Articles

Do you ever get nervous butterflies in your stomach before interacting with someone? Do you sometimes have to go to the toilet urgently from nervousness? Do you sometimes feel uncomfortable or not at ease socially so you can’t relax and enjoy yourself? This is your body talking to you and telling you that you feel anxious and you very well could have anxious attachment. In this article we’ll look at how you can identify anxious attachment, how it effects your life in multiple ways and how you can heal it. If you desire to relate to people, be seen, feel emotions and express your feelings but feel nervous about it then this blog is for you. If you tend to avoid feelings, don’t want to be seen and don’t want to express your feelings in relationships then this blog is not for you.

What is anxious attachment?

Anxious attachment is a type of relating style that is common and more importantly causes a lot of stress. Anxious attachment is exactly what it says, not feeling secure in relationships and instead feeling anxious about relating closely to someone.

Anxious attachment stems from childhood. When your carers weren’t able to fulfil all your needs. This is not usually done on purpose by your carers. They could have either had medical issues, a death, limited understanding of how to care for someone due to their challenged upbringing, mental and emotional disorders, working a lot, stress, addiction or abuse. As an adult, anxious attachment leaves you feeling worried or anxious about getting your needs met in terms of love, affection and acceptance by something you get close to. You can feel anxious about being rejected or wondering if the person will be there for you. Or you might feel worried that you will say something to upset them or their feelings will change. Moreover, anxious attachment can make you feel unworthy, undeserving or give you a fear of failure. Basically, when you get close to someone and you are involved in something you care about then you can feel anxious about how it will go.

How do you know if you have anxious attachment?

One way is to look at how you felt growing up and if you had any experiences that left you feeling hurt or alone due to actions of a care giver. Then the next best way to know if you have an anxious attachment is to identify how you behave in romantic relationships. If you tend:

• To feel jealous
• Worry if they will contact you
• Need reassurance
• Worried to let your guard down
• Flip your feelings back and forth
• Need more contact straight after seeing them
• Give more than you need to secure love
• Feel physically anxious with a nervousness in your stomach, IBS flare up or a pressure on your chest

then this could be a sign of anxious attachment.

There are A LOT of books and articles on the internet about anxious attachment and attachment styles. This blog is focusing on how anxious attachment affects you in more ways than romantic relationships, how important it is to be aware of your anxious attachment and how to manage it so you can feel confident, loved and happy and on a regular basis.

Anxious attachment and how you relate in the world.

It’s important to be aware that you relate in an anxious way so when you feel unnecessarily stressed about relationships or social situations you can take a step back and realise it’s your anxious attachment causing you to feel that way.  Also, to realise it’s OK to be like that and possible to become a securely attached person. What is really interesting is how having anxious attachment can affect you in other areas of your life. It can affect you in how you relate to people in a business context, work environment, friendships, having meetings with a doctor or a therapist. One sign of being an anxious person if you hire a coach or therapist and desire to be in contact with them frequently in-between appointments. I have anxious attachment and it comes out when I am about to have a video call with my own coach or accountant. I worry about the timing, what could go wrong, what if I don’t know what I’m saying or what if they judge me or I feel vulnerable. Anxious attachment can also include separation anxiety, so having difficulty saying goodbye and separating from someone you were intimate with. It can feel like a mini-abandonment. Usually anxious driven behaviours are so habitual that we don’t even know we are doing them. We also get so used to feeling anxious or nervous that it become the norm and don’t flag it when it comes up.

By taking some steps to get to know your inner self better, you will start to notice behaviours that are a sign of anxious attachment. Then you can recognize that you have it and are acting in an anxious way. Once you realise that, you can give yourself some understanding and compassion. With understanding you can separate yourself from the anxious feeling and identify it. Then you can consciously change your behaviours and thoughts so that you feel calm and secure.

It’s really helpful to know why you get nervous butterflies in your stomach or feel uncomfortable at different points in a social interaction. Like I said earlier, anxious attachment behaviours and thoughts are embedded in our subconscious so we don’t even know we’re doing it. It’s more of an impulse and a habitual way of thinking. The way to know if you are feeling anxious about a social interaction is to get a signal from your body. You could get butterflies, a shortness in breath, a certain thought process and drive to act. How do you become cognisant of these symptoms? You set the intention to become aware of it and then work towards that by connecting to your body through meditation and breath-work.

How to improve anxious attachment:

There are three main ways to help anxious attachment. These are using a meditative practise, having the knowledge of your own degree of anxious attachment, and then practising compassion and understanding.

The best practise for an anxious person is to meditate or do breath-work or a combination of both. Meditation is going inward. It’s changing your focus from looking externally to looking internally. Meditation is how you get to know yourself so you aren’t just acting from your subconscious. It helps you make conscious decisions. Meditation can be anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes. I recommend to start with meditation because it’s the easiest. You can add breathe to meditation to help your mind relax. Just follow your breath in and out with your mind and when your mind wonders, bring it back to your breath.

The next step is a breathing practise or breath work. This is when you breathe in a connective breath, in and out of your mouth or nose. A connected breath is when you inhale and before the top of the breath let the breath go in a relaxed exhale and then before you get to the bottom of the exhale, inhale again. It is like a continuous loop. There are many workshops in the city and online. Breathing will help you calm your nerves and relax. It helps to release tension held in your body.

Doing these practises will cause you to be more in touch with your sensations and when you’re feeling anxious. It will also help you connect to your inner self so you realise when you’re acting in an anxious way.

Once you realise this then you have knowledge. And knowledge is power. You know what anxious attachment is and you can identify when you’re acting that way. The next step is the more crucial. That is when you show understanding and compassion for yourself.

How understanding and compassion can help heal anxious attachment:

This is a feeling and mindset. Cultivating compassion for yourself and others is key. Connecting to the goddess Kwan Yin, the goddess of compassion, helped me to feel the quality of compassion. It is easier to feel compassion for others but turning it towards yourself will put you into a state of love.

The first thing is to be understanding. When you feel yourself getting anxious and upset, have the realisation that it’s stemming from anxious attachment and let yourself off the hook. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Have a little understanding for everything you’ve been through in your life and why you could be feeling this way now. Then tap into the feeling of compassion. Show yourself compassion. It is a deeper understanding, mixed with love and acceptance. Not to be confused with pity, it’s about holding space for your anxious feelings and loving yourself anyways. It about having forgiveness and not judging yourself.

Once you have this understanding it becomes a lot easier to digest anxiousness. You can move through with a brighter outlook and also move through it quicker. With the combination of meditation, breathing and compassion you will soon find that anxious feelings will have less hold on you. According to the author Diane Poole Heller, in The Power of Attachment, feeling secure in relating is our natural default and it’s possible to heal anxious attachment.

After this inner care the best thing to do is surround yourself with secure relationships. Cultivating friendships with secure people, being in intimate relationships with secure partners, having a pet, and working with people who are secure will help you to be more secure in yourself.