Therapy

4 Steps to Healing Fearful Avoidant Attachment

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Fearful avoidant attachment refers to a style of engagement in relationships characterized by a fluctuation between anxiously wanting emotional closeness, and then obsessively creating distance once that closeness has been achieved. If that sounds confusing to you, that’s because it is. A heartbreaking condition, fearful avoidant attachment is often a survival mode of relating, coming from a traumatic childhood where a child’s needs were not consistently seen, acknowledged, or met. Once the child got emotionally close to their parent or caregiver, they were often overlooked, their emotions got put down, and they were rejected. Experiencing this repeatedly over time makes a child wary of getting emotionally close, but that innate desire to connect is still very present, too. Early-on developing the belief that they are undeserving and unworthy of love, people with fearful avoidance often become ambivalent about relationships, whereby the person wants to get emotionally close to people, but is also scared to get emotionally close to people because of what “closeness” has historically signaled: disappointment, rejection, pain. People with fearful avoidant attachment tend to feel chronically anxious, depressed, lonely, and are arguably more prone to addictions than people with other attachment styles. Constantly feeling not good enough, always trying to prove themselves, nothing works. Because there is no amount of achievement, awards, money, good looks, or praise that will fill the emptiness they feel from lack of emotional connection. Deep down, people with fearful avoidant attachment don’t want to push emotional connection away, but they can’t help it. They unconsciously find reasons to wallow, look down on themselves, withdraw, create drama, and push healthy connections away to create distance and avoid the closeness they actually crave inside. That’s how deathly afraid of emotional connection they are. It is alien to them. Sadly, for many, this becomes a way of life. And will stay a way of life. The fact that society seems to promote avoidance doesn’t help either. However, change is possible. Fearful avoidant attachment can be successfully overcome. In this post, I will outline 4 simple steps to healing fearful avoidant attachment.

It’s important to note that recognizing one has a fearful avoidant attachment style is paramount to healing it. We can only change something once we acknowledge it exists. If you are wondering whether you have a fearful avoidant attachment style, consider: do you feel like it is hard to get close to people? Do you constantly think people are judging you or thinking poorly of you? That they’re out to get you? That you are always one step away from disaster? That bad things are just around the corner? Constantly jumping to conclusions? Taking things personally? Thinking you know what will happen even when you don’t? If so, you may be suffering from a fearful avoidant attachment style. In which case, keep reading. Breaking free from this will change your life. Imagine being yourself more. Being more optimistic about life. And living more authentically with confidence.

Healing fearful avoidant attachment is a process. Overwriting it takes diligence, practice, and patience. But the results will transform your life into something beautiful. Imagine being comfortable in your own skin, living with calming peace of mind, and feeling confident about yourself in relationships. Here are the steps.

1. Go slowly. With a nervous system wired for urgency and after years of assuming the worst, it’s important to slow down. Although it may be tempting to assume something bad will happen, to jump to negative conclusions quickly, and prepare for things to fall apart, understand this tendency is nothing more than a survival mechanism that was borne out of trying times when you were younger. It’s a trauma response. It originated to give you a false sense of control when things were out of hand, but it also created a lot of errors, false rules, and spurious associations. The only way to counteract these patterns is to slow down when it comes to interpreting events, and approach events with curiosity and wonder.

2. Challenge immediate negative assumptions. Once you have slowed down and recognized you don’t actually know what is happening, it is important to cross-examine any negative assumptions. Challenging these negative beliefs is important to dismantle the negative loop that has formed in your mind over the years. Ask yourself, “Is there evidence for this interpretation?” “Could I be wrong?” “Is there another way to look at this?” Often there is not adequate evidence. Yes, you can be wrong. And absolutely, there is always another way to look at it. Remembering that automatic negativity is simply a product of the fearful avoidant style can be empowering. Fearful avoidant attachment is literally telling you something bad is imminent because it wants to create distance to avoid closeness. By understanding that you don’t really know what the person meant, why they did what they did, or why what happened happened, you are ready to engage curiously to better understand what actually happened.

