Transcript for:
Navigating Fearful Avoidant Attachment

all right gentlemen here we are it is time we are finally going to be talking about the thing that I got dozens and dozens and dozens of messages from you about DMS on YouTube DMS on Instagram like emails about so many of you asked for this so here it is we're going to be talking about a Man's Guide to fearful avoidant attachment and how to move to a secure healthy attachment I didn't realize that this was such a big thing but when I did the avoidant one and the anxious one so many of you guys were like waiting for this where is this like when are you going to do this so here we go first off let's start with what is the fearful avoidant what is it um right out the gates this is also known as the disorganized attachment disorganized attachment and it's called disorganized for a number of reasons which we're going to get into but really the fearful avoidant can be characterized by a few things number one is a good amount of anxiety high levels of anxiousness high levels of fearful thinking and secondly the the high levels of avoidant behaviors so it's kind of a combination of the anxious and avoidant however it's not as simple as just like smashing those two together and thinking that you know what it is all right it's a little bit more complicated than just somebody that's avoidant and has anxiety generally speaking the fearful avoidant and for the for the exercise of this video for the intention of this video I'm going to just call it fearful avoidant not disorganized attachment because that can get a little bit confusing the at the core of the fearful avoidant is a really deep desire for intimacy the misconception of the fearful avoidant is that they don't want intimacy or that they're afraid of it um that's wrong at the heart and core of the fearful avoidance is actually somebody who deeply wants intimacy and closeness but they feel very unlovable underneath all of that desire and there's also a pretty significant distrust of other people who would accept them and support them so that's kind of The Duality that's kind of the the polarization of the internal experience of a fearful avoidance it's like I want closeness I want intimacy it's something that I desperately crave for but either and it's not usually one or the other it's usually a mix of the two it's the mix of like I don't actually feel lovable or some part of me doesn't feel lovable it feels broken it feels wrong it doesn't feel good enough and on the other side it's and I don't trust people who try and support me or who want to support me or who actually accept who I am and that's going to make a lot more sense in a little bit when I break down what actually creates the fearful avoiding because remember with a lot of these attachment styles with all of these attachment styles that I've been talking about in order to move to a more secure healthy place you actually have to have to have to understand what has built the attachment style in the first place you cannot get around it if you do not understand what developed that attachment style in the first place you will not be able to move towards a more healthy secure attachment it's just almost a it's almost an impossibility so we're going to go through that but first I want to give you a a little bit more detail in and information about what the fearful avoidant is and how it can kind of show up so fearful avoidance um this attachment style is kind of characterized by this interplay right of fear of dependence right I'm afraid but I'm dependent on you and yet I'm avoidant of real connection with you and that can look a number of different ways usually when you think about somebody that has been labeled as having like commitment issues sometimes not always but sometimes those men uh are the guys that have this fearful avoidant attachment style and it shows up as commitment issues because that man wants to get close but then bails out or creates intimacy and closeness and then back backs away or you know it's kind of one foot in one foot out in the relationship where you know maybe you know if you're listening to this and you are a fearful avoidant person you're like I think this might be my attachment style it's probably going to feel internally like there's constantly this contrast or this conflicting intention inside of you where you really want to be close to somebody but there's these hurdles and these blocks that are in the way that seem be preventing you of doing that and it might be a big self-worth thing you might be like I'm not really I don't really feel worthy or when you start to build that closeness and connection all of a sudden there's anxiousness that starts to come up but for a lot of guys what this looks like is getting into a relationship and wanting the relationship and then when it starts to progress and there starts to become more sort of levels of seriousness there is a hesitancy of really being in the relationship and so he's constantly questioning is this the right relationship for me should I really be in this relationship um you know am I going to get screwed over by her you know am I going to get is she going to screw me over at some point can I really trust her is she really the one and there's this constant sort of fear-mongering that's going on internally for the fearful avoidance so the individuals with this attachment style often experience this conflicting feeling about the intimacy and the relationship that they have even if on one side they seem and sound very very sure of it and this is very sort of Hallmark for the the avoid the fearful avoidant it's like there's a part of me that really knows that this is the right thing or that I really love this person like I genuinely want to be with them but then there's this conflicting what if like what if she did this or what if it's not right or what if it doesn't work or what if I'm not enough and so on the one hand they really crave that closeness they yearn for it they want the connection they want the security that comes from the intimate relationships but on the other hand there's this deep-seated fear of rejection of Abandonment of getting hurt emotionally or screwed over financially and that fear whatever that fear looks like and manifests um you know looks like within you that fear leads them to avoid letting other people too close or if they feel like closeness has happened it can often times lead to a lot of hypervigilance a lot of anxiety internally and then a good amount of like pushing away and that pushing away can come through creating conflict creating arguments not texting back you know all the sort of like classic avoidant behaviors now the big thing that I want to just highlight is that this is not like some malicious behavior because for the person on the receiving end of a fearful avoidant it can be quite disorienting right and when you when you listen and talk to people who um are dating a fearful avoidant or have married a fearful avoidant which absolutely happens right it's not like fearful avoidance don't get into long-term relationships because remember in fact I would almost postulate that fearful avoidance have a higher likelihood of getting into longterm relationships than just classic pure avoidance because a classic pure avoidance are are the ones that want to create a lot of Separation in space and there's an internal narrative and story of like I am better off on my own or I can only trust me um you some version of that whereas with the fearful avoidant there's this really deep yearning and craving for relationship and so a lot of fearful avoidance they are desperately trying to get