#216: My Story of Healing Anxious Attachment
If you’re in the thick of anxious attachment right now, it can feel completely overwhelming.
You might be stuck in a relationship you know isn’t good for you. You might feel like you’re constantly on edge, waiting for the other shoe to drop. You might wonder if this is just “how you are” and if you’re destined to feel this way forever.
I want you to know: I have been exactly where you are.
You might look at my life now and think I’m miles away from your reality. But it really wasn’t that long ago that my life looked entirely different — and my anxious attachment was running the show.
This is the story of how I went from living in a constant state of dread and self-abandonment… to building self-worth, leaving a deeply unhealthy relationship, and creating the life and relationship I have now.
My hope is that in my story, you can glimpse what’s possible for you too.
What My Life Looked Like With Anxious Attachment
If we rewind to my early–mid 20s, here’s the picture.
On paper, things looked fine. I was a corporate lawyer, working in a big law firm, ticking all the boxes. I’d always been a high achiever. From the outside, I probably looked like I had it all together.
Inside, it was a very different story.
I had incredibly low self-worth. I didn’t really like myself. I shaped myself into whoever I thought I needed to be to gain approval. I wore whatever mask would help me fit in with people and environments I didn’t even like or respect.
My choices weren’t aligned with my values — and if I’m honest, I didn’t even really know what my values were.
On the relationship front, my earlier relationships had actually been fairly healthy. I’d been with mostly secure partners, which meant my anxious attachment never really got pushed to its edges.
That changed in my mid-20s, when I entered a deeply dysfunctional relationship with a very avoidant partner.
The Anxious–Avoidant Trap
His behaviour was unlike anything I’d experienced before.
He was inconsistent, dismissive, unpredictable, dishonest. There were constant breaches of trust and an undercurrent of disrespect. A secure version of me would have seen the red flags and walked away.
Instead, my anxious attachment and low self-worth locked onto him.
On some unconscious level, I made him a project. If I could get this person — this emotionally unavailable, avoidant, chaotic person — to change for me, then that must mean something about how worthy and special I was.
I put him on a pedestal and cast myself as the saviour. If I could be the reason he finally “sorted himself out”, then maybe I’d finally feel like enough.
That mentality kept me in a situation that was causing me daily pain.
After an initial nine months of intense drama, deception and volatility (the “you wouldn’t believe it if I told you” kind), I still stayed another three years. I told myself, We’ve been through so much already, I can’t give up now. Once we get through this, it’ll all be worth it.
This is classic anxious attachment:
Internalising the problem — “If I just try harder, I can make this work.”
Self-blame instead of situational blame — “If they can’t meet my needs, it must mean my needs are wrong.”
Sunk cost thinking — “I’ve invested so much, leaving now would make it all a waste.”
Living in a Constantly Activated State
We eventually moved in together. He had a demanding job and was always “too busy”. I constantly felt like I was competing with his work, and I always came second (or third, or fourth).
I’d call to ask what time he’d be home, and he’d ignore my calls. I’d send a text, see that it had been read, and get no response. I’d send another. And another.
My nervous system was permanently activated.
I was furious and heartbroken and wildly confused. How could someone treat me like this? How could they not see how much it hurt?
But rather than see the relationship for what it was — fundamentally misaligned and unsupportive — I doubled down on trying to get him to understand.
If I could just explain it the right way… if I could get him to see things from my perspective… then he’d change. And if he changed, I wouldn’t have to feel this way anymore.
I didn’t yet see that this was my anxious attachment talking.
The Turning Point: Owning My Patterns
The beginning of the shift came when I started therapy. Up until then, I’d always seen myself as “fine” and “resourced”. But it was becoming harder and harder to deny that something deeper was going on.
My therapist gently held up a mirror.
Yes, his behaviour was hurtful, dishonest and disrespectful. That part was real. But she also helped me see that a secure person wouldn’t have stayed in that dynamic for as long as I did. Something in me had drawn me into it and kept me there.
That was confronting, but also incredibly empowering.
Because if I had a role in getting into this situation, that meant I also had a role in getting myself out.
1. Looking Honestly at My Relationship Patterns
The first key shift was taking an honest look at my patterns instead of focusing solely on his.
Why was I so determined to “fix” him?
Why did I see his behaviour as a reflection of my worth?
Why did I believe my safety depended on controlling the people and environment around me?
I started connecting the dots back to my family system and childhood. I began to see how I’d been primed to suppress my own needs, rescue others, and equate love with emotional labour.
This wasn’t about blaming my past — it was about understanding it.
Seeing the architecture underneath my anxious attachment helped me feel less crazy and more compassionate towards myself. It also gave me a clear sense of where my work was.