3. Explore alternative explanations. Come up with alternative, more positive ways to interpret the events. By doing this, you are teaching your mind to consider that people are not as bad as you may have been conditioned to believe that they are. Or that the avoidant attachment style convinced you of over the years. And you are not as problematic, bad, or unworthy as you think you are either. Maybe they didn’t respond because they got busy and forgot to respond to you. Perhaps they are nervous because they like you, too. It’s possible they were just trying to help in their own way. By merely thinking of these alternative interpretations, and recognizing everything is not your fault, your mind is starting to get used to the possibility that you are good, good things can happen, people can be nice, and the world could be safe. The more these pathways are reinforced, the more accessible and easy they are for your mind to retrieve and believe.

4. Invite connection. When you go slowly, challenge your negative assumptions, and start thinking of how you and circumstances may actually be better than you thought, it is easier to communicate in a manner that invites connection. Instead of getting angry or resentful, now you can approach the situation more level-headed, with curiosity, neutrality, and respect. Ask questions from a place of curiosity, a desire to know, a want to understand because you care. This demonstration of interest is significant. You are learning to trust again. With such a demeanor, you are inviting connection in a simple and very meaningful way. You are respecting yourself, and extending that respect to the other side with a gentle invitation for kind dialogue.

By understanding how the fearful avoidant attachment style has shaped your negative perceptions, thoughts, and interpretations over the years, you can actively start to remedy the situation. The key is recognizing that the problem is not necessarily the world, but rather how you are interpreting the world. Rooted in childhood experiences and shaped by traumas outside your control, the way you perceive the world can improve. Practicing the above steps for healing fearful avoidant attachment can significantly change the way your mind processes information over time. Processing the events that led you to think so negatively can add a powerful layer of depth to this process as well. The more you practice these steps, the faster your mind will create new neural pathways to see reality more clearly, relationships more objectively, and yourself as more valuable than you ever knew. As this happens, it will become easier to participate in relationships because you will no longer expect things to automatically go wrong. Heck, you may even start to expect good things from others. And most importantly, you will understand that you are worthy and deserving just as you are, and that you can handle whatever comes your way. This doesn’t mean you will like everyone you meet, but it will give you a clarity to be able to see better who you truly like and want to get close to, and who you may not want to get close to. Sans anxiety or urgency.

If you want help healing fearful avoidant attachment within yourself so you can have more peace of mind, stability, and confidence in relationships, feel free to call or email for a free phone consultation.

How Relationship Anxiety Sabotages Connection

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One of the most important topics in relationship psychology is how relationship anxiety sabotages connection. As a clinical psychologist in Los Angeles, I am aware of this phenomenon very well. I counsel patients who struggle with relationship anxiety that in some cases leads them to sabotage their relationships without consciously realizing it. The good news is that relationship anxiety is a very treatable condition. Understanding and addressing relationship anxieties and sabotage attempts can transform the way you live your life and the quality of your interactions very powerfully, and in a very short period of time. In this post, I will describe how this dynamic works, various ways it can manifest, where it comes from, and key tips on how to disrupt the cycle so that you can connect more freely and lovingly again.

Imagine you’re having a nice conversation with someone: a partner, lover, family member, or other. And suddenly you notice them starting to steer the conversation in a different direction. Perhaps they’re randomly taking the conversation somewhere else, finding fault with you, criticizing you, or even getting angry and negative out of nowhere. You wonder to yourself, “Wait, what? What’s happening? Did I say something?” You try to address it with them, but you don’t get what’s happening. It’s all occurring so fast. And seemingly out of left field. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think they are trying to create a problem. And actually, you may be right on the money here. This is an example of how relationship anxiety sabotages connection in relationships. Often it is done unconsciously, meaning the person doing it doesn’t even realize they’re doing it.

You might be wondering, why would someone do such a thing? Why would someone try to ruin a good thing? How does that make any sense? In order to understand the core of how relationship anxiety sabotages connection, it’s important to look at what relationships mean to people. Usually, our conception of relationships is shaped by our childhood experiences. The way we were treated by our parents or caregivers growing up usually forms the basis of what we think relationships are and a template for how we think relationships ought to be. For example, if our parents understood our feelings, respected our emotions, and acknowledged our experiences in ways that made us feel safe and secure, chances are that that is what we have come to expect out of relationships. A place where we are heard, listened to, and valued for who we are and how we exist. On the other hand, if our caregivers were more anxious, controlling, or absent in ways that made us feel emotionally neglected, scared, and confused, then that is what we probably came to expect from relationships. An arrangement where we will be emotionally unseen, used, criticized, and denied. Furthermore, the relationships we are used to are usually the relationships we seek. It’s what we are most familiar with, and feel most comfortable with as well.

