Heal Your Anxious Attachment Style FAST
Summary
TLDRThe video discusses the anxious-preoccupied attachment style, which develops from childhood experiences of emotional inconsistency or abandonment. In adulthood, individuals with this style often feel clingy or fearful when their partner pulls away. The speaker outlines five essential steps for healing: building internal security through self-discovery, understanding and meeting personal needs, regulating the nervous system, questioning negative thought patterns, and establishing healthy boundaries. These strategies help reduce fear-based reactions and promote secure attachment in relationships.
Takeaways
- 📌 Anxious preoccupied attachment stems from inconsistent emotional attunement during childhood, often involving real or perceived abandonment.
- 💡 This attachment style leads to the anxious person experiencing panic and a survival response in adult relationships when there is perceived emotional distance.
- 🔍 Anxious preoccupied individuals often rely on external validation and seek constant reassurance from their partners, which can lead to behaviors like clinginess and neediness.
- 🏗️ To heal, anxious preoccupied individuals need to build security from within by understanding their needs and desires through a process called individuation.
- 🛠️ Understanding and meeting personal needs is essential to reducing reliance on external validation and creating a more balanced relationship with oneself.
- 🧘 Nervous system regulation is a critical practice for calming fight-or-flight responses during emotional stress, which helps reduce the intensity of anxious reactions.
- 🤔 Anxious individuals need to question their worst-case scenario thoughts and stories to stop living in a constant state of emotional panic.
- 🛑 Setting healthy boundaries is crucial to prevent self-abandonment and to develop more authentic and mutually supportive relationships.
- 🙅 People-pleasing is a form of self-abandonment that perpetuates abandonment wounds, so learning to communicate needs and boundaries authentically is vital for healing.
- 🔄 Healing anxious attachment involves addressing past traumas, reprogramming deep-seated fears, and developing healthier emotional responses in relationships.
Q & A
What is the anxious preoccupied attachment style?
-The anxious preoccupied attachment style is one of the three insecure attachment styles. It develops when a person experiences emotional or physical abandonment, inconsistency, or lack of emotional attunement from their caregivers during childhood. This leads to a fear of abandonment in adult relationships, causing anxious behaviors such as clinginess or neediness.
How does the anxious preoccupied attachment style affect adult relationships?
-In adult relationships, individuals with this attachment style may transfer the role of their primary caregiver to their romantic partner. They often experience fear of abandonment when they perceive distancing, triggering an intense emotional and physical response similar to their childhood experiences. This can lead to behaviors such as being overly dependent, clingy, or anxious.
What is individuation, and why is it important for anxious preoccupied individuals?
-Individuation is the process of self-reflection and introspection, where an individual learns to develop a sense of security from within, rather than seeking validation from external sources. For anxious preoccupied individuals, it is crucial for building self-awareness and understanding their needs, leading to healthier relationships and emotional stability.
How can someone with an anxious preoccupied attachment style learn to meet their own needs?
-They can start by identifying their needs—such as validation or encouragement—and finding ways to meet them independently rather than relying on others. This involves understanding what truly fulfills them and practicing self-care to address their emotional, mental, and physical needs.
What role does nervous system regulation play in healing anxious preoccupied attachment?
-Nervous system regulation is essential for managing the fight-or-flight response that anxious preoccupied individuals experience when they perceive abandonment. Learning techniques to stay in the parasympathetic nervous system mode, such as practicing calming habits, helps reduce panic and allows for a more rational response to relationship challenges.
Why is it important for anxious preoccupied individuals to question their negative stories?
-Anxious preoccupied individuals tend to create worst-case scenario stories when they perceive distance in relationships. These stories, if left unchecked, can lead to unnecessary emotional suffering and panic. By questioning these thoughts and reframing them, they can reduce their emotional reactivity and maintain healthier relationships.
How can setting healthy boundaries help someone with an anxious preoccupied attachment style?