2. Rebuilding Self-Worth and Self-Respect
Next, I started working on my self-worth.
At that time, I didn’t just struggle with self-love — I didn’t even like myself very much. I was harshly self-critical and equally critical of others. It was like my ego sat on top of a deep well of insecurity.
So I began a kind of life audit:
Where was I consistently engaging in behaviours that left me feeling ashamed, anxious or out of integrity?
Who was I spending time with that didn’t feel good to be around?
What environments was I pushing myself into just to gain approval?
I started “cleaning up my act” — not in a moralistic way, but in a self-respecting way.
I looked at my relationship with alcohol and nights out that reliably led to anxiety and self-disgust the next day. I looked at my work and realised I was spending most of my waking hours in a career that didn’t align with what I cared about.
Deep down, I knew: This cannot be my whole life.
I didn’t want the life of the people ten years ahead of me on the corporate ladder. That felt suffocating. So I allowed myself to admit that and started exploring other paths.
One small but powerful example: I set myself a challenge to run 100km in a month. For real runners, that might not sound like much. For me — someone who didn’t see herself as “a runner” — it was huge.
Showing up for that challenge, pushing through discomfort, and doing something I’d always told myself I “wasn’t the type of person” to do was incredibly identity-shifting. It became a physical metaphor for growth on the other side of discomfort.
All of this — the self-respect, the discipline, the values work, ultimately leaving my law career — formed the foundation of a new kind of self-worth.
3. Learning to Work With My Nervous System
Another complete game-changer was learning about the nervous system and how to self-soothe.
Through somatic therapy and my coach training, I came to understand that:
When we’re in a stress response, we lose access to the parts of us that make healthy relating possible: empathy, nuance, curiosity, perspective.
If we’re constantly perceiving threat in our relationships, our system is too busy surviving to connect.
Looking back, when I was sending ten escalating texts in a row, I wasn’t “crazy”. I was dysregulated.
My body was screaming: Danger! You’re being abandoned! Do something!
The work wasn’t about shaming those reactions. It was about learning how to create safety within myself so I could respond differently.
I built a toolkit — breath, movement, grounding, co-regulation, self-talk — so that when I got triggered, I had options beyond lashing out, protesting or spiralling.
Now, I rarely get triggered in the same way, and when I do, I feel equipped to stay with myself instead of being hijacked by the reaction.
4. Validating Myself Instead of Chasing Validation
A huge shift was learning to validate my own experience instead of obsessively trying to get my partner to do it.
For so long, I believed:
I was asking for too much.
My needs were unreasonable.
If he told me I was “demanding” or “intense”, that must be true.
Because he was so chronically invalidating — and often gaslighting — I became fixated on getting him to agree with me so I didn’t feel crazy.
The real turning point was deciding:
I don’t actually need you to agree with me in order for my experience to be valid.
I started saying (internally and externally):
My needs are reasonable. My feelings make sense. The bare minimum I’m asking for isn’t a negotiation.
Once I stopped playing the game of trying to convince him, the truth became much clearer: we were not compatible. What I wanted and what he was willing or able to offer were fundamentally misaligned.
That clarity made leaving possible.
5. Learning Boundaries and Letting Go of the Saviour Role
Boundaries used to be a foreign concept to me.
I had a strong rescuer streak. If someone I cared about was struggling, I’d drop everything, rush in, and take on responsibility for fixing it. I thought that was just what it meant to be a good person.
Therapy helped me see the cost of that.
I began to understand that:
I’m not responsible for everyone’s feelings and choices.
I can be loving without self-abandoning.
Other adults are capable of sitting with their own discomfort.
That boundary work was absolutely crucial when I finally left the relationship.
After the breakup, my ex called constantly, apologising and begging me to take him back. Past-me would have felt intense guilt and pressure to make him feel better — and probably would have gone back.
Because I’d done the work, I was able to hold my boundary:
“I’m really sorry this is painful, but this is my decision and it’s not going to change.”
It was still uncomfortable. But I didn’t wobble. I could stay anchored in what I knew was right for me.
6. Creating a Bigger Vision and Raising My Standards
The final piece was allowing myself to imagine that life could be so much better than what I was currently tolerating.
At the time, my life felt small, stressed and constrained — by my job, my relationship, my own beliefs about what was possible for me. Dreaming bigger felt almost ridiculous… and yet there was this tiny inner voice saying:
There has to be more than this. It can’t just be this forever.
Once I’d done enough inner work to no longer feel like I was trying to patch over a void, I could start asking:
What kind of relationship do I actually want?
How do I want to feel in my life day-to-day?
What would a joyful, values-aligned life look like for me?
I began to raise my standards — radically.
