How To Feel More Secure In Your Relationships | Dr. Aziz - Confidence Coach

Do you sometimes do odd things when it comes to dating and relationships? Little behaviors or mental thoughts or feelings that you're like, what is going on? Why am I feeling this way? Why am I behaving this way? Why am I feeling so anxious right now? Why am I being so clingy right now? Why am I trying to avoid this person that I know that I like? Why do I have this compulsion to break up with them even though I really want to be with them? Why am I just a little crazy when it comes to relationships? Well, welcome to the club. We all are. And let's talk about what's going on and how to shift that in this episode. Welcome to another episode of the art of extraordinary confidence. I'm your host, Dr. Aziz. This is the show for you if you want to 10x your confidence in every area of your life that matters, including relationships. That which is what we're going to be talking about today. Don't forget to like and hit. Subscribe below so you can watch these videos as you come out. The more you watch these videos, the more you study this stuff, the more you apply this, the better your life will get. It's worth it. Give yourself that gift of studying this stuff. It's free. It's incredible. By all means, use it. So how do we feel more secure in our relationships? You know, what's going on? Why is it that you might feel pretty solid in yourself, good in your life, but all of a sudden, whether it's someone new that you just met or you're in a relationship, when stuff starts to go a little off in that relationship, you freak out inside. Don't we? Like, we try to keep it all polished at work. Like, everything's fine inside. You're like, why didn't she text me back? Oh, my God. Oh, right. They hate me. They're never going to. He's never going to talk to me again. Why did I tell that story on that date? Why did I tell that story? It was a bad story. It was stupid. I shouldn't have done it. We're freaking out inside. Or you just get that sense of feeling like everything's not okay. I have to get resolution, especially if it's a longer term relationship. Like, we have to talk about this. We have to resolve this right now. I can't focus at work or wherever it is, focus with my kids. Something's going on. We just get so wrapped up in it. So what's happening here? Well, a lot of things, but at the core of it, it's attachment. Your attachment. And this isn't like Buddhism, attachment, like let go of all your attachments. This is like Western psychology. Attachment, attachment style. John Bowlby, which is. He was one of the psychologists that developed the field. But basically it's, how do you connect with people? First and foremost, how did you connect with your parents and your siblings? But now, how do you connect romantically with a partner? And it could be early dating stages, or you guys have been together for 20 years, it doesn't matter. How do you connect with him? And there's a lot of literature on this. In fact, there's a great book called Attached right here, the new science of adult attachment and how it can help you find and keep love. So there's some great stuff in here, a great introduction prior to attachment theory in an accessible way, relatively accessible way that you can check out. But I'll give you the quick rundown here. So they found that people attach in different ways. And the history behind it is really fascinating. The experiments that they did with children actually revealed that when parents would leave a room of a young child, I Forget the age 3 or 4, maybe it was up to 5 or something, but they would have a parent leave the room and the kids by themselves, and they would be measuring the child's response. And a lot of times the kids would get anxious. And what was fascinating, though, okay, so some kids wouldn't get as anxious and some would get really anxious. And they put them into two categories. They said, okay, those kids are securely attached. They know that they're okay and that their parents are going to come back. Then there's the kids who are insecure, attached. They're like, they're freaking out inside. Right. Seems pretty basic. And then what they found, though, is there's a further distinction of the two kinds of insecurity. Because one kind of kid, the parent would come back into the room and the kid would be like, ah, where were you? Ah. And they'd run over to them and want to get soothed. And there's another kind of kid that the parent would come back in the room and he'd be like, oh, didn't even notice you there. I was so busy playing with my trucks, you know, pretending like he didn't care. But when they were measuring the biomarkers, heart rate was up, sweat was up. There was like signs of anxiety and stress. So these translate into the two different styles of insecure attachment. There's the anxious insecure, which is like, where were you? And then there's the avoidant. I don't need anyone. I am a rock. I am an island. So even just knowing this, if this is your first time hearing this, or maybe this is a refresher for you, this is extremely valuable information because you can start to identify, okay, secure attachment or insecure. And here's the thing, if it's insecure, you tend to veer towards one way or the other. So I personally, when I was doing a study of this, found that, oh, I tend to be avoidant style. For the anxious side