You’ve Got to Have Style
“Not everything that is faced can be changed,
but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
Karla looked at the clock on her desk. She hadn’t heard from Emily, her partner, at all today. That’s weird, she thought. Emily didn’t seem quite herself that morning, and Karla figured that she must have not slept well. But, as the hours ticked by, she started to worry. Is Emily upset with me? she wondered, as a wave of anxiety started to build inside of her. Did I do something to piss her off? Karla traced back over the last few days in her mind to see if anything stood out. Nothing. You’re being silly, she thought, and tried to focus back on her work. But the noise in her head wouldn’t let up. Maybe she’s getting bored with me? she thought, as the anxiety inside her ratcheted up and pervaded her afternoon. However, that night at dinner, while Emily regaled her with the events of her busy day, Karla didn’t say anything about her feelings. Instead she sullenly stared at her food, secretly hoping that Emily would notice how upset she was, that Emily would reach out and make things better.
Craig sat down on the couch, opened his laptop, and put his feet up. It had been a long day at work followed by a casual evening out with his friends and Lydia, his fiancée, to celebrate her birthday. He was glad to finally be home, kick back, and relax. As he settled in and started to check his emails, Lydia, sat down next to him, put her arm on his shoulder, and said affectionately, “Hey there. What’re you doing? I want some time with you.” Craig instantly felt himself tense up inside. “What do you mean?” he asked, incredulous. “We’ve been together all this time?” “Yeah, but that was with your friends around,” Lydia explained. “I want some alone time. Just us.” Craig felt his shoulders tighten. Why does she always do this? he thought to himself. She’s so damn needy. No matter what I do, I just can’t win. “Can’t I just get a minute to myself?” he said as he rolled his eyes, shut his computer, and walked into the other room in a huff.
Sheri sat on her bed shaking and sobbing. Things had started off so great with Rick, the guy she’d been seeing for the last few months, so great that she’d begun to think that maybe the loneliness and longing that had always plagued her was a thing of the past. Maybe I’m not such a loser after all, she thought. But when Rick started to talk about things that they might do together in the future, a familiar sense of distress grew inside her. Sheri tried to hide it, to seem happy and on the same page as Rick. But the more he leaned in, the more she was filled with a sense of dread. He’s going to see something in me he doesn’t like, and I’ll get dumped again. I just know it! Unable to contain the storm inside her any longer, she exploded in a mess of feelings, accusing him of lying to her, and telling him to never call her again. Except now she was filled with regret. What was I thinking? How am I going to live without him? And then vowed to find a way to get him back.
While these three people are different in the ways in which they react, beneath the surface they all have something in common: They’re all afraid to be emotionally open and present in their relationships.
• Karla’s afraid to trust in Emily’s love. No matter how much Emily has tried to reassure Karla, she worries that, at any moment, something will go wrong between them. Her fear gets the best of her and keeps her from dealing with her feelings in a direct and healthy way. Instead of finding the courage to express her disappointment or frustration and thus give Emily a chance to explain and possibly address her needs, she acts out her feelings by being distant and closed off, hoping that will get Emily’s attention and draw her back in, hoping that her fear will go away, thus reducing her distress, if only for a moment. When Emily is actually there and engaged, Karly cannot take it in.
• Beneath his irritation, Craig is afraid to be open and close with Lydia. He’s scared of being vulnerable, of having needs for connection and closeness, and of caring too deeply. Instead of honestly acknowledging his fears and working through them with Lydia, he pushes them down and bristles in the presence of her affection. Caught in a trap, he’s unable to stay open and receive love, to respond in kind and express his love for her. He’s unable to connect in a more meaningful way.
• Sheri longs to be close but fears it at the same time. She’s so overwhelmed by her mixed feelings that she can’t tell what’s real versus what is only fear swirling around in her head. She can’t sit with her feelings long enough to find her center, see what’s actually going on, and try to show up to her relationship in a balanced way. Instead of coming clean with Rick about the struggles she feels and trying to deal with them in a productive way, she’s swept up in a sea of contradictions and pulls Rick in along with her to ride the waves. When he comes close, she blasts him and rejects him.
These are three painful scenarios that could go very differently, perhaps even be avoided, if Karla, Craig, and Sheri were aware of how they’re being unduly affected by their early relational programming and that their fear is really about things that happened long ago. If they each had a clue then,
• Karla might realize that the anxiety she was feeling about not hearing from Emily was triggered, in part, by past experiences. She might then be able to separate out her present truth from the distress-inducing shadows of the past and remind herself that, no matter what was going on with Emily, they’d deal with it and be okay.
