Let’s look at what it looks like to have anxiety that is specifically related to your romantic relationships in this guide. It is entirely possible to learn how to calm anxious attachment on one’s own.
Table of Contents
What is Anxious Attachment
Anxious attachment (as I define it) is a default mode of heightened uncertainty that creates anxiety when you emotionally bond with, and get close to someone.
The official definition of anxious attachment from WebMD is: Anxious attachment is a type of insecure relationship that children have with mothers or caregivers. Having this attachment as a child can have an impact on your relationships as an adult.
The key to focus on is that your anxious attachment style is magnified when you get closer to people.
Your insecure attachment pattern won’t be as strongly activated if you’re not getting close to people, which should make you feel more in control.
How to Cope With Anxious Attachment Style
You should be aware that if you have an anxious attachment style, you will frequently relate to a romantic partner in a manner similar to how you related to your mother and/or father.
You will run the same patterns of opening up or closing and the same patterns of getting closer to people or distancing yourself.
Which means that you always have to be open to the idea that the way you react to the things that happen with your boyfriend, husband or romantic partner don’t always reflect his intent and /or the severity of what he actually did.
You might be very angry at something your boyfriend did, but some of that anger might be old resentment that you never had the chance to express toward your parents or caregivers.
One of the biggest obstacles I faced in my quest for healing and development as a result of my anxious-avoidant attachment style was this.
I regret to say that in the past, I vented my anger toward my husband. It came out in a way that wasn’t justified at all and was out of proportion to what he did.
Due to your tendency to see any indication of conflict with your partner as a threat, anxiously attached people are prone to becoming overly angry and vigilant. And that puts your safety in the relationship in danger.
Even though your partner’s independence is simply a sign that they have their own identity outside of the relationship, which is not only healthy but also desirable, you might mistake it for a sign of impending doom.
Ideas to Heal Anxious Attachment
It can be challenging to know what will make us feel better when we are overcome by an anxious attachment flare-up. I advise clients to compile a list of options in advance to assist in re-regulating their nervous systems because of this. Be sure that your list involves a few different kinds of options, including tools to…
- Calm your nervous system
- Distract yourself from the situation at hand
- Process your feelings and challenge unhelpful thoughts
- Ideas to help you calm down:
- Practice a progressive muscle relaxation exercise
- Take a walk
- Do jumping jacks for 30 seconds
- Take 10 slow, deep breaths
- Give yourself a butterfly hug
- Hug a pet
- Ideas to distract you from the situation at hand:
- Watch a favorite tv show
- Do a chore
- Play a video game
- Run an errand
- Go to your favorite coffee shop or bakery
- Take a walk
- Ideas to help you process your thoughts and feelings:
- Use the feelings wheel to give what you are experiencing a name
- Call a friend
- Talk yourself through the situation out loud
- If you’re imagining worst case scenarios, challenge yourself to imagine medium-case scenarios as well as the best case scenarios
- Write in your journal
- Talk with a therapist
Insecure Attachment Styles
If you have an anxious attachment, you usually require recognition and attention from your partner, whereas if you have an avoidant attachment, you are the exact opposite.
Those with avoidant attachment often withdraw from their partner when they become “too much” and they tend to feel happier alone. But despite (or perhaps precisely because of) these attachment styles’ stark differences, they frequently find themselves in cyclical bonds where their trigger-heavy behaviors reinforce one another. Contrarily, the disordered attachment style combines avoidant and anxious attachment.
We’ll concentrate on anxious attachment in this piece. What does anxious attachment in a relationship look like, though? Let’s take a look.
Anxious Attachment and Relationships
How do people who experience anxious attachment typically act in romantic relationships?
People who report having an anxious attachment are more likely to have higher negative affect, lower positive affect, and a greater fear of losing control over their daily lives than those who report having a secure attachment. An anxious attachment is a learned behavior and coping technique that frequently results in unfavorable feelings and low self-esteem.
Fear of rejection and abandonment is the main driver of anxious attachment. According to one study, anxiety disorders later in life are associated, for instance, with a history of emotional abandonment or hostility during childhood. In a similar manner, if your caregiver didn’t provide enough emotional support, you might grow anxious attachment.
Note that anxious attachment can develop later in life. You might experience anxious attachment as a reaction to your partner’s avoidant behavior, for example.
