How To Stop Having An Anxious Attachment Style (2024)
Are you afraid to let your walls down? Do you maintain a subtle emotional distance from your partner? Is the idea of getting hurt constantly on your mind? I’m guessing, if you answered yes to these questions, that you are not entirely happy with the way you feel in a relationship. Would you like to know how to stop having an anxious attachment style? Would you like to understand where it came from so that you can finally deal with it and build more secure relationships in the future?
I’ve been a psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, and life coach for over fifteen years now, and I have had lots of experience in helping people with anxious attachment problems. In most cases, I have had great success helping people to develop a strong sense of self-love and feelings of security which helps in developing a more secure attachment style.
In this article, I’ll explain what an attachment style means, explore the different attachment styles to help you identify your own attachment style, and give you some workable solutions so that you can create a greater sense of security in your romantic relationships. So if you are ready to start creating healthy relationships in your life, lets begin.
What Is Attachment Theory?
The first step in overcoming an anxious attachment style is to know exactly what it is and isn’t. Attachment theory is about how we form attachments with others during our childhood experiences with others. The theory is that those child experiences in those early relationships directly affect the type of attachment we have in our adult relationships.
British psychologist John Bowlby had a major influence on what we understand about attachment today. He reckoned that if we feel secure in our close relationships as a child, we are more likely to experience a healthier emotional connection with our romantic partner when we’re adults. However, when those primary caregivers don’t satisfy our emotional needs as children we may develop signs of an anxious attachment style later in life.
Types Of Attachment Styles
The main attachment styles are:
- Secure Attachment: These are the people who always got the hugs and reassurance they needed as kids so therefore, as adults, they are not needy. They are very secure in their belief that their partner will be there for them in times of crisis.
- Anxious-Ambivalent Attachment: With this style, you love closeness. As a matter of fact, you may even crave it. However, on the flip side, you have a fear of abandonment or fear of rejection. When you are with a partner like this, it can feel like they are constantly yo-yoing between love and fear.
- Anxious-Avoidant Attachment: These are the people who have commitment issues. When you are in a relationship with someone who has an anxious-avoidant attachment style, you never really know where you stand. It can be difficult to tell if they even want to be with you at times.
- Disorganized Attachment: With a partner like this, you’ll not know from one day to the next, what they actually want.
It is theorized that these styles grow from whether our main caregivers were reliable in their affection or closeness during our childhood. The more reliable they were, the closer we would be to a secure attachment style. When a family member didn’t give us constant reassurance or just wasn’t there for us, we are more likely to have problems with adult attachment. Inconsistent behavior (eg. alcoholism) or inconsistent caregiving makes for difficulties in forming secure connections later in life.
Self-Hypnosis Audio For Reducing Anxiety Symptoms
Self-hypnosis can be a great tool to reduce anxiety and feel calmer every day for the rest of your life.
Signs Of An Insecure Attachment Style
So, it’s like you’ve got this backpack strapped to your back and it’s labeled “Insecure Attachment”. Let’s unpack it and see what’s inside:
- Co-Dependency: Are you always there for others without any thought for yourself or what it’s costing you?
- Avoidance Of Being Alone: Do you just hate being alone?
- No Boundaries: Do you have difficulty saying no to people? Do people regularly take advantage of that with you?
- Fear Of Abandonment: Do you worry about your partner finding someone else and leaving you? Do you get a bit anxious or worried if someone doesn’t reply to a text or a WhatsApp message?
- External Validation: You really need other people’s approval or praise. Your self-worth actually depends on it. If you don’t get the right amount of praise or approval, it makes you feel bad.
- Jealousy: You are prone to jealousy, so your partner talking to someone else who is the same sex as you, makes you jealous. You imagine they are up to no good, or that they secretly want to steal your partner.
- Low Self-Esteem: You compare yourself negatively to others and your internal voice tells you you are not good enough.
- Detective Mode: You overthink about the meaning of conversations or texts
- Toxic Tolerance: You tend to tolerate toxic relationships longer than others would. If you’re with a partner who you know is wrong for you, it takes you much longer to break up with them than someone who is more secure in themselves. Essentially, you put your own needs last.
The Role Of Early Childhood In Developing Attachment Patterns
From the moment we are born, we are forming judgments about the world around us. When a parent hugs us, we judge that to mean we are safe. When the same parent doesn’t hug us, we start asking ourselves questions. This must mean something about us. Maybe we are unloveable. We look at other kids getting hugs and we think they must deserve it, and, for some reason, we don’t.
A parent’s single most important job is to help a child feel secure. However, there is no training course on how to be a good parent (for most people). This is not just in one situation, but consistently. This creates a sense of security and leads to the same expectations as an adult. This means that, as an adult, we are more likely to experience secure attachments. When there is inconsistency from parents, children are more likely to grow up with an anxious attachment style.
Now, the good news is, that when we become aware of our attachment style, we can change it at a later stage of our lives. This means we are not stuck with an anxious attachment style all of our lives, as long as we are willing to put in the work to change it.
