Anxious Attachment in Relationships: How Healing Your Nervous System Improves Connections

If you're someone who tends to be insecure in your relationships, fears rejection or who needs a lot of validation or reassurance from your partners, you may have an anxious attachment style. Other signs of an anxious attachment style include:

• Preoccupation with your relationship

• Minimizing your own needs while prioritizing the needs of your partner

• Intense desire for closeness and connection (while simultaneously fearing the loss of connection)

• Feeling anxious when your partner isn’t around

• Hypervigilance to potential threats in the relationship

• Fear of abandonment (while at the same time pushing your partner away with unrealistic expectations or demands)

• Difficulty setting boundaries

• Jealousy

• People-pleasing tendencies

• Tendency to complain or criticize as a way of getting your needs met

Attachment Theory

If this resonates for you, the first thing to know is that there is nothing wrong with you and there is nothing to be ashamed of. According to Attachment Theory, we are all born with an innate attachment system that is designed to help us get our needs met by connecting with caregivers. Our earliest experiences in life with our primary caregivers (usually our parents) create our ‘attachment style’, which is like a blueprint or relational template that is wired into our brain, body and nervous system in early childhood. It affects––often unconsciously––how we perceive, respond to and interact with others in all future relationships.

When caregivers respond to our connection cues consistently and responsively, meeting our physical and emotional needs, we tend to develop secure attachment. We feel safe, loved and supported. People with secure attachment have a basic sense of trust in others, are comfortable expressing their needs, and handle conflict and setbacks skillfully and with resilience. There’s an overall sense of safety in connection.

If, however, our caregivers ignore our needs, respond inconsistently or behave in a scary manner, our attachment system adapts to the misattuned experience by developing an insecure attachment style: avoidant, anxious or disorganized. Those of us with an anxious attachment style typically had caregivers that responded inconsistently to our needs, which leaves us feeling unsafe, unloved and unworthy. Connection is a gamble - we might get it, we might not - so we become anxious and hypervigilant in relationships, searching for cues as to how our behavior may or may not get us what we need. It’s hard to trust others and there is a lot of fear in relationships.

To be clear - this isn’t about blaming or shaming parents. There are many, many reasons for why we may not have received what we needed in childhood. The purpose here is to name and bring awareness to what may have occurred in your life that contributes to your experience of anxiety.

Anxious Attachment and The Nervous System

In those with an anxious attachment style, there is usually underlying dysregulation within the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS). More specifically, the Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) tends to be overstimulated and under-regulated. The SNS is the ‘mobilizing’ branch of our ANS; it works by increasing arousal. The SNS helps us ‘get up and go’, giving us the energy we need to meet the demands of our day. The SNS is also the part of your nervous system that regulates the Fight-or-Flight (stress) response, which is a primal survival mechanism designed to protect you by enabling you to either fight or run when in danger. Too much SNS activation means we are stuck in our Fight-or-Flight survival response. This manifests in a range of symptoms, including fear of abandonment, bouts of panic, feeling anxious, and difficulty with self-regulating.

One of the main reasons for this underlying dysregulation (and overstimulated SNS) is the inconsistent attunement and connection we received as infants. You see, we are not born with the ability to self-regulate and self-soothe in the face of stress. The part of our nervous system that is responsible for self-regulation is the Vagus Nerve, and more specifically the Ventral Vagal Nerve of the Parasympathetic Nervous System. This part of our nervous system has to be ‘wired’ through proper attunement and co-regulation with our primary caregiver(s). Our primary caregiver is supposed to step in as an external source of soothing and comfort when we are experiencing distress and intense emotions. Through subtle cues like posture, expression and tone of voice, messages are sent back and forth between caregiver and baby that help baby settle and feel safe. When we have a caregiver who consistently attunes to our needs and helps to soothe us, our Ventral Vagal Nerve develops properly and we in turn develop our own internal ability to calm, soothe and regulate ourselves. As a result of this, we develop secure attachment.

Unfortunately, the opposite is also true - when we don’t have this proper attunement and co-regulation, we do not develop the capacity for self-regulation and our wiring gets a bit messed up. In this case, our ventral vagal nerve has not learned how to function properly, so we aren’t able to soothe ourselves in times of stress or upset. In other words, we aren’t able to come down from stress and we get stuck in sympathetic activation (survival mode). This is where that anxious attachment comes from. We become reliant on others for regulation because we aren’t able to do it ourselves. And when our attachment wounds get triggered in relationships, there is a tendency to mobilize into a “fight” response. The body and nervous system mobilizes into action. There is a need to get loud or to draw attention, because being ignored or feeling unseen feels unsafe. With all of that said, there is some beauty in this attachment pattern - people with anxious attachment often have a very high degree of empathy and compassion, making them very attuned to the emotions and needs of others.

Healing Anxious Attachment & Nervous System Dysregulation

No matter your history, healing is possible. Healing attachment wounds and healing a dysregulated nervous system go hand-in-hand. And this is often done in safe, secure relationships with others - whether that be a romantic partner, friend or trusted therapist/practitioner.

Healing ultimately requires that we learn new ways of being in relationship, with both ourselves and others. This includes: learning how to self-soothe and regulate your nervous system in the face of distress, so that we can better ride out those painful moments where our attachment wounds are triggered; getting to know our emotions, wants and needs, and being able to verbalize them; learning to set boundaries; practicing self-compassion; and engaging in inner child or parts work. While this takes time and commitment, it is absolutely doable.

The healing of your nervous system holds the key, and your commitment to growth and connection paves the way for a future enriched by meaningful relationships. When we begin to move back to secure attachment and regulation, we can learn to meet ourselves with compassion. And as we turn inward and create a stronger connection to ourselves, we can then better connect with others.

If you’re looking for support in this process, “Becoming Free From Anxiety” is a comprehensive program that teaches you how to heal your nervous system and reverse the damage accumulated from years of dysregulation. My program uses body-based practices to help you build emotional regulation, while providing the structure and support needed to cultivate a more secure attachment style.