Navigating and Overcoming Anxious Attachment: From Anxiety to Security in Relationships

Can understanding the intricacies of your attachment style transform your relationships? This episode promises to do just that by unraveling the complexities of anxious attachment. We dissect the characteristics of anxious attachment, highlighting the constant craving for reassurance and validation and how it can create instability in relationships. You’ll learn practical strategies for identifying a reliable support system and maintaining trust and perspective, both of which are crucial for nurturing healthy interpersonal connections and a more profound relationship with God.

Ever felt overwhelmed by a flood of negative thoughts? Discover how those with anxious attachment can navigate their emotions by selecting which "waves" of thought to surf. We explore how to challenge anxious thoughts and avoid dependency on others for emotional security. Learn effective techniques like breathing exercises, prayer, meditation, and the value of spending time with securely attached individuals to build a stronger sense of personal security. These insights will help you manage sensitivity to perceived distance in relationships, encouraging healthier interactions.

One's relationship with God can mirror their human connections, and emotional volatility can often cloud this divine link. We delve into how healthy friendships and positive activities can deepen your spiritual connection, while difficulties might cause you to question God's presence. Key issues like setting boundaries, managing feelings of neediness, and maintaining self-esteem are discussed with actionable strategies for self-regulation. Finally, we pave the way towards transitioning to a secure attachment style, setting the stage for our next journey into avoidant attachment styles. Join us to uncover how to cultivate more stable and fulfilling relationships with both others and God.

Chapters

• 0:05 Understanding Anxious Attachment Styles
• 9:04 Navigating Anxious Attachment Patterns
• 22:47 Overcoming Anxious Attachment Patterns
• 36:05 Transitioning to Secure Attachment Style

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

Well, all right, welcome back everyone to the God Attachment Healing Podcast. It has been quite a while. It's been quite a journey and I know I've shared this before in previous episodes and it's just been a busy, busy time school, work, family, a bunch of different things going on. But I'm excited to be back and talking about attachment styles. I'm going to do a series on understanding the different attachment styles and how to go from the non-secure attachment styles to a secure attachment style, and hopefully we're able to explore some really common themes that are helpful for you. I know there's been a couple of you who have mentioned and have requested that I do a series or a couple of episodes on understanding attachment styles, so I'm here to explain more on that. Obviously, this is always coming back to how do these relationships in our daily lives affect the relationships or our relationship with the Lord? So hopefully this is a good episode for you as we jump into the topic, and the one that we're going to talk about today is the anxious attachment style. I think it's probably the most common type of attachment style I talked about before about the different types of attachment style pairings, and I think a lot of you guys were interested in that, like which attachment styles usually come together and connect or try to connect, and usually there's an anxious, there's an avoidant, and then you just kind of have to work out a couple of those different barriers that each one has. So today, though, I'm going to talk about the anxious attachment style, and I think one of the first things to understand about this is just to know that your attachment style can change, and, again, I've mentioned this many times before, but it's a good reminder for those who are anxious, specifically because there's a belief somewhere in there that no, maybe I can't change, maybe this is just how I'm always going to be, and that can be very despairing and discouraging, right when you feel like there's no hope for you to change your attachment style, that you're only going to be like this in every single relationship, and that's not the case. So, hopefully, as you kind of hear today's episode that it brings a sense of comfort, a sense of relief, a sense of hope, and also that it then transitions into your relationship with God, because, again, these very same beliefs that we have in our day-to-day relationships, we also tend to attribute those to our relationship with God. So let's go ahead and jump into some of the characteristics of the anxious attachment style. So I'll explain some of them and I'll give some good descriptions about them and then see if you kind of take off each of these different characteristics Now. Again, if you do, don't lose hope Again. The whole point of today's episode is that you understand it so you can then know how to identify it, how to regulate yourself and then move forward in your relationship with both people and the Lord.

Speaker 1: 3:13

So one of the most common common attachment style characteristics for the anxious attachment is the constant need for reassurance and validation. Attachment is the constant need for reassurance and validation. And you know I was talking to a friend not too long ago. We did an episode. I have another podcast they do with my friend, tim Yance. It's called Psych and Theo Podcast. Shout out to our other podcast.