-Setting healthy boundaries allows anxious preoccupied individuals to assert their needs without fear of abandonment. It helps them stop people-pleasing behaviors and self-abandonment, which are counterproductive to forming secure relationships. Clear boundaries make it easier for others to understand and respect their needs, reducing the risk of emotional pain.
What is the significance of self-reflection for anxious preoccupied individuals?
-Self-reflection helps anxious preoccupied individuals explore their core beliefs, emotions, and desires. It allows them to identify patterns of behavior that stem from their attachment style and empowers them to make conscious choices that align with their true self, leading to more secure relationships.
How does anxious preoccupied attachment affect emotional responses in relationships?
-Anxious preoccupied individuals often experience heightened emotional responses, such as panic or distress, when they perceive any form of distancing from their partner. These reactions are tied to deep-rooted fears of abandonment, which originated in childhood, and can manifest as clinginess, anxiety, or a sense of urgency to secure the relationship.
What are the five major steps to becoming securely attached for anxious preoccupied individuals?
-The five steps include: 1) Learning to find security from within (individuation), 2) Understanding and meeting their own needs, 3) Regulating their nervous system, 4) Questioning negative and fear-based stories, and 5) Setting healthy boundaries to maintain their sense of self and emotional stability in relationships.
Outlines
🔍 Understanding the Anxious Preoccupied Attachment Style
This paragraph introduces the anxious preoccupied attachment style, one of three insecure attachment styles. It describes how inconsistent caregiving or perceived abandonment in childhood leads to this style. The individual may have experienced situations like a parent leaving or emotional distance, triggering a survival instinct in early childhood. This anxiety gets transferred to adult romantic relationships, where the individual reacts intensely to perceived abandonment, reflecting their childhood experiences.
🔑 The Importance of Individuation and Self-Knowledge
The second paragraph emphasizes the need for individuation, where individuals with anxious preoccupied attachment styles focus on developing a strong sense of self. By exploring who they are, what they need, and what truly makes them happy, they can shift from relying on others for validation. Key areas to explore include career, financial goals, emotional health, spiritual beliefs, physical health, and relationships. The process of introspection and self-discovery is vital for overcoming the attachment style and fostering secure relationships.
💡 Understanding and Meeting Personal Needs
This paragraph focuses on understanding personal needs and learning to meet them independently. The anxious preoccupied person should identify their core needs in relationships and life, such as validation or encouragement. Relying solely on external sources for need fulfillment leads to fear and anxiety when others pull away. By recognizing and addressing their needs internally, individuals can reduce emotional reliance on others, fostering greater self-sufficiency and security in relationships.
🧘 Nervous System Regulation for Anxious Preoccupied Individuals
The fourth paragraph explains the importance of regulating the nervous system to mitigate fight-or-flight responses in stressful situations. Anxious preoccupied individuals often panic when they perceive distancing or abandonment. Practicing nervous system regulation techniques, such as mindfulness or daily habits, can help them stay calm and rational during emotionally charged situations. This approach prevents emotional overreaction and promotes healthier communication in relationships.
💭 Questioning Negative Thought Patterns
Here, the emphasis is on challenging negative thought patterns that anxious preoccupied individuals often experience. They tend to jump to worst-case scenarios when a partner pulls away, assuming rejection or danger. The paragraph advises recognizing these automatic thoughts, questioning their validity, and replacing them with more rational responses. This conscious effort helps break the cycle of emotional suffering and allows individuals to respond to situations in a healthier, more grounded way.
🚧 Setting Healthy Boundaries and Reducing People-Pleasing
The final paragraph stresses the importance of establishing healthy boundaries. Anxious preoccupied individuals often engage in people-pleasing, which leads to self-abandonment. This behavior exacerbates their fear of abandonment as they neglect their own needs to satisfy others. Learning to communicate needs, assert boundaries, and express authenticity allows individuals to feel more secure and prevents others from unintentionally hurting them. Healthy boundaries also help eliminate the cycle of abandonment fears and emotional insecurity.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Anxious Preoccupied Attachment Style
💡Inconsistent Caregiving
💡Emotional Abandonment
💡Individuation
💡Nervous System Regulation
💡Subconscious Mind
💡People Pleasing
💡Fight or Flight Response
💡Parasympathetic Nervous System
💡Questioning Stories
Highlights
Anxious preoccupied attachment style is one of three insecure attachment styles.
