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For the fearful avoidant attachment style, love does not always feel safe. When it starts to actually get real. It can instead feel exposing, overwhelming, intoxicating and deeply threatening all at the same time. But I'm going to take you through a lot more detail in terms of what a fearful avoidant attachment style actually feels and experiences throughout their entire journey of falling in love so that you have insight into your inner world if you are a fearful avoidant or you can way better understand your fearful avoidant partner and avoid some of the emotional whiplash that may take place over the course of a relationship. Her name is Thais Gibson.
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Thais Gibson.
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Thais Gibson.
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Thais Gibson.
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Thais Gibson. Thais Gibson.
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I hope I pronounce her name properly. Thais Gibson.
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I am so excited for you to be here with me today. Thank you for joining us.
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The reason for this being the confusion is that the fearful avoidant didn't have the same strategies as other attachment styles for connection. They had a lot more confusion than all other attachment styles. So what does this mean? Well, if you look at a secure person, for example, when they're children, when they cry or express their emotions, they usually get heard and the caregiver comes and helps them. There's some sort of positive reinforcement to their emotions. Like they get heard, they get listened to, they get seen, catered to, not in like an unhealthy way, but just connected to essentially. And same with their needs. When they express a need, that need is usually met. And so this can be through crying, this can be through saying I'm hungry or whatever it might be. The dismissive avoidant from, by the same sort of token, even though a lot of their needs are not met, there's a consistency to it. Like their needs are often physically met in many ways, but emotionally met, they're just, it's not really there, but there's a consistency to it. So the brain has this opportunity to adapt and be like, okay, cause and effect. Like, if I express emotions, they're not going to be heard and that's consistent. And so I can know that with some sort of certainty. And so the brain develops this adaptation to this by going, okay, well, I'm just not going to keep expressing myself in this direction. I'm going to learn to just repress my emotions and that feels safer and that works better for me and I can know that. And same with the anxious, right? They have the same idea. It's like when I get with my caregiver, when they're connected to me, they soothe me and that consistently works. And in the meantime, I might be waiting and it might be stressful, but I can trust them that when they're here, they tend to be good at soothing me and they tend to be present in the other time. It may feel really uncomfortable, but at least there's a consistency of reliability on the caregiver to tend to my emotional needs or physiological needs when they are there. Now, fearful, avoidant, what they tend to have is a lot more of this inconsistency. That's why they're sometimes also referred to as the disorganized attachment style, because they don't have an organized attachment strategy. Because sometimes the caregiver is warm and loving and lovely and can be there. And this can be because the caregiver was an addict. And so when they're sober, they're great. When they're not, then it's tough. It can be because there's a lot of violence in the household. So when the parents are apart, you know, each parent is a little bit more safe. It can be because the parent has their own personality disorder or extreme mood swings or is having trouble with emotional regulation. So one day the caregiver is warm and nice, and the other day the caregiver is sort of terrible. And so as a result of this, the fearful one develops this hyper vigilance as an attachment strategy. Like, I just have to be super attuned all the time and know all the time and always tuning in and checking in and trying to understand so that I can adapt accordingly. Now, when we fast forward this and we take this to the topic now, how does this show up and how does this impact the adult fearful avoidance, romantic relationship and how they show up? They have that same strategy alive and well. And what that strategy does is it acts as a barrier to be able to move into things like the stability and commitment and bliss phases of the relationship. Because the fearful avoidance, not getting a chance to settle in. Okay, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to go through and I'm going to talk to you a little bit about what we can do about this and sort of how this manifests in other ways as well, other little nuances that you'll see and what you can do to manage this. Because you might still have a little bit of the hyper vigilance and that ability to be super attuned or really tuned in, but it doesn't have to rule your life and stunt the lifecycle of your relationships. And I think this is one of the number one reasons That a fearful avoidant struggles in getting past the honeymoon phase of a relationship is because of exactly this thing. The fearful avoidance and them confusing love. So some of these early things, right? So you take this, this hyper vigilant nature of the fearful avoidant and they learn to be super attuned. And what this does is like it's a superpower on one sense of the matter, right? It's like in one space. The fearful avoidant is like so amazing at connecting to their partner. When they are not triggered in their relationship. They have a great ability to like tune in deeply, to connect deeply, to understand and make people feel seen and heard, right? These are some gifts that often come with the fearful avoidant attachment style. But on the other side is that the fearful avoidant in essence is holding themselves to this state of extreme perfectionism. Because imagine if you're a child and one day, you know, mom or dad warm and loving and another day they're abusive maybe or they're just, you know, extremely scary or frightening or confusing or unwell or whatever it might be. You learn like this is kind of a matter of survival, like this is a big deal as a child because we are wired to fear abandonment when we're reliant on other people, on our caregivers. And so there's this like ongoing need that's tied in there, this association that's like I could be completely unsafe, like this could end really badly. So as a result of that, you're basically holding yourself to the state of perfectionism and how well you attune to others what the state of the relationship is like. And as a result of that, any perceived disconnect or retraction, like any time where the relationship's not at a high, the fearful avoidance going to go, oh my God, like we're falling apart, something really bad could happen. And so because of that there's this ongoing like pressure and burden and perfectionism in the background. On one side you're going to always have this great regulation in your relationship. Like if you