156. Dating with an anxious attachment style ft. Thais Gibson

Dating with an anxious attachment style comes with a number of challenges: struggling to feel secure, requiring constant reassurance, mistrust, a fear of abandonment, feeling unworthy of love or difficulty setting boundaries. But your attachment style is not a life sentence, it is something you can challenge and heal by embracing vulnerability, healthy love, boundary setting and applying the love you crave from others to yourself. We are joined by the wonderful Thais Gibson, an author, speaker, leader in the personal development field and founder of The Personal Development School as we break down what it means to date and love as someone who is anxiously attached. 

Find Thais here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHQ4lSaKRap5HyrpitrTOhQ 

The attachment quiz we spoke of: https://attachment.personaldevelopmentschool.com/quiz 

Follow us on Instagram: @thatpsychologypodcast 

For business enquiries: [e-mail] 

 

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties,
the podcast where we talk through some of the big
life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they
mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, welcome back to the show.

(00:26):
Welcome back to the podcast. The new listeners or listeners
wherever you are in the world, it is so great
to have you here. Back for another episode as we
break down the psychology of our twenties. A question I
get a lot on the podcast is how to date
as someone who is anxiously attached, How to date as

(00:48):
someone who has a lot of anxiety and kind of
worry to do with romantic attachment, to do with intimacy,
to do with connection. Think that it is a lot
more common in this day and age than we perhaps acknowledge.
So I thought today, what a great opportunity to break

(01:09):
down what attachment theory is, some of the misconceptions about it,
and then focus in on those of us who are
dating with an anxious attachment style, what that looks like
in a relationship, and how we can kind of move
past these tendencies. Of course, we had to bring on
a guest, Hyae Gibson, who knows so much more about

(01:30):
this than I do. She is incredible. Welcome to the show.
I'm so excited. So for those of you who don't know,
Tays has this incredible YouTube channel which I'm going to
refer to first where and a lot of other things
as well. But the YouTube channel was really how I

(01:51):
kind of like began to consume your wisdom and your
work where you break down a lot to do with
attachment theory and dating not just in our twenties but
at all ages. But can you give the listeners kind
of a little bit of a little bit of a
blurb of who you are.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
Yes. So basically I run a business called the Personal
Development School. We put all sorts of content on YouTube.
I am like obsessed with attachment style of people. I
just love human behavior. I love talking about dating and
relationships has been a huge passion of mine. And I
actually ran a client based practice for about ten years
and just had a very long wait list of like

(02:27):
two years or so, and so it was like, Okay,
that's not really the best solution, So how do I
kind of reach more people in a way that makes sense.
So we eventually put a whole bunch of different online
courses together have the Personal Development School. I've written a
couple books and basically put up free content on YouTube
all the time, like almost every day, lots of information,
and there's a big focus specifically around dating, attachment theory,

(02:49):
the subconscious mind, and like really how to change our
attachment style.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
Because I think attachment style is this thing that maybe
you're thinking about it, but it really is kind of
in the backdrop of a lot of our decisions and
a lot of our actions, particularly when it comes to love,
but any kind of relationship. So making people more consciously
aware of it is so so valuable because I think
attachment theory is one of those phenomena where, once you

(03:17):
understand it, so much about your life begins to make
sense so much about your life. It's like suddenly crystal clear.
Are you able to like briefly break down what attachment
theory is for people who might not have an understanding.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
Absolutely, So, first of all, I think what everybody needs
to know is that every single person has what we
call an attachment style. So attachment theory is basically the
work of John Boll. We originally done and he talked
about how our relationship in terms of how we learn
love and can action. In other words, how we learn
to attach to our caregivers in childhood basically become the
set of rules that we think for our adult lives

(03:55):
in terms of what love is supposed to look like.
So we sort of take these rules, these ideas, but
how we're supposed to attach to others, what connections supposed
to look like, and we essentially start living our adult
romantic relationships by those rules. But I found when I
first went back into attachment theory there were a couple
of things missing. Number one was this idea of, okay, well,
what if we don't have a healthy set of rules, right,

(04:16):
what if we have an insecure attachment style? There really
wasn't much an information on how we can change to
become securely attached. And the second thing is, you know,
there's not a ton of information about how each of
the different attachment styles interact with one another. And that's
like really mind blowing, Like when you said a moment
ago that if we have, you know, the awareness of
what each of the attachment styles are, suddenly everything kind

(04:38):
of makes sense. You know, before we understand that every
single person has an attachment style, and this is a
subconscious set of rules we have for love. Often what
we don't realize is happening is it's almost like we're
sitting down, and if you can imagine as an analogy,
we sit down, we try to play a board game
with somebody, but they have a different set of rules
for how the game is supposed to be played, Like
you have the rules for scrabble. I have the rules

(04:58):
for monopoly, like it's gonna be k And so when
we finally can realize, oh, we just have different rule
books and oh, now I know what your rule book is,
I can read it. Oh you know my rule book,
we can find a way to work things out and
to create something new and something amazing. But without that,
we usually personalize everything so much and we take on
all this confusion. So because of that, there's four major

(05:21):
attachment styles that everybody really needs to know and understand,
and every single person has one of these four styles.
So the first style is statistically the style that does
the best in relationships has the easiest time. They are
called the secure attachment style. Securely attached people essentially get
a lot of really healthy parenting in childhood, so they
get a few key really crucial components number one is

(05:43):
they learn that if they cry or express emotion, their
parent uses something called approach oriented behavior basically goes towards them,
wants to understand what's going on, tries to meet their needs.
Number two. Because they try to meet their needs, they
feel the child feels safe relying on other people and
expressing their feeling and expressing their needs to others, and
they learn to trust. Number three and number four. Because