• Craig might recognize that his defensiveness was in response to his own unmet needs for connection, a holdover from his childhood. If he were to get a little space from his distress, he could try to stay present long enough to learn that there’s really nothing that he needs to be afraid of anymore. At the very least, he might apologize for getting defensive and try to get back on track with Lydia.
• Sheri might understand that the warring feelings inside her are not really an accurate reflection of her here and now experience, work to find a way to tame her distress, and not get pulled too far in any one direction. She might then be able to see herself and Rick more clearly and get a better sense of her feelings for him, as well as a more accurate sense of his actual feelings for her.
Instead Karla, Craig, and Sheri are all operating on autopilot, unconsciously playing out their early programming. Something happens for them that they perceive to be threatening, and their old relationship wiring gets activated, giving rise to familiar thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. It’s predictable. From the outside looking in, we can hypothesize that they all had relationships with their caregivers in which they felt insecure and afraid and learned to respond in expectable ways. How can we tell? Their behaviors are characteristic of the typical relational patterns that people develop to adapt to their own early caregiving experiences and, thus, protect themselves in relationships. They’re called “attachment styles.”
Styles of Attachment
As infants, we are incredibly adaptive. We monitor our caregivers—their moods, emotional signals, and behaviors—and figure out how best to maximize the care we can get from them. How do I need to cry? What expressions should I make or not make? What should I do if I’m angry, sad, or afraid? What will happen if I behave this way? How will they respond? What feelings should I express or not express? What aspects of me are okay and which are not? Which can I share freely and which do I need to hide? Based on the ways in which we’re responded to, we begin to get a sense of ourselves, others, and what we can expect. Accordingly we shape our behavior to fit our caretaking experiences. With repetition, patterns of behavior and the respective neural pathways that support these patterns get established in our brains and are strengthened over time.
What this means is that our internal working models of how to do relationships are developed through our early interactions with usually one or two people—our parents! And, although the cast of characters in our lives changes as we grow up and create lives for ourselves, the neural templates that govern our perceptions and emotional experience live on inside of us and continue to influence how we behave in our adult relationships. That’s good news for those of us who had emotionally competent parents and not such good news for the many of us who didn’t.
The lessons we learned about ourselves, about others, and about how to do relationships are reflected in our general patterns of relating, or attachment styles, of which, research shows, there are basically four types. Most people develop either a secure, avoidant, or anxious attachment style, while a few people develop what is called a fearful-avoidant attachment style. Let’s take a look at each of them.
If our parents were emotionally competent, that is, if they were sensitively attuned and consistently responsive to our emotional needs, if they made us feel safe, secure, and loved, we likely developed a secure attachment style. We learned that reaching out and connecting is a good thing and that we can trust and depend on our loved ones to be there for us when we need them. We learned that our feelings are not to be feared; rather they are our allies and are there to be helpful to us. We grow up to be adults who are comfortable with and adept at being close and connected with our loved ones. Our self-image is healthy, we feel worthy of love, and we view our partners in a positive light. We’re emotionally available and responsive to our partners and can reach out to them for comfort and assurance when we’re feeling vulnerable or distressed. When we have lapses, we can own our mistakes, take responsibility, and make repairs. Overall we’re emotionally flexible; we can adapt to different situations and can easily flow between being close and connected with our partners to being comfortable on our own. Such is the case for more than half of the adults in the United States (US).
Then there are the rest of us.
AVOIDANT ATTACHMENT STYLE
When our caregivers are not attuned, distant, or intrusive, when they respond negatively or unreliably to our emotional needs, the seeds of insecurity get sown. We feel unsafe, anxious, and distressed, and in order to cope and maintain some degree of connection, we develop one of three insecure attachment styles of relating: avoidant, anxious, or fearful-avoidant.
Those of us with an avoidant attachment style, amounting to about 25 percent of the general (US) population, tend to have had parents who were emotionally unavailable, insensitive to and possibly rejecting of our emotional needs. As children, we sensed that our feelings and innate needs for connection were dangerous as they seemed to drive people away and that reaching out would only bring us rejection, criticism, disappointment, and pain. As a result, we learned to turn off or “deactivate” our natural needs for closeness. As adults, we find emotional intimacy threatening and prefer not to have anyone depend on us. We have a strong need to be independent and self-sufficient and to be seen as such.
