This article follows from last month’s where we looked at the four main attachment styles that researchers have identified to illuminate the different ways people approach and react in relationships. To read May’s article in full and to discover which attachment style you are most closely aligned with, please click here.
Let’s turn our attention to ways in which you can alter your attachment style and improve the quality of your relationships. If you’ve determined that you have a secure attachment style, you’ll likely be happy to keep things as they are. A secure attachment style translates to a healthy self-image, feeling worthy of love, and viewing your partner in a positive light. You’re also responsive, emotionally flexible and able to easily adapt to different situations. But, if you discovered that your attachment style is either Avoidant, Anxious or Fearful-Avoidant, you’ll likely be wanting to know what can be done to change and improve things.
First of all, the good news is that it is possible to change an attachment style. No one needs to remain a prisoner to the past programming that’s causing them to approach relationships in the way they do, often unconsciously. It’s possible to update the internal working models we’ve been operating on and change our style of relating and how we react to our feelings. In short, we can develop a fifth attachment style – The Earned Secure attachment style.
As the name implies, earned secure is an attachment style that is going to take some work. It starts with appreciating that our brain is able to change, no matter our age or how deeply engrained a behavior has become. This capacity is known as neuroplasticity. And with focused attention and practice, we can build new brain circuitry that supports other ways of relating. We can develop the emotional capabilities that secure connections with our caregivers would have afforded us, enabling us to reclaim the richness of our emotional experience and bring a more fully integrated and resourced self to our relationships.
Knowing our current attachment style helps us identify when we are triggered. Triggers are the moments in relationships when we unconsciously respond to situations at the behest of our old neural software. Only by identifying and observing our emotional dynamics and what we do reflexively in these situations can we start to disentangle ourselves from the responses that are pre-programmed into our nervous system. We can then begin to do things differently.
Of course, the temptation is often to keep things as they are. To not face what’s causing us to respond in a way typical of an Avoidant, or Anxious or Fearful Avoidant attachment style. But doing the same old thing will mean we continue avoiding expressing our true feelings in our relationships and never know the good that can come from sharing them. We’ll just keep on doing the same thing over and over, never understanding that our feelings aren’t anything to be feared.
To change the long-established neural pathways that dictate our behavior, we need to make a concerted effort to move in a different direction. In other words, to recognize and tame our old fears, stay present with and sort through our emotional experiences. And to then start opening up and sharing our feelings, needs and desires in a new, more constructive way.
The more we move in this new direction, the more we’ll develop a capacity to be emotionally present. The more we’ll open up and share what’s inside of us – both key to a secure and earned secure attachment style. By doing so, our fears will diminish. We’ll be more able to stay present and share our emotions without feeling anxious or overwhelmed. And, while we’re doing this, we’re actually rewiring our brain. We’re laying down new neural patterns to support healthy behavior.
There are four steps that we can take to support doing so. More detail about each of these steps can be found in the books Living Like You Mean It and Loving Like You Mean It. But for now, let’s get an overview of these four important steps.
Step One: Recognize and Name
To quote the renowned psychiatrist, Daniel J Siegel from his book The Mindful Brain, “When we can name it, we can tame it.”
Knowing our Attachment Style both enables us to put a name to how we approach relationships as well as recognize and bring more awareness to what’s happening to us when we get triggered. The concept of emotional mindfulness plays a key role here. Emotional mindfulness entails paying attention to our present experiences in an accepting way by maintaining a receptive state. Sensing, observing and allowing what we’re feeling or thinking to happen inside of us without reacting to it. Instead of reacting defensively and pushing our thoughts or feelings away, staying open to them permits us to move through them to a better place. When we intentionally refocus our attention like this, we’re harnessing the brain’s power to rewire itself.
AN EXERCISE TO TRY
Find a quiet place, get settled and then in a slightly harsh tone of voice say the word ‘no’ out loud seven times. Notice how you feel. Then pause and take a breath before saying ‘yes’ seven times in a kind and soothing tone and notice how this makes you feel. Then take a breath and let it go. Doing so will give you a sense of what it means to be in either a defensive or receptive state.
Step Two: Stop, Drop and Stay
This step is about interrupting our usual way of responding to situations, dropping our defences, focusing on an inner, deeper place inside ourselves, and staying present with our feelings. When we slow down our experience and stay in the present moment, we create an opportunity in which we can more easily disentangle ourselves from our early wiring. We can expose what’s been unconsciously controlling our behavior, and unpack, rework and update it. And the more we do this, the more familiar our feelings become, the more manageable they’ll be, and the less threatening they will feel.
AN EXERCISE TO TRY:
Close your eyes and think about a recent relationship experience in which you were triggered. Picture what happened and, as you do, notice what happens in your body. Find the place in you that’s physically activated and focus on it and stay with it. Breathe into it. Describe it to yourself and notice what happens when you do. Be sure to use your breathing to help regulate your experience and make it more manageable. Doing so will strengthen your capacity to observe and allow without having to react.
Step Three: Pause and Reflect
This step frees us up to bring our full and best selves to our relationships. As we clear away the static caused by our old wiring, taking time to pause and reflect enables us to shift and expand our point of view. To look at ourselves, our partners and our relationships more objectively. Reflection also boosts our emotional healing, giving us space to think about how our early conditioning may have affected our relationships. It also gives us time to feel a sense of accomplishment at having faced things within ourselves that we’ve previously avoided.
AN EXERCISE TO TRY:
As you work to stay present to yourself in a new way, take a moment to reflect on what that experience is like. Ask yourself questions to help make sense of your experience and deepen your understanding. Questions like: what have you learned about yourself? What emotions, needs and desires feel threatening to your relationship? In what ways have you not been honest with yourself or your partner?
Step Four: Mindfully Relate
This step entails expanding the circle of awareness to include our partner’s emotional experience and what is happening between us. The better we get at observing and empathizing with our partner’s feelings, the better we’ll become at recognizing which of their defenses are in gear and how to get beyond them. This will help us avoid getting caught in old, unproductive patterns of relating.
When we’re emotionally authentic and open and able to relate with our partners in a way that makes us feel safe, we sow the seeds of security – the basis of an earned secure attachment style. Security grows when we step out from behind the safety of our defenses and allow ourselves to be vulnerable with our partners.
AN EXERCISE TO TRY:
Give your partner your full attention when you are interacting with them and let them express themselves without interruption. Listen to what they are saying but pay special attention to the feelings beneath the words and try to tune your body to sense what they are feeling. By doing so, you’ll develop your ability to stay present and see beyond your partner’s defenses and get to the more vulnerable heart of the matter.
We all hold the key to more satisfying relationships within ourselves
Being attuned to ourselves and our partners. Having the ability to manage and express our feelings while staying present, engaged and responsive. Hanging in there when the going gets tough. All these qualities help us feel safe and secure in our relationships. They strengthen our bonds and deepen the love we have for each other. And they are all emotional capacities that people with a secure attachment style – and an earned secure attachment style – bring to their relationships.
Everyone is born with the capacity to express their feelings and connect emotionally with others. Whichever attachment style our early experiences have caused us to have, it can be changed. Our brains can be rewired. We just need to free ourselves from the fear that’s no longer warranted and reclaim our innate emotional capabilities to love like we mean it.