(06:05):
of all of this, they feel this deeper sense of
self worth, like I'm just loved for who I am.
My needs are worthy of being met by others, just because,
you know, not because I earned it, not because I'm
good enough or did something for it, but just because
I exist. And so securely attached children grow up to
be adults with a really healthy rule book. They they think, Hey,
I can meet other people's needs, I can listen to

(06:26):
their emotions, I can express my own, I can express
my own needs. Healthy boundaries are okay, I'm worthy of
love for who I am. I don't have to earn
it all the time. And so securely attached individuals. Statistically,
according to the last like Real big survey of research
about twenty years ago, was make up about fifty percent
of people. Research more recently, in smaller sample sizes seems

(06:48):
to show that number is declining quite rapidly, closer to
about thirty percent of people are securely attached, and they
statistically do the best in relationships. But again that's roughly
maybe thirty percent or thirty percent of people overall that
are secure attachment styles. So then we have the other three.
On one side, there's the anxious preoccupied, the anxiously attached

(07:08):
style you can think of it as, and essentially the
anxious attachment style. What they do is in their childhood
they have a lot of love and care, but a
lot of inconsistency around it. So a really common example
would be that, like, both parents are very loving, but
they work a lot, and so the child has a
lot of love, but the parents are constantly coming and going,
that maybe the child staying with the grandparents who they're

(07:30):
not as close with, and so the child keeps having
love that's given and then taken away, love that's given
and then taken away. And what's really interesting about that
is how the subconscious mind gets programmed is through repetition
and emotion. So if you have this repeated experience of
love being given and then love being taken. It actually
conditions into the subconscious mind of fear of abandonment, and
so anxiously attached individuals as adults really fear abandonment, really

(07:53):
fear being alone, fear being not good enough or excluded
or disliked, and they really try as a cobe mechanism
to maintain proximity to the people that they love. They
try to hold on really tight, and sometimes that can
make them a little bit clinging in relationships. And then
on the far other end of the continuum, we have
dismissive avoidant attachment style, who's pretty much the opposite. They

(08:14):
grow up with some form of childhood emotional neglect, and
what that means is that essentially, even if like food
is on the table, even if it's not like overt neglect,
it's more like under the radar neglect, we'll see that
the dismissive avoidance essentially like because children are wired for connection,
for atonement, if a child growing up who's yearning for

(08:35):
that connection, that presence from their caregivers doesn't have it,
they just go, Okay, well, it hurts to be this
vulnerable and to feel like my needs won't get me,
So I'm going to adapt to this by just denying
that I need connection from other people. And so dismissive
avoidance push all their feelings down. They actually get conditioned
to think because of their feelings not being made space for,

(08:57):
they get conditioned to think that feelings are weak, useless,
negative in some way, so they deny and reject that
part of themselves. They think that part of themselves is
almost like defective in a way, and they shove it down.
And because of that, as adults, they're terrified of getting
too close to people. They're terrified of like opening up,
getting too close, feeling like they did as a child,

(09:18):
feeling weak and vulnerable with our emotional needs couldn't get met,
And so as adults they often like cut relationships out
when things get real. They'll tend to be afraid of commitment,
or just when things are getting too close, they'll run
the other direction. So that's our dismissive avoidance. And then,
very last, but not least, this is the least common
attachment style, but I think it is statistically more common

(09:38):
than people probably realize, is the fearful avoidant. So the
fearful avoidant grows up in a household where there's basically
extreme conditions. So let's say, for example, that there's tons
of fighting in the house, right, so you never know
what you're gonna get you come home. Sometimes it's peace,
sometimes it's chaos. Sometimes Mom is in a good mood.
Sometimes that's in a terrible mood. Sometimes it's flipped or

(10:00):
Another really common example for what creates a fearful avoidant
attachment style is that we might have a parent, for example,
who's an alcoholic. So let's just say like one day
Mom is drinking child, the mom comes home, child teeth. Mom,
she's in a good mood, she's had a few drinks,
she's super loving and in a great mood. Then another
day Mom comes home, she's had a way too many
drinks and she's an angry drunk. Today. Another day mom's

(10:22):
so boring up, she feels guilty, she's being kind. Another
day mom's sobering up, she's going through withdrawal, she's in
a terrible mood. So fearful avoids grow up in this
space where number one, they get conflicting ideas about love,
something that sometimes has really nice experiences sometimes has really
terrifying experiences. So they want love, but they are afraid
of it at the same time. And also they feel

(10:42):
like they never know what they're going to get, so
they're super hyper vigilant, always walking on eggshells. They kind
of struggle to trust in relationships, and they're very hot
and cold. It's like, come get close to me, Come
get close. You get close, and it's like, no, I
change my mind, get away. And so they're very hot
and cold, and they actually share attributes of both the
anxious and avoidant side, but they go back and forth
between those sides on a really, really frequent basis.

Speaker 1 (11:03):
That is such a good summary. I'm like listening to that,
and the point you made about parents who like work
a lot is so valuable because I think often we
just tend to imagine that it's extreme trauma that creates
anything but a secure attachment style, but it really is
just any kind of inconsistencies, as you said in the

(11:27):
love and the compassion and the support that we're shown.
I want to ask you something here that it has
been on my mind like a lot. Is it just
childhood experiences that create your attachment style or can of
equally be molded by early relationship experiences or even free
like recent relationship.