While those with an avoidant attachment style tend to think positively of themselves, at least outwardly, they’re wary of others, don’t trust that they’ll be there when needed, and frequently find fault with their partners. Although they may outwardly seem to have a positive perception of themselves, it may belie an underlying sense of insecurity. In spite of actually wanting to be close to another person, which is their natural inclination, they dismiss their emotional needs, deny their vulnerability, and keep their partners at arm’s length. As you might have guessed, Craig, who got frustrated when his partner came to him seeking connection, has an avoidant attachment style.
ANXIOUS ATTACHMENT STYLE
Those of us who had caregivers who were inconsistently attuned to our feelings—at times nurturing and responsive and at other times insensitive, intrusive, or unavailable—likely developed this anxious attachment style. Such is the case for about 20 percent of the general adult population. Uncertain of what to expect from our caregivers, they had to work harder to get their attention. They learned to turn up the volume on or “hyper-activate” certain feelings to draw them in and, thus, maintain some degree of connection. They grow into adults who crave closeness but can’t seem to get enough of it to quell their fears for any length of time. They wonder if their partners feel the same way they do and worry about whether they can believe or depend on their partners’ love for them. Their relationships tend to be stressful, consuming their thoughts, and take up a lot of emotional real estate. They’re highly sensitive to possible signs of rejection or abandonment and frequently seek reassurance and approval from their partners (which may work for a moment but, sooner or later, the worry and fear kick in again, and they’re back in a spin cycle of anxiety and distress). They’re easily upset, have strong emotional reactions, and can say or do things they later regret. They doubt their self-worth, tend to be self-critical, and have a hard time being on their own. Karla, who ruminated all day about whether her partner was angry or upset with her even though she had no real evidence to suspect this, has an anxious attachment style.
FEARFUL-AVOIDANT ATTACHMENT STYLE
A small number of us, about 5 percent, have a fearful-avoidant attachment style. Our caregivers likely had unresolved trauma of their own and, as a consequence, were emotionally unpredictable (for example, sometimes appropriately responsive, sometimes anxious or afraid, and sometimes behaving in ways that were frightening to us). As children, we couldn’t be certain how they’d respond when we were distressed and were faced with an unsolvable dilemma: We needed soothing and connection from our attachment figure but feared the very person who should be providing it to us. Occasionally, our caregivers asked us to soothe them more than they were able to soothe us. Caught between a rock and a hard place, we resorted to a mixed bag of coping strategies that alternated between pushing our feelings down, amping them up, becoming compulsive caregivers, or checking out altogether. We grew into adults who, perhaps not surprisingly, have very ambivalent and conflicting feelings about emotional closeness. We both want and pursue connection, but then, when our partners seem to be moving closer to us, we get uncomfortable and pull back, afraid that we’ll get hurt or be rejected, or we attack in order to reject them before they reject us. Our emotions often get the best of us, our moods can be erratic, and our relationships tend to be chaotic. We have a hard time communicating our feelings, think that we’re flawed and unworthy of love, and view our partners negatively as being untrustworthy and possibly dangerous. Sheri, who both longs to be close to Rick but then freaks out and pushes him away when he tries to get closer to her, has a fearful-avoidant attachment style.
As you read through the descriptions of the different attachment styles, did you see yourself in any one of them? Did you identify with any particular style? Perhaps you see yourself as having more of an anxious attachmen style. Maybe you saw yourself as more avoidant in your relationships. Maybe a little bit of each? You might even have suspected that you have a fearful-avoidant style of relating. If you found yourself identifying with anything other than secure, you’re not alone. When it comes to romantic relationships, nearly half of us have an insecure attachment style.
Now, before you start getting down on yourself, it’s important to realize that these different categories are not rigid and discrete. The dividing lines that separate them are blurry, and there’s overlap. The categories were originally developed for research purposes. Classifying individuals as having particular styles of relating benefits research by helping us to identify and understand common contributing factors like one’s early experience in life and similar behavioral patterns and by enabling us to look at how these styles affect one’s life experience. However, in reality there are many variations on a theme, so to speak. After all, we humans are a diverse lot with unique and varied histories and personal characteristics, all of which contribute to our experiences in life and how we operate in our relationships. In addition, our attachment style can also be affected by the attachment style of the person we are in relationship with. For instance, we might have more of an avoidant attachment style with one partner but respond with more of a fearful-avoidant attachment style if we are with a partner who experiences more attachment-related anxiety. Alternatively, we might have more of an anxious attachment style but have less attachment anxiety when we’re with a partner who has a secure attachment style. So, we can think of each of the attachment styles as representing a range of possibilities within which we not only see similarities but also a fair amount of differences.
