How I Went From Avoidant To Secure (And YOU Can Too)

All right, team, welcome back to the Mantalk show. Connor Beaton here. Today I'm going to be sharing with you the five specific tactical steps that I took to move from avoidant, an avoidant attachment style to a secure attachment style. Okay, I was pretty avoidant. I was very avoidant, which I'll talk about a little bit. But these things are things that you can deploy and see results relatively quickly. This is not a lifelong success, you know, work in progress that you're gonna have to spend the rest of your life doing. It's not a multi decade project. This is something that you can deploy and actually start to see results and change in your life. But that is dependent on two specific things. One, as an avoidant, you are going to need to get uncomfortable. Doesn't matter what type of avoidant you are, doesn't matter about your past. It doesn't matter what mommy and daddy looks like and how they treated you and what your family system looked like. Like, yes, all of that is relevant and no, it doesn't matter in the context of what I'm about to lay out, you are going to have to get uncomfortable, okay? And I'm gonna explain why in a second. The second thing though is you are going to have to face and move into your resistance. You are going to have a tremendous amount of resistance to everything that I am going to lay out, I promise you. I know that because I had a ton of resistance around doing any of these things. I. Mostly because of what it is like, mostly because of the heart and core of what it means to be an avoidant attachment style. Okay? At the heart.

Of every avoidant attached person is the belief that it is safer for me. It is easier for me, it is better for me to be alone than to be relational, okay? It's easier for me to rely on myself. It's easier for me to meet my own needs and it's easier for me to trust myself than it is to have somebody else meet my needs. To trust somebody else, to rely on somebody else. We are conditioned, okay? Avoidance are conditioned because of our upbringing, because of our family system, because of whatever your experience was growing up. You have been conditioned, your mind and your body have been conditioned to over index on self reliance, on meeting your own needs and on being somewhat non relational. On over indexing individuality and your own individual preferences. Over relationality. And this isn't just a concept, right? Here's what the last thing that I want you to know before I get into the five steps. This isn't just a concept Avoidant attachment style isn't a concept in your head or something, simply a belief system. It is wired into your nervous system. A big part of the resistance that you are going to face, my avoidant friends, is that your body is going to try and pull you back to isolation and solo time and your individual safety and pull you away from relationality and being in relationship. The resistance is going to be physical, okay? Because your nervous system has been wired to move you away from relationships and will create a lot of resistance. Because you have learned to protect yourself by moving towards self isolation. I'm going to say that part again. You have learned to protect yourself by moving towards self isolation. Now that means that your needs are seen as threats. Exposing what you want, exposing what you need, exposing what you're feeling, exposing what you're experiencing, all of those things are seen as threats. And anytime that that comes up in your relationship, you are going to move towards, your body's gonna say, eject, get the hell out of this situation, move back towards solitude. This was me to a T. Any single time that a woman would start to get closer, emotionally, intellectually, relationally, sometimes even sexually, I, I would pull away, I would start to shut down. My body would, would just start to be like, ooh, I don't like this at all. I would feel resistance towards texting them. I would feel resistance towards having certain conversations. I would feel resistance towards being in any type of argument or conflict. And any type of exposure of what was going on inside of me was seen as a massive threat. So you are going to have to face that resistance. But here's what I want you to know this. The ability, your capacity to face that resistance and move with it. Okay? So your resistance is going to be a North Star of sorts. It's going to be your compass. Where you feel resistance is where you need to go. Okay, I'm gonna say that again. Where you feel resistant, my avoidant friends, is where you need to go. You need to press forward in that direction. So if you feel resistance towards talking about something that you are experiencing internally, if you feel resistant towards asking for a need, asking for something that you want, you need to move in that direction. If you feel resistance towards some type of physical closeness, you need to move in that direction. Now I'm not saying that you should ignore red flags and ignore warning signs. I'm talking about if you are in a committed relationship, a long term relationship, ideally with somebody that you love and trust, or when you feel that resistance, that is probably a good sign that you need to move towards that. Okay? So all that said, here are the five steps. Don't forget to subscribe to this video, to this channel, and don't forget to hit the bell notification if you're watching on YouTube, because YouTube is one of those platforms where even if you're subscribed, you might never see my content. And so unless you hit the bell notification, you're probably not gonna get notified when I drop new content. So hit it. If you're on Spotify or Apple podcast and you're listening to the podcast, then make sure you subscribe there and you'll get the podcast on demand. All right, let's dive in. Step number one, build self awareness around two crucial things. Self awareness around two crucial things. Number one, when and what am I doing to