Speaker 1: 3:36

But there is this constant need for reassurance and validation. And social media has kind of increased that attachment style because we base our validation and our reassurance on the likes or whatever the case is, on our posts, on our stories. You know anything that you have to kind of seek that out and again that speaks to maybe a little bit about your day-to-day friendships, relationships. You know what kind of validation or reassurance are you receiving from the people who are in your circles? And you know for the ancient attachments. When we're talking about reassurance and validation. It's interesting because it's what they need, so they're constantly searching for it with different people and they'll get it from this person over here. They'll get something from this person over here, from this person over here.

Speaker 1: 4:29

But the problem with that is, if you have too many people on that roster per se, when one of them doesn't give you that validation and that reassurance, then you kind of freak out about that relationship, so you focus on another one and then when that one's not there, then you come back to this one, then you go to another one. So there's always this search and constant need for affirmation and reassurance. So my general recommendation when it comes to reassurance and validation is choose two to three people. Just, there's going to be at least one right. At least one person who never makes you have to question your value in their lives. Right that you are someone that is important to them, that they're always going to have your back, they're always going to be there for you. Those are the people that you want to surround yourselves with, and we have one. We just have to search for that person.

Speaker 1: 5:26

The problem is again, like I said, is that you find that person and then maybe you just have an off day, or that person has an off day and you know you don't get that reassurance or that validation from them and you start to question everything, right? So it's important for you know those who are anxiously attached to focus and discipline themselves to just hey, this is just part of the daily process, daily life, where people encounter different situations and scenarios and struggles that they may just not be on point that day. Same thing for you, right? There's going to be some days where you feel more secure and there's going to be other days where you're going to feel more anxious. So you have to continually practice reminding yourself who this person is, what they mean to you and what's been their overall consistency, consistent behavior, right. So those are things that can bring back reassurance and validation to their relationship and also how you even perceive yourself. So that need or that desire for affirmation and reassurance, seek it out in a smaller group of people and then just stay committed to that. Obviously, with time things change, but again, you want to look for overall consistent behavior that kind of predicts how that person is going to be with you. Okay.

Speaker 1: 6:48

Another very common characteristic is this fear of abandonment and rejection. It kind of ties in a little bit to the first one, where you're seeking reassurance and validation. In this case, you're fearing abandonment and rejection. And you know, typically anxiously attached individuals are very sensitive to rejection. Right, a disagreement could seem to them as rejection. Someone not canceling plans or canceling plans can seem like rejection to them, even though they may have a legitimate reason for canceling those plans. And in canceling those plans, there may also be this fear of abandonment. Oh, they found someone better than me, or they have another friend who they like more and they're going to go hang out with them and that's why they cancel their plans with me, and so on. Right, so there's this idea of I'm going to be abandoned in a sense. Right, I'm not going to see them for a long time because they've made this new friend over here. They, they're interested in this person over here. Again, all of those are legitimate fears.

Speaker 1: 7:49

Now, if we go back, because each of these characteristics stem from somewhere and I talk about this often in regards to attachment, but when you're a young child, a toddler, your baby getting your needs met. That inconsistency, or that reassurance, that validation, that fear of rejection, that fear of abandonment, it stems from early childhood experiences that give you the feeling that you're going to be abandoned or rejected, and it increases with each developmental stage. So you have infancy, you have toddler, then you're a child, then preteen, then teen, right? So each of those stages, if you continually see patterns of rejection or abandonment and someone not being able to meet your needs, right, it makes a lot of sense why you're going to go into your adult relationships and feel the same way, right, as though someone is going to leave because you are annoying or you're boring to them, or there's something wrong with you. Like there's all these beliefs and thoughts that come into your mind that may make you think that you're gonna be abandoned or rejected. But again, that's where we have to battle with these thoughts and challenge them.