WHAT ABOUT TEMPERAMENT?
My mother would tell you that all three of her children were born with different personalities that were apparent from the moment we arrived. One of us was easygoing; one, more challenging; the third, more independent. (I won’t out any of us here any further!) It’s true all of us are born with natural dispositions, also known as “temperament.” Our nervous systems are all a little different, and we each have innate tendencies to respond in unique ways. But, research has shown that temperament and attachment styles are not related. Rather, attachment styles develop from experience; they’re something we acquire that are specific to each of our relationships with our parents. In other words, temperament is inborn, while attachment styles are learned.
A Matter of Degree
The work of Brennan, Clark, and Shaver helps to illustrate this point.7 Based on their research, they created a graphic depiction of the attachment styles using two axes that represent two attachment-related dimensions: anxiety and avoidance. Essentially we can understand attachment styles as being determined by how comfortable or uncomfortable we are with intimacy, or how much we avoid it, and how anxious or preoccupied we are about our relationship and our partner’s love for us.
So, if you’re comfortable with closeness and don’t worry excessively about your relationship or your partner’s love for you, you’re likely secure. If you crave and enjoy closeness but fret a lot about your relationship and your partner’s love for you, then you’re likely anxious. If closeness and dependency make you uncomfortable, and you don’t really worry or think a lot about your partner’s commitment to your relationship, you’re likely avoidant. And, if you’re uncomfortable, with closeness, and you also worry about your partner’s availability and love for you, you’re likely fearful-avoidant. But, within each of the different attachment styles, there’s quite a lot of variability when it comes to how comfortable you are with intimacy and how preoccupied you are about your relationship and your partner’s love for you. The two dimensions or axes represent continuums of experience along which we have varying degrees of anxiety or avoidance. So, within each of these different attachment styles, we can have very different levels of comfort or distress. Therefore, while two people might have similar attachment styles, they can also differ quite a bit in the degree to which they’re comfortable with intimacy and how concerned they are about their partner’s availability and trustworthiness.
If you’re still wondering what your attachment style might be and would like in-depth feedback, Dr. R. Chris Fraley, a leading attachment researcher at the University of Illinois, offers a free online adult attachment survey that you can take here: http://www.web-research-design.net/cgi-bin/crq/crq.pl.
How is This Helpful?
Keeping in mind that all of us are unique individuals, it helps to have an understanding of your general style of attachment. As you take a little step back and begin to observe yourself through an attachment-based lens, you can begin to see yourself more objectively. With some awareness of the behavioral patterns that are common for your attachment style, you’re in a better place to recognize more readily when you’re responding in a predetermined way, when the past is showing up in the present and unduly affecting your experience. Without this awareness, you’re operating in the dark.
Remember, your style of relating is a result of the internal working models in your brain that operate on an unconscious level outside of our awareness. As psychologist Louis Cozolino explains, “our attachment schemas are implicit memories that are known without being thought.”8 In other words, you don’t think, you just do. You don’t realize that you’re running on old programming that hasn’t been updated for a new reality. You just keep responding from a place of fear even when there’s really no reason to be afraid. You think, This is just the way that I am, and continue to do what you’ve done all along.
But, when you can recognize that you’re responding in a habitual, predetermined way, you create an opportunity for change. You can begin to see what needs to be rewired. You can have the option to start to do things differently.
Identifying the style in which you relate in your present life can give you insight into what your early experience with your caregivers was like. In turn, seeing why, when, and how these patterns originated in your past can help you make sense of your current behavior. So, you can trace a line from your current experience all the way back to when you were very young, and, conversely you can trace a line from your past to your present and begin to connect the dots.
To illustrate what I’m talking about, let’s return to the stories of Craig, Karla, and Sheri, the clients whom you met at the beginning of this chapter.
In her relationship, why is Karla so anxious about not hearing from Emily? And, when she’s finally in Emily’s presence after a day of obsessing, why doesn’t she just talk to her? Why doesn’t she let Emily know that not hearing from her made her anxious, worried, or upset? Why, instead, does she sit sullenly starting at her dinner plate? The answers to these questions can be found in Karla’s early experience in her family and the ways in which she adapted.
When I first asked Karla about her childhood, she painted a picture of her parents in broad strokes, remembering them as warm, loving, and supportive people. But, as we looked more closely, a different picture started to emerge, one that was marked by unpredictability and insecurity.
