Ok, I will confess. The article title is a little clickbait-like. I do not mean I am lying and telling you false information.
My point is when we hear terms, we believe the words cover the full context, and there aren’t more layers to break down.
For example, a fearful avoidant does not live in overwhelming fear 24/7.
Fear derives from feelings, emotions, and behaviors that give you a sense of a lack of safety. It also comes from a set of experiences that shape our views.
Your experiences have created an internal feeling of a lack of safety.
Your fear of those experiences has molded and trapped you in a corner.
What happens next? You try to avoid the possibility that it can be validated by eliminating the sources that can cause it to be the case.
These behaviors and thoughts come from a feeling of scarcity and lack for fearful-avoidants.
What happens when we feel scarcity and lack? We try to compensate and fill the void.
It generally does not come out in a healthy expression and can create a new subset of problems that did not exist.
It will show up in your interpersonal relationships while you are unaware it causes harmful effects, ending relationships.
Let’s step back and look at how we can eliminate these fears.
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Compound interest
There is something that happens when we establish a fear to be true.
Not only does it take twice the effort to convince us that the cycle is not happening again, but you also have one eye open at the chance that it will.
The fearful-avoidant is also known as the hot and cold attachment style. A.k.a, one foot out the door.
Let’s break down what I mean by this.
There is a fearful avoidant who experiences heartbreak in a relationship due to someone breaking their trust by consistently lying to them.
What happens next?
Not only does the next partner have to go above and beyond to prove that they are not a liar, but any signs of lying are extremely triggering for the fearful-avoidant.
That is why you must provide details that eliminate any questions a fearful avoidant might have.
As the fearful-avoidant, convert your logic and establish a mindset that this is unfair.
I call it compounding interest because what you have done is built up a set of beliefs from your experiences with others, and now the next person has to live up to your compounding expectations.
The future person experiences the consequences and has to be twice as caring, three times as honest, and four times as emotionally available to reach a baseline that still leaves you skeptical.
I am not telling you to internalize these fears, but a method to express them healthily is to communicate an action that eliminates the doubt in your mind.
Instead of looking for signs, give someone a visual path on what causes the alert system to go off in your head.
The rocking chair
I talk to people who align with the fearful-avoidant attachment style, and there is something consistent.
There is a storytelling system that gets in the mind of the FA.
For example, I have talked to someone on a call, and when describing an isolated incident, the story included a lot of the following words, “probably meant,” “usually does this,” “last time,” and “I think they meant.”
What is happening is the fearful-avoidant is trying to regain control and the sense of safety that we talked about earlier.
You do this by filling in the gaps with your reasoning instead of communicating with the source of the questioning.
If your partner is late to pick you up for a routine activity, your alarm system goes off. Instead of the possibility that they are running late from work, you use words from the glossary above.
“The last time they were late was after we argued. They don’t want to see me and probably want to do their own thing.”
You already created a conclusion to the story without opening the book.
It is ok to approach your partner with your fears and perceptions of their actions. It’s a horrible choice to make the assumption and approach them with the feelings that result.
You create a double conflict, your internal battle to trust and assumption of the negative side of possibilities with your partner. Now, both of you are on edge over something simple.
Approach your partner with your concerns without presenting them as an accusation.
Ghost
The composition of the fearful-avoidant comes from being avoidant but also anxious, and you rock back and forth between the two feelings and behaviors.
You have racing thoughts but convince yourself you are overreacting and shut it off.
You feel like you can’t express yourself but are simultaneously overwhelmed with emotions.
You feel invisible.
The first way to undo this is to stop telling yourself you are invisible. It comes from building up your internal value. You are not the sum of your experiences.
You have to tell yourself that you are not at a loss for the sum of your experiences and that you don’t have to hide from them.
Next, you have to stop feeling guilty for expressing your emotions.
In your mind, expressing emotion to someone feels like you are offloading it onto them, and now it’s a problem they have to deal with.
Most people can see and feel the energy you are experiencing. More often than not, people want to know why.
Last, you have to stop bobbing and weaving. Bobbing and weaving is when you notice an emotion coming toward you, but you bob, avoid the emotion, then weave, string together reasons you’re overreacting.
Stop feeling guilty for your emotions.
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I work with people as they progress through their journey to convert their logic and build their emotional well-being. If you want to dig into my previous posts to learn more about the FA, search my profile.
If you want a 1:1 coaching session (50$/hr) reach out to me ([email protected]) or Instagram, Here
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
What Does Being in Love and Loving Someone Really Mean? | My 9-Year-Old Accidentally Explained Why His Mom Divorced Me | The One Thing Men Want More Than Sex | The Internal Struggle Men Battle in Silence |
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Photo credit: Andrew Neel on Unsplash