John Bowlby is the “father” of attachment theory, who did some interesting experiments, mostly with babies and mothers. Attachment theory has been studied since the late 1960’s, and recently psychologists are more and more interested in the role that attachment style has on adult relationships.

Here are some of what psychologists have studied so far. Up to 90% of our interactions with our partner have a basis in our attachment style. Isn’t that amazing? What does that mean?

Well, about 50% of us have a primary style that is Secure. That means that most of our needs were met when we were small for things such as safety, feeling protected, knowing that someone was there for us to meet our needs, presence (that an adult could be present with us), and attunement – that someone really got where we were coming from and could help us “co-regulate” our emotions and nervous system.

However, even those of us who have a primary Secure attachment style still have pieces of the INSECURE attachment styles, that can come out under stress or situationally. In other words, no matter how great our parents did, they weren’t perfect and no baby has their needs met 100% of the time. We are all going to have pieces of the insecure attachment style that may need to be worked with and healed. The good news is that we all have an innate blueprint for secure attachment and can get back to that secure base with the help of our loved one. This is an integral part of Transformative Loving.

The 3 insecure styles are Avoidant, Anxious (or Ambivalent) and Disorganized. Different psychologists use slightly different names. Today I am going to focus on Avoidant attachment style.

Avoidant. If you have some Avoidant attachment style, you will notice it because you are likely the one in the relationship who needs or wants less emotional intimacy than your partner. You may notice some anxiety when your partner wants to get close to you, or that you have a limit to how much intimacy you can handle. You may have the experience of being “engulfed” if someone gets too close, and you may like a lot of alone time to do your own thing. You may believe that people aren’t really there for you and you have to be self-reliant.

As you can imagine, Avoidant Attachment style develops because little ones didn’t get their needs met. They learned that their caregivers weren’t reliable in some way, perhaps they didn’t get held enough, or they were left to “cry it out.” Maybe a parent also had an avoidant style. Or, the child was mostly tended to around tasks and didn’t get their emotional needs met. This is not to blame our parents, they were doing the best they could! Unfortunately, attachments styles can be passed down from one generation to the next.

As adults, it can be more challenging for Avoidants to want to be close or TRUST that closeness. It can be very vulnerable for someone with this style to open up and feel their desire for greater intimacy, because they assume their needs won’t be met. Understanding this vulnerability can give those of us in relationship with Avoidants more compassion for them.

Here are some questions to think about to identify if you have some Avoidant attachment. These are adapted from Diane Poole Heller, who is a fabulous local attachment style specialist that I have been studying with.

Do you feel some anxiety when your partner wants to connect?
Do you minimize the importance of close relationships as if they don’t matter?
Do you have a hard time asking for support?
Do you wish other people were more self-sufficient?
Do you feel superior to others because you are more self-suficient?
Do you prefer to do tasks or hobbies alone?
Do you have an easier time connecting with animals or things than people?
Do you have a challenge maintaining eye contact, especially intimate eye contact?
Is it easier to analyze problems than to express your emotions?

If you answered yes to several of these, you probably have some Avoidant attachment style.

What now? Here are 3 tips in working with your own or your partner’s Avoidant attachment style.

1. Allow your partner some space. Don’t take it personally if they need their alone time, and don’t chase after them.
Self soothe if you feel anxious being alone, or find a good friend or family member to hang out with.

2. Create space for transitions. Avoidants will need time to emerge from the depths of their reflection and alone time. Create agreements about times to be together, and make sure there is 15 minutes or so of transition to get ready for together or social time.

3. Practice creating more intimacy. Do this incrementally. The Avoidant has to learn to trust connection again. Gentle eye gazing is a great exercise. The Avoidant should be the one to set the boundaries in this exercise. The partner should begin with a loving eye gaze. Avoidant, receive the gaze until you start to feel uncomfortable. Then look away, or take some space. The next time you try this, see if you can stay for 30 seconds longer. Build up your tolerance and your trust in the connection. You partner is there for you and it’s OK for you to have needs.

