Hi friend,
When our anxious or anxious avoidant attachment wounds are running the show in relationship, it’s chaos.
It can impact our ability to see things clearly and trust what we’re experiencing.
The not as often talked about aspect of anxious attachment is that it can create an inability or reduced capacity to recognize and receive love.
The anxious attachment wound can create obsession, dysregulation and righteousness.
It can also be really challenging in the thick of it to see the ways our wound may actually be perpetuating the pattern too.
Here’s what it can look like when an anxious attachment wound is at the wheel:
Being preoccupied with what a partner is or isn’t doing and pursuing them to change or behave the way you want.
Making a partner responsible for your big feelings and anxiety while neglecting your own role in the pattern.
Self-abandonment and betrayal of your own inner voice, needs and desires.
Urgently attaching to new people without having actually gotten to know one another.
Shutting down or hiding parts of yourself because you’re afraid they’ll leave.
Dumpster diving for love. Settling for scraps when a person has made it clear they can’t show up for you.
Trying to control a partner or psycho-analyze them with the conviction that they are the sole problem in the relationship.
Obsessing over an ex and all of the ways they wronged you.
Feeling on edge and not being able to relax and enjoy the present moment when spending time with a partner.
Sometimes our anxiety is actually an alert that something is genuinely not right in the relationship...
But it’s nearly impossible to trust our bodies signals when we haven’t done the deeper work to know what’s ours and what’s theirs. When we can’t sort our emotional experience from another's, our “intuition” is no good to us.
This is why the inner work matters so much. Not so you can become someone who never feels anxious, but so you can finally trust yourself enough to know what your body is telling you and respond from a settled place instead of survival mode.
Inside Today’s Newsletter:
🕊️ From Instagram: Why long term love is built on companionship more than passion + what the science of "chemistry" reveals about attraction and nervous system healing.
✨ A Practice + Journaling Prompts: To help you tell the difference between an old wound speaking and your body's true signal, so your anxiety becomes something you can trust.
🕊️ The Latest Rising Woman Posts:
🌿 This Weeks Reflection
When you can tell your old fear from your true knowing, your anxiety becomes a compass instead of a storm.
✨ Practice for the Week: Sorting the Signal
When anxiety shows up in relationship, it can be hard to tell whether it's an old wound speaking or your body telling you something true about right now. This practice helps you slow down enough to feel the difference, so your anxiety can become information you trust instead of a wave that carries you off.
Most of us react to the feeling before we've listened to it. The moment the anxiety hits, we're already texting, pulling away, or replaying the conversation for evidence. This practice is a way to pause in that gap and ask your body what's actually happening, so you can respond from a settled place.
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 be a little longer than the inhale.
Step 2: Arrive. Let your body come to rest. Feel the surface underneath you holding your weight. Let your shoulders drop and your jaw loosen.
Step 3: Recall. Bring to mind a recent moment when you felt anxious with a partner or someone you're dating. Something small is fine. Let the moment come back to you with enough detail that you can feel a trace of it in your body.
Step 4: Locate. Notice where the anxiety lives in you. Maybe it's a tightness in your chest, a churning in your stomach, a buzzing in your hands. Place your attention there and keep it company for a few breaths without trying to change it.
Step 5: Ask. Gently ask the sensation, "Do I know you from before?" Notice what comes. Old wounds often feel familiar, urgent, and bigger than the moment seems to warrant. Let yourself feel whether this is a well-worn groove or something new.
Step 6: Listen. Now ask, "Is there something real here I need to pay attention to?" Give it space to answer. Sometimes both are true at once, an old fear and a real signal woven together. You're not looking for a perfect answer, just a little more clarity than you had.
Step 7: Choose. From this steadier place, sense what you actually need. Maybe it's reassurance you can give yourself. Maybe it's a conversation to have when you're calm. Maybe it's simply staying with yourself a while longer before you do anything at all.
Step 8: Notice. Take a moment to notice how you feel now compared to when you began.
Learning to sort the signal takes time, and you won't get it right every time. Each time you pause to listen before you react, you're building the trust in yourself that makes your body a compass you can rely on.
This is a practice you can return to again and again.
Journal Prompts
When I feel anxious in a relationship, where do I feel it in my body, and what is that sensation trying to tell me?
What does love feel like in my body when it's offered to me? Am I able to take it in, or do I notice myself deflecting, doubting, or bracing?
What did I learn about love when I was young, and how is that story still running in my relationships now?
Is there a difference I can feel between fear that comes from my past and a true signal that something is off right now? How do I know?
What would change in my relationships if I trusted that I could hold myself through my own big feelings?
Healing an anxious attachment wound is less about your partner and more about coming home to yourself. When you can stay with your own fear instead of handing it to someone else to fix, you give yourself the security you've been looking for out there. That's the work, and every bit of it is learnable.
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.