Karla eventually acknowledged that both of her parents were anxious people who vacillated between being overly involved with her or else consumed by their work. While they were sometimes present and engaged, there were times when they just didn’t show up for her. One event, in particular, stood out in her mind and seemed to be emblematic of many others in which they weren’t there for her when she needed them. On Karla’s first day of school, arguably a momentous and an emotionally stressful day for any child, she was dropped off at school by a neighbor because her parents were busy with work and apparently unable to take her. Overcome with anxiety, Karla described feeling terrified and alone as she walked into the classroom, not knowing what to do nor what to expect. She silently walked to her desk staring at the floor, sat down, and anxiously awaited what would come next.
How does a child like Karla make sense of her parents’ erratic presence? What does she make of them not being there for her when she needs them? Of her not seeming to warrant consistent care and attention? Is it that I’m not important? Is there something wrong with me? Am I too much? And, what does a child in such a situation come to expect of the important people in her life? Can I rely on them? Can their love be trusted? And what does she do to manage this scenario? How could she cobble together a modicum of security?
When Karla naturally asserted herself or expressed her fears, she was not always taken seriously. Instead her parents often questioned or minimized her feelings and told her, in so many words, that she should feel differently. However, one reliable thing that drew her parents in was when her mood turned sour, and she became sullen. Her parents leaned in with concern and distress, sometimes with frustration, not really attending to her feelings in a helpful way but at the very least, paying attention and engaging with her.
Connecting the dots from then to now, it’s no wonder that Karla doesn’t experience her relationship with Emily as secure and dependable, that she’s on high alert for any sign that something might be off, that Emily might be slipping away or losing interest in her. Her early experience with her parents did not provide her with a sense of relationship security. Instead, it created within her an internal working model of relationships in which others were not to be trusted. It’s no wonder she questions her own judgment and can’t find her center, just as when she was questioned and not attuned to in a helpful way. And, it’s no wonder that she can’t directly express herself with Emily and, instead, turns sullen and withdrawn, relying on negative behaviors that garnered her parent’s attention. That’s how she learned to adapt.
What about Craig? Why is he so afraid of getting close to Lydia, allowing himself to be vulnerable, need connection, and depend on her? Why does he question her intentions and push her away? When I first began working with Craig, I learned that his early life was defined by a contentious divorce between his parents, his beloved mother going into overdrive to support the family, and his father being distant, unreachable, and argumentative. Out of fear of upsetting his parents and further fracturing his already broken family, Craig learned early on to put away his needs for closeness and care. He learned to be tough, to suppress his feelings, and thus to avoid the danger and pain of ever being hurt again.
Fast-forward to his present life, and Craig is still threatened by the prospect of closeness. He’s still keeping his heart under tight wraps to avoid the pain his nervous system anticipates will ensue should he let himself be vulnerable and need Lydia. His internal working model for relationships dictates that his emotional needs are to be avoided since they’ll only result in disappointment and despair.
How can we make sense of the competing feelings Sheri has? Of her longing for closeness and care but fearing it at the same time? Somewhere inside her is a little frightened girl, desperately needing a safe haven from a mother who was verbally and physically abusive at times, unpredictably coming at her like a “tornado” and berating her for illogical reasons, and a father who was often distant, callous, and rejecting. These were the same people who could sometimes demonstrate a modicum of kindness and caring. What did she learn to expect of others? What did she learn to expect of closeness? Is it safe, or is it dangerous? And what was she to do about this storm of feelings inside of her? She was trapped, in a bind, with no place to run and no place to hide. Her internal working model for relationships now gives her mixed messages. It’s no wonder that getting close to someone, the very thing she longs for and desperately wants, causes her such distress.
Connecting the dots from then to now, Karla’s, Craig’s, and Sheri’s current behaviors make more sense. They all did the best they could as children to make the most of their difficult situations. All three figured out what they needed to do to fit into and survive the little, unsafe worlds they initially inhabited. They learned their lessons well. And as they grew up, they hoped that someday things would be different, that they’d have relationships in which they’d feel safe and could be themselves, and in which their needs would be met. They expected that they just needed to meet the right person. But they didn’t realize that they’d be operating on the same relationship programming from their childhood and, short of getting a software update, history would invariably repeat itself.
As I hope you’re beginning to see, our attachment styles developed when we were very young and at the time they were adaptive. We saw and experienced life in a very basic, childlike way. We did the best we could to manage challenging situations, maintain some semblance of connection with our caregivers, and feel safe in environments that may not have been accepting of our emotional experiences and expression. We were just doing the best we could to get our needs met.
