Understanding the different attachment styles
The way we bond and connect to others is one of the most important facets of self to address.
by: E.B Johnson
Understanding the way we bond is key in creating true and longterm happiness in our lives. From secure attachment styles to frantic, and conflict ridden preoccupation — there are a number of ways we connect with the people around us and some of them are more healthy than others. If you’ve found your relationships fraught with hardship, chances are you need to take another look at how you connect. That begins with both some brutal honesty and some brutal understanding.
Some forms of attachment are unhealthy and undermine the way in which we find ourselves and our joy. While many of these are impacted by events in our history, they can also be changed by the power of our futures. Finding yourself in an unhealthy pattern of bonding isn’t a forever sentence. You can change the way you see yourself and others by digging deep, and getting active about your personality and the way you relate to the world around you.
What is attachment?
Our attachments are important, and form a critical piece of who we are. Attachments are the emotionally bonds that we form we those closest to us, be they friends, family or even pets and co-workers. It’s the means by which we get the affection and closeness that we need in order to reaffirm our place in the world around us; and it’s also the means by which we establish the bonds that give our life meaning. Attachment is important, but understanding it takes some digging and it takes some brutal personal honesty.
The primary point of attachment is to keep us bonded to groups that help keep us safe. It’s a brilliant piece of evolutionary machinery, but one that can hamper our happiness when it’s damaged or miswired. There are several different forms of attachment, and not all of them are created equal. True happiness comes only when we assess these bonding styles honestly and start reassessing how we approach bonding and the most meaningful relationships in our lives.
The different attachment styles.
There are 4 core attachment styles that dictate the way we connect and bond with those we care about. From an anxious obsession to a secure and deep-running bond — understanding our attachment styles is the key to overcoming the challenges they present. But that takes getting honest about how we connect with those we care most about.
Anxious-Preoccupied
One of the most common forms of attachment styles is anxious-preoccupied. Those dealing in this type of connectivity often feel more anxiety around their relationships, and are more inclined to create relationship stressors — both real and imagined. These stressors might manifest as jealousy, mood swings, a need for control, oversensitivity or event obsessiveness. Anxiously-preoccupied partners are those who require a lot of love and validation, and those who are drama-oriented or unable to tolerate their own company (alone). They also often have a history of turbulent relationships and can even be referred to as “clingy”.
Fearful-Avoidant
Another type of attachment style is fearful-avoidant. When dealing with this style of bonding, one might desire intimacy while at the same time resisting it. The fearful-avoidant often associates their relationships with challenging life experiences, or grief, abandonment and abuse — which can make it hard for them to connect meaningfully with others. They might also struggle with confidence and even struggle with forming genuinely close relationships.
Dismissive-Avoidant
Dismissive-avoidant attachment styles are ones in which the the individual is usually highly self-directed and independent. Both behaviorally and emotionally, when you dismissively-avoid attachment you avoid true intimacy and look inwardly for all support, connection and emotional obligation. You might also yearn for physical and emotional freedom above all else, and find your emotional relationships taking a back burner to social life, career or even personal projects and passions.
Secure
The secure attachment style is a strong one, and one that allows us to manifest our healthiest and most able relationships. Those with secure attachment styles are those with high emotional intelligence, a healthy understanding of intimacy, and healthy, strong boundaries that allow them to create balanced partnerships. When you have a secure attachment style, you feel as at peace alone as you do with a partner or friend. It’s a state of confidence and a state of zen. Secure attachment gives you to the power to know that you able, no matter what comes.
Where do we learn our attachment styles?
Attachment styles are complex, and they can be impacted by a number of different factors. From childhood experiences of abuse or neglect to the unbalanced, chaotic world we live in today — everything affects how we relate and connect and it’s important to identify those causes if we want to get back to secure, stable bonding.
Childhood
Our childhood experiences do a lot to dictate how we form bonds later on in life. Growing up encompasses critical milestones in development, and when these are hindered by emotional distance or abuse it can seriously impact the way we see “healthy” relationships. If you’re someone who grew up working hard for the love and acceptance of your parents in childhood, you will keep repeating that desperation in your adult relationships if not addressed. The way we’re treated as children forms the basis for our world view later on in life. The way we attach to our parents is how we attach to our partners.
