Podcast Blog- Episode 38; Things I do Differently Now

Welcome to Anxious Attachment Solution I am your Host Life Coach Amber Lynn

On today’s podcast I just wanted to share with you things I’d do differently as a person with anxious attachment knowing what I know now about the brain, emotions and thoughts. 

Before I get started I feel like you may need to hear this, I want you to know that it can get better. Just because you are a person with anxious attachment, who overthinks, has big reactions and fears rejection. It can get better. You don’t have to live in a constant state of fear and anxiety, no matter what your childhood was like, no matter what all your past relationships say, no matter what that voice in your head says, you don’t have to let your anxious attachment control your life and you don’t have to just accept that this is what a person with anxious attachment gets out of life.

I am here to tell you there is hope and there are real strategies you can use and put into place today to take back control in your life and your relationships. Just because you have anxious attachment doesn’t mean it has to have you. You are not your anxious attachment, even though sometimes it feels like it. 

I want you to know, I know this because I have been where you are and I understand what it feels like AND I want you to know that if you are willing to try thought work, if you are willing to learn the anxious attachment cycle and feel hard emotions You can get to a place where you manage it. 

You can get to a place where you don’t feel crazy all the time. You can get to a place where you recognize your anxious attachment has been triggered and you know that your emotions are safe to be felt and you don’t have to be reactive. If you are willing to do the work on your mind and on your thoughts- you will be able to see that you have a lot of untamed thoughts creating unnecessary chaos in your mind and causing unwanted feelings in  your body. If you decide to no longer let anxious attachment be your reason or your excuse for your life and you choose to do the work you can get to a place where you truly believe you are lovable, that you are enough, and that for the right person and for yourself you are just enough. You can get to a place where your anxious attachment plays an understudy rather than the leading role in your life and relationships. You can get to a place where you stop your overthinking thoughts in the moment, where you are able to recognize that these thoughts are creating unnecessary fear and upset. When you are willing to learn how to feel hard emotions without impulsively reacting with an outburst you will get to a place where something will happen to trigger your anxious attachment and you will be able to pause and feel the feelings and be in control. When you learn thoughtwork you will understand that your thoughts create your feelings, their thoughts create their feelings so no matter what you do you can’t make someone love you or stay when they aren’t meant to, and you will be okay. Emotions won’t be as scary. 

So how do you get there? You have to do things differently. Here is what I would have done differently.

I grew up thinking that I had to earn my worth, earn my value, earn love, acceptance, earn it all. Which left me never feeling good enough because my value was placed in other people’s hands- they had to give it to me. By trying to earn my worth- I was placing my worth outside of me - in certificates- degrees- job titles- relationship titles- other people’s thoughts of me.

I would have chosen to decide earlier that my worth is not outside of me. My worth is inside of me. I get to just decide I am worthy. I am worthy of love. I am worthy of my dreams and my goals. I do not have to work to earn anything. I would just decide I am lovable- no matter what other people, past relationship experiences tell me. I would just decide I am worthy and I am lovable. The only thing you need to do this is a mindset shift and making a decision to believe on purpose.

Secondly I would not just mentally understand that my thoughts create my feelings but truly accept that circumstances- relationship titles- someone’s response to me- their reactions to me do not create my feelings. My thoughts not my circumstances create my feelings. 

I can not create feelings for others to feel and they can not create feelings for me to feel.

My own thoughts create my feelings and their own thoughts create their feelings. 

Next I would stop taking responsibility for other people’s feelings, and stop making other people responsible for my feelings. I would learn that my thoughts create my feelings and their thoughts create their feelings. I would learn that it is okay if other people get upset or hurt by me, even when it is not intentional- it happens- we are in a human experience. It is not the end of the world if I upset someone, it may not feel good- but I can feel uncomfortable emotions. I would know that I have the capacity for uncomfortable emotions and I can feel the hard feelings inside my body without reacting. I am capable even though it feels like death, It is not actually death.  

I would accept that “security” - being “safe” free from fear, free from rejection- is an illusion. There is no actual certainty in life. There are no guarantees- all we can do and accept is that we make decisions, decisions that work or don’t work and when something isn’t working we just pivot and make a new decision.  So there is no “right timing” “right thing” . We decide what we are going to do and make it the right thing for now. 

I would not believe every feeling I had to be true. I thought every feeling I had told me the my thoughts were true. So when I felt a certain way I instantly believed it- I didn’t take time to question if my thought creating that feeling was true or not. I just was stubborn and dug my feet in- I feel this way so it must be true. Now I realize my feelings feel true because they are already in my body- the thought creating my fear, rejection fear, my anxiety, my depression may not be true. So I had to learn to be aware of my thoughts and ask myself if this thought was even real or true. Us with anxious attachment can’t always go with our “gut or intuition feeling” because sometimes we have triggered our anxious attachment that produces a lot of thoughts that are wired from the primitive part of our brain- our automatic response and not from our higher brain or our prefrontal cortex. 

I would spend more time looking at my thoughts instead of what I think other people think of me- because what I “think” people are thinking of me are actually projections of my own insecure thoughts about myself, or my fears. I would accept that other people’s thoughts about me and my life are none of my business. The only thing that is my business and that I actually have control over is my own thoughts: knowing them, questioning them and practicing thoughts on purpose. 