Mark and I just returned from a great weekend with the Gottman’s in Seattle. It’s always a blessing to learn from masters in their field.

One of my biggest takeaways from the weekend was dealing with what they call, perpetual conflicts. It was shocking to me to learn that 69% of our intimate conflicts are not solvable. Also though, it’s a relief. This means that there is no end game, no win-win solution. Where does that leave us? Compromise. The Gottman’s state that the goal of conflict is understanding.

I have been teaching about conflict management in the corporate realm for years, and I really appreciate the TKI instrument that we use. It teaches about our natural tendencies to manage conflict in 1 of 5 basic ways. Competing (getting our own needs met), Accommodating (getting the other person’s needs met), Avoiding, Collaborating (looking for win-win solutions) and Compromising. I have to be honest, I don’t like compromising. Compromising and Avoiding are two strategies that I use least. I have always thoughts of Compromising as lose-lose, and I would rather find a win-win, give the other person their way, or get my way!

During the workshop, Mark and I had an opportunity to work through a “perpetual issue” using the Gottman’s compromise model.

Here are some examples of things that couples have perpetual issues around:

Personality style differences – like extrovert, introvert
Differences in dealing with money
Differences in sex drive
Differences in cleanliness, tidiness
Differences in food choices and/or exercise
Differences in needs for alone time
Different needs around adventure and safety
Differences in pace and timeliness
Differences in values around how you want to raise children

You can see how you could get to 69% of conflicts being “unsolvable” pretty quickly!

Here were our takeaways and “aha’s” from this exercise

1. We use Nonviolent communication as a foundation for communicating around conflict. It was absolutely essential for us to take turns listening to the other’s underlying feelings and needs until we could honestly say that we understood where the other was coming from.

2. Underlying values and dreams. We don’t usually probe too far into underlying values, but this was an important part of the process. For me the value was freedom and financial integrity, for Mark it was connection with family – and these two different sets of values had us at loggerheads over and over again.

3. Diving into the past. We love this about Imago, and it is also true in both Shadow Work and the Gottman’s work. You have to get vulnerable about why this is a trigger for you. Even if you already know what your partner’s underlying history is within a conflict, listen again. It helps to soften your heart and remember why your partner might be attached, angry, scared or sad around this issue. It all stems from our family history.

4. Compromise Circles. I loved this part of the process. This helped us move through our conflict in a good way. Draw two circles, one inside the other. In the smaller circle, write the aspects of the conflict issue that you are not willing to compromise on. Make this as small as possible. In the outside circle, write down areas or aspects of the conflict where you can be flexible. For example, in my inner circle I wrote: I can’t compromise on financial integrity (spending money we don’t have). In the outside circle I wrote, I want to support Mark in being a good dad and spending time with his kids. Even though I still don’t prefer compromise, I can see how there are issues where a win-win is not possible.

5. Come to some sort of agreement where you both are honored in your core needs, and can be flexible with the other’s core needs. If you have really heard each others’ underlying feeling, needs, dreams values and past history, this part is easier.

In Shadow Work®, we look at two archetypes that form part of our relationship patterns, the Lover and the Sovereign. The Lover is the aspect of ourselves that receives love. The Lover is the one who says, I want to bond or connect with you. I want to be loved for who I am. I want to surrender to love, I want to be taken by Love. I want to express love in a unique way in the world. People who have a lot of Lover energy in our society tend to be healers, artists, and therapists. On the other side, the Lover is also the one that may have a wounding message around love. In essence, the wounding message is “I don’t love right.” We may have issues around rejection or abandonment if we think we don’t love right. We may even have proof that someone has left us in the past or rejected part of who we are. If any of this sounds familiar, there is usually inner child work that needs to be done to help our little one feel safe.

