Heal Your Anxious Attachment Style FAST

Summary

The 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

00:00

🔍 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.

05:01

🔑 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.

10:03

💡 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.

Keywords

💡Anxious Preoccupied Attachment Style

This is an insecure attachment style where individuals feel fear and anxiety about abandonment. They often develop this pattern due to inconsistent caregiving in childhood, leading them to become overly dependent on relationships for security. In the video, this attachment style is described as having deep-rooted fears that manifest in adult relationships, often resulting in clinginess or anxiety when faced with perceived distance from a partner.

💡Inconsistent Caregiving

This refers to a childhood experience where caregivers may be emotionally available at times but distant or absent at other times. This inconsistency creates confusion and insecurity in the child, which can later manifest as attachment issues, such as the anxious preoccupied attachment style. The script mentions how exposure to inconsistent emotional attunement from parents fosters this attachment pattern.

💡Emotional Abandonment

Emotional abandonment occurs when a child's emotional needs are unmet, even if their physical needs are cared for. This can lead to feelings of neglect and can trigger deep fears of rejection or abandonment in future relationships. In the video, emotional abandonment is discussed as a key factor in developing an anxious attachment style, where individuals fear losing connections with others.

💡Individuation

Individuation is the process of becoming aware of one’s personal identity, needs, and desires, separate from others. For anxious preoccupied individuals, this process is crucial for healing, as they often rely on external validation for a sense of self. The video emphasizes that learning who you are and what you want, independent of relationships, helps build internal security.

💡Nervous System Regulation

This concept involves controlling the body's physiological responses to stress and anxiety. For anxious preoccupied individuals, regulating the nervous system helps them manage the panic and fear triggered by perceived relationship abandonment. The video suggests that practicing habits to calm the nervous system, like staying in 'rest and digest' mode, is key to healing.

💡Subconscious Mind

The subconscious mind is where ingrained beliefs, fears, and patterns reside, often driving behavior without conscious awareness. In anxious preoccupied attachment, the subconscious mind associates emotional distance with survival threats, leading to overreactions. The script highlights the importance of becoming conscious of these automatic reactions to change behavior.

💡People Pleasing

People pleasing refers to prioritizing others' needs and desires over one’s own in order to maintain relationships and avoid abandonment. The video describes this behavior as a form of self-abandonment, where individuals compromise their own boundaries and values to keep others close, ultimately reinforcing their fear of rejection.

💡Fight or Flight Response

This is the body's natural reaction to perceived threats, triggering physiological changes to prepare for action. In anxious preoccupied individuals, emotional distancing in relationships can activate this survival mechanism, making them feel as if their survival is at stake. The script explains how this response is conditioned from childhood experiences of inconsistency.

💡Parasympathetic Nervous System

The parasympathetic nervous system is responsible for calming the body and returning it to a state of rest after stress. For anxious individuals, learning to stay in this 'rest and digest' mode helps prevent overreaction to relationship challenges. The video discusses practicing daily habits to engage the parasympathetic system as part of the healing process.

💡Questioning Stories

This concept involves challenging automatic negative thoughts and assumptions about worst-case scenarios, which anxious preoccupied individuals often create when they feel emotionally distanced. The video stresses that by questioning these stories, individuals can break free from their cycle of anxiety and adopt healthier, more rational responses.

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