or the insecure side. I'm avoidant, which is sort of like, look, I can just break up with you. I don't need anything. I can have long stretches of time alone. I don't need as much. I don't need anything. And then of course, you know, if I would break up with a woman or something because, you know, we would start getting closer and then I would be avoidant. So I'd break up and then, then I would like, terribly miss them. Like, ah, why did I do that? But I was like, yeah, but I can't. I can't go back because I want to get away. So it's like this, this push, pull inside. And the flip side, if you're more the anxious side, then it's like you experience and you might try to hide it, but it's a lot of like, need. Like, I need them, I need that. Why aren't they texting me back? I'm freaking out that they're not texting me. But I don't want to show that I'm freaking out because that's going to make me look crazy or like, I'm so anxious they didn't call me or they're late when they said they were going to be here on time and I'm freaking out about it. But then you try to hide it because you don't want to look too desperate or too needy or too clingy. But sometimes it just spills out of you and then you're like, wow, why didn't you text me back? You don't care about me. Oh, why did I say that? Right? So we kind of lose control because here's what's happening when we have that insecure attachment, the way it translates into a romantic relationship. Just like the parent walking, the mom walking out of the room. We feel like our partner, it's not secure. Like, our partner could leave us almost like at any time, for any reason. Now, not intellectually, but like emotionally, just kind of in our nervous system, in our heart and our cords and our emotions. It's like they could, you know, and so we feel a little unsettled now. Might not be that way all the time, but something can trigger that. And then that activates the anxiousness in us, the insecurity in us. And then we're going to flip into our style, our avoidance style. Like if we feel like they're pulling away or whatever, we're like, well, fine, I'll just pull back double, I don't need you. Or if you feel like they're moving away, we're like, come back. So it's going to pull us into that. And you'll repeatedly go to one way or the other. So one thing that I think is very helpful when learning this stuff is just to start to study yourself, start to see which one do I tend to be. And what I don't like about the attachment style books and even that book attached and a lot of literature is, is they describe it almost like fixed traits they have. You identify, are you an anxious, are you in a secure or insecure attachment style? Are you avoidant or anxious if you're insecure. And it's like these identity statements. I am an anxious avoidant. I'm an insecure, avoidant attachment style person. What a great thing to say on a date. But I'm very wary of labels and identities because I think the human animal is much more fluid than that. And our psyche and our emotions and our patterns are much more malleable than that. So what I teach when I work with people is like, here are the styles and here's the thing. It's not like you're broken. You have this broken attachment style that you're going to have to fix for the next 20 years. It's this. You can reside in secure attachment. You can feel relaxed and secure in your connection with someone. We all have that. We've all had that experience. You just feel like, yeah, relax, we're hanging out. I mean, on a date you're feeling relaxed or you're spending watching a movie together or something. Your insecure attachment right there. Now something can happen where you start to fall off of that. Something can trigger you to start to feel insecure in your attachment with them. And that's what you need to learn how to address. That's what you need to fix. Because it's not that you're. There's always this insecure way. It's just, well, something happens. Well, what is it? What are the triggers for you? Is it a certain behavior they do? Like I mentioned the example of not responding to a text. Do you have an unconscious rule that they don't respond to my text within 30 minutes or three minutes or an hour, Then something bad's happening, they're dead, they're leaving me. It means they don't like me anymore. Now, again, this stuff might seem so irrational that you're like, aziz, I don't think that way. Come on. But pay attention to your emotions. Your emotions are showing you what you really think and what the rules are because you want to be honest with yourself. You don't want to try to look good to yourself. You want to be honest with yourself and say, what triggers my insecurity. And then if that starts to trigger, then how can I work with that? And you want to realize that it's fluid. So once you start to go into insecure, whether you get anxious or avoidant, you can find your way back to secure within moments, within minutes, hours, I mean, sometimes seconds. When you get good at this stuff. So you don't have to fix your broken personality or attachment style. You just. It's a state. You get into a different state, you get back to secure. Oh, I'm feeling anxious. Let me get back to secure. So how do we do that? Well, I recommend reading Attached. Give it a full. They have tons of ideas on how to do that. I'd also recommend reading my book Not Nice because a lot of