I decided I was no longer available for:
Relationships that were defined by chaos, anxiety and emotional labour.
Work that drained me and felt meaningless.
A life where my primary experience was stress and self-doubt.
I didn’t know exactly how I’d get to the life I was imagining, but I committed to taking aligned steps towards that vision, again and again.
Where I Am Now (And Why I’m Not an Exception)
Fast forward to today.
I’ve built a business that allows me to do deeply meaningful work supporting thousands of people on their own healing journeys. I host a podcast that reaches people all over the world. I have a relationship that feels like a genuine partnership — not a project — with someone I love, respect and admire, who loves, respects and admires me.
We have a beautiful son. Is our relationship perfect? No. No one’s is. But it’s grounded, mutual, kind and safe. It feels like a place to rest, not a battlefield.
And truly: the life I have now is beyond anything my younger self could have even conceptualised.
I share all of this not to say, “Look at me, I did it,” but to say:
I am not an exception to the rule.
If it’s possible for me, it is possible for you.
Your anxious attachment is not a life sentence. It is a learned way of being — and what is learned can be unlearned. You can build self-worth. You can learn to regulate your nervous system. You can set boundaries, leave misaligned relationships, and move towards ones that feel safe and nourishing.
It won’t happen overnight. It will require courage and commitment. But it is absolutely, deeply possible.
If You’re Ready for Support
If you’re reading this and thinking, This is me. I’m in that relationship. I’m in that pattern, I want you to know you don’t have to figure it out alone.
My course Healing Anxious Attachment distils everything I learned in my own journey — and in guiding thousands of others — into a clear, step-by-step framework to help you:
Understand where your patterns came from
Work with your nervous system instead of against it
Build self-worth from the inside out
Create healthier, more secure relationships
If you feel a little spark reading this — that quiet knowing that says, There has to be more than this — I encourage you to honour it.
You deserve a life and love that feel safe, steady and deeply good.
And no matter how far away that feels right now, I promise: this is not where your story ends.
You might also like…
[00:00:00]:
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. Today's episode is a really special one and I apologise in advance for this. Very scrappy. If you're watching the video of this, it's very scrappy. Video recording. I am in a hotel room in Belgium and I had to put out a podcast episode today and I was thinking about what to do and I decided to share with you a video that I recorded a little while ago on my journey, my story with Anxious Attachment. You know, what my life looked like when I was really in the depths of my anxious attachment and how I dug myself out of that hole, how I walked away from a relationship that was really unhealthy and how I ultimately built self worth and built the life that I have now, which looks very different to the life that I had then.
[00:00:45]:
This is a video that you may have watched if you have downloaded my Anxious Attachment starter kit, which is a free resource that I offer. But for most of you that haven't, I really hope that what I share in today's episode in this video gives you some hope and optimism that, you know, you might look at me now and think that I'm very far away from where you might feel. You can rest assured that I know exactly what it feels like and I remember it well to stand where you stand. And so I'm hoping that in sharing my story, you can see that we're not all that different and that there is hope, no matter how hopeless it can feel when you're in the thick of it. Before we get into today's episode, I wanted to remind you about my Black Friday sale. My Black Friday offers this year are by far the steepest discounts that I've ever offered on my programmes. I'm offering two bundles, one for breakups, one for relationships. So in both bundles you get Healing Anxious Attachment, which is my signature course.
[00:01:44]:
Over 3,000 past students. And then, depending on where you're at, if you've been through a breakup, the Breakup Bundle, you also get Higher Love, which is my best selling breakup course. Or if you're in a relationship or dating, the Secure Relationship Bundle. You get my Secure Together course for couples and navigate the Anxious Avoidant Dynamics comics that I recorded with my partner Joel. And with both bundles, you get my entire masterclass library. So every masterclass workshop I've ever taught included free. And none of those are available for individual sale anymore. So this is the only way to get them.
[00:02:18]:
And on top of that, you also get an invite to a live Q and A with me. So it really is an exceptional deal and it's at a very heavy discount. There's also a payment plan available. I really tried to make it as accessible as possible for you, so if that is of interest to you, definitely check it out. The sale is only live for a few more days, and I would really love to welcome you in if you are wanting to do this work and really commit to yourself. And I should say, if you're feeling a little overwhelmed, I know it's a pretty busy time of year. You get lifetime access to everything, so it's not like you have to sit down and dig into all of this work straight away. You could start it in January if you wanted to, or just chip away at it at a pace that works for you.
