Anxiously Attached: Becoming More Secure in Life and Love

Faced with difficult emotions, the common response is to try to fix them as quickly as possible—whether this means medicating them away (with alcohol or prescription drugs) or simply putting on a brave face and pretending that everything is okay.

If I can get you to stay close to me, I won’t have to feel the frightening abandonment that is lurking inside me

Over time, we become so accustomed to living with our core wounds, and simultaneously so attached to the beliefs they have instilled in us, that they seem like they are simply who we are. We become this adapted version of ourselves.

become the observer of your emotions

we begin to form expectations of what our relationships will be like in infancy. Part of this is recorded in our ANS. If our parents aren’t able to provide warm, safe connection a good part of the time, our sympathetic fight-or-flight response is on a lot. We begin to anticipate that our closest people won’t come to help us when we feel disconnecte

Eventually, a lack of self-worth will also give way to an innate sense of your own lovability, along with compassion for the protections you developed as a child. Soon, you will find yourself showing up for yourself (and others) in ways that you never imagined could be possible.

We will be moving into deeper connection to our intuitive selves, developing full-body awareness. The fancy word for this is interoception. When we cultivate this capacity, we will have felt sense, which is a bodily knowing inside of us that allows access to all the parts of us that have experienced warmth and goodness (our Inner Nurturers), those

she would immediately call on her controlling Protector to stop the fear from overwhelming her.

Tell yourself: “I will be okay no matter what.”