How to Change Your Anxious Attachment Style

Having an Anxious attachment style can be frustrating, but the good news is that it’s possible to learn ways to become more secure in relationships.

Let’s talk about 3 different ways to become more securely attached. First, we’ll talk about the behavioral method, second we’ll talk about the body centered method, and thirdly we’ll talk about the rewiring and imaginative method.

My goal for you reading this post is that you’ll come away with a quick overview of what’s possible. If you want more detail on becoming more securely attached, I have a course for anxious attachment style. Also, it’s a good idea to have some support as you integrate learnings, and you can reach out for coaching if you’re interested.

Noticing and changing behavior and patterns in your relationships

Now, the first way and probably the easiest way to start changing your anxious attachment style is to notice and change your actual behavior in relationships. This might sound easier said than done, but this is something people start to do naturally as they learn about something. When we learn about attachment style, we want to know what style we are, and we want to know what style a partner is, and we want to know how our styles affect our relationship.

When I’m faced with a big project I think, “what’s the first step?” The way to start to be more secure is to begin learning all you can about anxious attachment. This way you can start to notice your relationship patterns — if you’ve been in more than one romantic relationship, you can compare what happened — what did your partner or significant other do or not do, what did you do or not do, what were the similarities between your different relationships?

You’re really looking for patterns here. This will also give you an idea of where your triggers are, and therefore where you might want to do some healing or personal growth. For example, have you been in multiple relationships where you felt like you wanted to spend more time together than the other person did, or you wanted more certainty or commitment?

Are there particular topics that came up repeatedly that you argued about or that you or your partner were critical about? Where did you get along really well with the person? Or is there a pattern where you got along really well and then things just fall apart? Not every pattern is attachment related, for example, maybe you’re an extrovert and you always date introverted partners and then can’t get them out of the house on a Friday night. Or you could be with a partner who doesn’t feel the need for connection with friends that you do on Friday night, and that could be related to your attachment styles.

Once you’ve identified your patterns and learned how your anxious attachment style is playing into your relational dynamics, you can begin to make changes. It’s a good idea to have support when you’re doing this.

For example: say you notice a trend that you are the one having to initiate a lot of contact with your partners. You can explore what’s underneath that for you — what are your needs and desires around contact in relationship, what are you wanting when you reach out? Are you wanting them to reach out more, but you feel like you’re always having to be the one to do that? What’s underneath that desire for you? For example, some people feel more loved when the other person reaches out to them because they feel desirable or worth spending time with.

In this example, knowing you have this preference for the other person to reach out can shape both who you choose for partners, but also how you communicate your desires within partnership. In other words, if you are dating, you can look for partners who initiate contact, and if you are in a relationship, you can communicate your preferences to the other person. Having your needs met in this way will help you feel more secure. It’s the same principle as dating someone with secure attachment and earning more secure in your attachment mix.

You can also choose to challenge your automatic reactions. If you automatically are the one to always reach out, try leaning back and see what happens. If you don’t reach out, does the other person reach out more? Or do you find that you’re not really getting your needs met for how much contact you want with a partner?

Sometimes people find by challenging their automatic behaviors that it feels a little different and not what they’re used to. It’s a good idea to get support around this, especially if there’s any tenderness there.

So that was the first way to become more securely attached, by learning about attachment style and noticing your behaviors and patterns in relationships.

Using a body-centered approach to shift anxious attachment style

The 2nd very broad way to change your anxious attachment to become more secure is a more body-centered approach. This approach is one you might get if you’re working with someone trained in somatic attachment work, which is part of my background. It has to do with noticing felt-sense in the body. For example, can you tell how you feel happiness in the body, what about contentment?

Sometimes when we’re coming from a background of anxious attachment, we can be a bit disembodied, or very verbal and heady, and it can really help to stop and pay attention to what our bodies are telling us.

When can you do this? The next time you catch yourself in the middle of a moment of enjoyment with a friend, or the next time you’re in the middle of telling a story to a friend about something you’re frustrated about, stop and check in with your body. Notice how it feels. When I work with people I teach them how to create pleasant moments for themselves in a way that’s supportive of the attachment system, amplifying feelings of safety and consistent, secure connection.

So that was the 2nd way to change your attachment system to be more secure, by paying attention to the felt sense and amplifying feelings of secure safe consistent connection.

Using imagination to change anxious attachment style

The 3rd way to shift from anxious to secure attachment involves the imagination.

We can use our imagination for better or worse, we can imagine things going catastrophically, or we can imagine them going delightfully. We can also imagine moments of secure connection in the past or future and recreate them for ourselves in the privacy of our own minds. Our brains are phenomenally good at giving us present-moment chemistry as if we were actually in an imagined scenario. That’s why we can be terrified by a movie or relaxed imagining a fun vacation.

So that is the 3rd way your anxious attachment style, is by using your imagination for good.

This is an overview of ways to become more secure — if you would like to dive deep into shifting your attachment system, you might enjoy my course on anxious attachment style.