Fixing The Fearful Avoidant Attachment - Quick Guide

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Gentlemen, here we are. It is time. We are finally going to be talking about the thing that I got dozens and dozens and dozens of messages from you about. DMS on YouTube, DMS on Instagram, like, emails about. So many of you asked for this. So here it is. We are going to be talking about a man's guide to fearful avoidant attachment and how to move to a secure, healthy attachment.

I didn't realize that this was such.

A big thing, but when I did the avoidant one and the anxious one, so many of you guys were like, waiting for this. Where is this? Like, when are you going to do this? So here we go.

First off, let's start with what is the fearful avoidant?

What is it right out the gates? This is also known as the disorganized attachment. Disorganized attachment and called disorganized for a number of reasons, which we're going to get into. But really, the fearful avoidant can be characterized by a few things. Number one is a good amount of anxiety, high levels of anxiousness, high levels of fearful thinking, and secondly, the high levels of avoidant behaviors. So it's kind of a combination of the anxious and avoidant.

However, it's not as simple as just.

Like, smashing those two together and thinking that, you know what it is, all right? It's a little bit more complicated than just somebody that's avoidant and has anxiety. Generally speaking, the fearful avoidant, and for the exercise of this video, for the intention of this video, I'm going to just call it fearful avoidant, not disorganized attachment, because that can get a little bit confusing.

At the core of the fearful avoidant is a really deep desire for intimacy. The misconception of the fearful avoidant is that they don't want intimacy or that they're afraid of it.

That's wrong.

At the heart and core of the fearful avoidant is actually somebody who deeply wants intimacy and closeness. Fearful avoidance, this attachment style is kind of characterized by this interplay, right, of fear, of dependence. Right. I'm afraid, but I'm dependent on you, and. And yet I'm avoidant of real connection with you. And that can look a number of different ways. Usually when you think about somebody that has been labeled as having, like, commitment issues, sometimes, not always, but sometimes those men are the guys that have this fearful, avoidant attachment style. And it shows up as commitment issues because that man wants to get close but then bails out or creates intimacy and closeness and then backs away or, you know, is kind of one foot in One foot out in the relationship where, you know, maybe, you know, if you're listening to this and you are a fearful, avoidant person, you're like, I think this might be my attachment style is probably going to feel internally like there's constantly this contrast or this conflicting.

Intention inside of you where you, you really want to be close to somebody.

But there's these hurdles and these blocks that are in the way that seem to be preventing you of doing that. And it might be a big self worth thing. You might be like, I'm not really, I don't really feel worthy. Or when you start to build that closeness and connection, all of a sudden there's anxiousness that starts to come up.

But for a lot of guys, what.

This looks like is getting into a relationship and wanting the relationship. And then when it starts to progress and there starts to become more sort of levels of seriousness, there is a.

Hesitancy of really being in the relationship. And so he's constantly questioning, is this the right relationship for me? Should I really be in this relationship? You know, am I going to get screwed over by her?

You know, am I going to get, is she going to screw me over at some point? Can I really trust her?

Is she really the one?

And there's this constant sort of fear mongering that's going on internally for the fearful avoidance.

So the individuals with this attachment style often experience this conflicting feeling about the.

Intimacy in the relationship that they have.

Even if on one side they seem.

And sound very, very sure of it. And this is very sort of hallmark for the, the avoid, the fearful avoidant.

It's like there's a part of me that really knows that this is the.

Right thing or that I really love.

This person, like I genuinely want to be with them. But then there's this conflicting what if.

Like what if she did this? Or what if it's not right? Or what if it doesn't work?

Or what if I'm not enough?

This attachment style arises from early experiences in childhood with primary caregivers who were.

Inconsistent or unavailable and unpredictable in being.

Able to meet your needs, in being able to be emotionally stable. They were inconsistent in their responsiveness to you. So like, maybe you would talk to.

Them and they just wouldn't even respond.

Or acknowledge your existence.

You may have grown up in an.

Environment where.

You know, you would ask.

For something and sometimes you would get.

A nice response and sometimes you would.

Ask the same thing and you would.

Get a blow up. Um, so for a lot of people.

That have grown up in Environments where.

Maybe there was alcoholism or addiction, maybe you had a parent that had mental health disorder, right. That like, they were bipolar.

And so there was these big mood swings that, that made it so that you couldn't rely as a child on a consistent, a consistent enough response. And again, when I'm saying consistent enough response, if you're a parent out there.

You don't have to be perfect, perfect with this, right?

It's not like, oh, if I'm not.

Perfectly consistent with my child, I'm going to, you know, screw up their attachment style. No, what research has actually found is that if you get it right, like 33, 34% of the time, and you.

Are consistently responding to your child's needs.

In a grounded, consistent way where that.

Child can begin to assimilate some understanding.

Of, oh, when I ask for an.

Apple, mom or dad gives me an apple, or they say no, but it's. They say no in a safe way. It's very rare that I ask for the apple and mom and dad blow.

Up, or they just all out ignore.

