Anxious Attachment - A Man's Guide (Brief)

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Welcome back, team. Today we're going to be talking about how to deal with and how to end anxious attachment. Now this is a man's guide too. And so I'm going to be approaching this from a very male centric point of view. But if you are a woman listening to this or watching this, there is going to be a lot of this that applies to you. I want to begin with the sort of core essence of, of anxious attachment. What is actually at the core of this attachment style and at the very center of it is a very simple notion. And that notion or that belief or that physical experience that people have who have anxious attachment is I'm not okay unless you're okay or I need you to be okay in order for me to feel okay, right? So there's this dependency that has emerged for the anxious person that says, I need to make sure I'm constantly hypervigilant on you. How you're feeling, what you're thinking, what you're doing, how you're relating to me and how you're doing will predicate and dictate how I'm doing. And so there's this, there's this constant focus and this can be very frustrating for the partner, right. If you're with somebody who has a very high level of anxiety or anxiousness or their attachment, their sense of okay and belonging within the relationship is very externally focused and they're constantly asking you, what's wrong? Are you okay? How are you feeling right now? They're text bombing you, they're love bombing you. All those types of pieces that can be very frustrating. And so again, coming back to this one notion, secure people seek support while anxious people seek validation. They want validation. They need validation from outside of themselves that everything is okay, that they're safe, that they belong, that they are loved, that they're okay. All of that, all of those different pieces. So let's move into talking about the causes of anxious attachment. What actually develops anxious attachment? Because again, knowing what causes it, being able to identify it within yourself or within your partner and having that conversation with them, not that it's your responsibility, right? This is something that you should probably get into with a therapist or, you know, a well trained coach or a psychologist. But understanding the causality of it will give you an indication of what needs to be healed in your life and will probably give you a very clear insight into how it's showing up in your present day relationship or past relationship. Essentially, some caregivers will directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously encourage a child to remain dependent on them for some type of support, whether it's emotional support, psychological support, financial support. And this is often due to the caregiver's own insecurities. And so this parent might try and keep you dependent on them. And this can create anxiety because again, what happens is that it doesn't allow the child to really mature and learn how to do some of the things that they know they need to do as an adult. And it can be very crippling. So if you're an anxious, attached person watching and listening to this, you learned to outsource your sense of safety and your sense of regulation to someone else. And the biggest piece of healing anxious attachment and becoming secure is reclaiming your ability and the skill, because it is a skill, but reclaiming your ability and the skill to regulate your mind and your body by using your breath. Okay, big, big, big piece number two is exposure therapy. I have a joke that there's a reason why trigger warnings don't work, but that's a different piece. But usually it's because when we are trying to avoid the hard things that cause us anxiety and it produces more anxiety, right? It's like the worst thing that you can do for yourself when you're feeling anxious is to say, oh, no, I'm feeling anxious. I don't want to feel this way. I shouldn't feel this way. That produces more anxiety. It becomes cyclical and we get stuck in that thing. So you need to actually try and lean into what's called exposure therapy, meaning the things that give you anxiety. I want you to start to move towards. So if having a hard conversation would produce anxiety with your partner, that's something that you can start to move towards. If not texting them every hour or not texting them after an argument would produce anxiety, I want you to move towards that. You have to actively move towards the things. And I'm not saying, you know, give yourself a panic attack, okay? I'm just making myself very clear. But what I am saying is that you have to expose yourself. And this is proven time and time again to work. Comment below, let me know what you thought about this. Man it forward. Share this episode with somebody that you know needs to hear it. And by all means, listen to this with a partner. You know, if you are somebody that is anxious, listen to this with a partner. If you are with somebody that's anxious, listen to this with them. Actually allow yourself to go through some of this work if you are in a relationship. If you're not, that's okay. This might be something, you know, that you send to a friend who's also identified that they have an anxious attachment and you go through with them, but go through this, work with somebody else. So thank you so much for tuning in. Let me know your thoughts on this. Until next week, this is Connor Beaton signing off.

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