Podcast Blog- Episode 36- How Thought Work was a Game Changer for my Anxious Attachment

Hello There and Welcome to Anxious Attachment Solution Episode 36, I am so glad you joined me today because I believe this episode is going to change everything for you. I want to talk about how “thought work” was a game changer for me and my anxious attachment and why you may want to start using thought work to stop your overthinking and turn down the volume on  your anxious attachment reactions. 

So When you google anxious attachment it says Anxious Attachment is a type of insecure attachment that can affect our relationships and that people with anxious attachment may:

Fear rejection and abandonment

Have a constant need for reassurance

Worry about the strength of their relationships

Come across as clingy or needy

Have low self esteem

Over Analyze their partner’s behavior

Have big reactions to small conflicts

Try to fix their partners problems 

Overstep boundary

This is also what a lot of what the self help books say about anxious attachment- they tell us what it looks like to have it, what its effect is on us and our relationships: so I knew I had it, I knew how it affected me but when I read these books I didn’t really understand what to do to stop it. I didn’t understand what kept holding me back from changing these habits. 

When I first started working with life coaching tools in 2018 I used thought work to help develop my self worth and self concept- and to love people in my life- I hadn’t yet applied it to my anxious attachment. One day I was listening to a podcast about Thoughtwork and listening again to its concepts: awareness of thoughts are key. Learning to be aware of the thoughts that we think and how they create our feelings, a light bulb went on and I asked myself what if I could apply this tool and strategy to my anxious attachment- and try to create more secure beliefs and secure attachment habits in my relationships.  

So I started doing this work in 2020 and applying it to my anxious attachment- and it changed everything for me. I was no longer a victim of my anxious attachment- I could recognize when it was being triggered, I was conscious of my thoughts that were creating the big feelings… and I now knew what I needed to do, I needed to talk back to my anxious over thinking brain and do the thought work.

 I applied it to my dating life, I applied it on dates, and today I still use thoughtwork as things come up in my relationship with my partner. 

After a few years of implementing this work deeply, more and more Coaches started talking about nervous system regulation.  I’d came across ideas/practices that said oh thought work is good BUT nervous system regulations is more important.

I am here to share what works best for me and the clients I have worked with. I agree that you have to learn how to soothe and regulate your nervous system- you have to learn how to actually feel and process emotions and give them a safe place to be felt- this is an important thing- because once your nervous system is activated it needs help to calm down and to feel peace again, however it is my believe you need both of these foundational tools: You need to be aware of your thoughts (thoughtwork) AND you need to process your emotion. 

Having anxious attachment is a nervous system response AND is a system rooted in certain beliefs that we have about ourselves, others and the people we are in relationships with. (our thoughts)

We can learn how to calm our nervous system when it is triggered, we can learn how to breathe through emotions, we can learn how to feel uncomfortable emotions- which is so very important because when our emotions are high or good decision making skills decrease and we become reactive- but if we don’t do the work on our thoughts and our beliefs about ourselves and others- the cycle will continue to repeat.

I can’t promise or guarantee that you will be able to stop your anxious attachment response, I will promise that if you do the work to become aware  of your thoughts your anxious attachment response will be less intense, they won’t last as long, and you will be able to have more control over how you show up for yourself and others in your life.

The first thing you have to do when starting this work is look at your thoughts. What are you thinking? What are you making it mean?

I’ll give you an example- of how the smallest things can set off your anxious attachment thought cycle. 

This week I went to get a pan out of the dishwasher and my partner said “oh thats not clean, don’t you see the sign on the dishwasher says dirty.” I replied, “well this week it hasn’t been matching so I didn’t know” She said, “Well I haven’t been doing the dishes this week.” 

Sounds small right- but I had a big reaction in my body that started out as frustration and was quickly turning into anger. So I started reflecting and asking myself what was going on- what was I thinking.

I was having the thought “she never does anything wrong, it’s always my fault. I do everything wrong.” 

Now let's see how this situation and these thoughts don’t match up and are not true. She did not say any of this. Yet I was feeling really frustrated and angry because my brain made her words mean something very different than what she said. 

Thought: “I do everything wrong, I can’t do anything right”

Feeling: angry

I start getting moody and defensive. Start saying things like “ it’s always my fault, you never do anything wrong.” - this is were arguments and misunderstanding start to happen 

But since I know my brain, I know my anxious attachment triggers, and I know I have a mean brain that wants to be perfect. I stopped talking and said

“After saying that out loud I know it is something in my brain, it is a thought problem. I try so hard to be perfect and do things right that I forget that I do things wrong sometimes and that it’s okay. I know you were not trying to tell me I always do things wrong.” 

You see I have a brain that not only has anxious attachment thoughts but it has a strong desire to be perfect and do EVERYTHING right, because if I do everything right my relationship will last and my partner will love me forever. Haha you see the problem with that, again I am putting way too much pressure on myself to not be human and I am putting all the power and control of our relationship in my partners hands and not taking any responsibility for it.

In these situations before thought work and understanding that my thoughts cause my feelings- this is when arguments would happen and I would try to argue or defend myself or tell my partner everything they do that's wrong- or I’d tell them everything I do for them (keeping the score) and throw it in their face. I always had to justify. I could never take responsibility for my feelings. I always believed my partner created my feelings based on their behavior and their words. I never took accountability for these thoughts I was not entirely aware of- I just knew that when my partner said something it hurt my feelings. Even when what they said was factual and true: what they did or said- hurt my feelings so they had to make me feel better. The hard part was no matter what they did say, or how quickly they apologized, I still felt like crap. I did not feel better. 

I realize now their apology, the argument that followed, the keeping score, the big emotions that followed never got to the real root of the problem, which were my thoughts and what I was making my partners thoughts mean- mean about me or mean about our relationships. 

This is why the thoughtwork part of this work is so important and why I spend so much time with my clients uncovering the thoughts that happen when their anxious attachment has been activated. Yes you have anxious attachment AND you have thoughts that are not serving you or helping you to have more secure habits in relationships and most likely all areas of your life. 

This is why I spend so much time talking about beliefs- the beliefs you have about yourself, your partner, your relationship and your ability to have the relationship you want, because these thoughts and these beliefs create the feelings that you have while dating or in a relationship and make you take certain actions that truly indicate the results you get from those relationships. 

If you have perfectionist thoughts like:

I can’t do anything wrong because they will leave me

I can’t make mistakes because they won’t love me

I need to be perfect and do everything right so that I can be happy or make them happy

It is not my fault it is their fault.

Don’t they know how much I do for them. 

If you have beliefs like- 

If I do x,y, z they will love me. If I do x,y,z perfectly they will stay with me. If I do x,y,z they will always be happy.

Their words/ actions/ behaviors cause my feelings.

I can’t feel better until they apologize. 

These thoughts and beliefs will stop you from creating the relationship you want because all of these thoughts put not human expectations on you (to be perfect) and not human expectations on the people in your life (make them accountable for your feelings), while creating really anxious, stressful feelings. 

So how do you start this work?

When you get triggered- when you start to have a big emotional reaction- because of someone’s thoughts or behavior write it out

1. What happened?

2. What am I making it mean- about me, about my relationship?

3. How does that make me feel?

4. Is it true? Is it reality?

I will give you show you this with the example I gave earlier:

What happened? My partner said that the pan was dirty. She said the sign said it was dirty. She said that she hadn’t been doing the dishes.

What did I make it mean? I made it mean that she thinks I always do everything wrong, when things don’t go right they are my fault. I do everything wrong. 

How does it make me feel? Makes me feel frustrated and angry and makes me want to tell her that she doesn’t do everything right either. Makes me want to get defensive

Is it true? Is it reality?

No, she did not say that. 

No, not everything is my fault and I do make mistakes and sometimes I do not put the sign on the dishwasher to the correct sign. 

Then at this part. I have to repair this miscommunication in my relationship with my partner. 

I have currently let her believe that she made me feel like everything I do I do it wrong. (which this is not true). I let my partner know that my instant change in mood, my frustration and my moodiness was not her fault- I was being defensive because my brain was being mean and telling me I never do anything right, and it was trying to tell me that you were thinking I don’t do anything right and I always make mistakes so that’s why you said what you said. I realize now that it was my own brain and my own self judgments that I was thinking, I was making it mean

 I wasn’t perfect and that I should be perfect. I was thinking I do everything wrong and that 

I shouldn’t do anything wrong- so I got frustrated and upset. 

I am sorry for my response to your comment and for my mood shift. I need some time to process the feelings of frustration, guilt, shame that my feelings caused. 

 I am lucky I have a partner who understands that I am working on my anxious attachment. They understand that I have big emotional reactions to really small things- for them they can feel like they are on an emotional roller coaster, it feels that way for me too- however the longer I do this work, the more focused I am on this work- the roller coaster ride doesn’t last as long, the moodiness and the shift in moods doesn’t last as long. 

I slowly begin to decrease its impact on me and my relationship. I am more quick to see when I am having a big reaction to something small, and more quickly jump to my brain and pay attention to the thoughts in my head and see the mean things my brain is saying and how it is affecting the way I am showing up right now. Then I ask myself, is this serving me? Is this how I want to show up? 

If it is not. I ask for time to process what is going on inside my brain and I do this work. Then I choose how I want to show up.

So the next time you feel a big reaction to something that “could” feel small to someone else. Do this work and uncover what thought may be doing some work behind the scenes.

So to recap

When you get triggered- when you start to have a big emotional reaction- because of someone’s thoughts or behavior write it out

5. What happened?

6. What am I making it mean- about me, about my relationship?

7. How does that make me feel?

8. Is it true? Is it reality?

Other tools and strategies:

A thought download- write all your unfiltered thoughts down for 2-3 minutes. What happened, write it all down. Pull out one thought, how does that thought make you feel? What does it make you want to do? If you do that, what result will you get? 

Ask yourself, is this thought serving me? Is this belief serving me? If not, what am I getting when I choose to believe it? 

Thank you for listening. Please remember to share this podcast with your friend. If you found it useful or helpful in any way, I would truly appreciate it if you could like and rate it- this helps it get out to more women who could benefit from the information of this podcast. 

I want to offer you to come and do this work with me in my one on one coaching program. If you are interested or have any questions please email me at Amberlynn@takingbackherbrain.com you can also find me on Instagram @anxious attachment solution. I look forward to hearing from you.