Speaker 2 (11:46):
Experiences amazing question. So we're not born with an attachment style.
It forms over time based on the conditions were repeatedly
exposed to. So because as children we basically like we're
sort of in what we can call a hyper scartestable state,
meaning that we are like really sponging up all of
our programs in childhood, we're very impressionable. A lot of

(12:08):
our programming runs deep, So our childhood attachment style is
formed at a very early age and it often sticks
with us for quite some time. But anything we are
repeatedly exposed to for long enough that causes a big impact. Again,
that like repetition and emotion is what program is a
subconscious mind, then it can absolutely reprogram our attachment style.

(12:29):
So for example, somebody could be secure see their parents
go through a really awful divorce at fifteen, and that
could make them fearful avoidant or anxious. Or another example
is you could be anxiously attached, get into a relationship
with a narcissist. At the end of that relationship, you're
now a fearful avoidant because there's a lot more substantial
chaos and trauma. So our attachment cell can absolutely change,

(12:52):
but you can think of the prerequisite as being it's
less likely to be one experience that changes it, but
more for your attachment style to change, there has to
be a lot of repeated exposure to something different.

Speaker 1 (13:03):
That's really important to note. It's the repetition that really counts.
It's not like you've had you've been ghosted one time
by someone on a dating app, and suddenly you're like
an anxious avoidant, like it's a it's a repeat kind
of experience. So I really want to focus on the
anxious attachment style here, because, as you said, we have

(13:24):
secure that's the most common. Anxious is the second most common,
and it's increasing in prevalence in probably a lot in
this current generation. I have two questions for you. A
why do you think that is? And B what does
that What kind of consequences does that have for how

(13:44):
we approach dating?

Speaker 2 (13:46):
Really read question? So I think there's two. There's a
couple of reasons, right. I think one of the biggest ones,
just quite honestly, is like kind of cultural at this point,
and a lot of the Western world at least, but
you know, really the vast majority of the world as
a whole Unfortunately, there's a lot of pressure, right, so
we don't have what we had twenty years ago, thirty
years ago, forty years ago, where we had one parent

(14:08):
able to stay home. And one of the biggest impactors
for what creates somebody's attachment style is the amount of
presence they have. And I don't mean like gifts. I
mean like the amount of attunement the person, the parent
being physically present. And you know, because we have usually
both parents working in a household nowadays, a lot of
that kind of you know, even if the parents and

(14:28):
caregivers are loving, often children have to go to daycare
young and you know that's not me saying anything towards parents,
like usually because of societal pressures, like literally there's no choice.
But you can see how that context is sort of
being set. The stage is being set to create more
anxiously attached children because they don't have as much connection
and care coming from their parents in the same way,

(14:50):
because it's literally not possible for the vast majority of people.
And I think what happens is because of that, what
you'll see is anxiously attached individual. It's like they really
one of their biggest challenges that they'll have with dating
is that they don't properly vet what they want because
they get too busy people pleasing. So when I would

(15:10):
have clients who would come to me from different attachment
styles back when I was running my practice, I would
often have dismissive avoidance. They would sit down and they
would be like, too picky, you know, as soon as
they saw one flaw, they'd run in the other direction
and dating. And then we'd have anxiously attached individuals who
are not picky enough. They're not like getting clear on
what they're looking for, what they really want in a relationship,
what their standards are. So rather than properly vetting somebody

(15:34):
when they were dating, they would find somebody who's interested
in them as long as I thought that person was
moderately attractive and they moderately got along with them. They
would then spend that whole first dating stage of the
relationship trying to win the person over through people pleasing,
through you know, sort of putting on their best behavior
all the time, rather than by being like, is this
person actually a good fit for me? And rather than

(15:56):
expressing their needs and talking about their boundaries and seeing
if that someone's a good fit into their lives as well,
and there's a huge impact in dating that way, because
then we're not picking the right potential partners. And also,
people statistically are less attracted to people pleasers than they
are to people who have a strong sense of self,
and so we may not realize that. I think anxious,
preoccupied individuals kind of think that like if I'm people

(16:19):
pleasing and I'm more agreeable and I say yes to
everything that they oh, then we get along and then
everything's easy and then I'll be liked and accepted and
I'll win them over. But actually it usually works against
them if they don't have this appropriate set of standards
for themselves. They say what's okay with them and what's
not okay with them, and if they're not backing themselves, statistically,
people are actually less attracted to that.

Speaker 1 (16:40):
Overall, that makes a lot of sense. I think it's
it makes sense, but it's also so unfair because if
you think about the people who people please like, often
it does come from a very deep like childhood abandonment
wound or a guilt wound, where yeah, well you feel
like I need to make everybody else happy because otherwise

(17:01):
I am unsafe and because otherwise I do not get
the connection and the attachment that I crave. So when
it comes to these kind of like people pleasing tendencies,
you firstly mentioned that sometimes it results in us choosing
partners who might actually in the long term not be

(17:21):
right for us, might not actually be a good match.
What does it then look like when we get into
the relationship past the first you know, honeymoon period where
everyone's on their best behavior, everyone's trying to win the
other person over. When you get deeper into the relationship,
assuming this person is actually right for you, what kind

(17:43):
of starts to show up in our behavior?