As we are diving into studying adult attachment style work, we are finding that safety is at the core of being able to connect. If we don’t feel safe, we simply can’t connect. Because safety begins with ourselves, it is important to do the work of connecting with and making sure our inner child feels safe and loved by ourselves. When I first started doing this work 20 years ago, my inner little one, Boo, didn’t even feel safe WITH ME! She felt like I had abandoned her and didn’t care what she had to say. We all have a certain level of relationship with our inner child, and doing more of this work can help us heal the “I don’t love right” wound, because we will be loving ourselves “right.” After all, we are the only ones who really know what we need! We can certainly ask others in our lives to meet our needs for love and connection, and there are also ways we can meet our own needs. For example, as I have listened over the years, I know when Boo is asking for something. Often it is a treat – like ice cream or chocolate. So, I indulge her sometimes. Or, it might be that she tugs at my shirt when I have been working too much and she wants to go for a walk, or play croquet! Homework: Listen to your inner little one and do one thing this week to have him/her feel heard, held and loved. Start to reprogram that message of “I don’t love right” into, “I am loving”. Start with yourself.

The Sovereign on the other hand, is the one who likes to give love. There is a loop between the Sovereign and the Lover that is giving and receiving. The Sovereign says, I love you, I bless you, I can hold space for you. I can take care of you. Sovereigns often have a vision for how to make the world a better place. People who have a lot of this energy tend to be entrepreneurs, leaders, and visionaries. However, Sovereigns may also have a wounding message around having to “perform” in order to be lovable. The wounding message for Sovereigns is, “I’m not lovable.”Basically, no matter how much I do, it’s not going to be good enough. So, sometimes sovereigns try to outshine themselves (and others) in order to gain the appreciation, love and attention they really want.

So, what to do with the patterns of “I have to do more and be more to be loved”? One answer is acceptance for who you are, right now, as enough. While the above mentioned inner child work is also very helpful for this, another thing that is helpful is to explore that critical voice that is telling you “I’m not enough.”

I’ll use myself as an example. I have a constant voice that is telling me that I’m not doing enough with this work. Transformative Loving isn’t growing fast enough, I’m not writing enough, speaking enough, learning enough about marketing, I don’t have a big enough goal or vision, etc. etc. And if I had all of this in place, I would get more love, more acknowledgement (which feels like love to the Sovereign) and then I would be enough. If you have some of that going on someplace in your life, then you probably have a Sovereign in there who needs some of the unconditional blessing and love that you most likely give to others.

Of course, the irony is that the more you do, the more it doesn’t feel like enough.That’s because the “not enough” is coming from a primary wound that can’t be healed by doing! The healing of that wound is actually through receiving the message, you are enough exactly as you are. You don’t have to do anything to earn my love.

So, there is a whole process we can do with this in Shadow Work, but for the purposes of something you can work with on your own, here are a few steps.

1. Catch yourself when you hear your inner critic saying something like, “that’s not enough,” or “you’re not enough.”
2. Take a step back and observe that that is happening, instead of just hearing it as if it were truth.
3. Ask that inner critic part of yourself what it wants for you.
4. Record the answer. When I ask mine this right now, it is saying, I want you to feel good about yourself and what you are doing in the world. When I ask again it says, acknowledgement, I want acknowledgement for you. When I ask a third time, what do you want for me? it says, freedom – I want you to be able to express yourself freely. Now, I could keep asking this, and at some point the response would drop into – love. I want you to be loved. It’s easy to see that although it wants for me to feel good, have acknowledgement, freedom and love, what it is doing is criticizing me for not doing enough. Can you see how this is not making me feel good, not making me feel acknowledged, not giving me freedom and not having me feel loved? Isn’t that amazing?
5. Acknowledge the inner critic. This sounds something like: I know you want what is best for me and you have been working hard for me for a long time. Then ask, Is there something else you could be doing to help me feel good, feel acknowledged and have more freedom and love? Listen for the answer. Mine says, Yes, I could be praising you for what you are doing.
6. Continue with this dialogue until you reach a place where the inner critic is willing to change his/her strategy to support you in giving you what both you and the critic wants. I do this by getting quiet and just listening. You can also do this by writing it down, or doing a Shadow Work Coaching session.