Moreover, the relationships we are most familiar with usually shape our beliefs about what we think we deserve, and thus our relationship choices. Namely, if we are used to being in healthy relationships, wherein we feel consistent love, support and understanding, we are likely to come to believe that we are worthy of love, and thus seek out relationships that confirm this belief. Think relationships that revitalize us, ones abundant in genuine kindness and respect. If this is our norm, this is what we are most familiar with, and this is what we believe we deserve, then this is where we feel most comfortable. On the other hand, if we are used to relationships where we are routinely criticized, put down, or neglected, then we are likely to come to believe that we are not worthy of love, and thus unconsciously seek out relationships that confirm this belief. Think relationships that involve us being put down or overlooked, ones where we are treated poorly and made to feel small and bad about ourselves. If this is our norm, this is what we are most familiar with, and this is what we believe we deserve, then sadly this is where we feel most “comfortable.” And so we will unconsciously feel most “comfortable” in these types of unhealthy relationships. After all, they validate what we think we deserve.

As a result, when we are in a relationship that is healthier than what we are used to, or healthier than what we think we deserve, we often get challenged. This is where relationship anxiety sabotages connection. Suddenly, we face ourselves. The change can begin to make us frightened because we are getting triggered by a “closeness anxiety” or a “too-good-to-be-true” syndrome. In both of these cases, our mind has detected a significant difference between what is familiar to us based on past experiences and what we think we deserve, and what we are getting in real time. Deep down, when we are used to shit, we come to believe that shit is what we deserve. When we believe that shit is what we deserve, anything greater than shit may start to make us feel anxious. Plain and simple. The underlying dialogue is something like, “Give me something better, and it just doesn’t sit well. So I need to ruin it to be at equilibrium, to get it back to what I think I deserve.” Some ways in which this may manifest include: becoming paranoid and mistrusting when someone does something nice for you, giving mixed signals, experiencing disproportionate anger at subjects that do not warrant such a reaction, hurting the other without taking accountability, or even abruptly running away after things were going so well. The goal of all these and other self-sabotaging mechanisms is simple: to create distance, and push the other person away. Ultimately, they do not feel worthy or deserving of being treated so well.

Self-sabotaging is exhausting. Not only does it use up a lot of energy for the person doing it, but it also drains the person who is doing it because their insides are going haywire. A constant tug of war with no end in sight. And arguably the worst part? They don’t know what is going on, or how to make it stop. An important element to understand is that the person who is self-sabotaging is not a bad person. They are not even sabotaging the connection on purpose. They are merely getting triggered from past wounds, struggling with self-worth issues, and are yearning for safety. Unconsciously, there is a belief of unworthiness, undeservingness, an inherent unlovability that is getting challenged and causing all the turmoil based on unresolved past traumas. There is an inherent fear that something bad will happen, so the sabotage can be viewed as a preemptive strike to make sure what happened before does not happen again. It’s primarily driven by an unconscious desire to protect the self, not so much to necessarily hurt the other person.

The more people have been exposed to unhealthy relationship dynamics over a period of time, the odds of them having internalized and personalized those toxic, stressful, and dysfunction dynamics is very real. Being conditioned to believe that relationships are not safe, that they are wrought with control, manipulation, neglect and criticism makes the whole idea of “being in relationship” a risky endeavor. If you have been systematically unseen, unheard, criticized, judged, neglected, or taken advantage of in relationships, then there is good reason for you to feel anxious, uncomfortable, and hesitant to enter into a relationship. The negative association can run very deep, and lead to an unconscious desire to self-sabotage, or unknowingly trip yourself up to avoid getting the thing you say you want. It’s really a very sad, frustrating, and devastating process.

However, there is good news. While relationship anxiety sabotages connection, it doesn’t always have to. Treating relationship anxiety may take some work to heal, but when it is done and done well, it can literally begin to revolutionize a person’s experiences in relationships within a short time span (think days, weeks, and months for someone who is very ready and motivated to change). By getting to the root causes of these dynamics, and addressing them at the core, relationship freedom is well within reach. When that happens, clarity, confidence, and joy naturally flow. So you can love happily, securely, and stably.

If you are ready to transform the way you show up in relationships and love the way you are meant to love, call or email for a free phone consultation.