Speaker 2 (17:46):
Amazing questions. These are fantastic questions. So before I dive
into that was just for a moment, I want to
say one other thing, because you've said something really powerful,
which is that when you know it's sort of unfair,
because when somebody is like trying to people please, it's
coming from this deep childhood trauma. Is actually what it
is like, this abandonment wound of feeling afraid of being
out on their own and then being unsafe or being

(18:07):
disliked or rejected, And when anxious individuals are actually feeling
anxiously attached, like when that anxious attachment and they're needing
to call or text or maintain proximity when they're feeling
like that. I think something that's understated is that that's
actually a trauma response for somebody that's actually them when
you feel that panic in your body and your conscious
mind knows better like don't call them again, or give

(18:29):
them space, or or you have to put your phone
in the other room and shut it off, or you
know these kinds of things, and yet you can't help
it and eventually do make that phone call again or
eventually do reach back out. That's actually trauma response, And
so there is something disheartening about that. And at the
same time, I think it's really important to look at
the sort of silver lining of it too, which is

(18:50):
that exactly what you need to do to be successful
in dating is also exactly what you need to do
to heal yourself and to feel better actually heal from
those childhood wounds. So with the acknowledgment of that stuff,
and I'm sure we can get into all that stuff
in a little bit like what that looks like, but
just with the acknowledgment of, like, this really sucks that
I have these wounds and they're painful at the same time,

(19:13):
noticing them and acknowledging them and being able to work
through them in your dating life will also help you
feel so much more secure and confident and at peace
within yourself. So it's very healing. So there's it's like
a crisis and an opportunity, if that makes sense. So
so going back to what you were talking about, basically,
an anxious attachment style and a relationship has a few

(19:33):
core things, so they will tend to in that dating
stage specifically start you know, people pleasing, trying to win
the person over, and if anybody who's listening is not familiar,
we actually have six stages of a relationship, so we
start off with a dating stage, which is actually meant
to be the vetting stage. Then we go into the
honeymoon stage of a relationship and that's that like honeymoon period,

(19:57):
but the mask is usually still on during that period.
After that, when people start getting more comfortable, they start
dropping the mask and that becomes the power struggle stage.
Every relationship has one, and the more you are people
pleasing and not being yourself in the dating and honeymoon stage,
the harder the power struggle stage will be and then
after the power struggle stage, if we make it through

(20:18):
the rights of passage, which are really about being vulnerable
and learning to show ourselves and share ourselves with our partners,
then we get into the stability stage. Then that's followed
by the commitment stage, where we start talking about really
long term commitments marriage, children, living together, et cetera. And
then we get to the bliss stage, which is like
the honeymoon stage, but where you actually deeply know each other.
So what happens for a lot of anxious attachments to

(20:40):
your earlier point is that we can get into a
place where it's like you're so busy trying to win
the person over and be on your best behavior that
you don't ever share who you really are, what your
real needs are in a relationship. And if you do
share them, you share them retroactively. So rather than saying like, hey,
I could use some support, can you do the dishes,
it's like, hey, I hold that in I don't ever
ask for the support, And then finally one day I'm like,

(21:02):
you never do the dishes, And then you know it's
that doesn't land with somebody that we care about because
they just feel criticized because anxiously attach people even though
we think that they're so emotionally available. People pleasing is
not an emotionally available thing. People pleasing is I'm hiding right,
I'm not truly being myself. I'm not sharing myself with
you out of a fear of rejection. And so that's

(21:23):
gonna cost me something in the power struggle stage. And
so what ends up taking place is is an anxious
attachment style. They usually, you know, sort of date, so
they they're so good at trying to win people over
in the dating and honeymoon stage, and then when the
power struggle comes on, they really see a lot of
turbulence in their relationships at that point. And what they'll
start to see is that they feel really unseen by

(21:44):
their partners, unheard, like their needs don't matter. Sometimes they
can feel resentful because they're usually like pouring into the
relationship with somebody and then feeling like they're not getting
their needs met back. Then that can cause them to
be slightly critical in their communication, which then often causes
the other person to just shut down and meet their
needs even less than they already are. And then we'll
often see anxious, preoccupied attachment styles have a lot of

(22:06):
fears come up when they see their partner pull back
and then try to sort of maintain that proximity, try
to get closer, and often we can get stuck in
these cycles where we keep trying to get closer, the
person poles away, keep trying to get closer, the person
poles away, and it can be really painful for the
anxiously attached style, especially in the power struggle stage of relationships.

Speaker 1 (22:24):
So in the power struggle stage, what are we like
most likely to see because I've not heard about this before.
I knew about obviously the honeymoon stage in the bliss stage,
but I never I've never heard about this power struggle moment.

Speaker 2 (22:37):
So the power struggle stage statistically is the stage where
most people break up in relationships, and it is one
of the most challenging stages. But again I really find
it to be it's like the same thing, right, It's
like a crisis in an opportunity. It's really hard, and
it also presents the most opportunity for building really deep
roots in a relationship. So in the power struggle, one

(23:01):
of the rights of passage to make it out of
the power struggle is being vulnerable with our partners, really
letting somebody see us, like what our real fears are,
what our concerns are for anxious preoccupies. That involves things like,
you know, sharing that sometimes they need reassurance or sometimes
they need certainty, you know, letting their partner know if
you cancel plans, I'm okay with the plans canceled sometimes,

(23:21):
but try to rebook them or tell me when we're
going to meet next, or you know, so them asking
for Hey, I can be flexible, but I still need
you to see that these are my needs and these
are the things that are important to me. So it
really requires a lot of expression vulnerably about their needs,
about their fears. And what that opportunity becomes is when
I lower my mask and I start sharing who I

(23:42):
am with you without conditions, I now present the opportunity
to be loved in a more unconditional way. Because when
I'm only sharing who I am with conditions, you can
only love me conditionally. That's all I make space for.
And so what's going to end up happening is I'm
going to constantly, if I was anxiously attached, feel this
sense of like you don't see me you don't hear me,
you don't really care about me, and it'll feel defeating

(24:03):
and saddening. But if instead we can drop the mask,
we can share in a healthy way, be more vulnerable,
gain that acceptance from our partner, and also have our
partner do the same thing. That's where we now build
real roots in a relationship where we can really deep
in love and what it means to be loved, and
that sets us up for success in the future stages.