[00:02:55]:
So don't feel like it's adding stress or adding things to your plate at a busy time of year, because I know that that can be a factor as well. Okay, I really hope that you enjoy hearing about my story in today's episode, and I'm sending you so much love. Hey everybody. In this video, I am going to be sharing all about how I healed my anxious attachment, which is something that I've touched upon in podcast episodes over the past couple of years, but something that I've never really shared in this kind of format. So it's a bit of a vulnerable one for me. And I really hope that it is not only helpful, but a source of inspiration for you. Because if there's anything that I've learned in my own journey and in guiding thousands of other people through the journey of healing anxious attachment, it's that healing is absolutely possible. That anxious attachment is not a life sentence, as much as it can feel overwhelming and unfair and so challenging.
[00:03:55]:
It is a learned way of being. And that means that we are able to learn another way of being, a way that is more secure, that allows us to feel safe within ourselves and trusting of others. In relationships where we don't have to be on such high alert all the time, where we don't have to worry whether someone loves us, whether they care, whether they're going to be there for us, when we don't have to work so hard to get other people's attention and affection and approval and keep it where we can actually rest in our relationships, in the knowing that we are loved and valued and cared for. And it frees up so much energy to focus on other things in life, on joy and things that you're passionate about and other relationships. So much becomes possible when you commit yourself to this healing work. So I'm really looking forward to sharing with you in this video how I went about that and how you can too. So you might look at me today and wonder whether I really understand what it's like to have anxious attachment. And I can understand that because frankly, my life today looks very different to what it did not that long ago in the scheme of things.
[00:05:07]:
But if we were to rewind to my early to mid-20s to paint the picture for you of what I was like, what my life was like, what my relationships were like, and how anxious attachment was a common thread through all of that, which was making things pretty challenging for me. So I used to be a corporate lawyer, so I was working in a corporate law firm, working very long hours. I was in a relationship which was in hindsight such a mess. But at the time I was so swept up in it all, in the drama of it. I had incredibly low self worth. I really didn't like myself very much. But on the outside you may not have necessarily perceived that because I was ticking all the boxes. I'd always been a high achiever, things had always worked out pretty well for me on the surface.
[00:05:59]:
But deep down I felt very empty. I didn't respect myself and the life choices that I was making were incongruent with my values. I think I really didn't have much of a sense of what my values were. And so I cut corners, I showed up in whatever mask I needed to wear to get the approval and to fit in with people who frankly I didn't even like or respect that much to fit in in environments that thought were bullshit, if I'm being really candid with you. But that was just what I did because that was what I felt like I needed to do to almost feel or overcome the deficit of self worth that I felt deep inside. And on the relationship front, well, my first couple of relationships I was quite lucky were with secure partners. So from my teenage years and then my very early twenties I was into mostly healthy relationships with secure partners. And so my anxious attachment didn't really come to the until my mid-20s when I entered a very dysfunctional relationship.
[00:07:10]:
And this was my first experience with a very avoidant partner. And because I had mostly secure partners prior to that, his behaviour was so confusing to me and it really reeled me in. And that combined with my low self worth meant that rather than just looking at his behaviour and seeing of what it was being that he didn't treat me very nicely and he was confusing and dismissive and Disrespectful. Rather than seeing that thought it was and saying, okay, I'm not interested in this person, something within me lit up and took on the challenge and saw that as an opportunity to transform him, to change him, to win over his approval and affection. And it was almost like on a subconscious level, if I could get this person to change, this person whose behaviour was unlike anything I'd ever encountered before in relationships, if I could get him over the line, then it was almost like I'd win the prize and that would prove to me and to everyone else that I was really special. Because if I could change him, if I could be the reason for his metamorphosis, then that must mean something about how valuable and worthy I am. So it was this weird combination of really low self worth together with I think, some ego stuff on top that drove me into this dynamic and kept me there in the fact face of behaviour that drove me absolutely nuts and left me feeling so confused, so disrespected, so dismissed all the time. And in saying all of that, you might think that, oh, this was just like a little fling of a relationship and then I saw the light.
[00:08:56]:
Well, I wish that were true, but you know, after the first kind of nine months, which were completely insane, if I were to go through all of the gory details of it, you probably wouldn't believe me. So much drama, so much outright dishonesty, so many breaches of trust. And yet from that point, from when I knew all of that, I pushed forward. I almost thought, well, we've got it all out in the open now and I don't want to give up that whole sunk cost mentality of, well, we've been through all of this, why give up now? And so from that point I proceeded and continued to be in that relationship for another three years from that point. So just to contextualise how deep I was in this mission of trying to get this person to change and this intense saviour complex that I had where I just couldn't give up, I couldn't see the situation for what it was. I couldn't reconcile the fact that I had completely abandoned myself in an effort to change this person and to get them to treat me well. So I just had to keep pushing because at least if I could get him to change, then it wouldn't have all been a waste. It wouldn't be so humiliating that I had let all of that happen because the story was have a happy ending.
