Connor Beaton explains how shadow work from Jungian psychology helps people with anxious attachment. He describes anxious attachment as depending on another's wellbeing, identifies the shadow as unconscious fears that anxiously attached people often face, and offers journaling prompts to find shadow triggers and childhood roots.
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Welcome back to the Man Talk Show. Connor Beaton here. And today this video is going to be talking about shadow work for the anxious attachment. First and foremost, what is the anxious attachment? Well, I have a whole video on a man's guide to anxious Attachment. Hopefully you've watched that. If not, go cue it up. But a very simple version that I'm going to give you right here is, is that an anxious person, their internal experience is my world is not okay unless you are okay. So for the anxious partner, they are constantly looking for cues, looking for evidence that their partner is okay. Their husband, their wife, their boyfriend, their girlfriend. They're looking to see are you all right? Because if you're okay, then maybe I can be okay. But if you're not okay, then I am disrupted. And so the anxious attached person learned, or didn't learn, let's just say didn't learn how to self regulate, how to self soothe, how to.
Basically get their internal homeostasis to a baseline on their own and through different circumstances and events. What they learned was I need somebody else in order for me to reclaim any type of baseline, to reclaim any type of homeostasis care, peace, calmness, grounding inside of me. Where shadow work comes into play. For those of you that don't know, quick little synopsis of shadow work, I have a bunch of videos on this. More coming on this soon. But shadow work is a. The shadow is a piece of Jungian psychology. Jung actually created the concept of the shadow. And the shadow is essentially the part of your personality that sort of lives in your unconscious mind. It's the part of you that you don't know about, you don't like you, you don't want other people to know about. It's an amalgamation, I call it the Hurt Locker sometimes of your, your fears, your worries, your doubts. And for some people, specifically the anxiously attached people, some of their shadow is very forward facing. So it's very front and center. It gets projected out into the relationship a lot. Those fears, those insecurities, those worries, those doubts. Where a lot of people, their shadow is sort of hidden and sequestered away from relationships and you know, sort of shows up in more, we'll say, dubious ways. Right? It's very unintentional and conscious ways. For the anxious person, it's very front and center. Those fears, those insecurities, they're right there. They're driving your behavior, they're causing you to text bomb, they're causing you to constantly worry in your head, like are they okay? Do they still love me, they still want to be with me. Obviously I'm exaggerating, but I'm sure I got some of that right. And so in your shadow, it's very common that for the anxious person, what's in their shadow is safety, security, groundedness, authenticity, alignment, self assuredness, the ability to self regulate. All of those things have been not rejected or denied, but they've been pushed out of the conscious part of your psyche and your identity and your personality. And so the reclamation, and this is why shadow work is so important for the anxious person. It is as well for the avoidant. I'm gonna talk about that in a different video, but this is why it's so important for the anxious, attached person. So what do we do with the shadow work? I'm gonna give you a couple things that I want you to explore. Okay? These are questions that I would like for you to journal on. You know, this isn't one of those videos that you just like sit and listen to and it's like some cool concepts. I actually want you to do some work to help you unravel some of these pieces. So you might wanna pause this part or just write, you can take a note on your phone so you can journal on this later. But I want you to start to identify the shadow self and there's a series of questions I'm gonna give you. So number one, I feel anxious in my relationship when. I feel anxious in my relationship when. And just write out whatever comes to mind right? When my partner pulls away, when they're gone, you know, when I have to make a decision or whatever it is for you, just write down whatever comes to mind. Number two, this feels similar to my childhood when. This feels similar to my childhood when. And again, just write whatever comes to mind. It doesn't. This is a very unconscious process that you're working with. So you might even write down some examples or memories that come up and you're like, huh, relationship. So comment below, let me know what you took away from this video, what you are working on, what you found really helpful. And until next week, Connor Beaton signing off.