The Importance of Being Selfish

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Often we’re told selfish is bad.  It’s disrespectful, shameful, and wrong. But we are all selfish.  Every one of us.  We act to serve ourselves.  We eat what tastes good to us, befriend those who understand us, and do what brings happiness to us.

However, true selfishness takes courage.  Being honest about who you are, what you want, and what you are willing to do to get it are important aspects of selfishness. Selfishness is about knowing yourself, getting in touch with yourself, and realizing that you are worth it.

You deserve a shot. You are good enough.

And that’s why being truly selfish can be scary. It’s about taking risk.  The risk of stepping into the unknown, the risk of seeing something anew, the risk of trying something new. There’s also the risk of being different, the risk of standing out, the risk that people might not accept you.  Many of us live according to the expectations of others, so much so that over time we forget who we really are.  Being truly selfish is about understanding yourself, understanding others, and being able to distinguish between the two.

Society constantly tells us what we “should” want.  We should want the latest phones, clothes, and cars.  We should want fame, fortune, and power.  And while there’s nothing inherently wrong with wanting any of these, the truth is many of us pursue these things not because we want them, but because we think that by having them others will like and accept us more.  Unfortunate in a culture replete with such distractions, the line between “I” and “other” can get easily blurred.  Thus, the quest for true selfishness not only takes diligence, but bravery in being able to separate what I want, versus what they want.

It’s only after you have given to yourself more wholly and completely that you can truly give to another person .  You can only give as much as you have.  To truly give selflessly, you must be coming from a solid, self-loving place.  You have to love yourself, care for yourself, and be happy with who you are.  To get there, you have to care enough about yourself to go for what you truly want, to get your needs met.  You must be selfish.  Otherwise, what you call “giving” is not so much giving as much as it might be more a way to get approval or control others.  When giving, the less their reaction affects you, the more selfless a place you are giving from.  Therefore, you must first be truly selfish to be truly selfless. 

So why do people sometimes accuse one another of being selfish, as if being selfish is bad?  Well, it seems as though when we accuse others of being selfish, we really mean arrogant, conceited, or self-absorbed.  Ironically, people who come off as arrogant, conceited, or self-absorbed actually have very low opinions of themselves, they have little self-worth. Contrary to popular belief, they are not selfish at all.  They have not cared for themselves to get their core needs met.  They compensate for their lack of self-worth by pretending to be something they are not. They are only presenting a facade to cover up how badly they feel inside. Conversely, people who are selfish do have self-worth, they do value themselves, and they do care for themselves in going for what is important to them. Selfish people are less likely to become arrogant, conceited, or self-absorbed because they are focused on getting their needs met in a meaningful way.

In addition, we tend to forget that when people make such vehement claims, they are really making a statement about themselves.  They are unsettled, uncomfortable by the sight of a person being different.  They probably feel threatened.  Deep down, they are likely thinking, “By seeing you act in your own individual way, I’m feeling uneasy about myself.   This difference in opinion, stance, point of view makes me feel insecure and unsure of myself.  I’m afraid your position might have some validity that I have not considered.  I’m afraid to entertain this thought because it may mean that I’m wrong or my understanding is incomplete.  I’m too scared to admit this because it’s too overwhelming.  Instead of seeing this for what it is, I’m going to focus my attention on you, blame you, and put you down.  It’s so much easier to point at you than to look at my own vulnerability and fallibility, to admit I might be wrong or missing something.”

Being selfish means caring for yourself.  It means loving yourself, and valuing yourself enough to be the person you want to be.  Selfish people are aware, they are real, and they are kind.  They muster up the courage to be who they want to be, and respect others for who they want to be.

To learn how to be the best version of yourself, and invite powerful relationships in your life, call or email today for a free phone consultation.

Anxiety Therapy in West LA

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Anxiety therapy in West LA is a popular treatment, as anxiety is probably one of the most common psychological conditions that people seek therapy for when they see a therapist, counselor, or psychologist. Whether the therapy is meant for oneself, a spouse, partner, couple, family, or even one’s child, it is almost inevitable that the … Read more

Great Psychological Therapy in West LA

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Great psychological therapy in West LA is a prized commodity. With so many different kinds of therapy out there, it’s easy to get confused, puzzled, and overwhelmed thinking about which is the right one for you or your loved one. Terms like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (“CBT therapy”), Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (“DBT therapy”), Psychodynamic Therapy, Family … Read more

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