Breaking The Anxious Attachment Cycle: 3 Steps To Take
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All right, team. Welcome back to the Man Talk Show. Conor Beaton here.

Today, we're going to be talking about how to break the cycle of anxious attachment. I'm going to be giving you three very specific things that I have seen work time and time again for you as an anxious person to get better results in your relationship, to end the anxious attachment cycle. So very briefly, anxious attachment, what is it? I like to say that at the foundation, at the sort of

core of an anxious attached person is I need you to be okay in order for me to feel safe.

I need you to be okay in order for me to feel safe, in order for me to feel okay, in order for me to feel like I matter or am loved or that my needs are important. And it's a kind of chronic worrying and hypervigilance that is focused externally on the other person. It's almost like if I fixate on you enough, right?

If I focus on how you're feeling enough and I can take care of you and I can take care of you, what you need and what you want, and I can make sure that you're okay. Maybe that will quell how I'm feeling internally. Maybe that'll dissipate the anxiousness, the franticness, the panic, the, you know, the anxiety that I'm carrying around in my body of like, are we okay? And often this is a very direct result. Pretty much always.

of a family system of having caretakers, of having parents where you needed to protect yourself from that caregiver or parent and that you kind of were made responsible for their emotional state.

Right. So you were made responsible for mom's emotional state. Maybe she would punish you anytime that you made her feel upset or you disappointed her. She would start to shame you and berate you or belittle you. Maybe you had to take care of a parent in order to feel safe. You kind of always walking on eggshells. You never knew what you were going to get. You had to make sure that, you know, mom or dad, right. Usually one of them is usually like one person's emotional state.

really took up all the space in your family system. And maybe it was a sibling, right? For some people, they have like a really volatile sibling who's not okay and, you know, is sort of aggressive and takes up a lot of space in the family system. But usually it's one of the caretakers.

And maybe you were responsible or felt responsible for taking care of that parent in some capacity. Maybe you actually did have to take care of them. And so what you wanted, what you needed, your sense of safety, your sense of wants or needs or desires were always second. And

And what you learned, what you were conditioned to do in relationships, and this is the super important part, you were conditioned to externalize your wants and needs. You were conditioned to externalize your sense of safety.

And so there's a lack internally of I'm okay on my own. I'm all right. I'm safe on my own. I'm safe inside my body. I'm safe in this relationship. And oftentimes anxious people have a kind of hypervigilance of worrying whether or not the relationship is okay or

Or a hypervigilance to whether or not you're connecting the right way, right? Like, am I doing the right thing, saying the right things? Did I communicate myself properly? All of that kind of frenetic energy comes up in the relationship with initiating sex or sending text messages or planning out dates or wondering whether or not your partner is happy with what you've done for their birthday or whatever it is, right? A date night.

All of that starts to show up and it shows up even the small moments, right? Like, did they like dinner? You know, so let's talk about the three things that I have found time and time again to support you as an anxious person. And if you're not an anxious person, but you're with an anxious partner, this will be informative for you as well. So let's just dive straight in. Number one is motivation.

develop safety internally. Start to develop safety internally because the anxious attached person externalizes safety. So you have externalized your safety onto somebody else. And I usually get this type of question all the time from people of like,

Why is it so hard for me to, you know, when a relationship ends, how come I can't let that person go? How come I can't move on? Well, usually it's because, you know, obviously you miss them and maybe you love the relationship and you love them, but usually it's that you've externalized something onto that other person.

I found it that it's very hard quite often for anxious people to move on past relationships. And what I've found is that more often than not, it's hard for you as an anxious attached person to move on from a relationship because you've externalized your sense of safety. And so there's this kind of desperation of, I need to get them back because otherwise I don't feel safe. I don't feel okay. I don't feel like I matter. I don't feel like whatever it is, right? Fill in the blank. I'm not going to get my needs met, et cetera.

So number one, start to develop that sense of safety internally. So how do you do this? This is a big question I get from a lot of people. Well, obviously there's regulation techniques that you can use, right? Your breath is going to be the modulation dial that's going to help you downregulate. So when you're anxious and stressed and you feel unsafe,

Your breath is probably much more shallow, much quicker. Your heart rate is elevated. All of those types of things coincide anxiousness. Hopefully I didn't induce that in you, just labeling it. I know sometimes with anxious people, you're like, just talking about this is making me anxious. So the breath is the modulation dial for your stress levels in your body.