(24:24):
So it's tricky, and we'll generally see the most fighting
in the power struggle stage, the most bickering arguments, push
pull kind of behaviors, but if we can do it properly,
we also see tremendous success coming out on the other side.

Speaker 1 (24:36):
It's so fascinating to hear you say that, because I
think I'm applying that to my own relationship. And we
were speaking about this before we started recording, about how
I think he used to be someone who is very
anxiously attached, and then I met someone who really challenged
me and in the best ways possible, and like challenged
me with healthy love such that the little tendencies that

(24:57):
I'd built up, the defensive mechanisms like they just didn't
work anymore. I used to always have this sense of
like it was almost like a game, right. I was like,
I don't want you to leave me. Oh, I don't
want you to not reply to my messages, so I'm
not going to reply to yours. And he was like, no,
we're not playing those games anymore. Why are you feeling

(25:20):
so anxious about this? Like, let's have a discussion. And
it was so hard, Like it was actually really difficult
in that stage to force myself to be vulnerable and
to be like, I'm experiencing a lot of anxiety right
now that you're going to walk away, that you're going
to leave me. That small thing where you didn't hug
me when you first walked through the door, that was

(25:43):
really it was a really huge alarm bell for me.
And it was so like they said, difficult, But I
always think that vulnerability is met with huge emotional personal
social relationship reward, because you showing up as yourself and
you're being like, I'm going to do the hard thing here.

(26:05):
I'm going to be incredibly open with this person, knowing
that they could say the wrong thing, but taking that
risk anyways. And I do always think that you come
out the other side with a lot a better understanding
at least of who that person is.

Speaker 2 (26:20):
And you know it's real, Like the fear is real
when you have those conversations, like I can remember the
first time I was a fearful avoidant attachment, so that
I can remember the first time I shared about having
a fear in a relationship about But it was with
my now husband, but at the time we were going
through like sort of our own power struggle and I
had to open up and share that I had this

(26:41):
fear of something sort of similar. Mine was like more
about like betrayal, and and it was funny because it
was not really based on anything at the time except
my own stories about something. But I remember being so terrified, thinking,
oh my gosh, I can't believe I'm sharing this with
somebody in scared of feeling weak or rejected or too vulnerable.
But it's like the change when we learn to do

(27:03):
that work is so beautiful, because you know, if we're
in a relationship where someone with somebody we vetted a
little bit and who's a good fit, people respond way
more than I think we imagine. Because as a child,
if you couldn't get your needs met. That's all your programming.
You're like, oh, well, then my needs will not be met.
So I have to keep people pleasing or I have
to keep holding back and not saying anything. And so

(27:24):
we assume that onto our partners. We tend to project
that onto our present if that was our experience as children,
But as an adult, it's actually very different, right. We
can communicate differently, We can share things more, we have
emotional literacy, we can talk things out in a different
way that we didn't have access to as a child.
So we get to heal all of these different underlying programs.

(27:45):
And when we communicate our needs, we actually give ourselves
the opportunity to have people show up for us and
I can share from my experience. I'm curious about yours.
But for me, one of the most beautiful things I
learned is that when I actually shared about my needs
and I actually took the courage and and the risk
of being vulnerable, I actually felt so much more loved
by all the people in my life because they really

(28:06):
did shop and they weren't perfect, and if they weren't perfect,
they could go back and have a conversation again. But
like I couldn't believe how much I actually felt like
I could receive love from other people when I did that,
And I'm curious to hear if you felt that as.

Speaker 1 (28:17):
Well, one hundred percent, and not just in terms of
my partner, Like I remember having like this conversation with
him where I was like, these are my fears and
then looking at him afterwards and being like, oh, right,
so like this is what the next stage about love
looks like, and being like, I am so in love
with you right now because you met me here. And

(28:38):
it was also something that I started doing with my friends,
so I had a lot of anxiety around friendships fizzling out,
this preoccupation with this idea that my friends really didn't
like me, they didn't want to be around me, like
and or. I would just experience a lot of loneliness,
even when it was unjustified. And I remember there was

(29:01):
like this light bulb moment. And it may seem so
common sense to people listening to this, you're already applying
these tactics, but I just like messaged my friend and
was like, I am just feeling really low right now.
And it's not that I'm feeling like everything in my
life is great, but I just really need connection from you,

(29:21):
and I just really need you to call me and
just like give me a bit of reassurance. And she
did it, and she was like, Yeah, let's do something
this weekend, let's go to the beach. And it was
this weird thing where you're exactly right. As a child,
you don't know how to ask for that. You can't
be like, hey, mom, can you stop working late? Because
I've identified that I'm on the way to beginning like
anxiously attached, like you're sometimes non verbal, like that's not

(29:45):
a way that you can operate. But then as you
become an adult, it's like, wow, it's so crazy to
realize that, especially as someone who maybe was anxious or
any of those number of insecure attachment styles, just speaking
your needs a lot of the time means that they
will be met.

Speaker 2 (30:02):
It's so beautiful. And I just love like talking about
things like this because it's so powerful, Like, you know,
having also witnessed that firsthand with so many like friendships,
family relationships, like how much we actually allow ourselves to
be loved by people we care about so much when
we do those things and it's like such a rewarding
experience and for people who like maybe think of this, like,
what if the person doesn't show up, Well, that might happen,

(30:25):
But then those people aren't really meant to be in
your inner circle anyways. You know, those people aren't meant
to withstand the test of time in your life. And
it's worth building relationships with people that are. It's worth
going through figuring those things out so that you can
have people around you who really do show up for you,
who really do care about you. And I think as
an anxious attachments out, it's good to also practice showing

(30:45):
up for ourselves, Like you know, there's that part as
well of self soothing. But I cannot stress enough how
beautiful it is to practice that vulnerability piece.

