned early on,
Right?
And it's not a character flaw.
Like let's just stop making ourselves wrong for everything.
Just learn,
Right?
We can learn and things can change because the good news is that your attachment style is not fixed.
Research shows.
That we can develop what is called earned secure attachment.
Amazing news.
So this doesn't mean you'll never get triggered in a relationship,
But it does mean that you can change what is happening naturally.
Right.
And it means that what triggers you or what activates you changes as you get healthier.
So instead of immediately believing the story that your anxiety has told you,
You learn to recognize,
Oh,
My nervous system feels unsafe right now,
But that doesn't automatically relate to or equate to my relationship is unsafe.
We start to understand what is my side of the street.
And what is the other person's side of the street.
This is a huge shift.
So building earned security.
What does that look like?
Learning to regulate your nervous system before seeking reassurance from the other person or getting curious about your attachment story instead of just judging yourself.
For it,
Practicing tolerating uncertainty,
Right,
Instead of trying to eliminate it.
This is one of the major things that happens.
It's why people prematurely end relationships,
Because they can't stand the in-between.
But the in-between is where we move into deeper intimacy.
You can also try to communicate your needs directly instead of hoping someone will guess what they are,
And choosing relationships where consistency,
Repair,
And emotional safety are actually possible,
Because secure attachment This isn't about finding perfect people or being perfect people,
Because obviously we're not and we won't be.
Secure Attachment is built through repeated experiences of safety with yourself and with emotionally available people and according to the book Attached,
50% of the population is securely attached.
So we just have to keep our eyeballs open for people who do what they say they're going to do.
And for being in relationship seems like the most natural thing to them.
So I'm closing this with saying,
If you recognize yourself in this anxious attachment This is nothing to feel bad about.
Again,
It's just self-reflection and self-knowledge.
This is an invitation to understand what your nervous system has been trying to protect you from and healing isn't about becoming.
Someone who never gets activated.
It's not even possible.
It's about becoming someone who knows that connection doesn't have to be earned through the exhaustion of hypervigilance,
Overfunctioning,
And constantly walking on eggshells and being afraid.
Over time,
Your body,
Which is so amazing,
Your God pod,
As my friend Chris would call it.
Can learn something new.
It can learn.
That you can be loved without consistently proving your worth.
That is what earned secure attachment is all about.
I hope that this little educational video added value to your life.
And as always,
Take care of yourself.
