Become more connected with others & most importantly yourself
What are your relationships like?
After experiencing trauma in your childhood, it can severely affect how you relate to yourself and others. Almost all of us have had some sort of experience at some point or another that shakes our understanding of the world and overwhelms our ability to cope.
But when we don’t have a secure attachment figure or safe place to process and integrate these experiences…or those experiences are caused by the people who were supposed to protect you, it can severely impact your sense of self, understanding of the world, and relationships. Relational trauma has a profound and lingering effect. Why?
Because our early experiences with caregivers/loved ones shape our patterns of relating to others in our adulthood. It’s the foundation that is you and how you relate to the world…unfortunately, your foundation has cracks and holes. Without a solid foundation, you’ll have trouble creating anything of value.
Your attachment styles form the foundation of your relationships.
As adults and especially as children, we have core needs. As children, these needs are based on the attunement with parents/caregivers. Attunement is the process of recognizing and responding to another person's emotional needs and moods. It's a deeper form of listening that goes beyond exchanging words or ideas and involves sensing and resonating with another person's experience.
1) The need to feel emotionally safe (reliable and consistent attunement from parent).
2) The need to feel seen (the felt experience of being understood by parents, including child's full range of authenticity and feelings being tolerated and accepted).
3) The need to feel soothed (a gentle touch by a parent when the child is upset, settling child's nervous system).
4) the need to feel appreciated (the parents celebrate in the child's small wins and are there in an understanding way when it wasn't a win).
Sadly, these needs weren’t met in your childhood. But you survived the best way you knew how. Based on your caregivers and your own temperament, a specific type of attachment style came about. Attachment styles are not fixed and can be changed by new experiences and in therapy. It’s possible to grow and have fulfilling relationships. If the idea of developing meaningful connections with others resonates with you, reach out today to learn more.
The 4 styles of attachment
There are four main attachment styles formed during early childhood. These styles profoundly influence our behavior in relationships throughout life. These styles are:
Secure Attachment: Developed through consistent and responsive caregiving, leading to healthy, trusting relationships in adulthood, with a comfortable balance of intimacy and independence. Additionally, they experience greater emotional security and stability, positive self-esteem, confidence, and resilience while coping with stress.
Avoidant Attachment: Occurs when caregivers are emotionally distant and emotional needs are rejected, resulting in adults who value independence and often struggle with emotional closeness and vulnerability.
Anxious Attachment: Stems from inconsistent caregiver responsiveness and lack of attention, leading to adults who crave high levels of intimacy and approval, and may experience anxiety about rejection or abandonment in relationships.
Disorganized Attachment: Develops from caregiver becoming a source of fear instead of safety, leading to adults with inconsistent relationship behaviors, difficulties in emotional regulation, and challenges in forming stable, trusting relationships.
How has your attachment style impacted your life?
Your avoidant attachment shows up as independence, self-reliance and autonomy.
Growing up in a household where your feelings and needs were ignored on some level, likely made you become very independent. You learned that it’s not okay to ask for help…you are alone and you have to figure things out on your own. That comes with a benefit because you have confidence in yourself and in your ability to get things done. Additionally, this independence and ability to produce was likely reinforced at home. Grades, academics, professional success were focused on and were probably the few times that you received positive attention. You seem to have it all in control. You look at emotions like who needs them? After all, you've made it this far, surviving on your own without them, and look at what you've accomplished and achieved.
Your avoidant attachment has manifested in perfectionism & deep need for control
Because you’ve reached this level of success, and it was likely encouraged growing up- you’ve set really high standards for yourself to succeed. Perfectionism stems from the need to control an aspect of your life. This coping mechanism is also a survival technique when every move is criticized, every mistake has severe consequences, and a fear of failure can develop. Perfectionism develops as a way to avoid conflict and/or punishment. You constantly strive for ambitious goals and judge your self-worth on the achievement of these goals. Not meeting these goals, whether realistic or not, is met with a barrage of self-criticism and loathing.
