If you’ve ever wondered why you are the way you are in relationships, you’d probably find a lot of answers in identifying your attachment style. Your attachment style is the way that you relate to others in relationship and what you believe about yourself.

For example, do you feel like you’re often the one that’s “too much” in relationships or do you find yourself on the opposite end of feeling like others are “too needy” in relationships? When there’s conflict in relationship, do you tend to get very rational or quite emotional? Is there a pattern you observe in your dating partners that makes you feel like you keep making the same dating mistakes but you’re not sure what to change?

There are four attachment styles: anxious, avoidant, secure, and disorganized (a combination of anxious and avoidant). Here we’ll take a look at anxious attachment and strategies for becoming more secure.

How Do You Know If You’re Anxiously Attached?

You’re probably anxiously attached if you:

• Need frequent reassurance from your partner

• Feel anxious when you’re separated from your partner

• Tend to get jealous

• Often over-analyze the things your partner does and says

• Feel territorial about friendships

• Worry that you’re too much for people

• Often find that your needs in relationship go unmet

• Are attracted to partners you know aren’t good for you

• Find partners who “check all the boxes” boring

Strategy 1: Work on Self-Soothing

Let’s take it back to childhood for a moment - the place where attachment styles are born. Anxiously attached individuals often had parents that provided connection and emotional attunement sporadically or inconsistently. As such, anxiously attached individuals learned that sometimes their needs were met and other times their needs were diminished, dismissed, or unseen altogether. They learned to be hyper-aware of signs that there was threat to connection. They learned to soothe their fear by re-establishing connection. By not getting their emotional needs for connection met consistently, they lacked development of self-regulating. Self-regulating is the ability to soothe one’s self when in distress. This is something that is developed in our nervous systems after receiving co-regulation. Co-regulation is when another person’s nervous system is calm in the midst of our dysregulated nervous system. When that other person calms us down, our nervous system is co-regulated. That experience creates a template that gets internalized so that individual can self-regulate in the future when another person isn’t available for co-regulation.

Anxiously attached folks often struggle with self-regulation and therefore rely heavily on their partners to regulate their emotions. This is why partners of those who are anxiously attached can find their partner’s “needy” to “too emotional.” It isn’t that there’s anything wrong with the anxiously attached person’s emotions or needs, it’s that the anxiously attached individual often lacks an internal ability to regulate, causing them to be overly-dependent on a partner.

Self-soothing strategies could look like:

• Journaling

• Self-compassion meditations

• Deep breathing

• Movement, exercise, or yoga

• Humming, rocking

• Inner child meditations

• Laughing, watching a comedy for a healthy distraction

Strategy 2: Direct Communication About Needs

Likewise, the anxiously attached individual is hyper-aware of signs that a relationship is going south. They care about this because they’re highly attuned to their own emotions and those of their partner. This can be a valuable trait in relationships, but the dark side of this awareness is that an anxiously attached person can over-analyze and read meaning into something that’s not there, causing them to react out of irrational fears and assumptions.

For example, it’s common for an anxiously attached person to read into the time it takes their partner to respond to a text. For an anxiously attached person with low awareness, they might start drawing conclusions about how it’s a sign their partner is disinterested in them, this leads the anxiously attached person to react in the relationship out of anxiety which could be confusing to the partner and lead to conflict. Someone with high awareness of their anxious attachment might still feel anxious about the time in between texts, but instead of drawing conclusions, they’ll directly ask their partner what they’re curious about or what they’re needing.

The strategy to implement here is to catch spiraling thoughts when they occur. Mindfully notice the thoughts and ask yourself: “What is it I’m afraid of and what do I need?” Then, communicate this to your partner. In the example above, that could sound like:

• What is it I’m afraid of? I’m afraid my partner is taking a long time to text because they’ve lost interest in me. I’m afraid they don’t love me anymore.

• What do I need? I need to know if my partner takes a long time to text back because they are in fact not interested or because of some other reason. I need some reassurance that we are still good and on the same page about our relationship.

“Hi, partner. I noticed that you’ve been taking longer than usual to respond to texts. I really enjoy frequent texting conversations throughout the day because it reminds me that you’re thinking of me and that makes me feel like I matter to you. I’m wondering how you feel about texting and generally, how are you feeling about us?”

Strategy 3: Tolerating Safe Connection, Vulnerability and Intimacy

Anxiously attached individuals have a tendency to be attracted to their opposite - the avoidantly attached. This can be problematic because the needs of the avoidantly attached individual are counter to those of the anxiously attached individual. These relationships often start out very spicy and exciting! Inevitably, if both partners aren’t aware of their attachment styles and how to get their needs met in healthy ways, conflict ensues. Relationships that are up and down and on and off over and over are often a pairing of an anxiously attached individual with an avoidantly attached individual.

Part of growth for an anxiously attached person is to learn to identify partners that will be able to meet their needs. An avoidantly attached person is unlikely to be able to naturally meet the needs of an anxiously attached individual, unless there’s a lot of awareness and clear communication. Anxiously attached partners often find that they feel much less anxious and much more relaxed in relationships with partners who are securely attached or also anxiously attached.

But, the challenge doesn’t end once an anxiously attached individual finds a secure partner. Often, those with anxious attachment struggle to allow themselves to be vulnerable, even in safe relationships where their partner is emotionally attuned and consistent. For the anxiously attached individual, the feelings of intimacy and closeness are a trigger to their nervous system. This leads the anxiously attached individual to resist connection that is safe and crave connection that is chaotic (hence their attraction to avoidantly attached partners).

The strategy for growth here is to focus on incrementally allowing in feelings of safe connection, vulnerability, and intimacy. This might look like the anxiously attached person reflecting back on moments of connection in a safe relationship and noticing how their body feels. It might progress to creating intentional times of mindfully noticing what it feels like to be vulnerable and intimate with a safe partner. Over time, one’s nervous system may replace the old script of connection being unpredictable and unsafe, with the new current experience of safe and consistent connection, making vulnerability and intimacy more tolerable and ultimately more enjoyable. This takes experiencing safe connection and reflecting on it.

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Attachment work is one of the key areas of focus when healing from childhood trauma to improve relationships. Perhaps you’re on the start of your journey and just learning about your attachment style, or maybe you’re years into the work. Your healing matters and you deserve safe and consistent connection. If you’re ready to address these matters in therapy with a trauma-informed and attachment-focused clinician in Arizona, reach out for a free consultation call today!