Speaker 1 (30:54):
Absolutely, we're going to take a quick break and when
we come back, we're going to discuss the interactions between
the anxious attachment style and the avoidant attachment style. We
will be back with you very shortly. Something that I
have learnt recently is that the anxious attachment style is

(31:18):
often attracted to the avoidant attachment style, whether that is
fearful or dismissive. Why is that? Because that feels so counterintuitive.
Surely the anxiously attached person would be most attracted to
someone who was secure, but you were telling me that
is not often the case.

Speaker 2 (31:36):
Yeah, it's an amazing question. So here's what happens. So
when we think of our attachment style, I want us
to first think of the difference between like conscious and subconscious.
So conscious mind, I'm sure everybody's had this experience in
some way where they're like their mind knows better. They're
going I know this is not the right fit for me,
or I know I should leave this relationship that's not working,
or I know that this person's like not the guy

(31:58):
I should be dating, or not the woman that I
should be, you know, and yet we repeat patterns. Well,
that's the difference between our conscious and subconscious. Conscious minds
can logically analyze and see things, but our subconscious is
the one running the show. The subconscious is actually responsible
for ninety five to ninety seven percent of our beliefs,
our thoughts, our decisions, our emotions, our actions. So what

(32:19):
happens is when we think of our attachment style, I
like to get everybody in the habit of thinking of
it as like the subconscious set of rules that you
have about love. And when we look at tackling the subconscious.
One thing that's really valuable to realize is that our
subconscious mind's biggest priority is survival. So what this means
is that anything that feels familiar feels safe and thus

(32:40):
increases the chances that we're going to survive, and that's
what the subconscious is seeking the most. So what's funny
is that what our subconscious comfort zone is, that sort
of zone that our subconscious keeps wanting to keep us
in and stay in, is actually that as an anxiously
attached person, the relationship you have to yourself is to
constantly dismiss and avoid your own feelings, needs and desires

(33:06):
in favor of pleasing other people, which means your subconscious
comfort zone, the zone that you're used to operating in
all day long, is to put your needs last, feelings last,
not really care about your own boundaries, not worry too
much about you being a priority, and so that's that
zone of familiarity and safety to your subconscious mind. So
when we're starting to invest in people or we're dating people,

(33:28):
guess what one of the biggest factors is that drives attraction.
If somebody represents the subconscious comfort zone and the relationship
we have to ourselves, which means that often anxiously attach
people even though they might see somebody be dismissive not
make an effort pull away. The anxious attachment style often
goes that doesn't feel good or that's not healthy, and

(33:49):
yet their subconscious is like, and we love them. We
really are so interested, you know, they're on our mind
twenty four to seven. And so it's because that subconscious
comfort is a big factor that drives attraction. So that's
really why the sense of happening. And obviously both the
fearful avoidant attachment style and dismissive avoidant they both tend
to sort of push people away and kind of be

(34:11):
a little bit dismissive or avoidant, which really feels familiar
and like we have the butterflies that go off, which
may actually be more like red flags that are being waved,
but the subconscious mind doesn't know any better.

Speaker 1 (34:23):
Well, it's that age old sense. And I say this
all the time. Sometimes our brains our bodies confuse anxiety
with excitement and with the spark and with passion, when
that is sometimes not true and just your brain trying
to interpret a situation is more positive and is more beneficial.

(34:46):
So this, this is really fascinating to me because obviously,
what a dismissive and avoidant, fearful avoidant, and an anxiously
attached person wants out of a relationship is different because
what they yet, because what they're looking for in relationship
is different. What they want from the relationship is different.
Why is that so destructive for the anxiously attached in particular?

Speaker 2 (35:10):
Yeah, because exactly what they have is their subconscious comfort
zone in relationship to self, which is causing them so
much pain, is exactly what they end up attracting in
relationships or being attracted to in other So one of
the biggest things is that as anxious preoccupies, if anybody
who is ap could sort of take a look, they
would see that as an anxious person, anxious preoccupied person.

(35:32):
The things that they do to themselves that hurt themselves
the most is that they don't speak up for their needs.
They put themselves on the back burner. They pretend like
things are okay with them when they're not. You know,
I think of like somebody's sitting there and somebody's hurting
them and they're like, it's fine, it's not a big deal.
Because they're always prioritizing other people and getting that approval
and that connection, but it's always at the expense of

(35:53):
self abandonment, right, So part of what happens is how
we keep our subconscious wounds alive from childhood because we
have to ask ourselves the question, like, if our wounds happened.
Let's say somebody's in their twenties listening to this on
your podcast, and this happened their abandonment wounds started when
they were five, how are they still here? The past is,
you know, fifteen years gone, twenty years gone. Well, what's

(36:14):
actually happening is that we actually can't keep wounds alive
unless we're constantly opening the wound and you know, sort
of peeling off the scab on a regular basis. So
the wounds stay alive for an anxious, preoccupied person because
they keep abandoning themselves first. And so as long as
that cycle of self abandonment, putting themselves last, not sharing

(36:35):
their boundaries, not speaking up for their needs, as long
as they keep that alive in the relationship to themselves,
that's still going to be what they're attracted to in others.
And then when somebody else does that back to them,
it hurts one hundred times more because there's a wound
there that hasn't had the chance to heal. So for
somebody secure to experience that they don't have these preexisting wounds,
it's not as big of a deal somebody anxious who
has these preexisting wounds. When somebody touches it, it hurts

(36:58):
so much more. And that's part of where that problem
needs to really be solved for a root level.