Speaker 1: 9:04

I actually heard a really good illustration of this and you guys will appreciate this. A guy was talking about how we can control our thoughts or at least challenge them. Scripture talks about that as well to take every thought captive. And this guy he used the illustration of the waves he's like it's like when you go to the beach, right, you don't control what waves come towards the shore, but you can control which waves you surf on. And it's true, right, because as the waves are coming through and I see one and I'm like, oh, that's a nice one, that's going to be a big one, and I go towards that wave and I try to catch it. And you know, obviously, if I get a good one, then I have a lot of fun and it's great, and if I don't, then I just try again. But I chose the wave, I chose the one that looked like was going to be more fun or that was going to you know, take me, you know, to the shore.

Speaker 1: 9:59

So, very similarly, when it comes to these anxious thoughts that you have, they're going to come in, right, and you get to choose which one you want to ride. Now, not all of them are fun, right, so this is different in that sense, but you do get to choose. And that's the point I want to make with this is that when you have the choice, or when you have these thoughts that come up of you know you being rejected or that you're potentially going to be abandoned or let go of, whatever the case is that you get to choose. Okay, what do I want to focus on? Yes, that's a thought that came in. But is there another thought that I can focus on right now? And one of the things that you can do is okay, has this person ever abandoned me before? And you say no, okay, so that's good. You know, that means they've been consistent, right. But let's turn it around a little bit. Let's say that you found a yes, right, yes, they did, but then they apologized and then after that, their behavior changed, right, and then they became consistent again, right. So, again, ride those waves. You can challenge certain thoughts to remind yourself of the reality of that relationship, like what's happened in the general, overall, what's happened right? So, yeah, maybe a person failed you once or twice, but is that the common occurrence? Is that the pattern? And if it's not, you can challenge those thoughts with these different thoughts more positive thoughts, more realistic thoughts, right? So when it comes to abandonment and rejection, it's about choosing which thoughts you want to focus on and you base those thoughts off of what the overall relationship patterns have been okay. So that's one place to go to when you think about writing the thought wave per sense, right.

Speaker 1: 11:44

The anxiously attached are also overly sensitive to perceived signs of distance, right. And this could be something as simple as you know a friend not texting back in time or I don't even know what that means in time, or not texting back right away, or taking longer than usual, right, when something could actually be happening. Maybe they're busy, maybe something, maybe they're you know, they themselves are thinking about a lot of different things. They're struggling with something, but anything that kind of gives this sense of distance, right, like that they're pulling away, and that's usually the common language, where you feel like people are pulling away from you and pulling away could mean abandonment or it could mean rejection, right. So all of these thoughts kind of overlap with each other. But the anxiously attached are overly sensitive to those signs of distance, right? Or maybe someone hasn't texted you in a while or hasn't called you in a while, hasn't wanted to spend time with you in a while. Again, all of those are perceived as potential abandonment, right?

Speaker 1: 12:44

There's a tendency to see closeness and intimacy, which is good, but the difference for the anxious attached individual is that they do it excessively right. So seeking closeness and intimacy is something that all of us want to have. We want to be able to do that in our relationships. So why is that a problem? Well, it's a problem when it becomes excessive. Right, because then you become dependent on the other person for you to feel secure. Right, and when we're talking about attachment, you want to learn how to become secure yourself. Right, implementing regulation techniques such as breathing. It can be challenging thoughts, it can be prayer, meditation, reading scripture all of these different things that help us feel secure, but we have to develop the practice of it so that we don't lose sight of what we're actually trying to obtain, which is security. Right, we want to feel secure, and that security that you develop on your own you can then take into your relationships.

Speaker 1: 13:40

Now, there are some relationships that are going to trigger your anxiety a little bit more your anxiously attached patterns more than your secure patterns, right? So a good way or a good recommendation that I like to make for those who are anxiously attached is to seek people who are secure, obviously, but also spend time with them. Right, spend as much time as you can with them, because if you feel secure around this person and you can identify feeling that security, then you know what you're going to feel like when you go into other relationships where you don't feel as secure, right, it's kind of that whole idea of you. Know how can people tell the difference between one thing or the other? The more exposure you have to the thing that you're looking for, the more you.