Adult relationships
Even if you had a great childhood, you can still development skewed senses of attachment through negative adult experiences. If you experience a number of traumatic of conflict-ridden relationships, it can seriously impact the way you see your future relationships and your place within them. It’s important to give ourselves the time and space to assess each of our adult relationships in a way that allows us to gleam lessons. Those lessons can carry us forward and prevent us from forming damaged attachment styles in future.
Personal experiences
Personal experiences outside our personal and family relationships can do a lot to affect the way we bond. Finding yourself existing in chaotic, abusive or otherwise stressful and damaging environment can cause you to form desperate and insecure bonds that eat away at your sense of authentic self. Personal experiences, and the way we process them are important, and can be impacted by anything from systemic racism and homophobia, to war, personal trauma or even financial stress.
How to change your attachment style.
Just because you have a negative attachment style now doesn’t mean you have to bear that attachment style forever. You can shift the way you bond with others by making shifts in your personality and the way you react and interact with your loved ones and environment. If you want to change the way you connect, dig deep, and start getting honest about who you are and what you want.
1. Improve your personality
Many of us believe that our personality is something inherent and unchangeable, but that just isn’t true. While some aspects of our personalities might come “pre-packaged” — we can also put in the work to boost our personalities and improve them greatly. With a little understanding and some conscious effort, you can increase the way you react and interact and put a shine on the personality you use everyday.
There are 5 essential facets of personality, and by focusing on these we can boost our personality for the better. High agreeableness, openness and conscientiousness are key in order to bond and relate to those around us. Likewise, our extraversion and neuroticism can greatly dictate the way we react and interact with our environment. By focusing on these essential ingredients, we can improve our personalities and therefore the way we relate and attach.
Don’t settle for the way things are. If you are struggling with an attachment style that only leads to internal or external conflict, start to shift things by digging into your personality and the way you use it to relate. Our personalities are a great starting place when it comes to re-thinking the way we attach to other and our environments. It’s also a great way to get back to the root of who we are and who we want to be.
2. Enlist help from your partner
If you suffer from insecure romantic attachments, it might mean you need the help of your partner in order to break free of your more toxic patterns. This can be done in a number of different ways, but they all start with the same thing: and honest conversation and opening up about where you’re at and where you want to go.
Find a time and a place that suits you both and open up about what’s going on with you. Let your partner know that your attachment style is causing turmoil in your life and you want their help in shifting it. Be clear about what’s wrong now and what you need in order to make it right. Give them space to share their own perspective and don’t shy away from the feedback they might give you.
Our partners are important and can be a great help-meet when it comes to making a radical shift in how we see ourselves and our relationships. They often have a point of view that’s elevated to our own, and they can also see strengths that we aren’t quite aware of yet. If you’re really looking to make a change in the way you attach, enlist the help of your partner. After all, it’s their relationship with you that will be one of the most impacted.
3. Grow a little backbone
If you’re someone who is suffering from an avoidant or dismissive attachment style, it’s imperative that you spend some time digging deep and growing that backbone you so desperately need. Though we often see “assertive” as a bad word, it’s a critical part of setting the foundations we need to thrive. Start sticking up for yourself and things you want.
Spend time getting to know the real you and the things you want in this life. Be brutally honest about where you’re at and where you want to be. If you don’t want to do something, be honest about that. Focus on your feelings and expressing them honestly to the people around you. This will enable you to say “no” more often and more earnestly.
Spend a little time with yourself each day taking an emotional inventory and checking into how you’re feeling. Once you’ve gotten comfortable with your feelings, start expressing them openly with those you trust — especially when it counts. Understand and accept that different people want different things sometimes. Life is all about creating the things we want to have in this world. Set the boundaries you need to thrive and stick to them. After all, you’re the only one on this beautiful journey, so accept the ride and stand tall and strong for the things you want from it. There’s only one person in control of your future and it’s you. Take advantage of your own destiny before someone else does it for you.
4. Resolve your shame
Shame is a complex emotion which exists (in some form or the other) in nearly every culture on the planet. It’s a system of control, and it’s one that causes us to commit and subscribe to a preset set of values or behaviors, which dictate how we behave and how we react in certain situation or environments. It can be used for good or bad, fair or ill, but the results are always negative self-image and an erosion of self-esteem that undermines overall happiness.
Our shame is like a shadow, and it can only be banished by being exposed to the light of truth. Shine the light of day on your fears and get real about what’s keeping you chained to your history. Make new connections and start focusing on the strengths you possess. We are not just a sum of our actions. We are so much more than that. Recognize your triggers and differentiate your fears from your true emotions. You can write a new narrative for yourself, but you have to master your inner critic first.