into a relationship or they are already in a long-term relationship but there's always this conflict happening inside of them so this attachment style didn't start with you right it's not like there's something fundamentally broken and wrong in you in you or with you um this attachment style arises from early experiences in childhood with primary caregivers who were inconsistent or un available and unpredictable in being able to meet your needs in being able to be emotionally stable um they were inconsistent in their responsiveness to you so like maybe you would talk to them and they just wouldn't even respond or acknowledge Your Existence you may have grown up in environment where uh you know you would ask for something and sometimes you would get a a nice response and sometimes you would ask the same thing and you would get a blow up um so for a lot of people that have grown up in environments where maybe there was alcoholism or addiction um you maybe you had a parent that had mental health disorder right that like they were bipolar and so there was these big mood swings that that made it so that you couldn't rely as a child on a consistent a consistent enough response and again when I'm saying consistent enough response if you're a parent out there you don't have to be per perfect with this right it's not like oh if I'm not perfectly consistent with my child I'm going to you know screw up their attachment Style no what research has actually found is that if you get it right like 33 34% of the time and you are consistently responding to your child's needs in a grounded consistent way where that child can begin to assimilate some understanding of oh when I ask for an apple Mom or Dad gives me an apple apple or they say no but it's they say no in a safe way it's very rare that I ask for the apple and Mom and Dad blow up or they just all out ignore me or they just say like no go to your room and don't talk to me that's the case for a lot of fearful avoidance though is that there's such an inconsistency in the environment that you grew up in that it became very hard to like plug in emotionally energetically and relationally and so over time what that does is it produces an anxiety internally because it doesn't feel like you can trust plugging into that person and then when you start to get close there's a fear of like something's going to blow up right the I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop and when you talk to a fearful avoidant and you really start to get into their childhood this is at the sort of like epicenter of their experience is this duality of a really wanted closeness and closeness was very inconsistent I either didn't know what I was going to get because somebody was emotionally volatile or what I got was was just so few and far between that I didn't know how to trust it or that person there was just nothing there to plug into so all of that behavior in childhood can lead to a good amount of confusion and uncertainty in terms of the reliability and the safety of very close Intimate Relationships okay and I want you to Mark those two pieces the reliability and the safety of really close intimate relationships because for the fearful avoidant there's a big question mark around the safety of a relationship and there's a big question mark around the reliability or the trustworthiness of a relationship and so a lot of fearful avoidance are going to struggle with trust they are going to have difficulty expressing their needs and emotions like really strong difficulty they're going to have a lot of um resistance towards actually letting that be known because their needs and their wants or their needs and their desires were often the things that they were punished for growing up or um you know they were yelled at for growing up or you know they just consistently learn like these my needs don't matter my emotions don't matter and so all of those things kind of get parked to the side for a fearful avoidant and often times and this is the big difference um with the fearful avoidant that kind of is different from the anxious attachment or the avoidant attachment the fearful attachment is going to oscillate back and forth they're going like the like a pendulum between seeking closeness and pushing others away see in closeness and pushing others away and often times the pushing others away is a defense mechanism right so if you're watching this and you're a fe fearful avoidant none of this is to shame you right all of this is to just give you insight and information on how that attachment style was sort of birthed for lack of a better term now what does the fearful avoidant look like in a relationship and I'm going to go on here in a moment to just talk about what actually like give some very concrete examples of like here's what creates uh the fearful avoidant but what it can look like in in a relationship what the fearful avoidant can look like in a relationship is you might be highly emotional if you're a fearful avoidant your emotions might be really heightened and you might be very emotional in the sense that you might be very anxious or you might have a lot of anger and you might act out um you might feel things super intensely and and sort of swing through the spectrum of the your emotions right you're like happy 1 minute and then 10 minutes later you're pissed off at your partner and then 10 minutes later you're really sad and feeling disconnected and then 10 minutes later you're like everything's okay again and so there's sort of this volatility of high emotions and often times because of the unpredictability that you experienced in childhood it's very common that relationally you you as a fearful avoidant are very unpredictable and it's sometimes common that fearful avoidance will attract anxious partners for this reason um because sometimes that activates that person's that anxious attachments wound right where they're like oh my gosh you know like what's going on and what's happening now and and I don't know what I'm going to get and that unpredictability can feed their anxiety now that's not always the the common pairing but it's something that I've seen a lot of the time fearful avoidance are also going to they're going to be a little bit more sensitive when it comes to rejection even if it's just signs of rejection even it's just the possibility or the potentiality of rejection and they're also going to be very very attuned to any kind of Abandonment and again that is because of their childhood and what they experienced growing up it's very common that they are hyp Vigilant and Hyper sensitive to those things because that's what they experience right they are used to being on the lookout for are you unsafe can I trust you and are you going to abandon me um some combination of those so let's talk about the the foundational pillars of what actually builds a fearful avoidance what are some very concrete things that build the fearful avoidant attachment style so one of the first things that we absolutely need to talk about is the inconsistent caregiving so if you were uh a child that grew up in a household where caregiving was very inconsistent that could have been your parents or your primary caregiver was sporadically there right maybe they were out a lot and it might have not even have been malicious right maybe they just had to work a lot they had a kind of on call job where they just had to up and leave sometimes and they left you with random Friends next door neighbors family members that type of experience can be very jarring um inconsistent caregiving generally speaking um people that enter into any type of foster care system