break connection and closeness with someone? When and what am I doing to break closeness and connection with someone? Now, what I did when I was doing this work is I got out two pieces of paper and I wrote down when do I break connection on one of them, and I wrote down, what do I do to break connection on the other one? And I just started to make a list of all the things that I did off the top of my head, right? So what do I do? Oh, I don't text back, you know, when she asked me how I'm doing, I just say fine all the time. I don't ask back, you know, I don't ask her how she's doing. You know, I just listed out all these things. When do I break connection? You know, when she wants to be close, when she's asking me how my day was, when she's asking me about my family. And I started to write down all of the things, and I kept a running list of these things. So as. As things went along, I would add to the list, right? I'd add to when am I breaking connection and what am I doing now? Why is that important? Because you need to have and develop a robust awareness of when you are breaking connection and creating disconnection, okay? The aim of the game here is that you become the person who creates and maintains connection in the relationship. Because avoidance. There's no other way to say this but you and I may not anymore, but I used to be the one responsible for the disconnection, okay? Avoidance are not always, but often very much responsible for the disconnection. They're creating the space in the relationship. They're pushing the other person away. This isn't to shame or blame you, because you probably have enough of that, but you're the one pushing the other person away, creating the space, creating the disconnection, creating the shutdown. And so you need to develop awareness around what specifically am I doing? So that you can begin to deploy autocorrect. Okay, Disconnection is a behavior. So is connection. So once you have a running list of everything that you do that creates disconnection, start to autocorrect. Every time you catch yourself in the moment, pulling away, shutting down.

Not texting back, not engaging in conversation, right? Anytime anything gets heated and you find yourself wanting to walk out the door, right? Or you, you know, you walk out of the room, you come back in, right? So start to autocorrect the behavior. Lean into that resistance that I was talking about. Text them back, right? Text her back. Have the conversation, answer the question. Start to autocorrect the behavior real time so that you can shift the behavior in the moment. Number two, initiate re. Reconnection. When disconnection has happened. Initiate reconnection when. When disconnection has happened again. Disconnection is not always going to be on your shoulders. It's not always your fault. Your partner's gonna create disconnection. If she's anxious or secure, she's gonna create disconnection. It's gonna happen. However, one of the best things that you can do as an avoidant person trying to move towards secure is take responsibility for the reconnection. Now, this is one of those things that I. Ooh. Like, made me wanna barf, you know, Like, I just. I had so much resistance. I remember getting into this. This woman that I was dating, and we had a little bit of an argument. I don't even remember what it was about, but we were living together. We just moved in together and we had an argument and I left. I left the apartment. I went for a walk down to the beach. I was living in Vancouver at the time. And I was like, f this, you know, in my head, I'm like, running the whole avoidant. Like, my whole avoidance system was just online firing heavy F this. Screw this. This relationship is done. This is so stupid. I can't even believe that we're having this fight. Like, the whole narrative was just online. And I got down to the beach, got down to the ocean, sat there, took some breaths, did a meditation, looked at the ocean for a little while, started to walk back to the place. And I remembered what my mentor had said. When any type of break or rip or tear or disconnection happens in the relationship, be the leader of the reconnection. And I was like, oh, I know he's right. I know I need to do this. And so I walked back into the apartment and. And, like, almost through gritted teeth, like, I want to reconnect with you. Are you open to that? You know, like, every part of my body did not want to do it. It was just so foreign to me. It was so not ingrained into my system. But I went back, I marched my ass back into the apartment, and I said, I would like to reconnect with you. Are you open to doing that? I think at the time, she actually said no, if I'm remembering correctly, which made me even more furious. So I went up to the rooftop patio, and I came back down and I said, when you're ready to reconnect, let me know, because I would like to do that. And then she said yes. And we. We had a conversation around it. So be responsible for the reconnection. You are not going to want to do this. This is going to be one of those things that your body and your mind has all the stories about. Don't do it. You'll be weak. You know, you're going to get hurt. You're going to be responsible for things that you're not responsible for. All the stuff is going to happen, okay? However, once you start to go down this path, it is going to be extremely freeing and liberating. You will see that the relationship begins to immediately shift, and you will feel much more empowered because you are starting to develop a sense of internal trust that you can engage in some type of repair process when disconnection has happened. Because for most avoidants like myself, when disconnection happened, nobody repaired it. Nobody initiated the reconnection. It just lingered there, and nothing ever got fixed. And that's the case for most avoidance. Most avoidance grew up in an environment where when disconnection happened, or there was volatility or there was conflict, there was no resolution. There