Self-Hypnosis Audio For Reducing Anxiety Symptoms
Self-hypnosis can be a great tool to reduce anxiety and feel calmer every day for the rest of your life.
What Does A Securely Attached Person Do Differently?
Here’s what a person with a secure attachment style does:
- Intimacy: They love intimacy and are really comfortable with it. So, for instance, things like hand-holding in public come naturally to a securely attached person. When their partner needs space, it’s perfectly ok. They do not get paranoid and wonder if he/she fancies someone else, or no longer fancies them.
- Communication: They love talking about their feelings openly but without being drama queens. They can express their emotional needs openly and without wondering if it’s alright to do that.
- Conflict: They are calm during conflict and like listening and coming up with solutions. Once again, there’s not a hint of being a drama queen.
- Self-Worth: They know they are worthy of love and tend not to become co-dependent or lose their identity in a relationship.
- Absence: If their partner has to go away on business, they are secure in their relationship, so they are not wondering what the absent partner is up to.
- Past Relationships: They don’t have any unresolved “stuff” about exes. They just look at those past experiences as learning so they are no grudges. There’s no constant referring to an ex and how he treated them.
If you have an anxious attachment style, this is what you are aiming for. These are the changes that will make you feel happier and more secure.
Best Ways To Create Healthier Relationships
Whether you have an anxious attachment style or not, I believe we can all learn from these 10 tips for forming healthier relationships. They are:
- Good Communication: Being a good communicator starts with good listening. When your partner is speaking try listening without interrupting them or without jumping to a judgment or opinion about what they said. Realize they have a right to their opinion, even though you may not agree with it. Always avoid using relationship-killer phrases such as “You always….” or “You never…..”. Instead, maybe say “I’m not sure if you realize how that makes me feel. When you say/do that, it makes me feel…..”
- Set Ground Rules: It’s ok to say what’s acceptable or not acceptable to you. Your partner’s job is to respect those boundaries that you have laid down. The same applies in the opposite direction. Ground rules can be a very healthy thing once both partners respect each other’s boundaries.
- Quality Time: Spend time doing things together that you both enjoy and just be in the moment while it’s happening. This can boost your self-esteem when you realize that, at that moment, you are the most important person in the world to your partner. This goes for them too. You have to show them the same honest attention, without lots of negative internal self-talk or paranoia.
- Argue Respectfully: Every couple argues. I have never come across a couple that hasn’t argued at least once. Stop trying to score points. It’s not about winning. An argument should be about trying to understand the other persons point and trying to find a middle ground that you can both be happy with.
- Gratitude: In most couples, you do things for them and they do things for you. Make sure you say thank you, even for the little things. When you say thank you, mean it!
- Emotional Support: You’re a team. Start acting like one! Show your partner that you are there for them.
- Empathy: A really helpful way to think is to try to put yourself in your partners shoes. Then tell them how you reckon it must feel for them and tell them you are there for them.
- Self-Love: Practice self-love regularly. As I tell my clients, if you can’t love yourself, how the hell are you going to love someone else?
- Little Surprises: Nothing brings two people closer than when you do a little something that suprises them in a nice way. Send them an unexpected “I love you message” or surprise them by taking them somewhere they love. Come up with your own little surprises.
- Let The Past Go: None of us are perfect. We all make mistakes and say or do the wrong thing at times. Let go of the past quickly but do learn from it and show your partner you are trying to be better. A major relationship killer is constantly dredging up some past incident every time you argue.
Self-Hypnosis Audio For Reducing Anxiety Symptoms
Self-hypnosis can be a great tool to reduce anxiety and feel calmer every day for the rest of your life.
Can Self Hypnosis Help You Create A More Secure Attachment Style?
Self hypnosis is a really powerful tool which pretty much anyone can avail of. Here are the ways that self-hypnosis can help you create a more secure attachment style:
- Letting Go Of The Past: If you had a traumatic childhood in some way, it can be difficult to let go of that. Even in middle age, many people would still vividly remember negative events from their childhood. Self-hypnosis can help you change the meaning of those past events so you can finally let them go.
- Trust & Security: A self-hypnosis recording can help you to develop a stronger sense of self-love which will help you with trust and overcoming insecurities. You could download and listen to my “Overcome Insecurity” recording.
- Deep Relaxation: By practicing deep relaxation regularly, you are calming down your nervous system and lowering the level of anxiety you have. You could try the free “Deep Relaxation” recording on my homepage.
- Programming Better Beliefs: Many people who suffer from anxious attachment don’t believe they are as worthy of love as the next person. Self-hypnosis recordings can help correct this and give you more positive beliefs.
- Visualizing A More Positive Future: Whatever you can imagine, you can achieve, so by helping you to imagine a future where you are feeling more secure in your relationship, you are more likely to have some, or all, of that outcome.
Author: Paul Hunter
Although thousands of people read his blog every month, Paul's path to success was not an easy one. Click here to read his amazing story "From Unwanted Baby And Adopted To A Respected Self Help Blogger". If you want to send Paul a quick message, then visit his contact page here