uh it's quite common that they have a fearful avoidant attachment style because there's an inconsistency depending on when they've gone through the foster care system but it's very common that you know they've get they get bounced around between different homes and they're not there for very long and so there's an inconsistency in terms of what to expect and so they can never really acclimatize to that so as an example another type of inconsistency is inconsistent emotional caregiving right as I was talking about before so your parent might show affection and attentiveness in one instant and be completely emotionally unavailable and dismissive in the next because of something that's going on in their own life that has nothing to do with with you and so you learn to associate the intimacy with uncertainty right or uncertainty with intimacy and what you come to learn is that you can't expect somebody to be consistent with their love with their affection with their physical connection and this develops this kind of fear of I don't know what's going to happen next and so instead of being able to trust somebody to show me consistent love I'm going to just reject it altogether because me rejecting your inconsistency or me rejecting you wholeheartedly uh is just easier than me risking giving you a chance to give me consistent love and affection so any type of inconsistency again physical inconsistency um punishment oriented inconsistency right like if you just didn't know when you were going to get punished or what that punishment would look like and sometimes you didn't even know why you were getting punished it was just like random out of the blue that can be inconsistent caregiving as well uh inconsistent emotional connection is a big big big one and then inconsistent time spent so again if you just didn't know like when your parent was going to be around or your caregivers going to be there for you that can lead to a type of fear and anxiousness and avoidance of having a really sort of ongoing connected uh consistent relationship next is the obvious one which is trauma and abuse um like I said earlier on it it's very common for the fearful avoidant to have experienced some type of trauma or abuse in their childhood whether that's growing up with a caregiver who was an addict um whether that was growing up with a a parent who was maybe physically abusive or emotionally abusive uh or being in an environment where there was sexual abuse present all of those things can create a type of like what's called hyperactivation internally where your nervous system is just like always on high alert your nervous system and your body and your mind are really hypervigilant to the environment that you're in and so you're constantly scanning for am I safe am I safe am I safe is my environment safe is this person safe are they going to leave me are they going to hurt me are they going to abandon me are they going to reject me are they going to abuse me and there can be a really strong type of hypervigilance that shows up as a result of this and that again that hypervigilance that I'm talking about it's usually a byproduct of some type of trauma and abuse that was experienced either at the hands of the caregivers um or in proximity to them right a babysitter Etc so if you experience that physical emotional uh or sexual abuse from a caregiver or somebody within the family that can lead to this deep seeded sense of mistrust that can sometimes come out sideways in an adult relationship you might not even have good reason to mistrust the person that you're with but you find yourself constantly looking for data or evidence as to why that person is trying to [ __ ] you over or screw you over or looking for data and evidence in terms of why that person might leave you or how they might harm you or even kind of blowing out proportionally um some of the harm or the wrongdoings that have happened in the relationship next is um caregiver neglect so number three in terms of what builds the fearful avoidant is neglect and so if you grew up in an environment where your caregiver was fairly consistently absent whether they were emotionally absent whether they were physically absent or whether they were just neglecting your your needs um that can cause you as a child to try and engage a parent without some success right where maybe you tried to ask for your needs and they just you know they didn't listen to you um I've I've talked to a lot of guys where you know they ask to be moved in school because they're getting really severely bullied and their parents just ignore them altogether and kind of tell them to tough it out um that can be a type of neglect where you're saying I'm being harmed I'm really not okay and you're not taken seriously that can be a type of neglect so there's a bunch of different forms of neglect I've also worked with men where you know their parents were working a lot and you know at the age of like seven or eight years old they were left at home alone after school to sort of fend for themselves and that type of neglect for a child is quite frightening because when you're that small your nervous system needs other people for regulation and safety and so your body just doesn't get the proper um Co regulation or the proper proper Safety and Security to know like I'm okay if something happens I'm all right uh whereas for a kid that experiences that type of neglect it's like man if something happens I'm screwed like I don't know if I'm going to be okay next is the inconsistency that comes along with a parent who has mental health issues or some type of substance abuse so children of addicts um children who have parents who are are mentally unw again schizophrenia bipolar disorder maybe like multiple personalities or or you know what what what have you right we don't need to like laundry list it out um are often times going to grow up in an environment where there's pretty severe inconsistency you know for example if you're growing up in an environment where there is an addict in the household and that addict is your primary parent or even if they're not your primary parent there's going to be a marked difference between who that person is when they're sober and who that person is when they're drunk uh or who that person is when they're sober and who that person is when they're using much like with you know growing up in an environment where there's a parent who has schizophrenia or uh bipolar disorder um or you know any type of like narcissistic personality disorder you're never going to know what version of them you're going to get and so what happens for a kid is that there's no predictability whatsoever and a child one of the primary needs that is unspoken of any child in any environment is some level of consistent predictability again it doesn't have to be absolute but there has to be some level of predictable emotional consistency and I see this in my son right now my son is three years old and this is actually a perfect example and he is right now going through a phase as a three-year-old trying to figure out um like where I stand on a regular basis and so sometimes he'll ask me he he'll say d happy and I'll say yeah I'm very happy and he's like oh okay and then other times I'll say Dad angry and I'll say no Daddy not angry or I'll say yes daddy's angry you know if I actually am angry or pissed off about something and so what he's doing in his own way is he is analyzing his external environment and he's trying to get a sense of do does my external environment match what I think is actually happening right cuz kids they're very tuned in to their external environment because