Me, or they just say like, no, go to your room and don't talk to me. A lot of fearful avoidance, how they present in a relationship or how they feel in a relationship is almost always like something is wrong. That's very common for the fearful avoidance. Like there is something always wrong with them or for them in the relationship. Because again, that hyper vigilance. And again, it's not something that they're doing maliciously, right? If you're watching this and you're like, I'm the fearful event, I'm not saying you're doing that maliciously. I'm saying that's a security mechanism that baked into you, that's a protective mechanism that is trying to keep you safe by constantly seeing what's wrong or what's not working or evidence of why you can't get close. And so a lot of your consciousness, a lot of your awareness, actually relational awareness has been put on and spotlighted onto possible threats, what's not working, things that need to be fixed, relationship reasons why you can't get too close, reasons why you shouldn't trust. So all of that comes up and starts to build a limited sense of safety. Next, another sign is wanting that close relationship, but being afraid to actually be close. So you might find yourself, you know, planning dates and then sabotaging them, right? Starting an argument on the date or not showing up or late or, you know, doing something that you know is going to cause conflict just to reaffirm again. Not consciously, but unconsciously to reaffirm that there's space between the two of you. Next is what it looks like the fearful avoidance looks like in relationship is difficulty regulating emotions. Now this is a big one and it's a big one because when you look at what builds and creates the fearful avoidance, a lot of it is volatility and a lot of it is specifically emotional volatility or emotional vacancy or the oscillation between those two. Right? Volatility, vacancy. Volatility, vacancy. And so the fearful avoidant is going to have some, some intense emotions internally, but they're going to have trouble regulating those emotions and communicating them in an effective way. At the core of healing your fearful avoidant attachment is a dual nature of being afraid of connecting to an attachment and feeling anxious internally with whatever your experience is. And so there is a simultaneous process that needs to unfold. Two things need to happen in your life ongoing, over time. Okay? And those two things are very, very simple, but they're going to be super freaking challenging for you to implement. Number one is a very strict regiment of self soothing. You are going to need to develop an infrastructure internally. Methods, rituals, behaviors, you know, daily habits that are helping you to soothe your internal system. Because every fearful avoidant that I have ever worked with in my life and I've talked to many experts in this field, it's not just me, it's like mentors that have 40 plus years working with people. We, everybody says the same thing. The fearful avoidant is really struggling because they're struggling to regulate internally. So you have to start to learn how to self soothe. I'm going to talk more about that in a moment. That's part one. So part one is learn how to self soothe. Part two is learning how to consistently stay connected and trust your relationship. Consistently stay connected and build trust in the relationship. That's the second big piece. Because again, the duality of the fearful avoidant is I do not feel safe in myself. I can't regulate myself. But I also don't feel safe with you. I don't trust you. I don't trust you to be consistent, to care about my needs, to care about my wants or my desires, to care about my well being. And so that's the duality I need to soothe me, stay connected to you. Soothe me, stay connected to you. Soothe me, stay connected to you. That's the dance that the fearful avoidant needs to commit to. That's the mission that you as the fearful avoidant need to commit to for probably a good seven to nine months minimum. And it's going to be a consistent process of you daily having self soothing practices, self regulation practices, and then building trust in, in the person that you're with. And if you're not in a relationship, you can start to build that trust with a friend, with somebody in your life, right? With a family member. You don't have to do this work per se in a relationship, but it can be helpful to do that. So this dual nature of the fearful avoidant is being able to move to that secure attachment by the simultaneous process of self soothing, finding safety within, and building trust in another. Finding safety in a relationship. So safety internally, safety in a relationship, soothing internally, staying connected and building trust number two. And this is where we're gonna start to dig into some more tacticals. Learn to regulate and self soothe. Okay, how do you do that? The simple and sort of easy and direct answer is that your breath is the modulation dial, the modular modulating dial between the stressed part of your nervous system, when you're feeling really anxious, when you are wanting to shut down, when you're, you know, raging between that part of your system and your parasympathetic nervous system or your grounded, calm, rest and digest part of your nervous system. So you can think of those two things as a seesaw. They're not disconnected, they're part of the same system.

Your parasympathetic and your sympathetic, right, Your stress and your rest and digest. And so the more anxious you feel, the more stressed out you feel, the more you're trying to pull away. When we self soothe, we need to use the breath. So there's a couple things that you can do. Number one, practice meditation. You might hate it, you might not think that that's going to help, like how's that gonna help my attachment style? But what it's going to do is help you to build and a sense of safety internally. So you can find a specific meditation practice. And if you work with good meditation teachers, they can help you build and develop a practice specifically around developing a sense of safety and security internally. Now, I'm going to give you some direction on that because I think that it might be helpful. A couple things are important if you start to use things like box breath. Breathing in for four, holding for four, exhaling for four, holding for four, inhale for four. It's just a four, four, four, four. Box breath is a regulation tool that you can deploy on a daily basis. And what I would suggest to you if you're a fearful avoidant, is that you practice this box breathing at regular intervals throughout the day. So maybe you do it once in the morning, you do it once at lunch and it only takes five minutes. You do it once after you're done work and you do it once before you're going to have a conversation with your girlfriend or your wife, right? So you, you choose a tool and you implement it multiple times a day. Thank you so much. Please man it forward if if you enjoyed this video. I know that some of these are more niche, but I it seems like you guys are really loving some of these conversations. So please share, share, share them. Man it forward to somebody in your life that you know could it that you know would enjoy it. Even if it's just a segment, you know, they don't have to listen to the whole hour. Even if it's just a segment of this podcast or video. Man it forward. And as always, thank you so much for tuning in. Don't forget to subscribe to whatever channel you are listening on, whether it's YouTube or Spotify or Apple. And don't forget to let me know what you got from this conversation, whether you DM me on Instagram or comment on YouTube below. And thank you so much for tuning in. I look forward to diving into more of these guides and more of these deep dives for you. Talk soon.