Hi friend,
It’s easy to mistake people with avoidant attachment as not caring or having feelings.
But this notion is utterly false.
Avoidants often suffer in silence.
Their inner world is also filled with anxiety and fear, but their coping mechanism is to shut-down, disconnect or hide instead of pursue, grasp or get loud. That’s also a painful reality to live.
Avoidants deal with their anxiety inverse to the ways anxious folks do.
While anxious attachment projects energy outward through pursuit, protest, and urgency…
Avoidant attachment turns inward through distance, self-protection, or focusing on tasks to escape overwhelm.
One of the challenges of anxious attachment is finding the capacity to think outside of oneself during moments of conflict or activation. In those moments, we may become so focused on having our need for attention met that it's difficult to consider another person's reality.
You can see how this doesn’t work out so well for the avoidant, who is internally overwhelmed and doesn’t have the capacity to be with intensity and is also very sensitive to criticism.
All maladaptive attachment styles (anything other than secure) are a survival response.
There’s no “good or bad” attachment style, it’s simply a way a human being copes with feeling unsafe or uncared for.
The key is to acknowledge how we learned to cope and begin to develop new healthier ways of being.
We all have the capacity to move toward feeling secure in ourselves, which looks like:
Being able to consider other realities
Navigate conflict with maturity
Communicate our needs clearly
And set healthy boundaries
This is a practice we can and must do in relationship, not just romantic relationship but also in friendships.
Ultimately both avoidant and anxious attachment have the same core fear:
I will be abandoned, unloved, left alone to die (this is not literal death, but on a survival level this is where the nervous system can go.)
Both styles have similar fears, but different ways of coping. And yes, this dynamic can heal with time, patience and a whole lot of willingness.
Healing requires both partners step outside of themselves and do the opposite of their conditioned response.
For the avoidant, that’s to practice using their voice, taking up space, and learning how to stay with the energy even as it’s rising.
For anxious that’s to let their foot off the gas and give some space, to take ownership for their emotional reality and practice self-soothing.
Becoming securely attached in relationship is possible when we're willing to do the inner-work and practice new ways of being.
Inside Today’s Newsletter:
🌕 Full Moon in Aquarius Report: Belong Without Leaving Yourself Behind
✨ A Practice + Journaling Prompts: To help you notice the moment your body wants to reach or retreat, and build the capacity to stay connected to yourself.
🌙 Check out our recent astrology report:
🌿 This Weeks Reflection
Both the one who chases and the one who pulls away are protecting the same tender place.
✨ Practice for the Week: The Space Between Feeling and Reacting
Whether you tend toward anxious or avoidant patterns, there's a moment in relationship when the energy starts to climb. Your body senses threat, and before you've even thought about it, you're reaching to close the gap or pulling back to protect yourself. This practice helps you find the pause inside that rise, so you can stay with the intensity long enough to choose your response instead of being run by it.
Doing the opposite of our conditioned response asks a lot of the nervous system. The point isn't to override what you feel but to build the capacity to stay present while you feel it, so the wave can move through you without carrying you off. This is a way to practice that staying in a low-stakes moment, so it's more available to you when it counts.
Set aside about ten minutes and find a space where you won't be interrupted.
Step 1: Settle. Find a comfortable seat or lie down somewhere you feel at ease. Take a few slow breaths, letting each exhale stretch a little longer than the inhale.
Step 2: Arrive. Let your body come to rest. Feel the surface beneath you holding your weight. Let your shoulders release and your jaw loosen.
Step 3: Recall. Bring to mind a recent moment when the energy rose with a partner or someone close to you. Something small is fine. Let it return with enough detail that you feel a trace of it in your body.
Step 4: Locate. Notice where the activation lives in you. Maybe it's heat in your chest, a pull in your stomach, a restlessness in your legs. Place your attention there and keep it company for a few breaths.
Step 5: Name the pull. Sense which direction your body wants to move. Toward the other person, reaching to fix or be reassured. Or away from them, pulling back to get some room. There's no wrong answer here, just information about your conditioned response.
Step 6: Stay. Instead of following the pull, see if you can stay right where you are with the sensation. Breathe into it. Let it be as big as it is without acting on it. Notice that you can feel this much and still be okay.
Step 7: Widen. From this steadier place, see if there's room to hold another reality alongside your own. The other person has an inner world too, with their own fear underneath. You don't have to solve anything. You're just making space for more than your own experience.
Step 8: Notice. Take a moment to feel how you are now compared to when you began. Even a small shift is worth acknowledging.
The space between feeling and reacting takes practice to find, and some days the pull will win. Each time you pause and stay a breath longer than usual, you're teaching your body that it can meet intensity without losing itself.
Be gentle with yourself as you practice this one.
Journal Prompts
Where in my life do I tend to reach, and where do I tend to retreat? Do I notice one showing up more in certain relationships than others?
When I feel activated in conflict, what does my body do first? Where do I feel it, and what is it trying to protect me from?
What would it look like to do the opposite of my conditioned response this week? If I usually chase, what does giving space feel like in my body? If I usually withdraw, what does staying present ask of me?
When I imagine communicating a need clearly, without ramping up or shutting down, what comes up? What makes it feel risky?
What does "safe" actually feel like in my nervous system? Can I name a moment I felt it, and what was present that allowed it?
Where am I already practicing new ways of being, even in small ways I might not have given myself credit for?
If you saw yourself somewhere in this, whether in the reaching or the retreating, I want you to know the way you learned to cope was never a flaw. Your nervous system did exactly what it needed to keep you safe.
The work now is slow and ongoing. It's noticing the moment your body wants to grasp or pull away, and choosing to stay a breath longer. Every time you practice the opposite of your old response, you teach your body that connection can be safe.
This is the inner-work, and you're already doing it just by being here.
Love,
Shay 💕
P.S. If you’re ready to rewire anxious attachment patterns, heal the trust wound beneath them, and build real inner security so you can create healthier, more secure relationships, Freedom From Relationship Anxiety is here to support you. Get started here.