[00:10:15]:
So that's the backdrop, right? That's where I was in my anxious attachment. And as I said, his behaviour would drive me crazy every day. We eventually moved in together and lived together for two years. And he worked in a very demanding job and was very much focused on work. So I always felt like I was competing with his work and coming up second best or frankly, further down the list after all of the other things that he would prioritise above me. I would call him him to see what time he was coming home from work and he would ignore my calls and I'd text and he'd read my texts and not respond and I'd send a million of them. Just this incredibly high stress activated state that I was in, so worked up and so infuriated that someone would just blatantly ignore me asking a simple question like, are you going to be home for dinner tonight? All of these things that really, again, I was so deep in it that I was unable to see it for what it was. And I was unable to just say, clearly this isn't a good fit, clearly this is not a satisfactory relationship.
[00:11:20]:
Clearly this is not working in my mind at the time. The only thing I could do was tell him over and over again how much he was hurting me. And how could he do that and how could he not see that any normal person would behave like xyz? It's like I had to get him to see things from my point of view so that he would change, so that I wouldn't have to feel the discomfort and the stress and the anxiety that I constantly felt. So that's the backdrop, right? That's where things were at now. Thankfully, I saw the light at some point and I think gradually over time I became less and less invested in trying to get him to change. And I think I started to see things for what they were. And frankly, I think I lost respect for him along the way. And I maybe stopped putting him on this pedestal of needing to get him to choose me and started to realise that, you know, this was just not going to work.
[00:12:20]:
And I started to get this sense that maybe there was something wrong with the situation rather than just something wrong with me. That tends to be a really common thing that anxiously attached people do is rather than there being something wrong with the situation, there must be something wrong with me. If this person can't meet my needs, I'll just try not to have them. Or if this person isn't respecting my boundaries, I guess my boundaries are wrong, rather than maybe something's not right with the situation. So I think a part of me started to clock onto this to go. There's probably something that's not quite right with this situation. And a really big step in my journey was that I started going to therapy for the first time in my life. I was always someone who thought that I was mostly okay and I had everything together and I was pretty well resourced.
[00:13:02]:
But it was becoming clear to me that was maybe not true, and that there was more going on under the surface in me that needed my attention. So, thankfully, I plucked up the courage to go to therapy and I found an amazing therapist who was really instrumental in my journey. And she gifted me so many things that were ultimately key pieces in the puzzle for me in becoming more secure, in stepping away from that relationship and stepping towards the life that I have now, and really trusting in myself to be able to build all of that, and trusting in my capacity to want more and trusting that I was deserving of more. So I'm going to walk you through now six of the changes that I made ultimately allowed me to heal my anxious attachment and build the life that I have now, which is so far beyond what I ever could have dreamed of back then, when I was in the dumpster fire of my previous relationship, and all of the stress that brought me to picture my life now, it would have been like a dream. So I'm going to walk you through all of that, and I just want to emphasise that I'm not some exception to the rule. If it's possible for me, it is possible for you. It's not easy, it's not overnight. It takes courage and it takes commitment.
[00:14:24]:
But if you can relate to anything that I was just saying about some of those relationship patterns that come along with anxious attachment, then listen up, because this is the roadmap that you need. This is what you need to focus on if you want to also build up your sense of self worth and start to build the life and relationships that you want. Okay? So the first thing that I did was I had to look really honestly at my relationship patterns and my role in them. So when I was in that dysfunctional relationship, it was so easy for me to look at everything that was going on. And I deeply believed that he was the problem and that everything that he was doing was the reason for all of our troubles. He was the one who was lying all the time. He was the one who was unreliable and inconsistent and unpredictable and moody and erratic and all of these things. In my mind, I was the perfect partner.
[00:15:17]:
I was, like, stable and lovely and reliable and all of those things I was bending over backwards all the time to try and smooth out our life, to make everything function well and to make everything work. And he was like this tornado of volatility. And in my mind it was like, if you just don't do all of those things that you always do, then everything will be fine. And that was really the story that felt very true to me, that I had no role in the dysfunction, that my behaviour, to the extent that it was anything other than perfect, was in response to his behaviour. And some of his behaviour stopped, then so too would mine and everything would be good. And as it happens, that wasn't quite true. The more that I learned about attachment, the more I realised that, okay, there's maybe a little more to this, and that my behaviours, which I perceived as being a perfectly reasonable response to his behaviours, there was a reason that I behaved the way that I did and responded the way that I responded, that kept the system intact, kept the cycles going. You know, a secure person would not have been in the situation that I was in.