Speaker 1: 14:29

So it's okay to see closeness and intimacy, right, that's a good thing, that's probably one of the biggest strengths of the anxiously attached individual. But they have to just pull back just a little bit so they're not overburdening or overbearing to the other person. And again, these are thoughts that the anxious individual will think like oh, I'm probably overwhelming them, I'm probably a burden to them, they probably really don't care about me, and so on, me them, I'm probably a burden to them, they probably really don't care about me, and so on. But really the heart behind that is that they want to be close and feel intimate with another person that they know fully and that that person also fully knows them, right? So because of that, there's this difficulty to trust others' intentions, right, a friend can tell you hey, I'm going to be there for you and you have some work that you need to do and you need it done this weekend. And you invite a friend and you say, hey, can you help me out? And they say, yeah, I'll be there. And then somewhere in the back of your head, after 20 minutes of that conversation, you start to think, oh no, they're probably going to have something come up. They're probably going to cancel. What's going to happen? Who am I going to get if they do cancel, and so on. Right, so there's this difficulty to trust what other people are saying.

Speaker 1: 15:39

And again, if you can go back to your childhood and try to remember instances where someone who maybe had broken a promise to you, you'll be able to see where that fear stems from right. That person that you're interacting with is not your parent. They're not that best friend from childhood. They're not that teacher, that leader that may have made promises to you and then didn't complete them. Right, that's where that stems from. You know, I still remember an experience with my dad where he said, if I made an honor roll, that he would buy me a bike. And I, you know, I think I was like nine years old or something and I made on-roll and weren't able to get the bike. So he's like, okay, well, next time I'll do it. And it happened like three or four times and I made on-roll every single time and we just weren't able to get it. And then there was other things like hey, we'll go to the park, and if we didn't go to the park, then I was disappointed. So there was these repeated patterns of promises being made and not fulfilled. So I started to believe that.

Speaker 1: 16:43

You know, I started to question whether people really meant what they said. I mean, even when you receive a compliment for something you know, depending on who the person is, sometimes it's hard to receive it because you don't know if it's genuine, or at least you question that in your head. You don't know if this person really means it. You don't know if they're just saying that to make you feel good about yourself, like you start to question all these different things based off of those childhood experiences Again. So it's very, very important that you explore what your childhood experience was like and who were the important people in your life that made you feel this way, what your childhood experience was like and who were the important people in your life that made you feel this way, again, with attachment. You're going to have to do a lot of that work. In the present right, you're looking back to see where it stemmed from. But all the work that you're doing is in the present and you have to challenge those thoughts and you have to kind of understand how your body feels when you're around people who are secure, who are anxious, who are avoidant to see.

Speaker 1: 17:36

Okay, well, what's coming up for me and where does that stem from? Right? So difficulty trusting others is definitely one, and it's usually based off of broken promises from your childhood. And then, lastly, there's a fear of being unlovable or unworthy, right, one of the characteristics outside of these, or the defining. I did this because there's a chart that I'm trying to picture and the chart for an anxiously attached individual. You know, there's this anxiety and then there's avoidance, but then you also have their view of self and their view of others. For the anxiously attached individual, their view of self and their view of others.

Speaker 1: 18:15

For the anxiously attached individual, they tend to have a overly positive view of others and a negative view of themselves, right? So what does this look like? You know, they'll dote on people and they'll kind of praise every single person around them Everyone's great, everyone's good, you know and kind of highlight the accomplishments of other people, but when it comes to them. It's like, yeah, that's not great, you know, yeah, I'm still a work in progress, I'm still this, so kind of like this humble spirit, but also this kind of demeaning or self-deprecating type of language that they use for themselves, but for everyone else it's overly positive, almost. And again, it's a way to cope with that pain of I'm not worthy. But I hang around people who are worthy and who are likable, so by association I'm going to be more likable and more included in the groups and so on.

Speaker 1: 19:09

So there's this fear that I'm not lovable and we feel that we're not lovable because if we were lovable, then our needs would be met in relationships and we're not worthy because our needs would have been met in our relationships. So the anxiously attached individual is usually someone who overdoes it in relationships. Overdoes it in relationships. They go far and beyond, above and beyond their expectations of themselves, even to be the best friend possible, right. So they do everything for everyone. They're constantly tired, but everyone's happy with them, so they're drained, right. But again, this is all the desire, or this all stems from a desire to see closeness and intimacy with other people, and the way to do that is by making other people feel special. I don't want people to feel unlovable or unworthy, so I'm going to make sure that they feel that even though I feel unlovable and unworthy, right? So these are the common characteristics in an anxiously attached individual and, again, some examples of that could be calling or texting frequently to seek reassurance. These are behaviors that they'll do to seek out that intimacy and closeness. So here's some of the behaviors, so calling or texting frequently to seek assurance, feeling intense jealousy or insecurity in relationships, getting overly upset if a partner is not immediately available. So there's a lot here with timing, right.