their life depends on it their safety their well-being their life depends on what's happening with their primary caregivers and their home environment and so by him doing this he's kind of like oh yeah okay I think you're happy I'm going to ask you if you're happy okay yeah you're happy I think you might be angry so I'm going to ask you if you're angry oh oh you're not angry okay good that I can I can kind of track that or yes you are angry that's what I thought Okay cool so as kids we need some type of emotional consistency or at least to know with some predictability where our caregivers stand and if we can't predict that that is wildly disorienting as a child not only cognitively but for your nervous system it is really disorienting and so what happens is that your nervous system can never find a real homeo stasis that is grounded and so what happens for a child that grows up in in an inconsistent household where you have a a caregiver who is maybe schizophrenic or bipolar or NPD is that their behavior is so erratic that you can never predict it and what happens in a child's nervous system is that their nervous system is almost always in a very heightened stress state right they're in a more what's called sympathetic dominant State that's a very technical term but in a non-technical way all that really means is that your nervous system stays in a very heightened stressed State and it can't really come down because that is what then keeps you safe if you're in this very heightened State I don't know what to predict I don't know what's going to happen I don't know how Mom's going to react or dad is going to react because they're sober right now or like oh [ __ ] they started drinking they're like five beers in or I just saw the needle or I just saw the joint or whatever it is then you can be on high alert to go and protect yourself which is either remove yourself from the situation fight back you know go and hide go over to a friend's house and so that environment as you can tell and you know if you're listening to this I hope that you just take a deep breath in and take a deep breath out and just tune in with your own body as I was talking about that because that might have created some intensity inside of you as you think about the childhood that you that you went through so want to acknowledge that um but that environment produces a nervous system that can't quite settle because it cannot co-regulate in a safe and trustworthy way with somebody else's nervous system right our bodies are literally designed to regulate with other people you know when my son is throwing a tantrum or he's upset about something the more grounded and calm I am the EAS easier it is for him to co-regulate now he'll still throw his tantrum he'll still do his thing it doesn't mean he's going to like snap out it immediately but it allows him to see and feel where the Baseline is for regulation and so he can spiral up into a tantrum and if I hold that grounding and that energetic like I'm okay I'm fine you do your thing he can return back to that grounded State quite quite quickly but if what a child learns to expect is a parent or a caregiver whose emotional state is all over the place and they never know what to expect then they can't practice that key key attribute that we all need which is co-regulation so enough on that topic uh next is parentification this is when a child is put into a reverse role where they are expected to to take care of their parent take care of their emotional needs take care of their physical needs to sort of like really be their caregiver and this responsibility as a child because that is that weight and that burden is too much for a child to handle right if you're 8 years old or 12 years old and your parents get divorced and you hear the like age-old phrase of like you know you're the man in the house now your mom is your responsibility that type of stuff while as well- meaning for an 8-year-old that that is an impossible task and responsibility because they can't conceptualize what they actually need to do and this is super important and I want I I wish I could tell this to everybody in the world when that type of burden is placed on a child what ends up happening in so many men that I've worked with is that they then become adults who feel like they're Never Getting It Right Never Getting It Right and not only that but they feel feel like no matter how much they do it's never enough well of course not right because you were put in this situation as a child where you were told to do something impossible right you're literally told do something impossible take care of your mother you're the man of the house now and what ends up happening for some young boys and again we're talking about men specifically but what happens for a lot of young boys is that they then try and fulfill that role right they try and help Mom they try and rescue her they try and keep her safe they try and you know help to parent the other siblings if there are if there are other siblings I I've seen young boys in this role who tried to help Mom pay the bills you know at like 10 years old balance the checkbook like really excessive stuff and so while that might sound like it's breeding and building responsibility what it's actually doing is putting that boy putting you as a child if this is you into to a situation that is impossible for you to fulfill on and so what happens is when you get into adult relationships that same sense follows you that same experience of I'm going to have to do something impossible carries itself into your adult relationships and what does that look like and sound like normally it sounds like um well what ends up happening is that we project that onto our partner and so for a lot of guys that have experienced this type of parentification and being put in this Impossible role is they end up saying things to their partner like I it's impossible to get things right with you or I can never meet your needs or you know some iteration of that where that feeling and experience and maybe they don't say it outright maybe it's like an internal conversation right maybe you find yourself saying internally like I can just never freaking get things right and it's impossible to meet her needs or it's impossible to make this relationship work should just leave I should just bounce that can carry itself with you into your adult relationships so that's parentification and then the last one is exposure to heightened levels of conflict so this is the last piece that builds the fearful avoidant um if you grew up in an environment where there are very high levels of conflict and you know whether you saw and witnessed domestic abuse right you saw your dad uh beating up your mom or your mom you know beating up your dad or both of them beating up each other uh you you heard physical or sexual violence um you heard verbal or emotional abuse you you were you went through some type of very high conflict divorce where the parents are fighting all the time or fighting over you uh this can really instill a fear of emotional closeness and so what can get imprinted on your body on your nervous system is a kind of like well relationships aren't safe or relationships are violent or um yeah even even the men that I've worked with who have grown up in those types of environments what can happen is I'm not going to be anything like him and so they become the antithesis or the opposition of the offender right of the person who uh was really conflict oriented and what that can do is create a good amount of anxiousness because you're very disconnected from your anger like some guys will actually just