- Hey, have you ever noticed
that you avoid getting close to someone,
that deep connection is kind of scary,
even if it's with your friends
or an intimate relationship,
you actually go out of your way
to avoid being super close and opening up?
Do you find that closeness kind of scary?
Do you actually, have you noticed you call people "clingy,"
"Oh, they're so clingy, they're so needy.
"I find that a real turn off."
Keep watching; I'm going to explain to you
what is avoidant attachment style,
which you just might have,
and how to overcome it and have an incredible relationship
where you can let yourself get close.
What is avoidant attachment?
Well, it's something where your mind
actually doesn't like close connection.
With tiny babies,
there's something called attachment disorder.
And that means if you never pick up a child
or a child isn't picked up and held,
when you hold them, they become rigid.
They actually don't like it.
If you don't get love and connection, intimacy and warmth,
then when someone tries to give it to you, guess what?
It feels so unfamiliar that you don't like it.
If you are not loved, held, praised,
it becomes so deeply unfamiliar
that when someone offers it to you, instead of going,
"Oh, this is lovely,
"the love I've always wanted, here it is,"
it's like, "Oh, no. I don't recognize this. I don't like it."
Many people find they feel vulnerable.
I'll give you a great example.
I worked with someone whose husband
was an orphan raised in a children's home,
went to four different fosters, and they were all terrible.
And then, at 16, he was sent off to live on his own.
And when he met her, she'd say things like, "I love you."
He'd go, "Never say that.
"Don't tell me you love me. Don't hug me. Don't kiss me.
"Don't say things like, 'I can't live without you.'"
She said, "What is wrong with him?"
And I said, "Well, he's never had what he wants so badly:
"deep love.
"And, of course, the love you are giving him
"is actually making him feel vulnerable.
"After all, he survived all his life without love,
"and now you're here to offer him love,
"instead of going, 'Wow, let me take that,'
"it's, 'Oh, this is unfamiliar.
"'I'm uncomfortable. I don't recognize it.
"'It's opening up all my wounds. When I was 12
"'and I was put back into the system,
"'rejected from foster care,
"'I coped by shutting down.
"'And now you ask me to open up?
"'I can't do it because it makes me vulnerable.'"
So let's look at your behavior, avoiding love,
dating people who aren't available.
People will say, "I've got a guy in jail,
"and I write to him, and it's great."
Of course it's great,
you know where he is, and he's not going to dump you.
"I only like people who are married."
That's because you cannot get close
to someone who isn't available.
They, therefore, don't have the power to reject you.
But all of a sudden, you meet someone who's available,
who's willing to give you everything,
and your instinct is to run away,
"I don't want it. I want to go back to the bad boys,
"the cold, distant women.
"This feels creepy and cringey and clingy and yucky."
It isn't true. It's just not familiar.
But you know what? You can make anything familiar.
After all, if you put a bit of silicone on your finger
and ram it in your eye for a week,
it becomes totally familiar to wear lenses.
And even weirder, you now squeeze that off
with your fingers.
The first time I put in lenses, my eye didn't like it,
and I found it really weird.
But then, you get used to it.
We have to make a choice,
"I'm going to make love familiar."
Attachment disorder means, "I feel uncomfortable being held,
"being praised."
But you can make anything unfamiliar familiar
with practice and with a magic word,
"I'm choosing this and I'm choosing to feel great about it."
How can avoidant attachment affect you?
Well, you go through your life alone.
Many people say, "You know, I like being alone.
"I've chosen to be alone.
"I can't be hurt.
"I can't be dumped.
"I can't be rejected.
"I can't be put in that position of feeling so vulnerable
"and I can't stand it."
But that's like saying, "I'm never going to have a baby
"in case something happens to that baby."
When I had a baby,
my cleaner wanted to take my baby out
and introduce her to her mother.
And I said, "Oh, of course. Go ahead."
And she took my baby out in the stroller,
and she was gone for hours, and I was thinking,
"Oh my god, my baby.
"If she doesn't come back with this baby,
"if something's happened, I don't know if I can go on
"because I love this baby so much."
But nobody says, "Oh, yeah. I'm not going to have a baby
"because I couldn't cope with the pain of losing them."
But that's what you do when you avoid attachment.
It's like, "Well, it might go wrong. I might get hurt.
"They could die or leave me.
"So you know what?
"I'm just going to be alone for the rest of my life."
But you must have heard that expression,
"It's better have loved and lost
"than never to have loved at all."
And when you love someone, there is a chance they leave,
they get sick, they pass away.
But that's not a good enough reason to avoid love.
You see, the great thing about love, letting love in,
is that you create a template for love.
And even if your lovely partner passes away
or leaves you or you leave them,
you have a template for love,
and so you can find more love.
So you pay a high price for living your life without love,
because love is the best thing in the world.
Having someone to wake up to, go to sleep,
making two cups of coffee,
having two toothbrushes in the mug.
These little things,
having someone to say, "Hi," to, and, "Good night," to,
are what make life work.
And whoever said, "Love makes the world go round,"
knew what they were talking about.
My grandmother said, "You know what?
"Life without love is like food without soul."
My grandmother was raised in an orphanage.
She was rejected. She was abandoned.
But with all she went through, she found love,
and she found great love in her children
and in her grandchildren.
It's a choice to avoid attaching or to attach.