Speaker 1 (37:03):
It also sounds like such a cycle right where it's like,
if the only love that you've ever come to expect
and accept is this kind of blueprint, Obviously you're not
going to know any different. You have no idea of
what love, healthy love, secure love actually feels like, So
you're going to just repeat behaviors that put you in

(37:25):
the same situation again and again and again. So how
can we actually move past our anxiously attached tendencies? Like
a question that I really had for you coming into
this was is our attachment style forever? Is it predictive?
Or are there things that we can do about it?

Speaker 2 (37:45):
Yeah, it's an amazing question and such an important one.
So the answer it always gives to people is like,
first of all, you're not born with the attachment style.
It's conditioned into you, and it's really through repetition and emotion,
that sort of key thing we keep talking about, and
we can recondition it through repetition less emotions. So there's
a few things that we can do and anxious attachment styles,
there's a few core things that are really good starting places.

(38:07):
One is you have to learn what your needs are
and you have to start advocating for them, because if
you try to advocate for your needs when they don't
get met, you advocate for them in a way where
you're also less likely to be heard. So if you
advocate for your needs, you're like, you never give me certainty,
you never spend enough time with me. People just hear criticism,
and then it's tragic because then somebody gets even less

(38:28):
needs met and it becomes aus vicious cycle. So one
of the first things and what anxious attachment styles tend
to need the most in their relationships is certainty, consistency,
Transparency is very important, a sense of safety, reassurance, validation,
presence again not gifts, but like actual attunements, somebody giving

(38:49):
their ability to be present to the person they love,
and a lot of encouragement from their partners. Like those
eight things tend to be really top to your needs
for anxious attachment styles to feel like they can really
feel safe in a relationship, rest, decompress. But we also
have to as anxious attachment styles, part of self soothing
and not feeling when you feel that sense of panic

(39:11):
as an anxious attachment style where you're like, oh my gosh,
and that panic's alive in your body and you're having
that kind of trauma response. Part of how you learn
to self soothe so that it doesn't always have to
be calling again or things like that, is to learn
to give those needs in the relationship to yourself through
repetition and emotion. So if an anxious attachment style learns
their needs, knows that those are their top eight needs,

(39:33):
starts giving those to themselves repetitively on a daily basis,
like validating their wins each day, creating a sense of
certainty by asking the right questions, but then also brings
those needs into their relationships with others and let them
be known, asks for them, practices that vulnerability. That's a
first huge place for anxious attachments to start healing. And

(39:55):
a second place. It's really profound for anxious attachment styles
is sometimes aps tend to get into a space where
they'll go into enmeshment and codependency, meaning when they get
into a relationship, they will make that person the center
of their universe. And it doesn't mean that somebody can't
be like this massive, huge, beautiful, amazing person in your life,
because they absolutely can and they should be. But anxious

(40:17):
attachment cells sometimes will start chipping away at the other
areas of life. So, for example, when they're in a
romantic relationship, they'll spend less time focusing on friends, family,
their career, their finances, their physical health, their mental emotional health. Like,
there's so many areas of life that are really valuable,
but sometimes anxious preoccupies will kind of like put them

(40:38):
on the back burner when they get into a relationship.
The more that you give yourself away, the more that
you stop focusing in a sort of balanced way across
those different areas of life. Like you put your career
goals on hold, you're just prioritizing your relationship. You spend
all your budget going out to buy new clothes and
impress the person you're dating, or spend money on a

(40:58):
fancy dinners, you know, the more that you give yourself
up without like actually considering how those choices are affecting
you at your core and not seeing yourself it's also
a person equal to the other person. The more you
will then subconsciously put stress on the relationship because it's
like that person becomes your whole world because you're ignoring

(41:19):
the other parts of your world. So another really important
part of healing for anxious attachment cells is to make
sure that you're making space and time for the other
areas of your life that fill you up, that will
actually help you stay really grounded and centered and present.
And then I would say a third thing that tends
to be really valuable is I call this just questioning
your stories. It's a form of reprogramming. If we do

(41:40):
it repetitively, it's very, very valuable. But as an anxious
attachment cell, you know, as somebody who's lived through this,
I was fearful avoidance. I had the anxious side. And
it sounds like you've lived through this. Is it's so easy,
Like somebody doesn't call you back, and where does your
mind go. It's like, oh my gosh, they're leaving me,
they're not coming back, they're losing interest. You know, we
jump to conclusions based on our own pre existing core wounds.

(42:04):
But if we can really sit in that story and
we can question it, we can say, Okay, they didn't
call me back and it means they're leaving me right now?
Is that really true? Can I one hundred percent know
that that's true? And we can just take the wind
out of the sales of like that story that wants
to take us a million miles an hour down to
like all the worst case scenarios that are going to
happen when we can hold those narratives in the light,

(42:25):
or sometimes we go they didn't call me back, they
got in a car accident, all these bad things are happening,
Like we can really project all these scary scenarios. When
we can learn to witness those thoughts and just question
them and not jump too far into them, we can
also self soothe in a powerful way. And if we
do that repetitively, a lot of those stories stop showing
back up, because repetition and emotion is actually pro reprogramming

(42:46):
that from being that comfort zone of what we're used
to thinking. So I'd say those are three really really
powerful places to start.

