SSP161: A man’s guide to avoidant attachment

If you're the kind of man who starts strong in a relationship, you have all the excitement, you have all the attraction and all the dopamine. But then as things go along over time, you start to get bored and you start to pull away and start to doubt the longevity of the relationship, then this video is for you. What you're experiencing isn't a character flaw. It's a pattern that's rooted in your nervous system. And your avoidant attachment style is actually a dopamine fueled addiction to the chase. But here's the truth. If you don't break this pattern, no relationship in the world is ever going to feel good enough for you to hang around and feel safe in. So let's talk about the avoidant attachment. My name is Jordan Kanlish. I'm a men's relationship coach and I've spent the last five years coaching thousands of men on how to break some of these cycles. I'm going to unravel this for you today and give you a bit of an insight as to where this pattern is coming from and how you can start to develop more security and belief in your ability to be able to stay in a relationship and most importantly, not leave relationships early because of this dysfunctional cycle that's playing out in your life. Now here's the key insight. This avoidant attachment style that you're noticing showing up in your relationships and it's probably appearing as this really excited attraction, fun newness when you first meet someone or in the first kind of one to two years of a relationship, but then you get bored, it's coming from this inability to access the oxytocin pathway. Now let me explain what that is. Because you in your life are probably very dependent on nervous system stimulation. You go from, from the dopamine pathways into other areas of your life and this is also showing up in your relationships. And for a relationship to have longevity, for it to have that deep love bonding chemical in your body that makes you want to stay and commit to the growth of it. That we have to learn how to tap into the oxytocin pathway. And that's what we're going to talk about in this video today. How do you turn that back on? How do you not, you know, when things get bored, automatically think it's something wrong with the other person and then your mind tells you that, hey, maybe it's the relationship. I need to change this up. Pursue the next shiny object. And that's probably happening in your business, is probably happening in other areas of your life too. So we must examine this pattern and firstly acknowledge that the avoidant attachment is coming from imprinting from your childhood, right? Imprinting from times where maybe your parents weren't there, a father figure wasn't there at times when you really needed love from them. And now you've developed this pattern of chasing some sort of external stimulus to feel that sense of security, to feel that sense of worthiness. And as you probably realize that external chase is resulting in burnout, it results in overwhelm. It results in this exhaust, exhausting cycle of always feeling like you need to do something or chase something or get something to feel that sense of worthiness, that sense of love, that sense of bliss and joy and connection that often comes effortlessly when we step into this oxytocin pathway and learn how to develop this relationship of slowness and calmness and stability. So let's dive into that. So, firstly, I want to. I want to map out some of these common signs of avoidant attachment just so that you're clear that you know if this is for you or not. The first one being this distance, emotional distance that usually shows up for a lot of men when things get a little bit emotional. The partner, the other person starts asking for, you know, deeper levels of commitment. There's usually this wanting to pull away, wanting to withdraw emotionally because things feel overwhelming, things feel maybe unsafe. If you didn't have that support system growing up around your parents, around emotionality, then that's gonna feel really uncomfortable for you in an adult. That's the common pattern to back away. And second to that, there's usually this high value of independence, always wanting to be on your own, and then maybe telling yourself that, hey, I'm actually better on my own. I thrive better on my own. But in a sense, it's almost a bypass. It's an escapism for not wanting people to get too close because you're afraid of feeling some of those intense emotions. Another common pattern when you're in a relationship is kind of disappearing after conflict, not knowing how to healthily resolve conflict in your relationship. And that creates dysfunction as well, because you're unconsciously keeping people at a distance. And a lot of this unresolved conflict will sometimes turn into resentment, which then eats away at the relationship as well. And then the main one, if you struggle with avoidant attachment, is this overthinking and under feeling, you know, that sense of always being in your head, overanalyzing over rationalizing and struggling to make decisions because you haven't got in contact with that intuitive ability that comes through the felt sense because it doesn't feel safe in the body. Now let's break down how to not let your avoidant attachment patterns ruin your relationships. This is super important. The first thing you must acknowledge is that you must recognize this is a nervous system response and not a part of your identity. So many people, you know, attach themselves literally, pun intended, to the. To their attachment system, saying, oh, I'm an avoidant attachment. I like being on my own. They say they, they throw out all these labels, and all of a sudden their whole identity is, is, you know, interconnected with this, this theory. But in a sense, you got to separate yourself from that. Remember, this is just conditioning unconscious patterns that are playing out due to things that happened to you growing up. And when you see the nervous system as this response mechanism, stimulus and response, you can start to see some of these reactive patterns as just things that are playing out on the unconscious level designed to keep you safe. And when you can see that, you can then start to interrupt some of these patterns. And the only way you'll interrupt, interrupt them is by deciding that this is no longer serving who I want to be. This is no longer serving the relationship I want to have. Are you watching this video because you're ready to start to develop a secure, healthy relationship to. It's going to stand the test of time, and then it's going to expand you and the person that you love. To do that, you have to recognize that you've got to break free from some of these patterns. Right? And one of the ways you can start to do that is start to reframe commitment as expansion. So many men are afraid of commitment because of what it brings up emotionally. They fear what it could