Shame is a dead weight that brings us down and keeps us chained to emotions and a past that no longer suits us. If we truly want to find our way back to authentic joy and happiness, we have to learn to let go of those negative and self-defeating thoughts and emotions that keep us stuck, scared and looking for a means to escape. We have to make the future we want, and we have to open up and expose the truth so that we can start to live in the future.
5. Be authentically you
One of the hardest things you can do in this modern society is learn how to be yourself unapologetically. We are encouraged, from every outside aspect, to be and present ourselves as something entirely different from what we truly are. Whether you’re a man, woman or anyone in-between, it’s hard to dig into the meat of getting better when you’re too busy chasing someone else’s dream.
Do one thing each day which is entirely your own. It can take five minutes or fifteen minutest. It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you do at least one thing every day that is solely what you want to do — and not something that comes at the whim, direction or need of someone else.
Being yourself doesn’t mean wearing the clothes you want or dying your hair that crazy color (though those things are certainly a part of it). It means standing up for what you think, laying personal boundaries and sticking to them, and taking responsibility for the baggage in life that is of your own making. Falsity distracts us from the path. We have to drop the charade if we want to find our path and our happiness.
6. Accept yourself
Only when we learn how to accept ourselves and the way we feel and react to the environment around us can we truly unlock the power of our authentic joy. We all have our baggage and the experiences that define who we are in the moment, but that person is always changing. In order to truly learn how to create healthy, open bonds, we have to learn how to accept ourselves as we are.
Let go of all the judgements and preconceived notions you have about yourself and others. Remind yourself that the only behavior within the realm of your control is your own, and own up to that behavior and the things that drove you to those points. Embrace who you are, and embrace what you really want. No one in this universe is the combination of things that you are. Love those things, and see the beauty in them and the purpose for their creation.
If you don’t like the way you bond and attach — make a plan to change it — but only after looking it boldly in the face and accepting it for what it is. Acceptance is the key to all change and understanding, but it is often the hardest hurdle to overcome. Only when we accept something that is within our nature can we dig into the meat of it and come up with a plan to change or transform it. Spend a few minutes each day practicing this radical self-acceptance, and look to build it into your regular routine.
7. Identify and differentiate your emotional needs
If you feel completely overwhelmed by your emotions, the good news is that there is a way to manage them. By engaging in a practice called emotional differentiation, we can come to know our emotions in a truly intimate way that allows us to tap into their power, while managing them in a way that provides the most benefit to ourselves. Mastering your emotions has nothing to do with brutally beating them back or down. It has everything to do with getting to know your emotions and spending some quality time with them.
Spend some time getting familiar with your emotions, and the 6 basic emotions that fuel everything from the choices you make to the people you surround yourself with. Take your emotional temperature and get some time getting to understand exactly how you’re feeling in the moment. Figure out your triggers, and work hard to identify how and why your emotions are impacting the choices that you make. Keep a record of your emotions and reference it regularly to cultivate the radical sense of acceptance you need to thrive in this dog-eat-dog world.
Our emotions form a core piece of who we are, and without them it is impossible to make the decisions we need to achieve happiness and contentment in our lives. In order to live happy and fulfilled lives, aligned with our inner truths, we have to learn how to differentiate between our emotions, and do it in such a way that empowers us to use them as a transformative power for good in our lives. Without our emotions, we are a ship without a rudder; directionless and searching endlessly without when we should be looking for within.
Putting it all together…
Attachment styles are important and they form a critical piece of our emotional foundations. When we learn how to cultivate strong, stable bonding abilities — we are better able to create stable, loving environments that allow us to thrive unhampered by conflict. If you want to shift the way you bond with others, you have to take an active role and invest in getting real about creating the life you need to be happy.
Overcoming and reworking our attachment styles takes improving our personalities and (sometimes) enlisting help from the people closest to us. Our attachment styles are important, and the way they impact our lives is important too. Start being assertive about what it is you really want from your life and your relationships, and work to resolve any shame that is keeping you chained to your fear and your debilitating means of attaching. Be authentically who you are and accept that person for every strength and every flaw that they happen to have. Only when we start to accept where we’re at can we dig into our emotional needs and start constructing the differentiation we need for happier, healthier relationships. Take charge of your attachment styles and start making the changes you need to create the future you want.