And yes, you can choose not to let love in.
But you know what you're doing?
You're swapping the pain. It's just a swap.
"If I love you, you might cause me pain. I might get hurt.
"So I'm going to live alone and have no love. And oh, yeah,
"then I'm going to have pain and be hurt."
You're just swapping.
Go for love.
It's wonderful. It's amazing.
And even if it doesn't last forever,
you'll have your memories.
And when you find love once, you can find love again.
So here are three powerful steps
to develop a more secure attachment style.
The first one is to remind yourself of the truth:
nobody can reject you without your permission.
I've been rejected. I've been dumped.
I've been cheated on. But I have an amazing marriage.
And each of those people who did that to me did me a favor.
Nobody can reject you unless you let them.
If someone is leaving you, they're not saying,
"Oh, where's my bag? Let's put in everything I liked about you,
"I'm packing in that.
"All the nice things I said, they're going in the bag.
"Every time I rang and said,
"'Oh, I just called to hear your voice because I love you,'
"that's going in the bag, and I'm taking it all away."
They can't take away what they once felt about you.
It's still in you.
If somebody loved you once, that means you are lovable.
So do not allow yourself to believe
they've taken everything.
"They ripped out my heart and shredded it to pieces."
No, darling, no. They just got bored.
And if you'd stuck around, you might've got bored too.
That was a starter relationship.
You know when we have a starter home, a starter job,
maybe even a starter car,
"It's a bit old and beaten up, but it will do
"till I have the money for a better one."
I want you to see your first relationship
as a starter relationship where you learnt a lot,
and to remember nobody, no one can reject you
unless you give them your consent.
And you are free to go, "No, I will not give you the power."
Sing that Gloria Gaynor song, "Go on now, go.
"Walk out the door. I don't need you anymore."
You've got to sing a better song,
"I'm finding someone to love who's loving me."
Don't sing the song, "I can't get over you.
"You're the only one in the world.
"I can't live if living is without you.
"I can't breathe without you." That's not true.
If you found love once, you can find it again and again.
My daughter did a great painting that said,
"Falling in love again, and again, and again, and again."
And she sold it to a client who got pregnant with triplets,
and said, "You know, it was looking at that painting.
"I looked at that painting with so much love,
"more love and more love,
"and I've got married and I've got triplets."
And I love the fact that that painting,
"Falling in love again, and again, and again, and again,"
awakened her mind to the thought,
"Wow, there's no limit to how much love you can have.
"That limit is here."
Open yourself up to love because it's all around you.
And if you let it in, you can keep it forever.
The second step is to tell yourself, "I am lovable."
If you want love, you don't have to give anything up,
nothing has to be snipped off, injected in, sweated away.
There's nothing you have to add or remove to find love.
One thing is needed to find love, and here it is:
You've got to say,
"I am lovable. I'm deserving of love.
"I'm worthy of love."
My gran used to say, "Everyone has their lid."
I went to a wedding, my cousin, who was very skinny,
married someone who was incredibly fat.
And she went, "Well, they found their lid."
You are someone's lid. Someone is your lid.
Someone will love you and you will love them.
So instead of avoiding it,
say, "I'm worthy of love. I'm deserving of love."
To find love, you need three things.
The first, and it is 90% of finding love,
is to decide you are worthy of love and deserving of love
and ready for love.
The second is to know, "What does it look like?
"What kind of person do I want? What values will they have?
"How will we get along together?"
Really get an image of what your ideal love looks like,
feels like, sounds like, and then decide, "Where is it?"
It's not in your book club.
It's not in your yoga class if that's all full of women.
It's not in your home when you're not going out.
The third step is to go out and find it.
If you believe you are deeply lovable
and then go around the people you want to be with,
you will end up with someone who also believes
you're lovable, who you believe is lovable too.
And the third step is to make it easy on yourself.
Stop believing, "I've got to find someone perfect.
"The perfect person knows what to do in bed.
"They knew what gifts to buy.
"They know exactly what I want."
Unless you're dating a psychic, that is never going to happen.
I love my husband. He loves me.
Does he disappoint me? Sometimes.
Do I disappoint him? Occasionally.
Because we're not clairvoyant. You get things wrong.
When you have expectations up here,
you'll be disappointed,
because the truth about you and me and everyone is this:
you're a flawed person,
and you're going to have a flawed relationship
with a flawed person, and it's going to be amazing.
When you stop looking for Mr. or Mrs. Perfect,
you can go, "Well, they're flawed. I'm flawed.
"Let's have the most beautiful flawed relationship.
"In fact, I'm allowed to get things wrong because you do too."
You know my clients that are the unhappiest?
The ones who look for perfect.
It doesn't exist. You're never going to find perfect.
You're never going to find it.
You know what an Achilles' heel is, everyone has a flaw.
So if you think, "I've got to find someone perfect,
"they've got to be a perfect 10,"
you'll be disappointed because there is no perfect 10.
And if you want to work with someone
to really overcome this and find love,
because it is the best thing in the world
to have someone that loves you,
that is loved by you, there's nothing like it.
There's nothing you can buy or eat or do ever
that could top feeling loved and loving someone back.
And if you want to have that
and you want to work with someone,
go to rtt.com and book a call with one of the therapists
that I trained, and they're amazing,
and they will help you find the most priceless thing
in the world, real lasting love.