[00:16:31]:
And I had to really reckon with the fact that something within me got me there and kept me there. And that was my responsibility, that was my work. And even the part of me that believed that I just had to change him in order to create safety for me, that was one of my pieces of work to do, right? Because again, a secure person doesn't tend to think and operate in that way. A secure person would say, thanks, but no thanks. I'm not available for this kind of behaviour. This is so clearly dysfunctional, right? So I really had to own that some of my stuff was showing up here. Things that had maybe been latent within me in my previous relationships, where they weren't so triggered, where I wasn't brought into contact with them in quite the same way. This person who I was in a relationship with, it's like it woke up these parts of me that were already there, that, like, the architecture had already been built for all of those those things from earlier in my life.
[00:17:29]:
And that was another piece of the work, is really connecting the dots and understanding where this came from within me. Looking really honestly at my family system and how my childhood environment had shaped me in that way and primed me for that kind of relationship and that kind of dynamic of suppressing my own needs and being the saviour and trying to make people show up in a particular way, believing that my safety came from controlling the people around me and the environment around me. All of that stuff was mine and originated with me. Now that's not to excuse his shitty behaviour. That was still there and that was still a big piece of it. But I really had to own how I got to be there and what had kept me there for so long. So looking really honestly at all of that, which was something my therapist was able to help me shine a light on, that was really instrumental in me feeling like I had more responsibility and more agency over this situation. Because before I was able to see that, I felt very powerless and incredibly frustrated because I was convinced that he held the keys to my happiness and he was withholding that and that was selfish and unfair and unkind.
[00:18:40]:
And so I just kept in this cycle of blaming him and feeling like a victim. So when I was able to see things a little more clearly, I was able to also see my part in it and start to own where my work was in shifting those patterns. And that was really empowering because it allowed me to actually take, take things back into my own hands. Okay. The next key piece was that I focused on building my self worth. So this was big and it was a process. But as I said, I had really low self worth. I didn't like myself very much.
[00:19:12]:
Never mind the self love stuff, I didn't even like myself. I was highly self critical, but also highly critical and judgmental of others. Again, it was this kind of ego thing sitting on top of really low self worth. And so I had to to get honest about behaviours that I was engaging in, people that I would be around, environments that I'd participate in that really reliably led to me feeling bad about myself and not liking myself. And I had to clean up my act. I used to go out drinking all the time and then I'd behave in ways that the next morning I'd feel so humiliated and embarrassed and uncomfortable about how I'd been so much anxiety. All of that sort of stuff I had to really audit like where am I engaging in behaviour that reliably leaves me feeling bad about myself and where do I need to bring my values and my choices into alignment so that I can actually just say I'm comfortable with who I am and how I'm showing up? And that was really important. Another key piece of building self worth for me was working on my self respect, which part of that was the values work.
[00:20:20]:
But it was also self discipline and really changing the stories I had about the type of person that I was and what was possible for me. So I've told this story before of a little challenge that I set for myself as I was nearing the end of that relationship. It was almost like it was preparing me to pull the trigger and walk away. And I set myself the challenge to run 100 kilometres over the course of a month, which, you know, is no great feat for people who are runners. But I was not a runner. At least I never thought of myself in that way. It wasn't something that I regularly did. And so it was a very lofty goal for me at the time.
[00:20:54]:
And I set that goal and I did it and I kept showing up and it was really hard and I did it and I showed up again and again and it got easier, go figure. And doing something like that was actually really formative for me in serving as a physical embodiment, a physical reminder of pushing my comfort zone. And the fact that it's okay to be uncomfortable and that that is part of growth and showing myself in real time that I can be the type of person that I've always said I'm not that type of person. And that's not possible for me. And so having that as a embodied reminder of growth happening on the other side of our comfort zone sounds corny, but it's very true. And starting to push the edges of that for me and build my capacity to be more than I had ever really allowed myself to be. And dismantling all of those limiting beliefs and stories that I had held and that had shaped me and kept a lid on who I was up until that point. So really working on building my sense of self, working on, on liking myself more, you know, a really big piece of that puzzle, which I haven't really touched on, is that I ultimately quit my job as a lawyer, obviously doing this now because for me that was another piece that was just not in alignment.
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And I knew deep down this cannot be my life. Sitting in a cubicle till the early hours of the morning, every day, doing work that at times it was exciting, but it didn't mean anything to me. I didn't believe in it. And the idea that I was going to spend the next few decades of my life in that most of waking hours until I'm at retirement age, it felt so existentially overwhelming and soul destroying that I had to really own that. And looking around me, I didn't want the life of the people that were five or 10 years ahead of me in their careers. And so I really had to reckon with the fact that I was walking with my eyes open into a life that I didn't want and that actually felt quite suffocating and stifling to me and who I was at a core level. So I made the decision and that I wasn't gonna do it. And I started researching what alternatives might look like and pathways to doing that.
