My Name Is Trouble

Secure. Avoidant. Anxious. Disorganized. Which type of attachment style do you have?

Today’s topic will cover one of the 5 pillars of personal mastery: Relationships 

Have you ever wondered why you keep ending up in the same relationships situations, even with different partners?

Or have you noticed similar patterns in yourself such as jealousy or clinginess? Maybe you actually shut down and withdraw once it becomes too emotionally intimate?

If you have a pattern of negative or emotionally challenging behaviors that come up every time you choose a partner, you might benefit from digging deep and exploring the way you attach to people in intimate relationships. From an evolutionary perspective, humans have a deep desire to seek contact, support, and comfort in others. This “need to belong” is a fundamental human need that largely shapes our actions in life and can be defined through attachment styles.

Many of our patterns of behaviors were developed through our primary caregivers and their actions towards us. These formed the foundation for how we perceive love and emotional intimacy. Understanding how these situations influence your behaviors now helps you to recognize your attachment styles and change your self-sabotaging behaviors so you can connect more intimately with people later on in life. It’s important to know that your brain remains capable of change throughout your whole life.

This means that you are always capable of change.

Learning attachment styles and how they permeate and influence all relationships and decisions you make in life is crucial in understanding yourself. Your expectations in life stem from experiences in the past. These can come from infancy or relationships in adulthood.

Only you are capable of choosing to bring forth your subconscious self-sabotaging behavior to nurture your mind and improve all relationships you wish to have in life moving forward.

What’s a secure attachment style?

Secure attachment is defined by an ability to build healthy, long-lasting relationships.

How it develops

Secure attachment is the result of feeling secure with your caregivers from childhood and being able to ask for reassurance or validation without punishment.

Ultimately, you felt safe, understood, comforted, and valued during your early interactions.

Signs

Signs of a secure attachment style include:

• ability to regulate your emotions

• easily trusting others

• effective communication skills

• ability to seek emotional support

• comfortable being alone

• comfortable in close relationships

• ability to self-reflect in partnerships

• being easy to connect with

• ability to manage conflict well

• high self-esteem

• ability to be emotionally available

What’s an avoidant attachment style?

Avoidant, dismissive-avoidant, or anxious-avoidant are all words for the same insecure attachment style.

How it develops

In childhood, you may have had strict or emotionally distant and absent caregivers.

Your caregivers may have:

• left you to fend for yourself

• expected you to be independent

• reprimanded you for depending on them

• rejected you when expressing your needs or emotions

• been slow to respond to your basic needs

Signs

You might have an anxious-avoidant attachment style if you:

• persistently avoid emotional or physical intimacy

• feel a strong sense of independence

• are uncomfortable expressing your feelings

• are dismissive of others

• have a hard time trusting people

• feel threatened by anyone who tries to get close to you

• spend more time alone than interacting with others

• believe you don’t need others in your life

The Dismissive or Avoidant Attachment Style is characterized by independence, assertiveness, and self-sufficiency. They have no problem being single, and are very sociable, popular, and friendly. They pursue what they want in a relationship regardless of other's’ needs.

What’s an anxious attachment style?

Anxious attachment style — also known as anxious-ambivalent or anxious-preoccupied — is another type of insecure attachment characterized by:

• fear of rejection

• fear of abandonment

• depending on a partner for validation and emotional regulation

• codependent tendencies

How it develops

This attachment style stems from inconsistent parenting that isn’t attuned to a child’s needs.

“These children have difficulty understanding their caregivers and have no security for what to expect from them moving forward. [They’re] often confused within their parental relationships and feel unstable.”

Why did these patterns develop?

Your parents may have:

• alternated between being overly coddling and detached or indifferent

• been easily overwhelmed

• been sometimes attentive and then push you away

• made you responsible for how they felt

Signs

Signs you might have an anxious attachment style include:

• clingy tendencies

• highly sensitive to criticism (real or perceived)

• needing approval from others

• jealous tendencies

• difficulty being alone

• low self-esteem

• feeling unworthy of love

• intense fear of rejection

• significant fear of abandonment

• difficulty trusting others

The Anxious Attachment Style is also known as Preoccupied. Individuals with this attachment style crave relationships, intimacy, and love. Once dating turns into a relationship, however, such individuals start experiencing fear of rejection, jealousy, and distress.

What’s a disorganized attachment style?

“Anxious-disorganized attachment is defined as having extremely inconsistent behavior and difficulty trusting others.”

How it develops

The most common causes of a disorganized attachment style are childhood trauma, neglect, or abuse. Fear of their parents (their sense of safety) is also present.

Children with this attachment style may seem confused.

“Caregivers are inconsistent and are often seen as sources of comfort and fear by their children, which leads to their disorganized behaviors.”

Signs

Signs of a disorganized attachment style include:

• fear of rejection

• inability to regulate emotions

• contradictory behaviors

• high levels of anxiety

• difficulty trusting others

• signs of both avoidant and anxious attachment styles

The Disorganized Attachment Style, also referred to as Fearful Avoidant, is a contradictory attachment style that alternates between the Preoccupied and Dismissive styles. People with this attachment style want to be loved and connect with others. Yet, their fear of being hurt by someone they trust makes it difficult to bond and open up.

Where do you stand?

You probably have an idea of which one your actions and beliefs lean towards. Attachment types change with major life events or with different partners, which is why it’s so crucial to understand yourself and your partner best so that you can make sure that everyone’s unmet needs are being met within the relationship.

The best way to actively address these attachment styles if to increase your level of self-awareness by working on personal self-development.

Start to pay attention to how you feel in relationships.

Once you begin developing an awareness of the emotional reactions that you have while interacting with others, take a moment to stop and reflect on how you can make yourself feel that you are good, worthy, and strong. You are someone that can go through adversity and emerge on the other side with resiliency. Try hard to not allow shame to take root inside yourself and cause you to push your intimate relationships away. Learn to be assertive in communicating the moments in which you see your attachment styles triggered.

Learn to identify, honor, and assertively express your emotional needs. Risk being authentic and direct. Don’t play games or try to manipulate your partner’s interest.

Practice acceptance of yourself and others to become less faultfinding.

Stop reacting. Your nervous system is used to reacting automatically, but try and bring more awareness to your subconscious and learn to identify your triggers so you can unhook what is causing them.

Learn to self-soothe.

Learn to resolve conflict and always seek to compromise with your partner from a “we” perspective.

You are not meant to be independent.

You are not meant to be codependent.

You are meant for interdependency in all areas of life, whether in relationships or in business settings. Relying on the strengths of others so you can focus on your own strengths is important. You should not spend time wasted on the areas of life you are weak in.

Go against the grain.

Go all in on what you’re a killer in and find others who compliment the areas in which you need strength. Choose wisely. Create a strong filter. And keep your heart open.

Emotions are the lifeblood of the human experience. The purpose of a relationship, is to magnify human emotion.