Speaker 1: 20:42

Anxiously attached individuals lack patience and they lack patience not at the external level, right, it's not patience that you can see like they're all easily frustrated in that regard, but they lack patience in being able to practice things that help them feel secure. Right, because it would help them to. Okay, there's nothing wrong. This person, again, in general, is usually there for me and they are actually a good friend. So why am I thinking all of these different things? Right, they can't. They have a hard time working through the process of talking themselves out of their anxious thoughts. So they got to practice and, again, I share this, not because I'm saying that it's easy. But because I know what it's like to feel that anxiety, I think I would lean more to the anxiously attached type of person and move towards secure. So I'm like right at that barrier of I think I seek enough closeness and so I'm not avoidant, but I do feel anxiety when something can go wrong. Like I feel that and I understand it very well.

Speaker 1: 21:56

So you know you have to understand just how your body operates when it's sensing those things right, so being highly reactive to perceived threats of abandonment. Again, there's a perceived threat of abandonment. Threat of abandonment, even though the history, the context, the patterns in the current relationship, if they're good, there's still things that we can look into and say feel like it's a perceived threat that they're going to abandon me. Right, feeling emotionally dependent on their partner for validation and so forth. Again, this goes back to well, what kind of work are you doing on your own? What is the Lord doing in your life to not to provide you with validation or so forth, but just what is the Lord doing in your life?

Speaker 1: 22:47

Like, if you can really look back at your relationships, notice, when did you feel most secure with the Lord? This is actually a good question for you to ask yourself when was the last time that you felt secure with the Lord based off of your relationship? So, for example, if you had a healthy friendship right, a loving friendship with someone, and let's say you had a great job and or you have a great job right and you're involved in church and you're doing all of these different things, you're going to feel closer to the Lord, you're going to feel secure in your relationship with the Lord. But if things are going wrong in your relationships, it's very common for that person to also feel that way in their relationship with God. Like if their friends are abandoning them or if their friends don't want to hang out with them as much, if the person they like doesn't like them back, if they don't feel like they have a core group of friends, all of these different things, then they might say well, lord, why aren't you blessing me with better friends? Or why don't I have the opportunity, like other people do, to create connections like they're doing?

Speaker 1: 23:53

So we start to question our relationship with God. Does God really care? Is God going to leave me in this space with God? Like, does God really care? Right, is God going to leave me in this space? And yeah, so there's this transition of thoughts from our human relationships to our relationship with God, and again, we got to stop it right at the beginning. When those thoughts start to come up, we need to start challenging them right away. So you'll become dependent on other people, right? Just know from your relationship with God that you were made in God's image, that you are a new creation. Right, if you receive the Lord, you're a new creation and that you start to develop the fruits of the Spirit. Right, and do your best to do that. Right, with the help of the Holy Spirit, you start to develop the fruits of the Spirit. So those are things that you want to learn to develop in those relationships.

Speaker 1: 24:43

Now here's some common issues that happen with the anxiously attached individuals. Right, there's this emotional volatility leading to frequent conflicts. So they don't know how to regulate themselves. Right, the anxiety is too much for them. The anxiety kind of leads them to have these unstable moments where they can't control themselves. It's internal, right, and if they can't control it internally, eventually they start to show it outwardly. Right, they become easily frustrated, they start to get a little bit snappy or they start to say things that they didn't want to say right Because become easily frustrated, or they start to get a little bit snappy, or they start to say things that they didn't want to say right Because they've just kept everything inside.