So if you want to move from a stressed state or what's called a sympathetic dominant state, where your breath is elevated, you're breathing faster, your heart rate's up, down to a parasympathetic dominant state or a calm, restful, relaxed state, you are going to want to breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth. So nice deep breath in through the nose, longer exhales out the mouth. You really want to focus in on having longer exhales

after exhales. Now, obviously in certain situations that might feel weird to do. If you're sitting in line at the DMV and all of a sudden you feel anxious and you're like,

You know, people might give you a look, but whatever. We live in a strange world. Don't worry about it. Do your breathing exercises. Or if you're in a, you know, if you're having a conversation and conflict with your partner and you start to do this breathing, that's okay, right? So deep breath in, exhaling out the mouth, nice long exhale, letting the exhale be longer. What this does is it forces your breath rate per minute down, which slows down your heart rate

which sends a signal to the brain that says release less cortisol, less adrenaline, less of the stress chemicals, neurochemicals into the body. So start to focus in on your breathing and start to really practice slowing it down. At first, this might be challenging, especially if you are a person that has a good amount of anxiety in your body. What you're going to start to be aware of is that your breath is usually quite quick, probably quite shallow. That's okay. That is normal. I'm

all right start to just slow it down in through the nose out through the mouth box breathing is another good one inhale for four hold for four exhale for four hold for four and just repeat that for three or four minutes

The second thing that you need to do to develop safety internally is to begin to separate your girlfriend, your husband, your wife, whatever, your partner, separate their emotional state from your sense of security. Okay. Separate their emotional state from your sense of security. What this means is I'm okay, even though you're not.

I'm okay even though you're disappointed. I'm okay even though you're sad. I'm okay even though you're angry with me. I'm okay, I'm just okay even though you're feeling a heightened sense of emotion. Now, this is a really challenging thing for a lot of anxious, attached people to do because normally in your past, it was not safe for you when a parent or a caregiver was upset, right? There was usually some type of shame that was coming your way,

hypercriticism, maybe verbal abuse or physical abuse. And so your body's reacting in a way where it's trying to protect you from a perceived threat. And you're going to have to start to work to soothe and regulate yourself in the moments when the person that you love is upset, okay?

All right. So they get angry. They get sad. They're disappointed in you. And in that moment, you turn inwards to yourself, breathe, remind yourself, I'm okay. Even though they're upset. And actually say that to yourself, almost like a mantra. I'm okay. Even though they're upset. Even though they're angry. Even though they're disappointed. Even though they're sad. I'm okay. I don't need to fix it, solve it, take care of it, triage it.

I'm just going to breathe and be okay, even though they're upset. Practicing that.

Step number two, recognize what I call false flags. Recognize the false flags. Anxious attached people such as yourself will inevitably have a scanning system relationally, right? Scanning their partner's behavior, scanning their decisions, scanning what they're saying, scanning their choices, and it will be set in

almost incorrectly, so that you start to see problems where problems don't exist. You start to worry, even though there's nothing to worry about. You misinterpret relational data, okay?

So start to notice, and this is like, everybody has a relational scanning mechanism, right? Like, is my partner okay? Are they happy? Are they upset? Are they upset with me? Did something go wrong? Are we good? Are we in a good place? But for the anxious attached person, that relational scanning mechanism is a bit faulty. And it's faulty in the sense that it will start to see problems where problems don't exist. It'll

It'll start to set off the alarm system in your body, in your brain, even though there's no cause for an alarm system to go off. So what you need to do is very clearly and very accurately get a sense of what false alarms are you starting to notice in your relationship. What false alarms are you starting to notice? For example,

Are you constantly checking in with your partner and thinking that they're not okay when they're actually totally fine? And nine times out of 10, you think that they're upset or you think that something's wrong and you check in, they're like, no, I'm totally good. Like what's, what's up? You know, what's going on? Are you all right? Because nine times out of 10, that's your internal state that's disrupted and not theirs. So that could be a false flag. Another example is a false flag is like, they don't text you back for two hours.