CONNECTING THE DOTS EXERCISE
Let’s spend a little time trying to connect the dots between your current attachment style and your early experiences with your caregivers. Take a moment to read back over the descriptions of the different attachment styles. As you do, make note of any patterns of behavior or relational dynamics that sound familiar to you. Get a picture of the ways in which you typically respond to closeness, connection, or conflict in your relationship. With that in mind, trace a line back in time to when you were a child and see what you land on. How did your parents respond to your emotional needs? What did you learn about yourself? What did you learn to expect from others? What did your child-self need to do to adapt? Then, trace a line back to your current life. How might some of your current behaviors simply be a continuation of those early adaptations? Can you see a relationship between your early experience and your behavior now? What’s that like? What’s it like to see the connection? How do you feel toward your child-self as you recognize how difficult and challenging things were for him or her? And how do you feel toward yourself now as you get a better understanding of how you were affected by your early experiences? As you reflect on what you’ve learned, offer yourself some kindness and appreciation for being willing to do this work.
It’s All about Feelings, and Feelings in Relationships
Attachment styles represent categories of observable patterns of behavior, the ways in which we generally respond to connection and disconnection in our relationships. But our observable behavior is just the tip of the iceberg. While it helps to be able to recognize when we’re playing out old patterns of behavior, that’s not enough. If we’re going to make a lasting change (and that’s why we’re here, isn’t it?), we need to look at what’s happening below the surface that’s activating these patterns to begin with. We need to look at the emotional dynamics that are fueling how we respond. The relational strategies we typically resort to that constitute our attachment style are triggered by whatever feelings are getting stirred in us and the fear that these feelings engender.
As psychologist Diana Fosha, the developer of AEDP, explains in her book, The Transforming Power of Affect, attachment styles are basically strategies for dealing with emotion in relationships.9 Remember, we relate and connect with others through emotional experience, and our early relationships with our caregivers affect how we experience (or don’t experience) our feelings. So the way in which we relate to others has everything to do with how we learned and continue to respond to our feelings, whatever they may be. Each attachment style has a particular pattern for dealing with emotions in relationships, especially when the feelings that get evoked are strong. Let’s take another look at each of the styles but this time, through the lens of the emotional experience we have when we are in relationships.
SECURE ATTACHMENT STYLE OR “FEELING AND DEALING”
Those of us with a secure attachment style likely had parents who were emotionally competent. They were emotionally open, sensitive, and attuned to us, and consistently responded to our emotional needs in a balanced and helpful way. In turn, we developed emotional competency as well. That is, we learned to be mindful of, manage, and make good use of our feelings.
How does this kind of early life experience translate into how we navigate our adult relationships? We’re attuned to both our own and our partner’s emotions, are able to express ourselves in healthy ways, and can hang in and find our way through challenging situations together. In short, we’re able to “feel and deal” no matter how difficult the feelings may be. We can experience and communicate our emotions while staying present and engaged with our partners in an emotionally mindful way.
AVOIDANT ATTACHMENT STYLE OR “DEALING BUT NOT FEELING”
Those of us with more of an avoidant attachment style most likely had parents who were uncomfortable with feelings, both theirs and ours. As such, they avoided their feelings, were emotionally unresponsive to us, and minimized our need for closeness and connection, whether indirectly or by actually saying things like, “Don’t be a cry baby!” … “You’re so sensitive!” When we expressed ourselves or reached out in distress, they withdrew or shut down, leaving us feeling abandoned, rejected, and alone. As children, what were we to think? What were we to do? If acting on our innate desire to be emotionally open and connected brings us only disappointment, pain, and shame, then our feelings must be dangerous and avoided at all costs. Right? In order not to rock the boat and maintain some degree of connection with our caregivers, we learned to suppress and hide our feelings and our needs. Now as adults, we keep a tight wrap on our emotional experience, minimize our needs, and maintain a safe distance from others. When our comfort zone is encroached upon by a partner, when we start to feel vulnerable or have emotional needs, or when they do, we shut down or pull away. We dive into our work, play a round of video games, or go on a shopping spree. In short, we “deal but don’t feel.”
But I’m going to let you in on a little secret that many of you probably know already. While it may seem to others, and to ourselves for that matter, as though we’re not having feelings or that we don’t have needs for closeness, that’s not really true. Somewhere deep inside of us our feelings and desire for connection are knocking at the door of our awareness trying to get our attention. But we can’t hear them or don’t want to hear them. The walls of our defenses are so thick that they muffle the sound as we keep ourselves distracted and cut off. Our anxiety and fear hide out behind our controlled demeanor and only start to show up when our self-imposed cage is rattled, and our feelings threaten to break out.