our. I talk a lot about attachment style in there and specifically how we think that we have to be a big part of our insecurity and attachment is we think I can only be this way, this little tiny band of myself, and if I'm all of myself, you're going to reject me. So I got to be on my best behavior. And Not Nice is all about helping you be all of you, not just the nice version of you, not just the small version of you. So, I mean, there's a lot of deeper study you can do around this. A few basic tips for one is if you tend to be avoidant like I am, then a key thing that's really helped me in my life is to consistently remind myself that relationships are important. Relationships are important. Again, these things seem stupid, obvious, but we can. In that moment, we can kind of focus on other things or feel like we don't need it. I can be by myself. I can take care of myself. I can work, I can go work out. I don't need to be spending time with them. Relationships are important. Time is important. So if I notice myself slipping into kind of like, I just need to get away because that's how the avoidant energy comes up in me and a lot of people. It's just like, I just need to get away. I just need to get away from my wife, my kids. I just need to get away from everybody. And it's not just like a healthy, yeah, you need some alone time each day. No, it's like, I need to get away for like a week. Everyone get away from me. That's a sign. Usually that's like, okay, so a, I might need something. I might need to take care of myself. So that's another really great question with whether you're anxious or avoidant style. Just tune in and say, what? What do I need right now? What is it that I need? And it'll be good for you to discover this yourself. But a little shortcut for you. The answer is almost always, you need love. You need to be able to soothe yourself. Self soothing is so important for both styles. For the avoidance style, it's like, hey, you need to be. Relationships are good. You need to move towards this person and it's okay. You can have boundaries because sometimes the avoidant person is afraid of being, like, smothered and losing themselves. You can have boundaries. You can say yes, you can say no, but. But you need relationships. You need them more than you think you do and more than you're telling yourself you do. And for the more anxious style, it's, you're okay, I love you, you're safe, you're gonna be okay no matter what. And really trying to soothe that part of you that's like, I need them or I'm not gonna be okay. And this stuff really harkens back to early childhood stuff. Growing up, infancy stuff. Were you breastfed or not? Did you sleep in a crib? Or were you close to your parents? Were you in a different room? How did they respond when you cried? Now, not that that sets anything in stone, but just give yourself a lot of patience and compassion when you're working with this stuff. And a lot of what you tune into. If you feel like, I have one client I was working with where if his partner, she was more relaxed and sort of, she liked to be together. But when they were apart for a couple days or whatever, the texting and the calling and stuff, she was not into that as much. She would do it a little bit, but he might text her in the morning and she wouldn't text him until that night. And he was more of like a stay in contact kind of guy. And so it would like, really upset him, really upset him. And it would come out at first as like anger, like, why aren't you doing this? And trying to get her to respond more. But as I, because he was working with me, we helped him see, like, okay, what's underneath that? It was anxiety. Like, I am just. So what do you feel when it's an hour after you sent the text and she hasn't responded? Or it's five hours and she hasn't responded and he's like, I feel, you know. So it was anger, but we helped him tune further deeper into his body and he felt like this just like raw, unsettled feeling in his heart. And he sat with that for a while and then he felt this feeling in his stomach that just felt like empty, alone, scared. And this stuff is like in our bodies. Like, you don't have to understand intellectually, although it can be helpful just to reflect on some aspects of your childhood. But yeah, sure enough, he felt very alone, very scared in his room by himself when he was a little kid. And that's what he remembers. But even before that, we don't even remember that stuff. So you want to be really patient when you're self soothing and not like, get over this feeling, damn it. It's like, no, this stuff. There's reasons why these feelings are there. And the solution is love. You love yourself patiently enough, you give attention and energy, that discomfort in your body and send it love and patience and forgiveness. And it's okay, I'm here with you now. I'm going to hold you. You talk to yourself that way, you talk to that part of yourself that way. And you soothe it over time and you get better and better at getting back into secure attachment. And then your relationships get better and better because you freak out a lot less. And who doesn't want to freak out a lot less? Awesome. So share below what's standing out for you? What are you learning like? And subscribe so you get more of these videos and, and until we speak again, may you have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome.