The Secure Shift What Secure Attachment Looks Like in Practice.

I mentioned earlier that I will talk more on the attachment styles and how they show up in our lives, not only romantic but in all connections, and this is a great example I heard by Lewis Howes. “We aren’t getting into relationships with individuals, but we are having a relationship with their nervous system. And if their nervous system is wounded or deregulated. Comes the way we perceive everything in the world. If it’s coming from trauma, or you have thin skin by every little thing that is said or do, or don’t do. Then that’s the relationship you’re getting into, not by their look, but what’s inside their nervous system by how they respond in their environment.”

This also includes the relationship we have with ourselves. From here, we begin to explore how insight becomes change through mentalisation. This brings us to notice our internal world without being taken over by it.                

                                   Deeper Dive into Attachment Styles.

As I have briefly mentioned attachment styles before, but I want to delve a little deeper to understand why they matter so much, as they can help us connect on deeper levels with compassion and understand others clearer, read red or green flags, self-sabotaging yourself.

These are not fixed identities; many people move between styles depending on the relationship, stress levels, trauma activation.

Someone can appear secure in one relationship and insecure in another. Attachment is state-dependent, not a personality trait.

Attachment styles describe how the nervous system learned to stay safe in relationships, not who we are.

Secure attachment: 50-60%

Disorganised/Fearful attachment: 5-10%

Anxious/Preoccupied: 15-20%

Dismissive/Avoidant attachment: 20-25%

(large-scale adult studies on attachment style based on the Bartholomew & Horowitz, Hazan & Shaver and later meta-analyses show relatively consistent distribution across Western population)

                                                   Secure Attachment

 With those who have secure attachment style as a child that they have built up trust with their caregivers/parents from knowing there is consistency from behaviour and the Childs needs are met, when experiences happen, they are mirrored in behaviour. The care giver can leave the room without the child getting overly stressed and secure in building trust with other people and their environment around.

Now securely attached people tend to show up with having trust within themselves to create space and have things they enjoy, authentic relationships with friendships, family to be openly authentic, expressive with each other, they like to build deep secure relationships they can commit to, they understand we all have our own thoughts and beliefs without jumping to conclusions with curiosity this reduces any conflict and judgement.

That person may well be having a difficult time in their own life showing with empathy and understanding. With self-awareness they can regulate their own emotions well, they communicate their needs and feelings effectively without getting overwhelmed or defensive.

                                        Secure Attachment in Adult Relationships

Secure attachment individuals can hold space, they tend to be emotionally stable and predictable, hold independence and closeness, which shows up as calm, reliable, and understanding this supports their partner feel safe to explore themselves, their feelings and needs, which can be peaceful to an insecure attachment.

                How Secure Attachment Work with Anxious Attachments

Let’s look at the two’s dynamic, anxious wants closeness and the thought of rejection is always at the back of their mind. Secure attachment can offer understanding, with the reassurance for their feelings with consistency. Which means the anxious partner can grow in self-confidence this will reduce their neediness.

                 How Secure Attachment Work with Avoidant Attachments

So here, we have the opposite. The avoidant actually fears closeness, even feels rather uncomfortable with intense emotional expressions. Now a secure partner can bring in a need for space for the partner while staying emotionally available for them.

They aren’t triggering their fear of being engulfed, this allows the avoidant to slowly open up with emotional needs with confidence, without feeling smothered.

                                  Why Secure Attachment Can Hold Space.

Secure people can understand another person’s space without overreacting, even withdraw because of their attachment patterns. They have the tolerance when things are uncertain in their relationship to give space. With these traits of a secure person can help the partner grow as a model. Secure attachment is the stable foundation to help support the insecure become the missing pieces in the environment that wasn’t available.

Within a partnership, securely genuinely enjoy being in a committed relationship. They see sex as an expression of intimacy. Secure attachments are good at solution making to a situation without heated debates. The secure blending a relationship isn’t fusing together, being dependent. Their idea of a relationship is built trust, emotional safety and mutual respect. With a healthy vision of what a loving partnership looks like, with a balance of closeness of vulnerability , intimate, and respect personal space, independence for personal growth, a partner they can rely on, not a person to fix or compete with, conflict is manageable with understanding not threatening to the relationship, and the most important is respect and empathy.

An example if laundry is being done, a secure will happily blend your general mixed colours clothes and their clothes together. But say you have a woollen jumper, they may say these need to be in separate, I need to wash my delicates by hand wash. But we shall combine all our white clothes together. There is respect for each person’s life in their own autonomy, within a shared relationship together.