Altering Your Approach to Relationships: A Comprehensive Guide on Changing Your Attachment Style
Looking to switch up your attachment style? Let's dive into how you can move towards a more secure attachment style.
First thing's first, let's define what attachment styles are: They're patterns of behavior that develop early in life and can impact your relationships as an adult. There are four main ones: secure, anxious, avoidant, and disorganized.
- Anxious attachment style: You crave closeness with your partner, but worry that you might not get it.
- Avoidant attachment style: You prefer a bit of space in your relationships.
- Disorganized or fearful-avoidant attachment style: You're torn between wanting and fearing closeness.
- Secure attachment style: You're comfortable balancing closeness and space in relationships.
Now, if you have an insecure attachment style, you might end up in a vicious cycle of attracting and confirming beliefs about insecurity. But don't sweat it! You can change your attachment style.
How is it possible to change attachment styles?
Lucky for you, research shows that you can develop a secure attachment style over time! It's not set in stone and, with effort, you can work on building more secure relationships.
To achieve this, consider these steps:
- Reframe your identity: To change your attachment style, you'll need to shift your identity. Reframe your needs, behaviors, and external circumstances to understand that they don't define who you are.
- Work on yourself on a body level: You can also choose to work more directly with body-based interventions. This involves observing, accepting, and engaging with your attachment style in a practical way.
Through cognitive reframing, body activation, and arts-based experientials, you can transform your experiences, rewrite painful narratives, and reinforce positive beliefs about yourself.
How do you fix unhealthy attachment styles?
To fix unhealthy attachment styles, you'll need to work through four healing phases.
- Wandering: At this stage, you're compelled to act on your impulses, and your relationships might resemble a repetition of your past ones. To grow in this stage, focus on expanding your consciousness and building a vocabulary for coping skills.
- Exploring: In this phase, you're aware of your "neediness" and try to tone it down. Start understanding where your insecurities come from, but don't let go of them completely just yet.
- Discovering: In this phase, you have a broader understanding of where your insecurities stem from and you're more willing to sit with uncomfortable feelings. At this point, start working on healing your attachment style on a body level.
- Loving: In this final phase, you'll have a deeper sense of meaning and spirituality and feel confident in your ability to establish and maintain healthy, loving relationships.
Now, go ahead and take the quiz to find out what your attachment style is!
If you're anxious, avoidant, or disorganized, you can move towards a more secure attachment style with time and effort. Embrace change, work on yourself, and open yourself up to love!
- Understanding your attachment style can help you work towards a more secure one, breaking the cycle of insecurity in relationships.
- Secure attachment style signifies a comfort in balancing closeness and space in personal connections, unlike anxious, avoidant, or disorganized styles.
- To change your attachment style, you may need to reframe your identity, recognizing that your needs, behaviors, and external circumstances do not define who you are.
- Engaging in body-based interventions can help you work more directly with your attachment style, promoting practical acceptance and engagement.
- Through cognitive reframing, body activation, and arts-based experientials, you can transform your experiences, change painful narratives, and reinforce positive beliefs about yourself.
- To heal unhealthy attachment styles, embark on a journey through four healing phases: Wandering, Exploring, Discovering, and Loving.
- Moving through these healing stages, you'll expand your consciousness, develop coping skills, understand the roots of your insecurities, and heal your attachment style on a body level, ultimately leading to loving and healthy relationships.
- Invest in personal growth and self-development, considering education, therapy, and health-and-wellness resources to help improve your attachment style and mental health.
- Developing secure attachment styles can enhance your relationships, mental health, lifestyle, and overall personal growth.
- Incorporate play, humor, and emotional expression into your relationships to create a stronger connection and promote healing.