I would stop beating myself up for being human and having human emotions and human reactions. I would show myself more care, understanding, grace and compassion. When my brain starts being mean to me I’d talk back to it. I’d call it out on it’s B.S. 

I would not expect myself to be happy and upbeat and positive all the time. I would give myself space to feel all of my emotions- good bad, beautiful ugly, and everything in between because that is the human experience. We are not supposed to be happy all the time. 

Instead of waiting for everything to be “perfect” I would allow myself to do b- work and out the door. My mentor taught me this and it has stuck with me. When I try to do things “perfectly” it takes so much time and it never gets finished. 

Lastly- I would define words for myself instead of letting society, my family, or my friends determine them for me.

I get to decide what a “good enough” mother- does and doesn’t do. I get to decide to give myself compassion and grace when I don’t show up 100% of the time as the parent I want to be and still decide that it is good enough.

I get to decide what a “good enough” partner looks like, sounds like, what they do and what they don’t do.  I get to decide to give myself compassion and grace when I don’t show up 100% of the time as the partner I want to be and still decide that it is good enough.

No one gets to decide how I do my life, if it is good or bad, or if it is good enough or not. I get to create my life and I get to decide what is good enough for my family and for me.

Thought work allowed me to think about my thinking, to create thoughts on purpose, to develop new beliefs to challenge old existing beliefs. Thought work allows me to believe I am enoug and that I have the capacity to feel whatever emotion comes from living life.

Thought work will change your life, when you decide that you are ready, I am here to teach you and go with you on this journey. You do not have to do this alone. I want to invite you to join my 1:1 coaching program. Where I help you get your anxious attachment under control, where I teach you all the skills and strategies you need to stop overthinking, build self confidence, develop the belief you are lovable, and have the relationship that you want. 

If you’re like Amber I’m glad it worked for you but it won’t work for me,I want you to know that I believe thought work works for anyone to decide it is going to work for them. When you make the decision this is what is going to work and you show up and do the work it will work and it will change your life. However, until you are able to believe that it can get better and it can change,  I will hold the belief that it will work for you until it does. I will coach you until you are able to develop this belief. 

People ask me Amber what is life coaching? I think of it as mental and emotional maintenance, where you learn mental and emotional tools and strategies to transform your life. its learning and unlearning thought patterns that are keeping you stuck, so that you can get unstuck and get the life that you want. It’s learning how to feel and process uncomfortable emotions so that your emotions don’t control you but you control them. 

People ask me what do you get from life coaching? Why should I pay money and join your program? I tell them they should only join my program if they are ready to do the work, only if they are ready for their life to change from the inside out, only if they want to do the work to get emotional and mental freedom.

I share my personal experience, I tell them learning life coaching skills and concepts, being coached and really understanding my brain patterns and the emotions they caused changed my life, saved my life- and it can do the same for them. The value of life coaching to me as someone with anxious attachment, anxiety, and depression is higher quality of life - mentally and emotionally. 

The value is being able to live in a body that can grow its capacity to feel hard emotions without being reactive or demanding. The value of life coaching is learning that even though my brain tells me one thing, doesn’t make it true. 

The value of life coaching is learning to choose your life, choosing how you want to show up in it, learning what that looks like in real time. Learning about the brain, self regulation, understanding my emotional reaction, being aware of inner thoughts and dialogue that are creating your current life.

Amber you don’t understand I am so busy. Aren’t we all? For me it is worth making the time in my busy schedule to be coached, to listen to podcasts and to join coaching programs. The time I spend in those spaces reduces the time spent in mental and emotional overwhelm and stress. 

The skills that I have learned have helped me manage all of the things that life throws at you, while already dealing with so much internally: anxiety, depression, low self esteem. To me, learning the ability to manage my thoughts in the moment so that I can turn the turmoil into peace,  turn the chaos into understanding, is worth the time and the financial investment.

I come from a family where mental health challenges are frequent and can become severe and truly impact the quality of life so I wanted to make sure that I took care of my mental health. I wanted to do the work to heal, to understand why I do the things I do, why emotions are so hard, why I never felt good enough, why after all I have done and did I still couldn’t just love myself- and I found life coaching and it was the mental and emotional freedom train I was looking for. Doing the hard and good work changed my life and I know it can change yours too.

What if you are busy AND you can make time for something that will change your life? What if you are busy AND one hour of your life a week can truly change it?

What if it does cost money AND the money spent is an investment into your future self who is able to handle her emotions, who is able to stop her over thinking, who is able to truly believe she is lovable? 

Who would you be if you were able to process your emotions? Stop your overthinking? Stop  people pleasing? And truly believe you are worthy?

You might just be a person who chooses to invest in themselves with time and money because you would see yourself as deserving of the life that you want. To me you are already that person and I believe in this version of you. I believe in the version of you that understand their anxious attachment, who knows their worth and who does thought work to get the life that they want.

So if you are ready to meet this future version of you- email me at Amberlynn@takingbackherbrain and schedule a consultation. I provide a free one hour consultation call, where we get to know each other - make sure we are a good fit for working with each other- and you get to ask all the questions you want to ask.  I can’t wait to hear from you and get started!

You will want to get on the waitlist for my group program starting in December. I will have only 36 spots available for this group program. So get on the waitlist! 

Don’t forget to like and share this podcast. It would mean so much for me  to get this podcast out to as many women as we can! Follow me on IG at anxious attachment solution !

Hope you have a great week!