take from them. But if you reframe that from. Reframe that into the. Hey, commitment allows for expansion. In my relationship with my partner. I've been with her for 10 years now. That relationship has taught me more about myself than anything else out there. But there's been many times where I was afraid of making that next commitment because there was all these fears and doubts and having to lean into that or reframing that, hey, this is another opportunity for me to expand into myself. Has what allowed my me to rewire my nervous system into trusting, trusting the intimacy, trusting the connection, and trusting myself most importantly. So that reframe is key. The next thing that you really want to prioritize when it comes to breaking this pattern or getting beyond it is prioritize one, regulating your nervous system before making decisions, before reacting into unconscious behaviors. Now, what I. What do I mean by regulating your nervous system? That means developing the tools and practices that help you stay calm, that help you calm the system down. Because what's happening is because your system's so revved up through stimulation, through. Maybe you work a lot, maybe you're training at the gym a lot, maybe you're drinking a lot of coffee. Maybe you're so used to being, you know, putting your foot on the accelerator pedal, you don't. You haven't slowed down enough in your life to actually know what's the right decision for you. And does this decision align with the future self that I'm trying to cultivate? So things like breathwork, yoga, qigong, you know, moving slow throughout the day, contemplative practices, less caffeine, less stressful activities is going to get you back in touch with your body, and that will feel really uncomfortable because you're familiar in this sympathetic system. You're familiar in that state because it suppresses a lot of these emotions that you weren't shown how to deal with. So that's the key part here, is learning how to get in touch with these emotions and express them in a healthy ways. And the four ways that I really suggest with the men that I work with or anyone that I work with is using your breath, your sound, movement and expression to move energy. Okay? So when you calm your system down, you can use your breath to breathe deeper, to open up more capacity. You can make sounds. If you're feeling angry, you got it. You got to let that out. You can't hold that in. And then expression, which is have a conversation, talk about what you're feeling. And if you don't want to do that with your significant other or your romantic partner, find a space outside the relationship where you can do that, because that's going to help you get clarity and help you make the right decisions in the short term and the long term. Now, the next really important thing to prioritize to break this avoidance cycle is prioritize repairing conflict instead of retreating during conflict. So knowing that your pattern is, you're going to want to pull away. If you have an argument of something you don't get, something comes up that's really intense for you to deal with, or maybe your partner is bringing something to you that you don't know what to do, and it's quite hard to handle. Don't go into the pattern of retreating. Take some space, regulate yourself, get some clarity, but then return with the intention of wanting to repair and how you repair really comes back to stating what you're feeling or sharing authentically what you feel, telling the other person what you need, creating a safe space for them to express what they're feeling and what they need so that you can come together as a team and to show that you're committed to the growth of the relationship. To be able to do that, you have to be committed to your growth. To remember, everything that I've shared already is a part of this internal commitment to yourself. And that's going to help the external commitment of the relationship too. Now, the final thing that I will share with you to keep this going is when you're in a relationship and you're experiencing some of the intensity of these patterns, you're really wanting to back away and pull away and shut down and avoid emotional conversations or avoid commitment. Remember that when you're in a relationship is the best time to do this healing work, you could say. And the best place to do that if you're a man, is to be in a men's group, to be in a space to be outside of your romantic partner so that you're not dumping emotions on them, so you're not expecting them to hold you emotionally. That can really disrupt the polarity of your connection. Get a men's group, get a men's coach, or even just. Just find a space with other men you can trust where you can start to unpack what you're feeling and share. Hey, this is what I'm struggling with. What should I do? I'm feeling really angry about this. Can you hold space for me? These outlets are going to allow you to have a clearer vessel, to return to your relationship with a newfound sense of understanding of what it is that you need or. And then most importantly, you're going to have a newfound sense of emotional availability to support your partner in being there for them, to help them feel seen and understood, to provide that safe space for them. And that's the hard part for so many of these men, or maybe you as well, who have this avoidant attachment style is like you don't know how to hold a safe space for others because none of your emotions feel safe. So the best way you can do that is getting community with other people who can show you how to do this work and support you in doing this work. That's something you're interested in. This is, this is why I run these men's groups and I run retreats. You can click the link in the description and find out some more information about the next retreat. Or the next online men's support system that I host. Because what I see is when men come into these spaces and they realize, okay, fuck, I can actually open up about some of this stuff. I'm not alone. I don't have to figure it out on my own, then your relationship actually goes so much deeper because all of a sudden, you're equipped. You've resourced yourself up, you've got the resources and the team around you so fast, factor that in, my friend. So there we have it. There's some of my suggestions. If you're dealing with avoidant attachment, you want to break free from the other side. And just remember, whether you're in a relationship or not, prioritizing commitment to yourself, building that sense of emotional safety inside of you, and learning how to express your emotions is what's going to give you the confidence to be able to show up when times get hard and reassure yourself that, hey, I lean in when things get uncomfortable. I don't pull away. So you got this, my friend. And if this resonated, drop a comment below. Love to see you in the comment section and we'll see you in the next video.