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So you have a dismissive, avoidant loved one in your life. Maybe they are somebody you're dating. Maybe there's somebody you're actually in a romantic relationship with, or perhaps an ex, a friend, even a family member. Well, have you ever wondered what happens when you are the person to take a step back in the relationship, when you're the person to shut down, pull away, or stop constantly initiating conversation? In today's video, we are going to cover exactly what happens when you are the one to do just that and stop talking to a dismissible point. And my hope for you is that by the end of this video, you are going to completely understand the mechanics and how to really leverage these things in healthier ways to create a lot of ongoing connection and momentum in your relationship. But also how to know when it may be time for you to take an active step back once and for all. If you're not already familiar, this tends to happen the most with two attachment styles that are insecurely attached. Our fearful avoidant, AKA disorganized attachment style, and our dismissive avoidant attachment style. Now, we tend to see this a little bit more strongly in the fearful avoidant because they tend to experience their emotions more and they tend to have more of an anxious side to them, whereas dismissive avoidants are just more purely avoidant. And if you've had this experience, this can be because there's two FAs in a relationship together. This can be because there's an avoidant with an anxious, preoccupied attachment style. And if you're really not familiar, there's four main attachment styles. One is secure and the other three are insecurely attached. They're the anxious or more kind of needy clingy style, the fearful avoidant that can have that needy clingy side, but also this avoidant fear of commitment side and the dismissive avoidant who tends to have the most fear of commitment. And our attachment style literally affects us more than any other factor in relationships. But why does this happen? Why is it that when we have an avoidant leaning style that we find this experience of when we pull back or distance, suddenly the person pursues you? Well, the reason for this is that both fearful avoidance style and dismissive avoidance are two avoidant leaning attachment styles. They both are constantly operating in this idea of their feelings minus their fears. So where their feelings are and where there's no pushing or triggering of their fears, they will be right there in that, expressing their feelings. But dismissive avoidance and fearful avoidance alike, both have a lot of fears about Love, vulnerability and closeness. And this is because in their upbringing, when their attachment style formed and developed, they had negative associations to closeness. And either they felt neglected, they felt unseen, they felt like they didn't matter, or that they were defective, or they felt trapped, helpless and powerless because of the way that they were conditioned. So if they had a lot of pain around attachment and closeness, there's a part of them that wants attachment and closeness because we're wired for it biologically. And we can also have a lot of fear and panic around attachment and closeness if we had painful or past traumatic experiences. And so what you'll see is from a fearful, avoidant perspective and da perspective, dismissive, avoidant, that they both are constantly in their feelings, minus their feelings fears. When closeness is needed, then some of those stored subconscious associations about what closeness is will be activated, right? It's like, oh, closeness is scary. Closeness will make me feel hurt. Long term vulnerability results in me getting neglected or shamed. These different past experiences they had that are being carried subconsciously into their present and future will be activated or triggered when closeness is there. But when somebody pulls away, if you're in your feelings minus fears, those fears were being pushed on when they were close, but now that they've pulled away, the fears are not being activated. So they're just in their feelings. So what do you do about this? Right? How do you recognize this? And then what can we do if we are the left when we can't just pull away all the time and hope that somebody chases? What we actually have to do is learn a couple different things. Number one is how to walk the middle ground, right? We have to respect somebody's independence, autonomy and pace while also being able to take our own needs properly into consideration and be able to communicate about them. Right? We can't just say, oh, I'm just gonna move at the avoidant person's pace. Cause that's not fair to you if you're not an avoidant. So we have to find a healthy compromise, but we have to also be considerate of that person, realize what they need and discuss what we need as well in a constructive way. When we play the like, pull back, push away, come close, pull back. When we play games, it always just leads to destructive outcomes. So the more we can be conscious, communicate, own our boundaries, own our needs, and respect that somebody may have a bit of a slower pace they want to move at, then that's how we have that sort of middle ground there. If you ever want to dive in to the discover, embrace and fulfill Your personal needs course, it's really an in depth assessment on your own needs. What lights you up in relationships, what lights you up in your personal life. It's a great way to deeply know yourself. And you can also do the needs assessment with somebody else or on behalf of somebody else and really deeply understand somebody else. Another really important thing is to make sure that you're encouraging that person to work on themselves. Right? If somebody's constantly in their feelings, minus their fears, they want love, but they also have trauma around love. And so what essentially takes place is that trauma is popping out. And that trauma will wreak havoc on a relationship at some point in time if it's not dealt with or if it's unhandled. And so what we have to be able to do is encourage somebody to recognize that. And for trauma to be reconditioned around love and closeness, we need to be targeting the subconscious mind. Mind. The conscious mind is responsible for roughly 3 to 5% of your thoughts, feelings, behaviors. Your subconscious and unconscious mind collectively are 95 to 97%. And that's where real change happens. The subconscious mind is like the one running the show. The conscious mind likes to think that it is, but it's not. And so, you know, what ends up taking place is if we don't address trauma at a subconscious level by reprogramming the different core wounds we have around trauma, then it can be really difficult to gain a lot of positive, positive momentum around a relationship. But I think if you're on the receiving end of this, what you can do is suggest to somebody that they recognize these different pain points and patterns, that they take accountability for them. Communicate your needs, but also set a deadline so that you don't stay in a relationship or a situation that may not be unfolding in a healthy way for too long. I think it's great to be patient, to communicate, to put the work in, to try to do the work and have the conversations necessary to be able to grow together through any pain points and challenges. And I've seen countless, countless, countless attachment styles be able to do this and do the work. But I think it's also important to recognize when that's not happening and be able to take ownership and realize, look, you know, something's not going well and the person's not willing to show up and do the work. And so I may have to just own my own boundaries, take ownership of my needs, support and protect them, and take a step back. And you know, that's. I always say this on this channel, but that would be the number one thing I was looking for when couples came in for sessions with me back when I was running my private practice. And I would look to see, like, are both parties going to show up and do the work? And that was the most important thing because we can communicate, we can hash things out, we can share, we can be vulnerable. And that practice brings us towards becoming more securely attached. But if we're not doing that, then we can easily get stuck in a standstill. And then the very last thing I would just say of, of what to do if you're noticing that somebody pursues you when you distance is to communicate directly about the situation. To say, hey, I notice when I pull away or I'm busy, I notice that you sort of reemerge. But I'm looking for consistency in the relationship. I'm looking for, you know, and fill in the blanks. But you can share exactly what it is that you're looking for. Call out the pattern of behavior in a healthy way and let somebody know what you're needing instead. And that will also help to give direction. And that will help you, as somebody on the receiving end, to know, okay, I called out directly. I. I showed up for myself. And somebody either shows up back or they don't. And that's quickly going to give you some really clear answers about where they are at in a relationship and in terms of their capacity to commit to and do the work for a relationship. So I hope this makes a whole lot of sense. Thank you so much for watching. Please, like, share and subscribe if you enjoyed this video and consider subscribing to the channel in general, because I put a daily video out here about love, dating, relationships, attachment styles, the subconscious mind, all of that stuff together. So thank you so much for watching and I will see you soon.