Speaker 1: 25:24

So they're emotionally volatile, and that can lead to misunderstanding and frequent arguments in their relationships, like everything's a question, you know. So, hey, why'd you say this? Why, you know, I just said that. You know that didn't mean anything. No, but I think it did mean something, right? They start to question every single interaction, they start to question every single mannerism or every single gesture and they think that it means something when it doesn't. So, all of these different things and again, it's not to downplay what you're feeling or thinking about it, it's just to remind you that, remember, a lot of this just has to do with how your body is feeling and it's reacting to things that you're seeing in your environment. You know, again, someone simply not texting you back in time can be one of them.

Speaker 1: 26:08

Another common issue that the anxiously attached individual encounters is they have difficulty setting boundaries, right, because if I set boundaries, then that means people are going to pull away from me, right? But the people who pull away from you when you put boundaries up, maybe those are the people that you actually don't need in your life now. Um, I I like the idea of boundaries, but I think we have a misunderstanding of what boundaries actually are. So something, when people talk about boundaries, it's actually they think it's telling someone what not to do, when it's actually telling yourself what to do and also what not to do. Right, you said the boundaries are for you, like, you get to choose who you want to allow in your life and who not to. It's not you telling other people what they need to do to appease you, right? Very different thing. That's a whole other topic. But the idea here is that those who are anxiously attached have a difficult time setting boundaries. Why? Because it makes them feel as though it's going to push the people in their lives away.

Speaker 1: 27:05

Another common issue feeling needy or clingy, which may push partners away. Again, if you're overbearing, you're going to see yourself as overbearing and you're going to see people around you kind of maintain a distance, right, because they want to go on and do their own thing as well. So you kind of need to give people space, right, you give yourself space, give the person space so that you guys can come together and talk about what's been going on since you guys haven't met from the last time, right? And typically when you have secure people in your life, you typically pick it up where you last stepped off, right Again, those are the friendships that you want and you want to look for. They struggle with self-esteem and so forth issues which I kind of mentioned earlier today, and this one's a big one.

Speaker 1: 27:51

Actually, expecting the worst in situations and expecting the worst can often lead to fearing rejection. Right, so you can be in a completely healthy relationship and in your mind you could think of all the negative outcomes from that relationship, even though things have been going over in general very well, right? So you start to think about oh you know, eventually they're going to ask me about this and I don't know if I'm ready to share about that. And if I share that, they're not going to like me anymore. And you know, I don't know if I'm ready to open up about that, yet I'm still a little bit insecure. Or if I do share that, then they're going to pull away and they're going to want nothing to do with me, right? So even though the person has not shown any signs of being judgmental or leaving you in any regard, you start to think that you expect the worst, even from a good, positive situation.

Speaker 1: 28:47

Okay, so hopefully you're getting a good understanding of what an anxiously attached individual looks like, right? So this is for both people, right? The person who is anxiously attached is probably saying, yes, all of those made perfect sense to me. That's exactly how I am. I'm anxiously attached individual, right. For another person, though, if you're listening, you might say what People actually do that, gosh, now I know why so-and-so is like this, or now I know why this, this and that right. But again, what I want for both to understand is that it stems from somewhere. It's not just the way that they are, but it's occurrences or events that have happened multiple times that have created this narrative in their mind and they believe that about themselves, right, and it's the same thing for the avoidant, same thing for the disorganized attachment style as well, which I'll discuss in later episodes. But we need to understand that, once you have this knowledge of what an anxiously attached individual looks like, okay, so now, what? Now, what do I do with that information? How can I move from being anxiously attached to becoming more secure?

Speaker 1: 29:55

So, one of the biggest evidence-based approaches to managing your anxiety or to becoming less anxious, is to have some self-compassion, right, mindfulness, and self-compassion helps in managing emotions and developing self-awareness, right? So you got to be mindful of what kind of thoughts are coming to my mind when I'm getting close in relationships, right? What are the most common thoughts? And you'll find like a theme, right, it could be avoidance, it could be rejection, it could be abandonment, it could be any of those, right, but you'll find a theme in the messages that come to mind when you're getting closer in relationships or when you're really seeking that intimacy and trust with another person. So think about that right. Think about what are the thoughts that are coming in and which ones do I want to challenge and which ones do I want to implement? Right, this is where you implement some positive messages for yourself.