Speaker 1 (42:52):
I love those tips. And further to the last one
as well, just ask, just be like, hi, you didn't
just ask them. It's so it's so funny that like
it's it seems so like I think for anyone who
is like securely attached, they'd be like, hey, why didn't
you reply to me like I'm annoyed? But for anyone else,
they'd be like, how what do you mean? I can
say that, isn't that just going to drive them away further?

(43:14):
But it's like, no, you can just ask. And the
other thing that I would actually add to that is
sometimes when we I think, when we haven't had the
love that we think we deserve, when love has been
like in a deficit and we've had really like the
supply has been low. Right, not to use like an
economics term, but when we feel like love has been
in a deficit, we see it as like the only

(43:39):
thing that we want in life, and we are we
put it on such a pedestal. And of course love
is so important, it is like the lifeblood of being
a human, but it is not the only thing about
you that is valuable. Is your capacity to be loved
and I also think that love isn't something that only
has to come from other people. You can show yourself

(44:01):
the love that you expect from others. I always think
about this in the sense of like the love languages, right,
we constantly think that we need to receive words of
affirmation from someone else, acts of service from someone else,
physical touch from someone else in order to fill up
those needs. But you can actually perform your love languages
for yourself in those moments where you're feeling really anxious,

(44:23):
or really abandoned, or really like trying to catastrophize every
small thing, Like give yourself a hug, speak words of
affirmation to yourself, go and take yourself on a walk,
and buy yourself like a little treat, a juice, something
that's going to make you feel better, as a way
to show yourself the love that you're constantly expecting from

(44:47):
others and should be expecting from others, but also should
equally expect from yourself.

Speaker 2 (44:51):
I love that. That's so beautiful and it's so funny
because we talk a lot about this too, and you
just nailed it, which is like we actually give love
to our our selves through our love languages, but also
through our needs and so the things that we feel
like we're needing so badly from somebody, when we just
want them to answer the phone, or we just want
them to call us back, or we just want them
to text us more. It's often a really valuable exercise

(45:14):
to give those levelanguhiges absolutely, and the big ones for
anxious preoccupies are usually quality time, physical touchboards of affirmation
like those are usually the top tier ones we're anxious.
But then also to be like, well, what is it
that I need from them so badly? And when you
said that beautiful thing where you know, often like it
represents a deficit people who feel like love is the
center of their universe, And I do agree with you.

(45:35):
It's like the lifeblood of being a human being. And
if we're yearning for it from other people so so much,
it always means that we don't have enough in the
relationship to ourselves, and so we can We don't have
to just do that when we're anxious. We can do
that where we meet our needs or love lang which
is when we're anxious and needing something from others. But
also the more we make like active habits and practice
out of it on a daily basis, and the more

(45:56):
we just show up and create those routines in our lives,
we fill our bucket halfway. And part of what's happening
for anxious attachment styles is that they're not filling their
bucket halfway. So the moment somebody else can't fill their bucket,
it's like driving around with your gas tank and you
know that you've like two kilometers left right, it's like
you're right down to the brand, and so we panic.
But if you can get into the habit it's always

(46:17):
driving with a half tank full, then if somebody can't
go from you know, pull in your gas tank and
go from half to full, you're still totally fine and
it's completely okay. And so you know, if you're seeing
that in your life, being able to give yourself to
that proactively and habitually makes such a difference and also
really helps retrain the subconscious mind to get more secure

(46:37):
in the relationship to self.

Speaker 1 (46:40):
I love that analogy. I absolutely adore that analogy. Thank
you so much for coming on the show and for
spreading your wisdom. I feel like I actually learnt so
much like I'm listening to I was listening to you.

(47:01):
Being like that is just making so much sense to me.
Everything is checking out. I can apply so much of
this to my relationship and my past relationships and the
relationships that I've had with my parents and so many
other people in my life. So I want to thank
you again for finding the time to come on the
podcast and share your wisdom. Where can the listeners find you?

Speaker 2 (47:25):
Thank you so much. Thank you for sharing. Got that too,
So even buy me at Personal Development School dash TII
skipson It's spelled tchai ask kind of like tie with
an ass at the end, but just Personal Development School
will show up. And then also if anybody wants a
free attachment style quiz, we have a free quiz. It
tells you like your attachment style and then it gives
you a report on like your wounds, your needs, the

(47:46):
ways you can communicate, gives like some supportive tools all
for free at www dot Personaldevelopment school dot com.

Speaker 1 (47:53):
Oh my goodness, I'm going to go and do that
now I feel like I know the answer. But what
a good resource. Also, there were so many attached quizzers
out there that it's like we can tell you your
attachment style and like five questions and then you have
to you have to like submit, like you've got to
pay for it. It's like fifty dollars in it like
doesn't tell you anything.

Speaker 2 (48:09):
So yeah, yeah, ours is free and I think there's
about thirty questions on there to really get into like
the nitty gritty and really get you a clear answer.

Speaker 1 (48:16):
I'm so excited, I'm actually gonna go and do it.
I'm going to send it to my friends as well.
So again, thank you so much for coming on the show.
As always, if you enjoyed this episode, please feel free
to leave a five star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
wherever you are listening right now. If there is a
friend who needs to hear this, maybe you should share

(48:37):
them a link, send it along, share the love, maybe
they'll learn something. And make sure that you are following
us so you know when new episodes come out. And finally,
if you have an episode suggestion, if you want us
to talk more about maybe the dismissive avoidant the fearful avoidant,
please reach out to me at that Psychology podcast on

(48:57):
Instagram and have a lovely week. We would be back
next week with another episode.

Speaker 2 (49:08):
M