was nobody that came and said, hey, that wasn't right of me, or, I don't like that we're in this fight. Or, let's repair this argument. That was silly. You know, let's repair this. Nobody did that. So most avoidants just don't have the template for what that looks like. And so I just gave it to you. I would encourage you to try and do that today, tomorrow, the next time that there's any type of disconnection. Number three. Express what you're experiencing. Express what you are experiencing now. Again, you are probably not going to want to do this. You're going to feel a tremendous Amount of resistance towards this, but express what is going on inside of you. Can be very, very small things. Okay, you know, instead of saying, fine, say, you know, I'm feeling a little bit down today, or I feel, I feel great today. I have a lot of energy, I feel very focused. Use and try and articulate a little bit more about what's happening inside of you. Maybe it's, you know, my brain feels very calm today, or man, my thoughts are everywhere and all over the place and I feel very distracted. Start to use some different language besides, fine, I'm okay. That type of sort of stuff to what's. What are you actually experiencing internally? And bonus points if you can do that when conflict is happening, right? So when conflict or some type of disconnection starts to happen and you feel yourself shutting down, wanting to pull away, wanting to disconnect, expressing what you're experiencing, hey, I'm starting to get overwhelmed, or I'm experiencing some shutdown, or I'm experiencing the urge to pull away, I'm not going to do that, but I just want to say it out loud with the right person and in the right relationship, especially if you're with a secure partner, they're going to hear that and say, wow, thank you. Thanks for telling me. So start to express what you're experiencing. Number four, expose your needs. Expose your needs. This is the biggest thing for any avoidant. They have learned time and time again through multiple situations that their needs don't matter. It's not safe to tell other people what they need. Other people aren't going to meet their needs, so why even bother? And you can start small, okay? I don't want you to go with like the big sexual fantasy that you feel is a, is a need in the relationship. I want you to go small things like, hey, I'd really love a back rub, or can you pass me the salt? Or you know what, I'm going to be back home in five minutes. Can you toss some eggs onto the stove for me? Those types of simple things that are needed, right, that are you expressing that you need something to your partner are going to go a long way. Two things I want to just share with you that are important caveats. Number one, hopefully you're doing this work with someone, right? Hopefully you're in a relationship with somebody where they're going through this process with you. And what I would encourage you to do is to have a conversation with them and say to them, hey, I'm going to start to express what I need just in simple moments. Not like even big things, but just what I would need in simple moments that like, maybe sometimes I want to go on a date where we go see the new Deadpool movie, right? Which might not be your partner's thing, but maybe it's just that's what you need. Need. That's what you want to do. So start to express and expose your needs. But make sure you communicate to your partner that you're going to be doing this and that it's important that they really hear you out. Because what can happen is you can start to express and expose your needs. You can do it one or two times and if they're not tuned in to what you are doing and they say no, or they reject it for whatever reason, it's very common that avoidance then backslide and they're like, ah, see, this proves my story right? And I'm not gonna, I'm not even gonna bother. So it can be helpful to let them in on the game so that if they do say no, you can say, hey, look, this is really important to me. I'm trying to express what I need. Is there a way that we can make this work? So expose your needs. Number five, last one. Move from self protection to relational reliance. Move from self protection to relational reliance. Now notice I am not saying move towards dependency. A lot of men, a lot of avoidance, will hear what I just said and they'll say, are you saying that I should be dependent on my partner? No, I'm talking about reliance, reliability, knowing that you can rely on somebody else, knowing that you can trust somebody else to be there for you, to have good conversation with you, to connect with you, to meet your needs. Move from the self protection that is so ingrained that says shut down. Don't express, don't expose, don't ask for what you want and need, pull away. Don't connect to relational reliance to a place that it's okay for me to trust this person in this moment. It's okay for me to rely on my partner to pick something up for me, or to do something for me, or to take care of something for me. Because for avoidance, again, the story is nobody wants to take care of me. I shouldn't even want that in the first place. And the idea of wanting that makes me wrong, bad, et cetera. So start to move towards relational reliance that you can rely on the other person, that that's safe, that they are trustworthy. All right, comment below, let me know what you thought about this video. Don't forget to man it for forward share this episode, please. There are a lot of men that are out there and a lot of women that could use this one. But in my experience, men are generally a little bit more avoidant and women are more anxious. So send this to someone whether they are an avoidant person or they are with an avoidant person. This could go a long way. Maybe this is something that you want to listen to with your partner. And again, don't forget to hit the bell. Notification to get notified when more videos drop. All right, Connor, beaten out. We'll see you next week.