You are someone who can easily feel inadequate in relationships and turn clingy if your partner withdraws. You constantly feel as though you are operating on thin ice and that nothing you do will satisfy your partner.
You might feel envious easily if you have an anxious attachment. You might over-help and resort to people-pleasing in an effort to get your partner’s attention because you crave it. In a relationship, you also shoulder the majority of the responsibility, guilt, and blame. You also frequently struggle with low self-esteem and the feeling of unworthiness.
You frequently lose sight of the reality of the relationship in favor of its potential because you are attached to the idea of intimacy. On occasion, people who experience anxious attachment also battle addictions like drug or alcohol abuse, food addictions, hoarding, gaming addictions, or shopping addictions.
According to a study, people who have anxious attachment are more likely to use manipulation to keep their partners in a relationship. Spying on their partner’s phone or conversing with another person at a party can be examples of this behavior. Giving in to these anxious tendencies, however, seems to make people feel even more anxious.
As stated, patterns from your early years are the cause of everything. When someone gives you love and affection too freely, you find them “boring” or “too nice.” The good news is that this pattern can be broken.
However, you must first recognize your triggers in order to learn how to self-soothe anxious attachment. Let’s take a look:
Anxious Attachment Triggers
When do you feel triggered? A few example situations might include:
- Your partner withdraws and stops responding to you
- You feel abandoned because you feel your partner is acting cold towards you
- You’re jealous of your partner and feel they are withholding things from you
- You feel that your partner downplays your feelings
Statements like “Why are you so upset when it’s not that big of a deal?” or “I need some time alone to think about it” can easily trigger you.
You might act in protest behavior if you have anxious attachment, which is when you make an effort to reconnect with your partner and get their attention. Your partner may react in line with their attachment style and withdraw because people with anxious attachment and avoidant attachment frequently end up together. You push your efforts to establish a connection with them even further, and they reject you, starting the spiral.
How to Self-soothe Anxious Attachment
Your attachment style does not define you or limit you in any way. Increased self-awareness, avoiding adopting a victim mentality, and emotional self-control are the first steps in self-soothing your anxious attachment.
It’s time to soothe your anxious attachment when you notice that you fall back into your old behavioral patterns. If your partner makes you jealous or you find yourself trying to get closer to them when they are withdrawing, take these steps:
Step 1: Breathe
Breathe deeply to begin. While you’re breathing, concentrate on being in the present and paying attention to your feelings. What part of your body is that emotion located in? Make a reference point that you can go back to when you feel triggered.
While you can allow yourself to feel your emotions, it’s much harder to control them if you’re overwhelmed by them. When that happens, having an anchor where you can cultivate an accessible image is useful. Consider the sights, sounds, tastes, and smells you can experience in this secure environment.
The first step in self-soothing is to do this. The next step is to think in the opposite direction.
Step 2: Switch Your Thinking
There are probably many thoughts going through your head when you’re feeling anxious. Maybe you’re ruminating over a situation or feel anxious about a present situation with thoughts like “Why didn’t they text me back?” or “Where are they at right now?” that keep popping up.
Without resisting, let these thoughts run their course. (Because retaliating only serves to make them more tenacious.)
Think about something else, like your upcoming vacation, to get rid of them. Visit websites, look up hotels and flights, plan your trip, and so on to divert your attention to something more uplifting. Instead of suppressing your emotions, try thinking positively.
Step 3. Be the Hero of Your Story
In the end, each of us is the protagonist of our own narrative. But because of our attachment scars, we frequently behave as if we’re just watching other people tell their stories.
Therefore, your partner may receive a lot of your attention. You mold yourself to fit their life. And you forget that your life should actually be primarily about you.
Help yourself snap out of putting all your focus on other people by asking yourself: “In what way am I the protagonist of my own story, how would I write it? What would I need to be doing at any given time in order to be the protagonist of my tale?”
To avoid adopting a victimized identity, try to then act from that position.
Extremely traumatized individuals often take charge of their lives and transform into the heroes of their own stories (for instance, by founding a non-profit that raises millions for cancer research). However, you can alter how you live your own life without creating a multimillion-dollar foundation. The most important thing is that you use your suffering to better yourself and those around you.
