so if you watched my other video on the attachment styles or types and you've
realized that you are or possibly your partner is an anxious/preoccupied type
this video hopefully will be helpful. For me finding out I was a
preoccupied/anxious type was a light bulb moment. Really figuring out why I
behaved the way I did or why I was triggered off so badly to situations that actually
weren't a big deal. I think most people that are the anxious/preoccupied
type do have some instability in childhood. They tend to have some some
type of abandonment in childhood or abuse but not always. You can come from a very
loving home but I think the other thing that kind of tends to go hand-in-hand
with being a anxious/preoccupied type is being a sensitive person, you
tend to be a bit empathetic and you can pick up on other people's feelings quite
easily. When you are that type of more sensitive person you can get
overwhelmed more frequently than other people and you feel things more
intensely and if you aren't with a secure type they won't always give you
the reassurance you need so you can get highly activated and I know for me I've
had several relationships where there was infidelity and I always felt
like I was going crazy and I think at some level I knew what's going on but I
couldn't really prove it and so I just got completely activated and
maybe some of it was completely in my head but I think a lot of that was
childhood patterns and what went on in my family and what I grew up believing
about relationships and whatever your home life is is what you perceive as
love so home is chaotic and a lot of drama and a lot of conflict then that's
what you believe love is and that's the type relationship you'd tend to seek out
or that dynamic you will try to create it even if
with a person that isn't creating any drama with you so if you are an anxious
preoccupied type you're going to constantly be looking for some perceived
slight, more evidence that they're not there for you or that basically you
believe that you're not really lovable or good enough at a very deep level and
so you're always looking for evidence of that from your partner. They may look at
someone too long or that you think they might be cheating on you or if they
don't reassure you or are there for you in the way that you want them to be and you
think they're going to leave you and so you can act out being very
jealous, you can lose the plot, scream and yell, you can push people away and what
is interesting with anxious types is they tend to create exactly what
they're afraid of, so if they're afraid their partner is going to leave them
so therefore they do all these things that force their partner to leave them or
make the partner want to leave them so when you're at that type of attachment
type an anxious/preoccupied, your nervous system is very sensitive and it's always
getting activated and you're always looking to your partner to calm it down
and you need to learn to calm yourself down and realize when you're being
triggered and I think a big thing is to look at how old you feel in that
moment because you're not just the age you are now, you're every age you've ever
been and we're kind of like a team that makes us up
the average person has between five to seven different parts or ego
states, kind of like multiple personalities but I think when
you're getting triggered in relationships, you're probably in the mode
of a much younger part of you, like the term inner child, you could be
in a child state and so that's why when people are triggered, they tend to act
like children, they have tantrums like children and lash out like children so
when you feel yourself getting triggered, ask yourself how old are you right now
and you'd be amazed at what age comes up, it's not hardly ever the age you
are now, so when you do that, just imagine that age, imagine yourself at that age
and imagine that you can give that part of you love and reassurance and
acceptance and let them know that they're okay and that they're perfect
the way they are and that they don't need to help you with your relationship
I know this may sound crazy but we all are constantly rotating through our
different parts of ourselves and the more aware that you can be, the more
you can calm those younger, more distressed, more insecure parts of
yourself down and change their job description. You don't want a
child or a teenager part of you helping you with your relationships. They
don't have the emotional maturity to do it
and so in becoming aware of it, you actually can stay in the moment, you can
keep yourself from going off the rails and for me, I think one of the
best things you can do is seek help. You didn't experience trauma all by
yourself, there's normally other people
involved in your trauma and so it's helpful to have other people involved in
undoing the trauma and healing that trauma and the more aware that you
become, the healthier your relationships will become and the happier and more
secure you'll become and I think for all the attachment types that are the
insecure attachment types, it all comes down to not feeling good enough. I think
even secure a types feel that way as well, that you're not lovable at some
level and the more lovable you feel, the
relationship you're in or have been in and if it's not healthy and happy it's
not because of... well it could be because of you to be honest
but I think you can learn from that and for me I look at all of my
trauma and all of my screw-ups and relationships as it's not happening to me
but happening for me and by experiencing all of the negative stuff it forced me
to look really hard at myself and take responsibility and learn how to change
it and it's given me an empathy I wouldn't have otherwise
so don't define yourself by your relationships and what's happened with
them but know it's made you the person you are and know that at least you have
some interesting stories you can tell if anything else so yeah
that's just my little spiel on the preoccupied/anxious type. I will be doing
videos on the other types as well but hopefully that helps you and I'll be
adding links below so you can go on your ownself journey with it and learn more
about it