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And I had always been so passionate about relationships and psychology and this kind of work. And so I got to researching on how I might go about making a career change. And long story short, I pulled the trigger. And I did that without much of a plan, to be frank. But I had developed enough self trust by that point that I believed that I would figure it out. And here we are. Rest is history. So that was another key piece of the puzzle for me, which I put under the umbrel of cleaning up parts of my life where I was out of integrity and where the vision that I had for myself and the yearnings that I had deep inside were really at odds with the way that I was living and the choices that I was making.
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Okay, the next really big puzzle piece for me in my journey to healing anxious attachment was that I learned about my nervous system and how to self soothe. Now I did not know any of this before I started out on this journey and it was so groundbreaking. Paradigm shifting light bulb moment for me, a series of light bulb moments to learn about. And this was stuff that I learned because my therapist was a somatic therapist. And also the training programme to become a coach that I enrolled in was somatic and focus. And so I was really immersing myself in learning about the nervous system and how our stress responses and the states that we're in shape everything. They shape our perception, they shape our relationships and our experience of safety. And really understanding that until we can create this experience of safety within us, that we are going to be driven by stress.
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And when we are driven by stress, we lose access to our empathy and our ability to reason and consider alternatives. And all of the things that make us good at relationships, they leave the building, they go offline when we're stressed. And so if we are constantly in this state of stress and we're constantly perceiving threat and danger in our relationships, then our capacity to be in the mode that allows us to build healthy relationships is. Is really offline, not available to us. And so learning about that and building out this whole toolkit of things that I could reach for to create safety within myself when I was triggered, rather than just riding the wave of the trigger and reacting and being really frankly when I was in that relationship, I would get triggered all the time and I would just lash out. I would fire off 10 text messages in a row that would just escalate and escalate in terms of trying to get engagement from my partner because his stonewalling was so infuriating to me. And I would get so fired up and so angry and so indignant and this sense of, like, injustice and how can you treat me like this? I would just keep amping up and amping up, and that's what my system did. And I.
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I started to understand what was going on there and, and what was happening in my body and how I could actually become the active operator of that, get into the driver's seat of that experience rather than just have it overtake me and drive me into more and more of that dysfunction. So I started to sh to more of, again, more agency around what was going on in my body. And now it's something that I feel, you know, I rarely get triggered now, but when I do, it's not something that I'm afraid of because it doesn't take over my system. It's something that I have the ability to observe and choose how I'm going to respond. And I have so many tools that I can reach for at any given moment that allow me to bring safety back into my body and then to respond in a way that is mature and thoughtful and conducive to the kind of person I want to be in the kind of relationships that I want to be in. So learning about my nervous system was a game changer. Okay. Another really key piece was that I learned to start validating myself rather than obsessing over trying to get my partner to do it.
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So I started to really believe that I wasn't asking for too much and that my experience was valid and that my needs were totally reasonable and that the things I was asking of him were not things that I should have had to fight tooth and nail over. And this is, you know, the pattern that I was so deep in was I would be begging him to just answer my calls. It had gotten so far removed from reasonable reality. But because he would get so defensive and come up with all of these excuses and tell me that I was asking for too much or that I was being too demanding or whatever, or just explain away. He was so chronically invalidating of me that I got sucked into just trying to convince him and persuade him and get him to see things from my point of view rather than than just having my own back, validating myself and agreeing to disagree on that and deciding the relationship wasn't right for me, which is eventually where I got to thank goodness. But that's the trap that I was in. Feeling so invalidated by him, feeling so dismissed by him, feeling there was a lot of gaslighting and stuff that went on in that relationship. I don't use that term very lightly, but there was a lot of that, right? Just total denial of reality in a way where it felt so confusing that I just had to keep trying to get him to agree with me so that I didn't feel crazy.
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And. And I stopped playing that game and I just started going, I don't need you to agree with me, but here's what I'm looking for, here's what I need. I'm not going to fight with you over the bare minimum anymore. And as soon as I stopped playing that game and stopped being sucked into the whirlpool of it, it became much clearer to me that we were just not compatible and that that was okay and I was okay with us just not being compatible. It felt very freeing as soon as I was able to start validating myself and my needs and my boundaries and my requests as being valid and reasonable, rather than needing him to do that in order for me to believe it. So that was a really big piece as well. I learned about boundaries and I practised setting them. So this is kind of related to what I was just talking about, but as it happened, I didn't know what a boundary was really.