entirely disassociate from any type of anger or hostility within them and when you do that as a man it's not real right you definitely still have anger in you but because you've disconnected from it so strongly what ends up happening is that anytime that anger starts to show up in the relationship you see that as a hostile threat and so you pull away from the relationship you pull away from the partnership instead of saying hey I'm angry um or hey I'm upset that you did that or said that so those are all the main pieces hopefully I went into them in a in a deep enough way if you have questions pop them in below on YouTube or follow up with me on Instagram um now I'm going to talk a little bit about what does the fearful avoidant look like in a relationship and then we're going to close out with some very um direct Tactical things that you can do to start to heal this fearful avoidant Dynamic and start to move very quickly actually um towards a more secure attachment style uh but first what does it look like in a relationship looks like a few things one is a very strong need for control and oftentimes security and so you might find yourself um if you're the fearful avoidant needing to be control in control of all the decision as a means of self- protection and safety um you know you might find yourself ending any type of conversation as as soon as you have a sense that um you're unsafe or it might lead to Rejection it might lead to abandonment um that type of control is what I'm talking about there is going to be a high level of difficulty trusting other people so it's going to be hard for you to trust your partner trust what they're saying um trust their intentions you're going to struggle to trust that they mean well that they that they uh have your intentions in mind um that's going to feel a little bit like an impossibility uh there's going to be a limited sense of safety within yourself so a lot of fearful avoidance how they present in a relationship or how they feel in a relationship is almost always like something is wrong that's very common for the fearful avoidance like there is something always wrong with them or for them in the relationship because again that hypervigilance and again it's not something that they're doing maliciously right if you're watching this and you're like I'm the fearful of I'm not saying you're doing that maliciously I'm saying that's a security mechanism baked into you that's a a protective mechanism that is trying to keep you safe uh by constantly seeing what's wrong or what's not working or evidence of why you can't get close and so a lot of your Consciousness a lot of your awareness actually relational awareness has been put on and spotlighted onto possible threats what's not working things that need to be fixed reasons why you can't get too close uh reasons why you shouldn't trust so all of that comes up and starts to build a limited sense of safety next another sign is wanting that close relationship but being afraid to actually be close so you might find yourself you know um planning dates and then sabotaging them right starting an argument on the date or not showing up or late or you know doing something that you know is going to cause conflict just to reaffirm again not consciously but unconsciously to reaffirm that there's space between the two of you uh next is what what it looks like the fearful of what it looks like in relationship is difficulty regulating emotions now this is a big one and it's a big one because when you look at what builds and creates the fearful avoidance a lot of it is volatility and a lot of it is specifically emotional volatility or emotional vacancy or the oscillation between those two right volatility vacancy volatility vacancy and so the fearful avoidant is going to have some some intense emotions internally but they're going to have trouble regulating those emotions and communicating them in an effective way uh next is a negative view of other people very common for the fearful avoidant to have pretty negative outlooks on almost everybody um there's a really high level of judgment and I I chuckle because I I get it I've worked with so many fearful avoidant men that it's like I get where it comes from part of this negative view of other people is like if I don't like you then you can't get close to me right that's at the heart and soul of it I actually have a friend of mine that I went to school with that I grew up with that is your CL classic fearful avoidant he hates everybody like we have a running joke that he has two friends in the world and if both of us died he would just not know anybody because he hates everybody and it's honestly questionable sometimes as to whether or not he likes me um but uh but that's changed a lot over the years as he's worked on developing a healthy attachment style and just so you know he's married he has two kids uh our relationship and our friendship has gotten exponentially better over the years as he started to dig into some of these pieces so I'm say all that because there's hope but that one I got to get a kick out of right like one of the one of the Hallmark signs of the fearful avoidant is just like a really deep hate or you know negativity towards other people constantly judging them and criticizing them um next is a belief that they will be disappointed and let down by others they might not say that right if you're the fearful avoidant you might not say that out loud but internally you're just waiting you're like you're waiting for that person to disappoint you and let you down uh next is a need to protect yourself against rejection rejection of your needs your wants your desires so sometimes that would be you know not even bothering to let people know other times it'll be letting them know and then bracing for impact and then anytime that they say anything that isn't exactly what you think you want to hear you know there's the emotional volatility uh fearful avoidance can also have have high people pleasing Tendencies a lot of hypervigilance like I was talking about before it kind it can be hard for some fearful avoidance to actually maintain friendships because of everything that we've been talking about in an intimate relationship also goes for a friendship um you can have difficulty concentrating because you have this anxiousness going on a I I've I've worked with a lot of fearful avoidant men who self-identified as having ADHD and then as they worked on their fearful avoidance Tendencies and actually found a more secure attachment they found that their levels of con concentration actually skyrocketed that they could focus much easier uh and the reason for that is that they weren't in this hypervigilant stressed out anxious State on a regular basis because for a lot of fearful avoidance remember your internal state is very high stress very high anxiety um lots of like loneliness and isolation you're pulling away and then the last thing I'm going to say and this is a really big one that we're going to talk about in terms of healing the fearful avoidance is a struggle to self soothe now I use that word very specifically um you might not like it you know might not be super manly but the capacity to self soothe the capacity to regulate your emotions the ability to feel and something intense and anger an embarrassment a disappointment a frustration and be able to soothe yourself back down to to uh to downregulate to regulate your emotions back down to a more calm grounded level of homeostasis is something that all that all fearful avoidance will struggle with greatly it is one of the biggest sort of Hallmarks of the fearful avoidant is a really