can tone this down and you can like get this into a healthy space, there can be a lot of success in relationships because you're willing to put in the effort and check in and be consistent. On the flip side of that, it can be friggin exhausting. And so it's so important to recognize and it's also a really great place to create the breeding grounds of resentment. Because other attachment styles, they don't confuse love with like perfectionism and always being at this high and having so Much passion, you know, to reinforce the safety. They usually, as they go through different parts of the life cycle of relationship, start feeling like, oh, you know, harmony is more important, or security or consistency or settling in is like a really great feeling. And for the fearful avoidant, they don't really understand what that means in the context of relationships because usually in their closest attachment bonds, they haven't really had that experience. Fearful avoidance, as a result, can sort of like, stir up conflict accidentally to try to keep things on a high, to try to. Sometimes they'll poke at things to see what's going wrong if there is a perceived disconnect and that that can create conflict accidentally or also fearful avoidance can feel like they're putting in so much effort. And because we know that conflict is essentially a perception of imbalance. If the fearful avoidance, putting in so much effort and they're working, trying so hard, and then they don't see their partner doing the same, they can start feeling frustrated and like, they don't matter. And their brain can fill in the blanks with these really painful stories or narratives like, I'm not important enough. I try so hard. Why don't they try? I'm the one always carrying and carrying the weight. And it can create this, like, frustration or resentment over time. And it's not really, you know, we can see so much how that, like, happens for the fearful avoidant from their perspective and why it would be such a burden to carry. But it's also not really the other person's fault because they have a different set of patterns in terms of how they relate to others. And so these two things have to sort of be, like, worked out or consolidated in a way. With that being said, here are some strategies. Okay, number one, recognize this is actually based on fear. It's a gift when you learn to use it from a healthy perspective and, like, base it on love and be like, okay, it's because I care about the relationship, but I'm going to be willing to let things that are less than perfect go. It's okay to have a day in the relationship where nothing amazing or exciting happens or it wasn't the best date ever or the best conversation ever, the best, the funniest time ever. It doesn't always have to be on as high. And while that is a very charming thing for a lot of people and they can be really drawn into that, that's not necessarily sustainable over time in a relationship. And so the underlying reasons here, right, are based on fear. Fear of abandonment, fear of being alone, fear of Failure, unworthiness, lack of safety, because the attachment figure is unpredictable. And you know, our primary attachment figure in our adult lives is our romantic partner. And so what we want to do is if you're the fearful avoidant, you want to practice questioning your expectations and trying to first understand the other attachment styles and their different needs for harmony, consistency, settling in, and even the anxious, preoccupied attachments need for like a little bit of safety and consistency in the relationship. And so question your expectations and try to understand where the other person is coming from. This will help you relax, number one. Number two, recognize when you're putting this pressure on yourself. Try to feel what that pressure feels like. And you might have a hard time because it's so close to your face. At first it's like you've been seeing through this lens for so long, but it tends to show up for the fearful avoidant in all seven areas of life. And again, this can be a gift, like in the workplace, it can help you like manage all the relationships and be really effective and understand what everybody expects and needs from you. And it can help you in so many different ways. But if you're ruling your life through that like perceptual filter and that lens and you're always like filling up your identity with everything outside of you and all these little nuances and all these different things, number one, people become exhausting. And number two, you're always in this sort of state of fight or flight which is taxing your nervous system over time and doesn't bode well long term for physical health and just emotional well being. And you'll probably also struggle with chronic fatigue and burnout a lot more easily. Another thing, try to take those fears and address the underlying strategies. So for example, let's say you realize, okay, well, there's a fear of abandonment or fear of failure. Have like healthier strategies for yourself so you don't have to fall into this like hyper vigilance pattern. Try to have these like organized connection strategies. So maybe for example, you and your partner decide that you're going to check in on your needs once a week. Hey, are your needs being met in the relationship? And you just have a direct conversation about it because it takes off all the need of like being hyper vigilant and trying to guess and understand and put patterns together and see if there's any miscommunication in the patterns, all these different things. So have that conversation. Number two, question your stories. I talk about this a lot more in the school and like the different specifics and the tools. But just recognize like just at a high level here. This is probably the most important thing a fearful point can do. Recognize the narratives and the meaning they give to situations and work on just separating that from reality. And try to understand what your underlying needs are. Okay? And try to communicate about those needs directly is also extremely important. So maybe you need validation or reinforcement in the relationship so you can just say, hey, you know, are we in a good space? Are we good? Is there anything we can work on? And just have these check ins so you can have this conscious conversation around it instead of trying to play the guessing game. Because I want you to think about like how exhausting that actually is over time. It can be extremely draining to be constantly in the state of like guessing, figuring out, trying to decide, understand. It's just, it's a lot of pressure and a lot of weight to carry. And again, it's going to create the breeding grounds for resentment over time. If you enjoyed this episode, please take
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a moment to subscribe, rate and review us on your favorite podcast platform, share
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it with friends and family who are
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on their journey of personal development and growth and thank you for listening. Next week we'll be back with more insights to guide you on your journey. And until until then, keep practicing our tools and strategies to change your subconscious mind and apply some of the powerful learnings from this podcast so that you experience real life transformation.