Individuals with this style experienced inconsistency and perceived abandonment in childhood.
Inconsistency in parenting can lead to a fear of abandonment that triggers a survival response.
Anxious preoccupied adults may react to perceived abandonment with intense emotional responses.
The primary attachment figure in adulthood shifts from parents to romantic partners.
Anxious preoccupied individuals may become needy or clingy in romantic relationships.
Five major components are necessary for becoming securely attached.
The first step is individuation, which involves self-reflection and understanding one's own needs.
Anxious preoccupied individuals should learn to meet their own needs to reduce reliance on others.
Nervous system regulation is crucial to avoid panic and fear when feeling abandoned.
Daily habits can help regulate the nervous system and stay in a restful state.
Questioning negative thought patterns can prevent unnecessary emotional suffering.
Healthy boundaries are essential to prevent people-pleasing and maintain self-respect.
Learning to say no authentically can help in feeling seen, known, and supported.
Free courses are available to help individuals with anxious preoccupied attachment style.
The video provides a comprehensive guide to healing from an anxious preoccupied attachment style.
Transcripts
so let's talk about what the anxious
preoccupied attachment style is and the
key things that you need to do in order
to heal we're going to talk about five
major components of becoming securely
attached and I mean like targeting the
deepest roots of this attachment style
and really understanding what we can do
to fully recondition to become
completely secure
[Music]
so first and foremost
um the anxious preoccupied attachment
style is essentially an attachment style
that's one of three insecure attachment
Styles or love Styles you can think of
it as and essentially the anxious
preoccupied gets exposed to a lot of
inconsistency growing up the way I like
to think of it is they get exposed to a
lot of like real or perceived
abandonment in other words you might
have really connected parents who are
very emotionally attuned to you
connected to you
that maybe they work a lot or maybe when
parents really loving and caring and
another parent is very distant and
withdrawn and so that juxtaposition
between the two causes you to feel kind
of like okay you know sometimes they get
Attunement sometimes I don't and in more
intense cases there can be an actual
abandonment like a parent leaves the
home early at a young age
um and doesn't come back for a while or
there's a divorce where there's a
separation from from the parents but
essentially there is in the very least a
consistent degree of emotional
abandonment
um that's perceived or you know there
can actually be a real abandonment
and essentially what happens is because
at a young age when we're children
um we are completely reliant on our
caregivers in order to survive well what
ends up happening is as a young child
the anxious preoccupied feels this
disconnecting and it really triggers
their nervous system it really triggers
like a fight or flight response because
it's like well if the parent leaves or
if the parents are not there you
literally couldn't survive and so
anxious preoccupied at a very young age
they get the fear of survival and
approval or connection deeply
intertwined and so in the adult life of
the anxious preoccupied what essentially
happens is what we do all of us and we
all have an attachment Style by the way
is every single person has their primary
relationship in terms of their primary
attachment figure is their parents and
in their adult life the new primary
attachment figure becomes their romantic
partner and so what essentially takes
place is whenever there's a perceived
abandonment in their adult relationship
the anxious preoccupied has literally a
survival response a trauma response
similar to when this programming first
got conditioned into them so as a child
if the parents were distant or not there
or worked a lot or there was a lot of
like lacking of proximity taking place
or lacking of closeness that
inconsistency could cause like a lot of
fear in that child and once that becomes
a conditioned program that's like your
conditioning or your subconscious mind
is essentially the lens you see and
interact with the world through so as an
adult what that means is that you start
seeing your adult romantic Partners as
filling that role and so when they
distance or they take a step back or
there's some kind of like perceived
abandonment or inconsistency there it
triggers a similar response like a very
deep very intensive emotional response
that feels like Panic or trauma in the
body so this is essentially how the
interest preoccupied style comes about
and so you'll see things like the
anxious preoccupied in their adult lives
become needy or clingy or call a lot or
um constantly try to get closer or push
the relationship along very quickly to
get that sense of like certainty and
commitment and all of this stuff is just
the anxious preoccupied's way of trying
to cope with not having to relive those
fears from their childhood again and so
when we look at like the five major