tough time self- soothing or self regulating uh or how whatever term you want to use whatever term fits best for you so this disregulation and this real struggle to regulate and calm the nervous system is sort of at the epicenter of the fearful avoidant because part of them wants to get close and co-regulate in a relationship but that seems like a threat and so they're constantly in this dance of move forward towards connection and Retreat back towards anxiety and isolation move forward towards connection Retreat back towards anxiety and isolation and so part of the dance that the fearful avoidant needs to learn is this Duality so let's move into how do you heal your fearful avoidant attachment how do you heal your fearful avoidant attachment and move towards secure attachment at the core of this healing and I'm going to try and make this as simple as humanly possible because sometimes I see this information on the internet and I watch it and I'm like this doesn't effing help anybody like this is not clear to me what I should be doing to to heal this part of me or to move towards you know a better outcome so I'm going to try and make this as simple as possible at the core of healing your fearful avoidant attachment is a dual nature of being afraid of connec ing to an attachment and feeling anxious internally with whatever your experience is and so there is a simultaneous process that needs to unfold two things need to happen in your life ongoing over time okay and those two things are very very simple but they're going to be super freaking challenging for you to implement number one is a very strict Regiment of self soothing you are going to need to develop an infrastructure internally methods rituals behaviors you know daily habits that are helping you to sooe your internal system because every fearful avoidant that I have ever worked with in my life and I've talked to many experts in this field it's not just me it's like mentors that have 40 plus years working with people we everybody says the same thing the fearful avoid is really struggling because they're struggling to regulate internally so you have to start to learn how to self sooe and I'm going to talk more about that in a moment that's part one so part one is learn how to self soothe part two is learning how to consistently stay connected and trust your relationship consistently stay connected and build trust in the relationship that's the second big piece because again The Duality of the fearful voiding is I do not feel safe in myself I can't regulate myself but I also don't feel safe with you I don't trust you I don't trust you to be consistent to care about my needs to care about my wants or my desires to care about my well-being and so that's the Duality I need to soothe me stay connected to you soothe me stay connected to you soothe me stay connected to you that's the dance that the fearful avoidant needs to um commit to that's the mission that you as the fearful avoidant need to commit to for probably a good 7 to n months um minimum and it's going to be a consistent process of you daily having self- soothing practices self-regulation practices and then building trust in the person that you're with and if you're not in a relationship you can start to build that trust with a friend with somebody in your your life right with a family member you don't have to uh do this work per se in a relationship but it can be helpful to do that so this dual nature of the fearful avoidant is being able to move to that secure attachment by the simultaneous process of self- soothing finding safety within and building trust in another Finding safety in a relationship so safety internally safety in a relationship soothing internally staying connected and building trust now I'm going to give you some more tactical steps because that you probably heard that and you're like okay that's the mission that's still a little vague um how what does that look like on a daily basis so let's break this down number one this is the big big step that I think everybody should start with is understand the origins of your specific fearful avoidant attachment understand your Origins that is so important because it's going to shed light on how your anxious and avoidant behaviors are coming out in your relationship and you can do a couple things right you can start to look at what patterns uh am I aware of that lead to my anxiousness and disconnection in my relationship um I like to use the term interruptions in terms of our childhood so what interruptions happened in my childhood that caused anxiousness and avoidance right and again as I went through that list of inconsistent caregiving trauma and abuse uh parental neglect parental inconsistency mental health be uh issues or substance abuse issues parentification which one of those stood out right so have a think back to your childhood and ask yourself which one of the building blocks of the fearful avoidant really stood out to me you know were you the person that was really parentified um did you see a ton of conflict just constantly did you grow up with a parent who was an addict or had mental health issues like start to just get into the origins of your fearful avoidant attachment and that's going to help you exponentially number two and this is where we're going to start to dig into um some more tactical learn to regulate and self sooe okay how do you do that the simple and sort of um easy and direct answer is that your breath is the modulation dial the modular uh uh modulating dial between between the stressed part of your nervous system when you're feeling really anxious when you are wanting to shut down uh when you're you know raging between that part of your system and your parasympathetic nervous system or your grounded calm rest and digest part of your nervous system so you can think of those two things as a seesaw they're not disconnected they're part of the same system uh you're parasym you're parasympathetic and you're sympathetic right your stress and your rest and digest and so the more anxious you feel the more stressed out you feel the more you're trying to pull away when we self soothe we need to use the breath so there's a couple things that you can do number one practice meditation you might hate it you might not think that that's going to help like how's that going to help my attachment Style but what it's going to do is help you to build a sense of safety internally so you can find a specific meditation practice and if you work with good meditation teachers they can help you build and develop a practice specifically around developing a sense of Safety and Security internally now I'm going to give you some direction on that because I think that it might be helpful a couple things are important if you start to use things like box breath breathing in for four holding for four exhaling for four holding for four inhale for four it's just a 4444 box breath is is a regulation tool that you can deploy on a daily basis and what I would suggest to you if you're a fearful avoidant is that you practice this box breathing at regular intervals throughout the day so maybe you do it once in the morning you do it once at lunch it only takes 5 minutes um you do it once after you're done work and you do it once before you're going to have a conversation with your girlfriend or your wife right so you you choose a tool and you implement it multiple times a day okay box breathing can be very helpful a meditation practice where if again if you're working with a really good therapist or coach that understands all of this stuff they're going to be able to help you start to develop deep sense