How to Find Love With Anxious Attachment

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Transcript provided by YouTube. Slightly edited with AI.

Welcome back everybody to the Love Life podcast. I’m here with Audrey Hussey to my right, and across from me is Mark Groves, whom I was introduced to by a mutual friend. This is our first meeting, and it’s truly an honor to sit down with you and dive deeper into your work. Your approach to authentic connections and relationships resonates deeply with us, and we’re excited to hear more.

The book, *Liberated Love: Release Codependent Patterns and Create the Love You Desire*, co-authored by Mark Groves and Kylie McBeth, stemmed from our personal experiences. It’s part memoir, part client stories, and part tools to move from codependency to liberated love. The timing felt right for this book as it merges both our individual work and our journey as a couple.

Navigating Relationship Dynamics

In the book, we detail our journey through Relationship 1.0, a breakup (what we call the sacred pause), and Relationship 2.0. This structure helps readers understand the evolution from codependent patterns to interdependency. It’s about letting go of old patterns and embracing new beginnings, whether you’re single or in a relationship.

We define codependency as any relational dynamic where we seek safety from someone or something at the expense of our needs, sense of self, and overall well-being. It’s about compromising ourselves to maintain connection, a common struggle for many.

During our journey, I realized I had monetized my codependency, using it to feel needed and secure in relationships. However, real growth came when I confronted my anxieties and learned to manage my nervous system responses. This journey was marked by deep introspection and acceptance of painful truths.

One profound realization was that grief is a testament to how deeply we love. Every time we love, we accept the inevitability of potential loss. This understanding transformed my approach to relationships and personal growth.

Challenges and Growth

Moving away from codependency involves stepping into vulnerability and challenging old behaviors. It’s about understanding the origins of these behaviors—often rooted in childhood experiences—and showing compassion to our younger selves who developed these coping mechanisms.

While change often comes after reaching a breaking point, it’s crucial to cultivate internal and external resources. This involves developing emotional resilience and seeking support from others who understand and validate our experiences.

Accepting responsibility for our choices doesn’t negate the impact of past traumas or challenges. It’s about reframing our relationship with those experiences and choosing how we respond to them now. This shift in perspective allows us to reclaim agency and pursue healthier, more fulfilling relationships.

The journey to liberated love is about embracing truth, accepting ourselves fully, and daring to challenge old patterns. It’s a process of healing, growth, and ultimately, finding deeper connections with ourselves and others.

Finding Meaning in Trauma

I’m not minimizing someone’s experience of trauma, but rather saying that if I made that experience mean that I’m broken or I’m not enough, or that I’m not powerful, that I can shift how I see the circumstances. That’s why when we say “it didn’t happen to you, it happened for you,” well, that really minimizes it. But it did happen to you. How do we actually hold this complexity of saying it did happen to you and how can it happen for you? Like, how can it be of service? Because we live in these worlds of binaries. If you say it happened for you, then now we’re minimizing the experience of victimization. I’m saying actually live in both worlds because both exist. It’s the same. If I minimize this, then it’s not valuable anymore. We want to cultivate the value from it. You know, when people look for the meaning in something, and they say, “It happened for a reason.”

I always struggled with that because it felt insulting at the more superficial end of the spectrum. And in the worst cases of abuse, it felt almost spiteful. Like, “It happened for a reason.” When you consider some of the things you’re talking about, when we say, “It happened for a reason,” you’re like, “Are you joking?”

But what I love about what you just said, which is really an important distinction, is it happened to you, and you get to make it happen for you as well. You get to choose. Much more important than finding a meaning is creating a meaning, right? That’s a great… So if someone is in that place and they want to create the meaning, and they want to start to choose, put intention behind different choices, can you talk about practically what you did to do that? Because there are times when I’ve been triggered where I can physiologically feel it through my whole body. And the idea of choosing something different than what I want to do in that moment just feels borderline impossible.

So how did you learn to start to regulate your nervous system? Because I believe, and I’m curious if this is where you’ve landed too, but I believe that regulating our nervous system is what starts to create freedom in choices. But people just don’t even know what that means or how to do that. So I’m curious as to whether that’s where you landed too, but also, how did you do that practically? Could you give us a literal play-by-play of like, “Okay, I got triggered. I worked with a somatic therapist.” So that was a really powerful shift for me. But I’d say initially, like, I remember my wife and I, early in our relationship, getting into a conflict, and both of us laying in the bed and just being like, I had so many words I wanted to say, and they were, like, I just couldn’t get them out.

And it started to… I started to courageously just try to put a few words out. I was lucky. And I know you guys talk about this in your own relationship dynamic. I was, the gift of my wife and our relationship, is that they were then received. And so I was starting to repattern what I thought would happen if I share my voice, because I was getting different evidence of what actually was going to happen. And so there’s… I think the most powerful or most courageous act is the first time, because there’s no evidence. And so it is like this leap into the complete unknown. And that’s why boundaries or self-expression have a symbiotic relationship with self-worth. But the first time you ever lay a boundary, there might be no self-worth at the basis of that. So it’s when you lay a boundary or express yourself, you’re saying, “I matter.” And then it feeds, “I matter.” And then now the behavior reinforces the belief.