things that the anxious preoccupied must
do in order to become completely
securely attached there are five crucial
elements
the first crucial element is to learn to
get your sense of security From the
Inside Out rather from the outside in
now this is through a process called
individuation an individuation means
that you have to start learning and
introspecting about who you are and what
your needs are and how you want to make
your decisions according to you
designing and creating a life that
you've introspected and you know fits
for for what lights you up makes you
happy makes you feel fulfilled and
really learning who you are in those
seven areas because anxious preoccupied
attachment sales they end up just
constantly trying to get their their
sense of self and their external
relationships because they're so
preoccupied with not trying to have
distancing so the more an anxious
preoccupy can be like who am I what do I
want to do here with my life who am I
and what do I want to create in my
career what do I want my relationship to
money to be like like how much money do
I want to save or spend like actually
consider like these aspects of life and
really taking a look so career Financial
mental like what mental topics am I
interested in learning about what are my
personal opinions beliefs ideas
philosophies like really exploring that
mental area of Life emotionally learning
to listen to their emotions connect to
their Emotional Self do emotional
healing and Growth work around past
traumas fears things of that nature
um and spiritual so like what are your
spiritual beliefs for some people just
having a really strong moral compass
that constitutes as spiritual beliefs
for some people it's like being really
into Buddhism or meditation or you know
developing personal religious beliefs in
relationship to a certain religion it's
really not just taking on whatever you
are exposed to but actually considering
and exploring what lights you up same
thing with the physical and
relationships like your physical health
what habits do you want to have how do
you want to eat your relationships like
how do you want to relate to people what
are you looking for in your friendships
what are you looking for in romantic
Partners what are your standards what
are your non-negotiables like really
exploring developing a strong sense of
self and that happens through
individuation it's a necessary step for
the AP to become secure that's number
one number two you have to learn your
needs what are your needs in terms of
what makes you happy what are your needs
in terms of in a relationship what are
you really looking for like really
learning about your personal needs and
the things that light you up and drive
you and when you learn to then meet
those needs in relationship to self and
you're not over reliant on getting those
needs met from the outside in like let's
say you have a need for encouragement
for example or validation if you only
ever rely on your outside world to meet
that for you you're always going to feel
afraid of people distancing themselves
from you or taking a step back because
to you it's going to mean that those
needs won't be met and we tend to at a
deep subconscious level think of our
needs as being like our survival like if
our needs are not met how will I survive
and so when people pull away you
perceive your needs being distanced from
you your ability to get your needs not
being distanced and that's part of also
what creates a lot of that dysregulation
so individuation self-reflection who am
I what do I want to create having a
mission and vision and plan there number
two needs knowing your needs and then
being able to meet them in the
relationship to yourself
um and being intentional about that if
you want a full course just about that
it's one of the most powerful parts of
healing anxious preoccupied I have of
course you can check out for completely
free for seven days
it's an easy course more than enough
time to get through the course and it
will help you do a deep dive in
Discovery into all of your needs
um in all areas of life your
relationships what lights you up what
drives you really understanding yourself
more and then coming up with healthy
strategies to meet these needs so I'll
put that link Down Below in the
description number three
nervous system regulation
um anxious preoccupies tend to get
really into fight-or-flight mode and
their nervous system really like panics
essentially when
um they are feeling like somebody pulls
away or like there's some kind of
distancing happening learning to
regulate your nervous system and stay in
something called parasympathetic nervous
system mode or rest in digest mode is
actually something so simple it just
takes practice you need to pick one
daily habit and practice it daily
and by doing nervous system regulation
work you won't feel this intense sense
of panic if somebody pulls away you'll
learn to regulate and be like okay I can
stay in parasympathetic mode and I can
deal with this in like a rational way I
can have a conversation or request a
need or Express a boundary but you'll
see that this response doesn't make you
feel like all that panic and fear inside