Does this sound familiar? You set expectations for yourself that you would not expect of anyone else in your position. You check and recheck your work for mistakes, ensuring that your work is flawless. You expect negative feedback even when you have exceeded the expectations of others. You over-perform, often realizing later that you did not need to do as much work as you did.
These perfectionistic tendencies are exhausting. As you look at your life, you’re successful…but unhappy. Successful but alone…Successful but burnt out. Successful but unfulfilled. You want more but are not sure how to get there. Therapy can help you stop self-criticism and not judge your worth solely on what you achieve. This doesn’t mean that you don’t strive for excellence or success, but instead adjust those expectations to realistic ones so they’re no longer detrimental or destructive. Therapy can help you find balance in other areas of your life. Reach out to learn how.
Your avoidant attachment has manifested in difficulty establishing close emotional connections and discomfort in vulnerability.
As a child you learned to ignore your own needs and feelings. Since you were all too often sent the message that your needs and feelings aren't important. You began to believe that. That message became a core belief: My needs/feelings aren't important, and in fact it's not even safe to have them, much less express them, therefore I must suppress them. This why, now, as an adult, in moments of intimacy or conflict, your primary survival response it to shut down. Emotions are to be avoided. They’re unhelpful.
Have you been told in relationships that you’re hard to love? That being with you can feel like pulling teeth? Have partners begged you to open up? You may feel the urge to pull away during times of conflict and feel suffocated with intimacy and closeness. Maybe you’ve judged people for having emotional needs in the past or interpret your partner’s attempts to connect/understand you as needy, weak and clingy. Feeling more comfortable with space and distance. You prefer “logic over emotions.”
The problem is humans do have feelings, and we do have needs, however disconnected from them you may be. And, it is in our most intimate relationships that the consequences of disconnection and avoidance arise. Therapy can help you go below the surface. It can help you become more connected to yourself and those around you. You can become closer to others without losing/abandoning yourself. Reach out today to learn more.
Your anxious attachment has manifested in co-dependency and clinginess in relationships.
You’re in constant need of reassurance and validation from partner. Does it feel like your relationships are both poison and cure? On one hand, the fear of being alone, abandoned or being rejected is the poion – a disturbing feeling, which leads to constant doubt, worry and hypervigilance about relationship. On the other hand, the presence of your loved one, and more importantly, their demonstration of affection is the cure.
You might feel insecure about where you stand in your relationship and whether your partner loves you as much as you do in return. It’s exhausting always being attuned and sensitive to your partner’s needs, feeling excessive anxiety and worry constantly. You’re jealous at times or suspicious of your partner’s actions. You seek validation and assurance that you are loved, worthy and good enough. Deep down you worry that as soon as a partner knows the “real you”, they’ll lose interest and reject you. This is NOT sustainable. And all that ends up happening is pushing people away.
You’re ready to stop getting triggered when your partner acts distant or when they fail to respond to a message/call. You no longer want to seek constant reassurance but feel confident in yourself and your relationships. Book a call with me today to finally feel at ease in your relationships.
Your anxious attachment has manifested in people pleasing behaviors.
Growing up in a household where your parents were emotionally unavailable, you might have longed for that connection with them. Maybe it never felt safe to disagree with others or have your own opinions. Your entire authentic being wasn’t consistently accepted. You internalized the message that your feelings and needs don’t matter, leaving you with a core sense of shame and unworthiness. Makes sense, why else wouldn’t your parents be there for you in the way that made you feel safe? Must be something wrong with you. You feared abandonment and rejection, so your natural adaptation was to please others to maintain closeness.
So as an adult you self-sacrifice, over-explain, say yes out of fear (when you desperately want to say no), conform, act “nice”, dismiss your own feelings, and put others first, as the way to be worthy of love. You want to control how others see you and it must be in a positive light. You deeply fear conflict and have an inability to express healthy anger or have anyone feel disappointed or upset with you. You’re noticing how people take advantage of you. This can lead to resentment and feeling anxious and just all around shitty, because basically it's living inauthentically, and who feels good when doing that?
