Changing Your Attachment Style: Yes, We Can Evolve
Attachment is one of our basic needs, just like food and shelter. It is essential to our survival. Everybody has a need for safe emotional connection.
Certain attachment wounds can occur and lead to insecure attachment styles. Attachment wounds occur when a certain attachment need is repeatedly neglected or dismissed. For example, if a child’s parents were not so accessible and responsive, that left the child feeling emotionally deprived.
How does that impact attachment style? Our earliest relationships give us a template for our adult relationships. The way we learned to relate in our earliest relationships can impact how we relate in the present.
That same child may notice that they interact with others in vigilant, anxious ways, unsure about whether their needs can be met in relationships. They also may fear intimacy and closeness as an adult, feeling doubtful that their emotional needs can be met in relationships.
So, let’s talk about working towards a healthy relationship while you have an insecure attachment style.
Understand your fears and longings: You want to feel heard, accepted, safe, valued, and you want to feel like your partner is accessible, responsive, and will stay close. We can best understand our fears and longings when we compassionately connect with past versions of ourselves. Here are some journal prompts to guide this:
When did you start putting walls up around your heart?
How did your family “do” emotions?
What made you feel loved and secure as a child?
What made you feel nervous, alone, or rejected as a child?
Show yourself compassion: How did your family condition you to cope with attachment needs? Whether you test the relationship, or notice big emotional responses, protest, or shut down, show yourself compassion. You didn’t know any other way to try to fulfill this - and this way felt familiar, even though it fueled insecurity and disconnect.
Know your triggers: For instance, you have a history of not feeling seen by your family of origin and there was no effective way to communicate how you felt. Now, when your partner seems to miss cues or signals that you are seeking closeness, you feel triggered. When you feel hurt, you assume that there is no safe way to communicate it. In these moments, you assume that your partner doesn’t get you.
Recognize your call for connection: Everyone has emotional needs for connection, but how we go about dealing with these feelings can vary. Some people shut down and deny their emotional needs, while others fight for recognition and responsiveness. When you feel triggered and have an emotional need, what is your style of responding?
Regulate the emotion: In the presence of triggers, there’s a need to regulate the emotion. You can self-soothe in a number of ways including distraction, positive self-talk, reducing vulnerability factors (i.e. get enough sleep), behavioral skills that evoke the parasympathetic nervous system (i.e. a walk outside) and opposite action (i.e. if you’re afraid of something, move towards it). When you practice regulation, you can tolerate ambiguity and maintain confidence.
Identify new reaction options: We can respond in new ways, as we have the power to practice engaging with our emotions differently. Instead of shutting down, we work on leaning in, creating safety, and expressing emotional needs.
Practicing these new adaptive responses and surrounding yourself with safe, nurturing relationships can help you create a secure relationship and move towards a more secure style of relating. Remember, healing doesn’t mean that the difficult emotions never pop up again. It means that they no longer run the show.
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