And that sets off the alarm bells in your nervous system and your brain. And it starts to go into all these types of places. So start to get very clear on what your specific false flags are. When does the anxiety of your attachment start? When does the panic button get hit and you are scanning incorrectly in the relationship? What do you know that's going to happen?

that you do that is a false flag that sets off your anxiety, get very clear on that because these are the opportunities for you to soothe, for you to regulate your internal nervous system and remind yourself that you're okay. Now, if you're in a secure relationship and you're with a person and you guys are doing this work together, you might want to say to them, oh, I just noticed

you know, there was some anxiety that was coming up. I don't need anything from you, but I think I was misinterpreting something and just wanted you to know. The last thing I'm going to say is, well, there's one more piece that's really, really important, but on this note of recognizing false flags, I want you as an anxious attached person to pull back probably 40 to 50% on your communication of what's happening inside of you. Uh,

Not because I don't want you to communicate how you're feeling and what's going on in your life and those types of things. Not that I'm telling you to shut down from your partner. But anxious, attached people are chronic over-communicators.

just constantly expressing what is going on and how they feel and that they're worried or they're passive aggressive about things. And it's all of this hypervigilance towards their partner's behavior quite often. And it's exhausting for that person. Even if that person is a secure partner, it can be quite tiring because it's like you are constantly telling me,

that you think something's wrong or that you're identifying something. And so practice in the next couple of weeks, just reserving your communication. So pulling back on your communication by like 40, 50%, not because you're trying to disconnect, but because you are practicing soothing yourself, regulating yourself, navigating and dealing with the conflict that's happening inside of you and reminding yourself, I am

can actually get myself into a place of being okay without needing external support every single time. This will actually really help to develop and build the trust and the safety in your relationship with your partner.

Last piece is practice calm connection. Practice calm connection. Anxious people really tend to try and connect in a very nervous and anxious way. This is really at the core of the anxious attached style.

That when you want to connect to the person that you love, whether it's your partner, wife, girlfriend, whether it's a family member, whether it's a friend, there is a kind of anxiety and nervousness that starts to come up. Will I say the right thing? Will I send the right thing? Will I ask for the right thing? You might find yourself being passive aggressive in trying to connect.

You might find yourself inadvertently criticizing the other person, like, why don't you ever want to da-da-da-da-da? And that is like your bid for connection. So very, very typical that, and this isn't blaming you, it's not saying there's something wrong with you, it's just pointing out the behavior.

Very typical that you as an anxious attached person are bringing the anxiety into the moment and the point of connection. What you want to do is practice finding calm, finding center, finding some grounding before you connect. And this might mean that you do some breathing first. It might be that you actually take stock and connect to your internal state first.

and say okay let me just take a few breaths and then i'm going to text them and then i'm going to call them and find yourself move yourself as closely as you can doesn't need to be perfect but as closely as you can to just a little bit more of a relaxed state and i've seen people do this in a lot of different ways like i had a guy that i worked with that was like it helps me when i'm going to call my wife and talk about something challenging to just lay down on the ground and

And he just started this practice. He would just like, if they were going to have a tough conversation and he was at work, you know, or he was traveling, he would just lay down on the floor or on the ground outside. And then he would have the conversation. And he found that that actually helped him to be much more calm and grounded, you know, whatever, but to be much more calm and

and centered and able to have a conversation that was sometimes challenging without going into this sort of spiraled anxious place. So you need to develop some routines, some habits of either breathing or finding a way to ground and calm and center, maybe some meditation before you do some connection. And it can be as simple as taking two deep breaths before you go into

into the kitchen and hug your partner. You know, it can be as simple as taking a couple deep breaths before you sit down on the couch beside your wife or your girlfriend so that you just stabilize your system a little bit more so that you are bringing a more calm, grounded, relaxed energy to them. Okay, thank you so much for tuning in. Don't forget to man it forward. Share this video, hit the like button, subscribe if you haven't done so already. The

The channel is growing rapidly. And as always, until next week, Conor Beaton signing off.