Practicing Secure-Attachment is Brain Surgery on Yourself
unpacking adult attachment; journal prompts & affirmations
Hello & thanks for being here. If you are reading this, it likely means that you are in the process of understanding your own attachment style or those of people close to you. Doing this is an important step in figuring out how to create safe-feeling, secure relationships and support those around us trying to do the same.
Our attachment styles from childhood carry into adulthood and have significant effects on our ability to cope with stress, how we interact and process information, and how we form relationships and parent. If we don’t feel safe and secure in our first childhood relationships, it’s up to us as adults to realize what patterns were created while we were little and rewire our own thinking.
Many people who didn’t have consistently safe attachment figures growing up will continue to crave and seek them. As adults, we can still learn to have secure relationships, but it takes consistent effort and the ability to question ourselves. You’re literally having to rewire your brain!
It’s important to be surrounded by others who are on a journey of creating secure relationships as well. Each person around you is a practice field, and everyone there should be open to practicing. Old patterns will continue to arise, so there must be a safe environment to practice discussing feelings, and an openness to forgive ourselves and others.
Read about the attachment styles below, starting with secure attachment, then moving down. Recommendations for healing and journal prompts are attached for reflection. Affirmations that resonate with you, or that you would like to resonate with, are recommended to be written down and/or verbally repeated several (5 - 20) times daily. Click on underlined words for more in-depth information on each style and how they develop in childhood.
The 4 Attachment Styles, Journal Prompts, and Affirmations:
Securely attached adults tend to have trusting, lasting relationships (with friends or romantic partners), seek out social support, and generally have the ability to sense their feelings and communicate them with others.
Seeking secure relationships? Observe people who communicate honestly about their feelings and show empathy. People who have lasting, meaningful relationships, and strong support systems.
Journal prompt: What relationships do I admire? Why do I admire them? Who do I go to for support if I have trouble in a relationship? Why them?
Affirmation: I am working on forming safe-feeling relationships. I attract people whose relationship skills I can admire and learn from.
Avoidant adults experience extreme discomfort asking others for help or trying to express what they need. Trust in another person is the greatest obstacle.
Have an avoidant partner, or yourself? Healing happens with consistent messages that the avoidant person’s needs are important. Being steady, reliable, and present with an avoidant partner can support and strengthen secure attachment skills.
Journal prompt: What are my needs in a relationship? Have I ever had a friend or partner who was consistently steady and present with me? How can I communicate my needs to the people I love?
Affirmations: My needs are important. I surround myself with people I trust. I am learning to express how I feel to those I love.
Anxious/ ambivalent attached people tend to ignore their own needs and smother (suffocate) others with unrealistic expectations. They are often on an emotional “see-saw,” where they alternate between their needs being met and not being met. This can lead them to feel quite anxious, insecure, unlovable, or even undeserving of love.
Have an anxious/ambivalent partner, or are yourself? To heal, the anxious/ambivalent attachment style must focus on recognizing and meeting their own needs, practicing self-regulation, and learning how to shift complaints into expressions of wants and needs.
Journal prompt: What are my needs? How do I feel in my body when I get annoyed at my friends/ partners? What have I complained about this week within my relationships? How can I rewrite my complaints into an expression of wants/needs?
Affirmation: I am prioritizing meeting my own needs. I say no to people when I need to prioritize my own needs. I am practicing noticing how and when my feelings arise in my body.
The most complex of the attachment styles, disorganized attachment, which forms when the attachment system gets entangled with the threat response—our fight/flight/freeze survival instinct. This is most common with people who have had abusive child-caregiver relationships; where the same person they relied on for care was also abusing them.
The disorganized attachment style can appear as unpredictable behavior patterns and sudden shifts (often due to triggers). Survival defenses are always on and ready to respond to a threat.
Have a disorganized partner, or are yourself? Navigating relationships and intimacy can feel dangerous to people with disorganized attachment, but progress is possible. Understanding disorganized attachment and the unique challenges it poses is a great first step. Patience and forgiveness are crucial to bring unconscious triggers into consciousness. In many cases, progress may require the help of a therapist who has specific experience working with trauma.
Journal prompt: Am I ready to dive into my experiences of childhood and adolescence, to create better relationships with the people around me? Why or why not?
Affirmation: I am practicing self-love. I am opening myself up to see old experiences with new eyes. I am forgiving myself and others for times we cannot change.
“Changing our attachment style means working on making sense of the most painful parts of our childhood. This process can bring up a lot of emotion, and it’s vital to be on our own side and not turn on ourselves.” —Lisa Firestone, Psychology Today
Sources:
Four Types of Attachment: Attachment Styles in Adult Relationships