of security within your own body a lot of the guys that I've worked with the reason why uh they say they can't meditate is that they have a nervous system that is so amped up so jacked up that as soon as they close their eyes and they start to breathe all that they are present to is this like buzz in their body you know where they're like I feel like my whole body is vibrating or like I feel this huge amount of Buzz and like VI vibrating in my head and it like makes me feel dizzy or I like feel out of control or some iteration of that so work with somebody that can help you to develop a sense of Safety and Security in your own body okay if you are a fear fearful avoidant it's not going to be enough to just meditate and use breath work you are going to have to work with somebody that is going to know how to help you feel safe in your body again energetically and physically physically because for the fearful avoidant again they do not feel safe internally and really great coaching and really great therapy in this way is helping like how would I say this if I was going to work with you and you were a fearful avoidant part of my work is allowing you to to almost like dial into my nervous system so that you can begin to co-regulate a little bit so that you can begin to let that anxious fearful I don't know if I'm okay start to calm and settle into a more grounded orientation that you can then connect with take like a sematic screenshot of and take into your daily life so box breathing meditation um I like the Wim Hoff breath work and I'll tell you why Wim Hoff breath work is phenomenal because it stresses out your system and then forces you to downregulate or calm right so you do 30 to 40 breaths very quickly in and out through the mouth uh maybe not super quick but like at a decent pace and then you exhale all the air out and you hold your breath at the end of the exhale and then when you do that all the Panic is going to come up at first for a lot of guys especially if you're full avoidance all the Panic comes up they're you know tun in their anxiety and all that they're doing is just holding their breath but what they're feeling internally is oh [ __ ] I'm not okay I'm not okay I'm not okay I'm not okay and you learn to just be like I'm okay I'm all right and it if you practice that day after day after day what you'll notice will happen and this happened for me because when I started doing the breath work I could only hold my breath for like 30 40 seconds it was terrible because when I would close my eyes and hold the breath my body the alarm system in my body was just like br br br it was going off like crazy and it was saying breathe it was saying I don't like this it was saying why the hell are you doing this but over time I got to a place where I could hold my breath for two three you know three plus minutes because my body acclimatized to being in a stress State and then very quickly downregulating to a calm State being a stressed State and very quickly down regul to a calm state so those are all tools that you can use um there's some other resources that hopefully I'll be putting out soon to help you regulate your body uh they'll all be free for you but stay tuned for those find tools that will help you regulate and soothe your nervous system that's number two number three develop consistent connection with your partner and track your disconnective patterns okay so what does this look like it it looks like um a couple things number one you getting very clear on the patterns and the behaviors that you deploy to disconnect from your relationship from intimacy do you start fights do you not text back do you ignore what your partner's saying um do you refuse to give some type of physical intimacy do you feel awkward opening up and just being transparent or vulnerable what are the things that you already know you do that break closeness and connection okay that's a question I want you to journal on what are the things I already know I do that break closeness and connection and if you're not sure and you're in a relationship ask your partner I'm sure they will tell you they will help you so the game here is to replace our disconnective patterns with connective behaviors okay super simple hard to do okay to shift our disconnective patterns to connective behaviors so when you catch yourself picking the argument or you know not wanting the text back or running the story in your head of like she's full of crap or I can't trust her whatever it is that you shift that disconnective pattern that's trying to pull you away from them to a more connection based Behavior now you can have a bunch of things um that you prescript or sort of like preload to help you with staying in connection um you can do a couple things my wife and I I'll give you what we do um on a regular basis when that type of disconnection is happening one of us will say let's hug and take a breath let's hold hands and take a breath and by doing that even though your body might be like get away from this person I can't deal with this or they're going to abandon you or they're going to reject you you're creating physical contact and you're taking a breath together and it shouldn't be just one take 20 okay there's actually a study done that when you do forehead to forehead and you follow your partner's breath because men have bigger lungs than women you follow their breath after about 20 breaths your heart rate starts to sink up so your your beats per minute your heartbeat per minute will actually start to sync up with their heartbeat per minute and this puts you in what's called coherence this is co-regulating in a nutshell that's what I'm describing all right so it starts to create this coherence where the two of you um are in a similar place your nervous systems are in a very similar place your heart rates your breath rates are in a very similar place and this can put you back into coherence where any type of conflict can then be worked through in a different way so practice developing and you can de develop a list of things that you're going to commit to that are connective behaviors so what are my disconnective patterns and what what connective behaviors and choices do I want to have holding hands taking a few breaths together um maybe telling your partner partner that you're spiraling out like just taking ownership over it or saying hey you know what I can tell that I'm disconnecting right now um that can be another way to create connection just taking ownership over it um asking for your needs and wants are a big part of it asking for physical connection asking for emotional connection um asking for maybe a date that you want to go on those types of things are going to create some consistency between the two of you number four build trust slowly over time build trust slowly and over time I'm going to give you some keys to this because in attachment there's a very helpful phrase that my good friend Dewey Freeman came up with that I absolutely love and I wish everybody knew he says that going through a hard time with somebody else in relationship and coming out the other side okay is the foundation of secure attachment right going through a hard time in relationship with another and coming out the other side okay is the foundation of attachment now a hard time does not mean conflict a hard time can mean you saying hey I would love for you to come sit next to me on the couch for a few minutes or hey I could really use a hug or hey babe I'd love to have I'd love to go to this place for dinner tonight that can feel for you as a fearful avoidant like a hard time it might not for the secure attached person