Speaker 1: 30:55

So that includes CBT, which is cognitive behavioral therapy, which is challenging negative beliefs and changing patterns of thinking. All of these things are going to take a lot of practice. So the more you practice, the better you'll get at managing these different thoughts. I know it took a long time for me, but again, you want to take it one step at a time. Okay, challenge one thought at a time and regulate your body one day at a time, right. Learn how to just easily calm your body down so that you can challenge these thoughts that are affecting your relationships.

Speaker 1: 31:31

Okay, and then you know there's the term in attachment theory that's called a corrective attachment figure. So this is the person that you kind of want to be like. Like you see them, and they seem to be very trusting of others, trusting of themselves, trusting of God, trusting of most things, right, and for many of us we'd say, well, that's dumb. You know they shouldn't be trusting of everyone or everything. And no, this is not that person.

Speaker 1: 31:59

The securely attached individual tends to have a high view of self and a high view of others, and not in an arrogant way or not in an overly praising others too much, but rather they just feel that people in general don't mean them any harm, that typically people want to do good to them, right, and again, if you grew up in a home where your needs were met and you were loved and cared for, that would make sense why they would have that belief, right. That's where you're trying to get as an anxiously attached individual. You're trying to get to the belief that, okay, people are good. And I know also that, by the way, before I say that this is not the, I don't want to change a theological understanding of where I stand on this in regards to people are not good, naturally good, right, we have good that is based off being made in the image of God, but we are not, at heart, in our hearts, good right? Romans 3 talks about this. No, there is no one who does good. No one is good, right.

Speaker 1: 33:06

So, just to clarify that, when I think, when I talk about attachment styles and I talk about a high view of others, high view of self, is this aspect of you know, I can expect that people are going to treat me well, right? And I can expect that I can treat myself well, right? You're not disregarding your health, you're not disregarding your walk with the Lord, your relationships, your church or anything like that, right? So there's a high view of self in that regard and a high view of others, because your needs have been met and they were met throughout different developmental stages of your life, and because that's happened, you are then able to transition that over to your relationship with God. So when you read a passage about God being a comfort and a secure, a protector and a provider. It makes sense to us why? Because that's what happened for us when we were growing up you had parents who were able to meet your needs right. So that's what we're trying to get.

Speaker 1: 33:57

In order to get that, you have to change all of these different patterns of thinking, all these different ways of feeling in your body and so on, and hopefully I provide some resources there with the mindfulness, the self-compassion. Self-compassion is big. I just want to touch on this last piece a little bit more. Self-compassion is the idea of looking at yourself and suffering with the younger version of yourself, and here's what I mean by that.

Speaker 1: 34:22

There's this author, speaker, trauma therapist named Gabor Mate and he talks about. He describes the root compassion to mean suffer with. He gets it from the Latin Latin, mean, it means to suffer with, and when you look at it that way, think of yourself as a mentor, suffering with the younger version of yourself and in that suffering, like you, just understand what your younger self was going through, right, that you're able to see everything that was happening. That you're able to see the rejection from friends, your parents' divorce, your misunderstanding in relationships or your broken relationships, your dating stages, all of those different things and you can look at your younger self and say, gosh, I really feel that pain for you.

Speaker 1: 35:20

I remember what it felt like right, so you're suffering with that younger version of yourself and if you can do that right, you can provide whatever it is that the younger version of yourself needed. And what did it need? Typically it's just presence, like for someone to just be there for you and listen to you and hear you out, and you know if you want have get some advice. But for the most part I feel that a lot of the healing it can be done through the physical, emotional, mental, spiritual presence of another person right A brother in Christ, a sister in Christ, the Lord himself through his word, through prayer, through community, like those are the things that can bring about a secure attachment style and that's where everyone wants to be right.

Speaker 1: 36:05

We want to develop a secure attachment style and hopefully, as you listen to this episode, that you were able to find that and that this was helpful for you. And again next time I'm going to talk about the avoidant attachment style and kind of how they can get to become a secure the attached individual. Guys, it's been a while, I know it's been a while. Hopefully I'm knocking out more of these episodes in the next couple of months and be more consistent with it. But thank you for tuning in, thank you for listening to the podcast. Leave a review, leave a rating and I will talk to you next time. Take care, guys.