Therapy can help you learn that you are not responsible for other people’s happiness. Your worth does NOT come from the approval of others. All healthy relationships have boundaries and limits and in therapy you can learn not only how to set them but also maintain those boundaries without guilt. You can learn that upsetting or disappointing others doesn’t mean you’re bad or wrong. Reach out today to see how you can be your most authentic self.
Your disorganized attachment results in a rollercoaster ride in relationships and trouble with trust and emotional stability.
Your relationships are filled with constant highs and lows. You meet someone and feel like they’re the one…”perfect partner”….then the feelings of anxiety and fear of abandonment creep in. In response to these fears you start testing or pushing your partner away. Maybe picking fights for what feels like no apparent reason. You create distance intentionally which just confuses your partner. Then when they don’t respond in a way that makes you feel secure, you might end things (before they get a chance to). You can get caught in this cycle over and over again. This constant push and pull.
You’re expecting and waiting for rejection, disappointment and hurt to come. It’s inevitable. Unfortunately, this mindset has turned into forms of self-sabotage, and you end up creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. You expect and predict that you’ll be rejected and start behaving in a way that lead to the end of the relationship. OR you consistently find yourself attracted to individuals that don’t make you feel safe, that are emotionally unavailable which just confirms what you already believe anyways.
Reach out today if you’re ready to stop these toxic behaviors in relationships and learn to trust others. It is possible to regulate your emotions and find a partner that will make you feel safe. Reach out to learn how.
You’re ready to heal these attachment wounds and break the cycle
As you’ve gathered already, the way your parents raised you is likely similar to how they were raised. Traumas often get passed down generation to generation unbeknownst to most families. And often when the patterns are recognized, there is reluctance to want to change or do things differently. Why? Well, you didn’t create these patterns on your own and changing them…shifting them…will require going against what has been normalized in your family. THAT IS HARD. Breaking the cycle can feel isolating at times….lonely. Frustrating if you’re getting push back from family members.
But you want to do it. Not only for yourself but because you want to be a parent one day….or you’re one now and you want to do everything in your power to make sure your child doesn’t hurt the way you did growing up. The truth is that you’re not alone and although change is hard it is possible. Schedule a call with me today to discuss more.
My Approach
The pain, wounds and trauma created within relationships can also be healed through relationships. Especially our relationship. You can read more about my hybrid approach to trauma here. Additionally, due to the relational impact of the trauma, we will explore the relationship with your parents. We will explore how your early experiences shape your beliefs about yourself, others, and the world. You’ll be able to gain understanding as to why you behave the way you do. Therapy doesn’t just address the why, but you’ll also learn tools that will help you make changes. Your treatment will be tailored to your needs and your attachment style adjusting whenever needed. Reach out today to learn more!
LOVING-KINDNESS MEDITATION
In need of some self-love & self-care? Try this loving-kindness meditation.
Begin by getting yourself comfortable. Allow yourself to switch from your usual mode of doing to non-doing, to simply being. Connect with your body and bring your attention to your breathing. Follow your breath as it comes in, and then out of your body, without trying to change it. Simply be aware of it, and any feelings associated with it. Give full attention to each time you inhale and then to each time you exhale. Being total present in each moment with each breath. If distracting thoughts arise acknowledge them without becoming involved and return to focusing on your breath.
Take a moment now to consciously set an intention for this practice, some examples are: “to open my heart”, “ to cultivate loving-kindness”, “ to care for myself.”
Bring to mind a person or a pet for whom you are happy to see and have deep feelings of love. Imagine or sense this person or pet, noticing the feelings you have for them arise in your body. It may be a smile that spreads across your face it may be a warmth in your body. Whatever it is, allow it to be felt.
Let go of this person or pet and continue to keep in awareness the feelings that have arisen. Bring to mind now, and see if you can offer loving kindness to yourself, by letting these words become your words:
May I be safe
May I be happy
May I be healthy
May I live in peace, no matter what I am given
May my heart be filled with love and kindness.
Notice the feelings and sensations that arise and let them be….reach out today for more personalized approaches to help you along your journey of healing.