right for them it's like I'm just asking for what I want and need but for you as the fearful avoidant the hard time in this case is going to be trusting that you can say what you want and need and come out the other side okay even if you don't get what you want or need in that moment it's not necessarily about the outcome it is about the effort of you communicating what you want in need and going through that experience with your partner and coming out the other side okay that's what builds and breeds secure attachment AKA that's what builds and breeds trust between you and your partner so I want you to think about what are some of the things that I would normally withhold that I am going to start to bring into my relationship what are some of the things that I would normally withhold that I'm going to start to bring into the relationship and then secondly what are some of the hard times that I know I need to go through with my partner they can be conversations they can be needs wants desires it can even just be creating consistent closeness you know saying like hey every Friday night for the next three months we're going to go on a date and I am going to do everything in my power to show up and be connected and be loving and be present with you and be invested with you that can be a hard time right for you as a fearful avoidant that level of commitment might be like oh [ __ ] I'm going to have to show up every Friday and be loving and be present and not be on my phone and [ __ ] around it's like oh man that that can be stressful so think about the hard times that you want to go through that are going to create connection okay what hard times can I create that are that are going to create Connection in my relationship and build trust if you need clarification on that let me know the last piece is a very simple one but again another hard thing to do which is challenge and set boundaries with the fear-based thoughts that are in your head so Challenge and set boundaries with the fear-based thoughts that are inevitably plaguing your mind all of the fearful avoidant men that I've worked with when I really get into the internal dialogue that they are having with themselves it is it I mean it breaks my heart a little bit because it's a lot of fear it's a lot of just like I'm afraid this is going to happen I'm afraid she's going to say this I'm afraid I'm not going to be enough I'm afraid that it's not going to work out I'm you know it's just a NeverEnding laundry list of fear and one of the things that speaking of going through a hard time and coming out the other side okay one of the things that is very helpful with confronting our fears is one to just actually set a boundary with them and say like enough like I I get that that fear is maybe valid but I'm not listening to you right now and what can also be very helpful is to act on the fear not to act to to move away from the fear but act to pierce through the fear and that can sound like a couple things right if you're afraid of intimacy and closeness maybe you're afraid of for example a you know admitting a sexual desire in your relationship having a conversation with your partner to say hey I am very afraid to tell you about something that I want sexually in our Dynamic I'm terrified to say that I want this but are you okay if we have a conversation about something that I've been wanting to explore are you all right with that and your partner is probably going to say yes and they might say why are you afraid and if you want you can give a little bit of insight into like well generally speaking my needs have been rejected generally speaking it hasn't been okay for me to ask for what I've wanted or needed and so I'm afraid to do that in our relationship and then proceed to say what it is that you want or that you need or that you desire but you're afraid to ask for so we have to confront some of these fears if you do not confront some of these fears you will stay stuck in the fearful avoidant Dynamic it's one of the hard parts of the fearful avoidant is that you well it's let me put it this way it's one of the hard Parts but it's one of the absolute freaking blessings because here's the catch when you move towards a secure healthy attachment style as a fearful avoidant you become a you become a boss when it comes to fear you become a uh a very gifted person with understanding people's fear because guess what everybody's afraid everybody is afraid of something everybody has deep deep deep-seated fears about some [ __ ] in their life it's just that most people don't talk about it and for some people it might not affect them in the way that it affects you and so by you confronting your fears of closeness of connection of consistency of rejection over and over and over again and developing a bit of like a Teflon uh not even armor but just like a Teflon attitude you know and nature towards fear it's like all right I'm afraid again to ask for what I want I'm afraid again to be you know open and vulnerable about what I want to do on our date night or how I want to have sex or you know that I Want More Physical closeness and connection by you facing those things and sort of staring down your fears face on head on you become very adapt and very knowledgeable about facing and confronting fears and if you are with a woman it will help you really understand her experience in a beautiful and very rich way because the reality is that the majority of women are living in a lot of fear a lot of the time and so it will deepen your relationship exponentially because you will have a very deep understanding of what your partner is usually going through or feeling at a subprime level at a very Primal basic level so choose some of the relational fear the question here is what are some my basic or most terrifying relational fears what am I afraid of in my relationship that is normally holding me back and what would it look like for me to confront them so these are the basic pieces of how you move from fearful avoidant to secure attachment um I hope that you found value in these again the big big piece I can't stress enough self soothing while building and maintaining Trust trust and connection in another that Duality is going to serve you if you can just hold that one major piece and you can commit to daily practices where you are self- soothing and self-regulating and relationally connecting self soothing and self-regulating and relationally connecting you will see exponential changes quite quickly I promise you things will start to shift rapidly because you will be giving yourself what you needed when you were growing up you will be giving yourself the calm grounding internal space and the consistent relational connection that you are yearning and craving so thank you so much please man it forward if if you enjoyed this video I know that some of these are are more Niche but I it seems like you guys are really loving some of these conversations so please share share share them man it forward to somebody in your life that you know could benefit from it that you know would enjoy it even if just a segment you know they don't have to listen to the whole hour even if it's just a segment of this podcast or video um man it forward and as always thank you so much for tuning in don't forget to subscribe to whatever Channel you are listening on whether it's YouTube or Spotify or apple and don't forget to let me know what you got from this uh conversation whether you DM me on Instagram or comment on YouTube below and thank you so much for tuning in I look forward to diving into more of these guides and more of these deep ties for you talk [Music] soon