Craig, one of the clients you met earlier, is a master at dealing but not feeling. He’s fine with the surface banter and joking nature of his interactions when his friends are around, but no sooner are he and Lydia alone, then he’s reaching for his laptop trying to find safe cover. When Lydia draws near, and he’s presented with the possibility of a more intimate connection with her, the hair on his back stands up. Feelings inside him start to stir, and he has to do something to extinguish the fire. He has to do something to keep them down, to keep them hidden, to get back to his safety zone. And so he lashes out and pulls away. He deals but doesn’t feel. (Except that of course he does feel. But more about that later.)
ANXIOUS ATTACHMENT STYLE OR “FEELING BUT NOT DEALING”
If we identify with more of an anxious attachment style, we likely had caregivers who had difficulty regulating their own feelings and using them to good effect consistently. While they could sometimes be there for us when we were distressed, their own emotional anxiety and distress often got the best of them and interfered with their ability to respond reliably and be there for us in a helpful way. In fact, at times we might have even had to step into the role of caregiver and help them manage their own feelings. In this case, connection was for their needs first, for ours only secondarily.
Such emotional unpredictability raised our anxiety and led us to be hypersensitive to our parents’ emotional state. We focused outward, vigilantly monitoring them for any signs of trouble, and in doing so lost touch with the depth of our own emotional experience. We had to work really hard to make contact with our preoccupied and self-involved parents and learned to overemphasize the feelings that more reliably got their attention, like unhappiness and distress.
As adults, we closely monitor our partner’s emotional state and availability, pay a lot of attention to our own distress and disappointment, and are less aware of, or comfortable with, the other feelings we might be having. In general we have a hard time trusting, managing, and making good use of our emotions. Although it may appear as though we’re in touch with our feelings, there’s far too much anxiety and distress mixed in for them to be helpful. We can’t land on any one feeling long enough to take advantage of its resources, and we end up feeling confused or conflicted. We’re “emotional,” but we’re not able to get to the heart of our felt experience and move forward in a productive way. We feel, but we don’t deal.
This is the story with Nora, who you met in Chapter One. She can argue a blue streak with her husband and complain about his lack of attention and interest, seemingly full of feeling, yet she’s conflicted, afraid to let him see how vulnerable, afraid, and unworthy she feels inside, or to honor her anger and take a firm and steady stand. So she questions herself and keeps these feelings hidden, safely out of view. She “feels” but doesn’t really deal.
Similarly, as you read at the start of this chapter, not hearing from Emily distresses Karla and she unknowingly turns up the volume on her unhappiness hoping that Emily will take the bait. Yet she’s not able to see through the veil of her anxiety to discern what other feelings might be at play for her and to then lean in and address the matter with Emily in a healthy way. She too feels, but doesn’t deal.
Neither of these women’s actions help them get their needs met in any satisfying way and their true feelings remain obstructed by their distress.
FEARFUL-AVOIDANT ATTACHMENT STYLE OR “NOT FEELING, OR REELING, AND NOT DEALING”
Those of us with a fearful-avoidant attachment style had caregivers who weren’t able to regulate their own feelings and sometimes acted in ways that frightened us. Confused and afraid, and with no one to turn to soothe our fears and protect us, we were overwhelmed by a conflictual mix of feelings. We didn’t learn how to manage and move through our emotional experience. Instead, we either went numb or were overcome by the force of our emotions and fell apart. As adults, we have trouble modulating our feelings and are often overwhelmed by them, especially when a partner or love interest tries to get close. Unable to manage our emotions and stay present when we’re distressed or upset, we either check out (dissociate) or get swept up in an emotional storm (as in “reeling”), never getting to the root of our problems or figuring out a way forward. We don’t feel or we reel, and despite our best efforts in either case, we don’t deal.
This is what’s happening for Sheri, whom you also met at the start of this chapter. She longs for closeness and connection, but it also wigs her out. When Rick leans in and gets serious, she can’t stay present. She’s unable to manage the swirl of feelings that erupt inside her, so she spins out of control. She reels and doesn’t deal.
REFLECTION
As you read over these different strategies for dealing with emotion, which sound familiar to you? How do you typically respond to your feelings in your relationship? Take a moment to think about it. Are you more prone to minimize, dismiss, or detach from your feelings or from your partner? Do you have a strong need to be in control? Do you often not know how you feel? Do you frequently get upset and have a hard time getting to the other side of your feelings? Do you pay more attention to your partner’s feelings than to your own? Are certain feelings okay and others not? Do your feelings get the best of you and seem to run the show? Are you feeling and dealing, or are you doing something else?