In this video, I explain these three steps in more detail:
Other Strategies to Self-soothe Anxious Attachment
What other techniques can you employ right away to self-soothe anxious attachment in your daily life? Here you go:
1. Practice Mindfulness
By making you conscious of your feelings and physical sensations in the here and now without passing judgment, mindfulness is a type of meditation. Through the practice of mindfulness, you can more quickly recognize your own emotions and develop greater self-awareness of your behavior, which will help you avoid acting automatically and give you the chance to think about and change your behavior instead.
Because of this, using mindfulness as a tool to heal your attachment wounds can be beneficial. In fact, studies have linked mindfulness to lower levels of insecure attachment.
In this short video, I share how to do a short meditation to raise awareness around your attachment style:
2. Build a Support System
Sometimes you just need to let something out. A friend or family member’s support system can be useful in this situation. However, friends can’t take the place of professional assistance because they might be dealing with their own attachment issues.
Finding a supported group of people working toward the same objective as you do (self-soothing and healing their attachment styles) can be even more beneficial.
For instance, my online courses provide a forum where you can drop by and inquire about what you can do to calm your anxious attachment.
How to Move from Anxious Attachment to Secure Attachment
Moving toward secure attachment will ultimately help you heal your anxious attachment. According to research, you can alter your attachment style as an adult. However, you must be aware of how to do it.
Here are some tips for altering your anxious attachment style.
Develop Self-esteem
You must first establish a foundational belief that you are worthwhile and that everything will work out for the best before you can progress to secure attachment. Not trusting that you are enough as you are is at the core of your attachment style because you likely learned early on that you weren’t. You must also learn to trust your partner and to believe that they are acting in your best interests.
In actuality, the core of a healthy relationship is a commitment to oneself. You have balance if you and your partner give equal priority to each other’s needs and to your own. However, toxicity develops if one partner places their partner’s needs below their own and the other partner places their partner’s needs above their own.
Because of this, people who have secure attachments have a better understanding of their emotional limits. They are able to see things for what they are, which are other people’s attachment wounds, and they don’t take anything personally.
Adopting the same objectivity toward your own and other people’s emotions is a step toward achieving secure attachment.
Working on your mind, body, and spirit levels is how you get there.
Focus on Your Mind, Body, and Spirit
You must experience mental, physical, and spiritual healing in order to change your attachment style. In order to better understand what you want and need, access your authentic self, and express those needs to the partners you select for yourself, you will benefit from working through these levels.
Let’s start with the mind:
The level of the mind
Your negative beliefs about yourself and the world (for example, “I don’t deserve to be loved”) are based on introjects or adapted beliefs from people around you that you’ve internalized as your reality. You keep having these negative experiences because they feel comfortable and familiar. You can stop yourself from replaying those upsetting scenarios when you work on the mental level.
The level of the body
However, because there is a mind-body connection, your negative beliefs have an effect on your physical state, and you must work at the physical level. Your nervous system is what informs you of how you feel.
I employ creative arts interventions to loosen and integrate energy surrounding unfavorable beliefs at the physical level. The treatment of depression, trauma, and negative mood has been found to be successful with creative arts interventions, which are experiential interventions. These sensory-based treatment strategies are crucial, according to research on attachment styles.
Your fundamental self-wounds can be healed, and creative arts interventions can help you connect to your true self. Additionally, they produce novel sensory experiences that can strengthen synapses in the limbic system, encourage bilateral brain integration, and activate the socially significant vagus nerve.
Information about your attachment styles and preferred methods of emotion regulation can be revealed through art therapy. Gaining a wider emotional vocabulary will help you express your needs and boundaries more effectively. Additionally, you can communicate with your partner more effectively to let them know what’s really going on with you and give them the chance to try and meet those needs.
The level of the spirit
Working with the wounded inner child or inner critic is central to the spiritual level. In order to view your emotions more objectively and respond to them appropriately, you learn to see them as energy that is flowing through your body.
You progress past your trauma on this level. You must develop a new set of values and self-perception in order to do this. You learn how to access the creative energy that fuels both your conscious and unconscious mind.
Instead of attempting to control events and people outside of yourself, you learn how to navigate relationships with an internal compass.
Conclusion
Even though it can be difficult, treating attachment anxiety can be a liberating process. Remind yourself that change happens gradually as you reparent. You’ll notice that you get back what you put into your self-care as you practice establishing healthy boundaries and putting self-regulation techniques into action. This will gradually enhance your sense of empowerment, self-worth, and general wellbeing over time.