I can remember a time when I was in a relationship, and I said something that was… It took a moment of bravery to say it. It was something I was actually intensely worried would make me unattractive if I said it. And then, unfortunately, that person literally said to me, “That was really unattractive.” Like, it validated it. And I’m curious, what would you say to someone when someone says, “It was so lovely for you that your wife, was she your wife at the time? This was the way she responded was corrective for you.”

What do you say to people who assert a boundary or express themselves, and it validates all of their fears? And it’s not corrective or encouraging them to keep going?

Well, I would say that for people when you’re expressing… Because certainly not all my boundaries in my life have been received from a positive, affirmative perspective. When you lay a boundary, the success of the boundary is not in the affirmation of the person receiving it. Often, a person receiving a boundary will be resistant to the boundary. So my advice to people is always to start to see that the victory is actually in the process of laying it. So boundaries are really negotiations too. They’re lines in the sand. Sometimes they start as walls, ultimatums, because we just don’t know. Like, “I need to actually assert a bigger space around me because I don’t know how to negotiate yet. I don’t know how to have a need, and you have a need, and us somehow find compromise when we calibrate it exactly.”

And so that starts to create nervous system regulation, because you’re starting to recognize that you have choice in what you’re agreeing to relate to. And sometimes, there are people in relationships whose trauma or insecurity can actually make them demand more than is reasonable. Like, you can imagine a scenario where someone goes on a work trip and they want them to give them a call on the hour, every hour, right? We can imagine a scenario where it’s like, actually, that’s not a fair thing to do to your partner. I can imagine a scenario where a person is telling their partner, “It makes me really insecure when you wear that outfit, so you’re not allowed to wear those outfits when you go out.” Because it makes me feel bad.

Like, we can see these scenarios where it would very obviously move from an appropriate boundary to have and a very human and understandable one, to, “Oh, that’s now a mutation where it’s gone too far.” What do you say to people who don’t know where they are on that line and not only don’t know how to calibrate but they don’t even know if what they’re asking for in the first place is reasonable and therefore making them a less viable partner for someone?

I think it’s great to be able to reflect. Like, the boundaries or the things you’re hoping to start to ask for, stand into reflect it off friends, to reflect it off trusted people. You know, the people who usually are telling us to assert our worth or the people who we push away when we’re not valuing ourselves. Like the friend who actually tells us the truth. But that example you gave about, let’s say someone saying, “I need you to call me every hour.” If I know that person, if I’m in a relationship with them, and I know that that’s probably coming from a previous relationship where there was betrayal, what I might say to them is, “Hey, look, I understand that you have a hard time trusting. I’m not the one who earned the lack of trust. But I’d like to participate in your healing of it. That’s not a reasonable request for me. But what is reasonable? Is, you know, I’ll check in with you at the end of the night, and is there anything else I can do that is coming up for you?”

Now, I would say, if we’re in repeated patterns with people who are unavailable, things like that, then we still need to experience those frustrations, that and those pains. Like, me being with my wife and at the time girlfriend who didn’t fully choose me was exactly what I needed to experience to hit a place where I finally got to a place where it was no more. And so, for people who are looking to say, “Like, well, how do I know if my boundaries are walls?” Well, a great way to check in is, like, “Are my standards so high that no one can actually meet them?” And I use it as a way so no one can get close. We’ll start to get an intuitive feeling, like, “Yeah, maybe that is true.”

And when we’re starting to assert boundaries, we might get it wrong. That’s why I said, there are negotiations in some sense, because I might express a boundary like to my wife, “You need to call me every hour.” But her feedback on that is actually starting for me to recognize even in the conversation, there would be healing. I know for me, I struggled in my life and I’m still working on it, to pay attention to how something is actually making me feel and getting in touch with that. Because when we’re in that state and someone’s not choosing us, especially if we’re coming from an anxious mindset, our brain just goes straight to, “How do I secure this person?”

Yeah, exactly. It doesn’t go to, “This really doesn’t make me feel good.” So why do I keep choosing a situation that doesn’t make me feel good? That, for many people, is a far less natural place to go than, “Are they not sure about me? How do I make them sure about me?” There’s two questions we’re always asking relationally.

On Social Media and Intentionality

Mark recently made the decision to deactivate his Instagram account, reflecting on the impact of social media on his life and work.

He acknowledges that while Instagram helped build his business and facilitated significant connections, it also steered him away from authentic self-expression.

Mark discusses the evolving nature of social media platforms like Instagram, highlighting how they prioritize certain content to maximize ad revenue, often at the expense of authentic creativity.

He draws parallels to being evaluated by algorithms, akin to being in a relationship with a narcissist, where feedback and change are lacking.

Mark reflects on the identity tied to social media presence, noting concerns about credibility and income generation outside of the platform. However, he prioritizes personal alignment and integrity over these external validations.

Despite uncertainties about the future, Mark sees his decision as liberating, providing space for personal growth and new opportunities beyond social media’s confines.

Mark expresses gratitude for the journey and invites others to explore his work beyond Instagram, emphasizing authenticity and personal growth.

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This post was previously published on YouTube.

Blog → https://www.howtogettheguy.com/blog/ Facebook → https://facebook.com/CoachMatthewHussey Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/thematthewh… Twitter → https://twitter.com/matthewhussey ▼ Connect with Stephen ▼ Youtube → https://bit.ly/StephenHusseyYoutube Instagram → http://bit.ly/StephenHusseyIG

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