of your body we also have a free nervous
system regulation course you can check
out using the link below
um and again free for seven days more
it's like an hour-long course it's so
easy to get through and it's so easy to
pick a habit and just apply it every day
and you'll start to see this
reconditioning of your nervous system
happening
um so it's a huge third part
um number four we have to learn to
question our stories if you watch as an
AP your mind goes rapid fire into
thinking of all the worst case scenarios
that are going to happen
um if somebody pulls away so you'll see
that
um you might start thinking like they're
gonna leave they don't want to be with
me something bad happened to them they
got in an accident and anytime your mind
has these passing thoughts on autopilot
that go unquestioned
you are reacting and living in the
reality as if those thoughts are an
absolute truth like when you see
somebody panicked on an airplane for
example and they're like what if the
plane crashes they're not like oh what
if the plane crashes it may or may not
and statistically it looks like it won't
like it's not like an actual what if
like a rational what if it's like a full
I am attached to the idea that the plane
is crashing and my body and mind and
emotions are living in the reality where
this is about to take place you see
people sweating on the plane or really
panicking or really nervous they it's
not like oh what if it's like a what if
the plane crashes it's about to crash
and I use that analogy to really
describe like the anxious preoccupied
they're not like oh what if my partner
leaves there's a possibility that
relation the relationship could end at
some point or what if you know it's not
like that it's like what if my partner
leaves what if they're in an accident
they're emotionally living in a space
where when somebody doesn't call them
back they are assuming the worst feeling
the worst and emotionally experiencing
the worst case scenario and so what you
have to realize as an AP is that those
things have to be questioned and when we
can recognize these stories when we can
really question them and we can like do
the work to release the emotions
attached to the other side of that we
stop going through this like Dynamic of
being on autopilot and then creating our
own suffering at the thought level
without even realizing right you're
you're sitting there thinking and
thinking and thinking about all these
worst case scenario outcomes and you
have to snap out of it right we have to
use our conscious mind to observe the
subconscious creation of things
happening that's just on autopilot
you're not choosing it it's happening to
to you and we have to be able to step in
recognize it pull ourselves out of it
and create Healthy Solutions and
strategies to address the things that
we're concerned about instead of just
like suffering and then feeling really
reactive and then when we do things on
autopilot it ends up being like calling
repeatedly or you know doing things that
are from that really anxious State
instead of like having the nervous
system regulation tools and learning to
reprogram some of these core wounds in
fear so these things don't keep coming
back
um and also so that these fears don't
end up dictating your behaviors which
lead to you doing things that actually
can accidentally push people away over
time so that's a massive one and then
number five
you have to learn healthy boundaries
um anxious preoccupies do a lot of
people pleasing people pleasing is
self-abandonment and it will keep your
abandonment fears and wounds alive so
the more that you don't show up for
yourself don't communicate about your
needs don't protect your boundaries or
have your own back
so it feels like the world can just do
whatever it wants with you because your
boundary list but as you start to learn
healthy boundaries in healthy ways this
is where you instead start feeling like
okay you know what here I am I'm in this
situation I can say yes or no in an
authentic way and the more you're
authentic with other people and not
people pleasing because people pleasing
too is connecting from behind a mask
like when you're people pleasing you're
not actually being your true self and
then people don't have the information
when you're people pleasing to properly
take you into consideration so they'll
do things that hurts that hurt you more
often by accident
so the more you can say Your Truth say
your yeses say your nose State your
clear boundaries manage people's
expectations the more you'll actually
come to feel seen and known and
supported which will stop those
abandonment wounds from recirculating
and recycling themselves
so these are five major things that are
very valuable
um and really all have to be addressed
to become completely secure again we've
got like all these free courses you can
check out for seven days using the link
down below
um and these will help you become secure
and understand how these mechanisms work
in a lot more detail so I hope this
makes sense um thank you so much for
watching and listening please like share
and subscribe if you enjoyed this video
and I will see you in the future videos
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