These are hard questions to consider but ever so important. Give yourself some credit for hanging in and being willing to take an honest look at yourself. You’re setting yourself up to be able to make good use of the tools that we will soon learn.
As with the attachment styles, we can think of these different ways of coping with our feelings in our relationships as representing a broad range of strategies. Strategies that we might all resort to at some time or another, regardless of our general attachment style. The truth is, all of us can feel emotionally insecure or overwhelmed at times and behave in ways that are unproductive.
When we don’t feel and deal, it’s inevitable that certain feelings get distorted or excluded from our emotional experience. When this happens, our capacity to function in healthy ways is compromised, and our core self is lost to our anxiety. Remember, our feelings are there to help us. It’s impossible to have a healthy and satisfying relationship if parts of our emotional experience are distorted or left out. And when we don’t realize what we’re doing, when we don’t realize what’s going on inside of us, we don’t have a choice.
It’s the undoing of these emotional dynamics and the creation of new ones that is the key to ultimately having the kinds of relationships we really want. When we can find a way to stay present and deal with our experience, we can find a way to a better relationship. How to do just that will be our focus for the rest of this book.
Updating the Wiring
Although attachment styles and the underlying emotional dynamics can remain fairly stable over time—especially in the context of a long-term relationship—they are not immutable. We don’t have to remain prisoners to our past programming. We can update our internal working models and change our styles of relating. We can change the way we react to our feelings and develop what is called an “earned secure” attachment style. Remember, even though we’re wired to respond in a certain way, our brain is still able to change and grow—a capacity known as “neuroplasticity.” With focused attention and practice, we can build new brain circuitry that supports other ways of relating. We can develop the emotional capabilities that secure connections with our caregivers would have afforded us and change our attachment styles. We can reclaim the richness of our emotional experience and bring a more fully integrated and resourced self—our core self—to our relationships.
Knowing your attachment style and how you respond to your emotional experience can help bring these dynamics into conscious awareness. It will help you to identify when you’re responding in a programmed way, when your current emotional capacity is being unduly affected by old neural wiring, and when your past is overshadowing your present experience. As you begin to observe your emotional dynamics and identify what’s going on for you, you can start to disentangle yourself from your old nervous system responses and begin to do things differently. To quote renowned psychiatrist and author of The Mindful Brain, Daniel J. Siegel, “When we can name it, we can tame it.”10
As with any situation you’re afraid of, the more you avoid it, the less opportunity you have for facing and overcoming your fears. If you continue to avoid expressing your feelings, you’ll never know what good can come from sharing them; you’ll never see that they really aren’t something you need to fear. You’ll just keep doing the same thing over and over again. You’ll keep traveling down those old neural pathways that get you nowhere.
To change, you need to make a concerted effort to travel in a different direction. You need to find a way to recognize and tame your outmoded fear, stay present with, and sort through your emotional experience, and start opening up and sharing your feelings, needs, and desires in a new and constructive way.
Over time, the more you move in this different direction, the more you’ll develop your capacity to be emotionally present, open up, and communicate what’s inside of you. Your fear will shrink in size and you’ll soon be able to stay present and share your feelings without feeling anxious or overwhelmed. And while you’re doing this, you’re actually rewiring your brain. You’re breaking the old associations between fear and emotional connection and creating new, updated, mental models of relating in which sharing your feelings is now recognized and experienced as something beneficial.
In the next chapter, we’ll take a look at what happens when your old programming gets activated, and you’ll get started building your emotional mindfulness skills.
• Our early experiences with others create internal working models that shape our sense of self, of others, and of what we can expect in relationships.
• We develop different attachment styles, or ways of relating to others, based on our early experience with our caregivers.
• Two dimensions—how comfortable we are with intimacy and how anxious we are about our relationships—determine our attachment style.
• Attachment styles can be viewed as strategies for dealing with emotion in relationships.
• Attachment styles are not immutable but can be changed through intention, practice, and new experiences. We can develop an “earned secure” style of attachment.
• Your attachment style can give you insights into what your early experience with your caregivers was like, and vice versa.
• Knowing your attachment style can help you better understand yourself and how you typically respond to your feelings in your relationships.
• When you’re not able to feel and deal with your emotions in your relationships, your capacity to function is compromised.
• When you are able to observe your emotional dynamics, you can disentangle yourself from your fears and begin to do things differently.