So, to summarize, the loop between the Lover and the Sovereign is called the Connection loop, and this is where our gifts and wounds in love lie. When you can work this loop around giving more love to yourself and allowing yourself to receiving that love, you start to change your core blueprint and wounding around love to be able to come back to more secure attachment, and deeper love in your relationship. This is a life-long process, but so worthwhile to expand our capacity to love and be loved.

So, I chose someone who has a familiar way of being and loving. Sometimes this way of loving is beautiful and warm and sometimes it is familiar in a painful way. This is when love hurts. Loving can hurt when our partner touches on old places of hurt and unhealed wounds. Yet, because this wounding happened in relationship, (originally with our families), the opportunity is for healing to also occur in relationship, with our beloveds.

In essence, we choose partners who trigger some dynamic that has been unresolved in our families so that we can heal that dynamic. Our partner is enough like that person (mom, dad, sibling) to trigger the pattern in us, yet enough UNLIKE that person, that there is hope of healing and doing something differently this time. This is part of the process of Transformative Loving – to heal beyond the original wound. Of course, when this is happening for both partners at the same time, it can be intense. “You’re angry just like my mom!” “Yeah, well you take up all the space in a room just like my sister!” A hypothetical example of course!

In order to move from a repetitive cycle of hurt and conflict, (what Hal and Sidra Stone would call “negative bonding patterns”), a few things are required.

1. Both partners have to be willing to look at themselves and do their own work.
2. At least one person has to spot the pattern, preferably while it is happening.
3. Both partners have to be willing to be vulnerable and soften.
4. The couple has to have the foundational tools to be able to communicate authentically about the     pattern that is being triggered.

While this may sound simple, it is not easy in the moment. The vulnerability sometimes has to come later, after the heat of the moment. It is important to revisit the breakdown to find out what is really going on, and address the underlying needs.

Here is an example. Mark and I both have extraverted tendencies around sharing ideas and sometimes blurting things out. Last night, while he was checking messages on his phone, I started talking about some tasks we needed to get done for a gathering we were having over the weekend. He said, “uh huh,” and kept looking at his phone. I felt myself get irritated. An old family pattern was getting stirred where I experienced not being heard and that what I had to say wasn’t important. In that moment, Mark was representing my whole family system!

So, I said, “Mark, we’ve had this conversation before. You know I have a wound around not being heard. When you are busy and can’t hear me, can you say something like, give me just a minute so I can finish what I’m doing?” Now Mark had a few choices with his response. He could have gotten defensive, attacked me, ignored me or responded by hearing me and addressing my concern. Although he initially got a little defensive, thankfully he chose the last option. What ensued was a heartfelt, vulnerable conversation about how difficult it was for him to set boundaries in relationships. This was a pattern he has carried since he was the peacemaker in his family at an early age. To him, setting boundaries and asking for what he needs means conflict and pain.

Even though this dynamic was familiar in our relationship, and we had discussed it before, we were able to go to a deeper level around what was happening for both of us because we dropped into a deeper space of vulnerability and compassionate listening. This led to a feeling of compassion and greater intimacy. As a bonus, it just so happened that he had a difficult conversation with one of his daughters the next day where he had to set a boundary. He was happy to report that he felt like he had had a breakthrough! It was easier for him to set the boundary because of our conversation and the work we had done together.

This is an everyday example of Transformative Loving. Partnership CAN be a pathway to personal healing and greater self-awareness. We just have to be willing to be vulnerable and make the time and space to hold that healing role for each other.
In our workshops and private retreats, we walk through this process of looking at negative bonding patterns and transforming painful dynamics into healing ones. Please contact us for more information.