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I'd heard the term, but it was only through therapy and through doing a lot of this work that I really started to appreciate how completely absent that concept was in my own life. I had such a streak of rescuing people and feeling like I was responsible for making everyone happy and if there was a crisis, like I would swoop in and save the day. And I think in large part that was about my own need to be the helper and to be that rescuer. But also because I felt like it was my responsibility to do that. And that's just what you do when the people that you love are in need. You go in guns blazing and have this full blown crisis response. But I also started to see through therapy what that was costing me. To feel responsible for taking care of everyone all the time.
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And it's not to say that I've swung to the other extre for not being helpful, but I've stopped feeling like I have to do that as part of my job. And I'm so glad that I did that boundary work in the lead up to leaving the relationship because after I had left there was a period where My ex was calling me a lot and apologising profusely and begging me to take him back and all of these things. And had I not done that work, I think I would have felt really guilty and I would have felt obliged to, to fix that or to sideline my own inner knowing that I had done the right thing by leaving to make it okay for him and to make him feel better. And having done that work, I was able to say, you know, I'm really sorry, but this is my decision and it's not going to change. So being clear in my own boundaries, being clear in my own worth there and holding firm on what I knew was right for me, and that's what that boundary work allowed me to do and got me to that point where I felt comfortable doing that, even though, though it was edgy, I didn't wobble, I didn't falter on the boundaries that I knew I had to set. Okay. And the last really key thing that I did in this journey of overcoming anxious attachment was I created a really clear vision for my life and my relationships in terms of what I wanted and what I was available for and really up levelled in terms of what I thought was possible. As I said, I was in this version of my life that was so cloistered and small and constrained by the job that I was in, the relationship that I was in.
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I, again, I don't use this word very much, but like I was settling big time. I was really putting a lid on what I truly wanted because it just felt so far away from my reality and I didn't really know how to get from. It felt like going from A to Z and there was a whole bunch of stuff in between that I couldn't even really contemplate. And I was so stressed all the time time that it just felt too hard. And so once I started to do all of these other things, it opened up this possibility of, like, how good could it be and am I going to be courageous enough to take steps towards something so much bigger and more wonderful than what I've been living and reckoning with? The fact that might mean letting go of a lot of the things that are familiar about my current life. It lit up such a fire within me, me that I was okay with that loss. I was okay with the letting go of things that were no longer really in alignment for me and believing that I could create a business and I could have freedom in my time and that I could really have a deep sense of love and respect for myself. That I could have a life that was characterised by joy and pleasure and ease, rather than stress and frustration and anxiety.
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Having all of those things that I could have a relationship that really felt like a resting place and a partnership where we were growing together and we had the same vision and all of those things I dared to dream on all of that. That sounds so cliche and so cringe, but that's really true. I went through this whole period of metamorphosis where I went all in on the vision and I held that vision and I really took steps towards it. I almost proceeded on the basis that, wasn't interested in anything less than that. So I really radically up levelled the standards for myself, for what I was available for. And I think part of what allowed me to do that was feeling more comfortable within myself and that, you know, I wasn't trying to fill a void as I had been previously. I wasn't just trying to grab onto anyone who would pay attention to me so that I could feel better about myself. I had started to feel better about myself from within.
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And all of a sudden, sudden, it opened up possibilities of what life could be for me. And gosh, I am so grateful to that former version of myself for doing that work. Because here I sit, having built a business that has helped thousands of people through my programmes and my coaching practise. I have a podcast that has reached millions of people around the world and I get to do work every day that truly lights me up and makes me feel grateful deep in my soul. And I really feel like I'm doing something meaningful with my life. And I have a beautiful relationship, not a perfect relationship, nobody does, but I have a beautiful relationship with a partner who I love and respect and admire and who loves and respects and admires me. We have a beautiful son together. Life feels really magical and I just want to emphasise realised that not that long ago, that felt like a distant dream.
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In fact, it was so far removed from reality that I couldn't have even dreamt it. So I share this hoping that it sparks something in you, the same way that I experienced that spark, that inner knowing, that little nudge or that little voice when I was at the start of my journey that said, there's gotta be more than this, it can't be this for the rest of my life. And. And I really hope that you feel inspired and that you believe me when I say that your anxious attachment, the things that you've struggled with in relationships up until now, it's not a life sentence. It doesn't have to be this way. You can learn and grow and evolve and create a life that is so much more wonderful and magical and freeing and easeful and than maybe feels possible right now. But if I can do it, the thousands of other people that I've worked with can do it. So can you.
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So I really hope that this is helpful. And of course, if you would like some extra support on this and you would like to invest in yourself through my tried and tested framework, my Healing Anxious Attachment course is very comprehensive. It distils down everything that I learned in my own journey and in guiding so many thousands of others through the journey as well into a very thorough but digestible framework for healing that will keep you accountable and that will allow you to not only develop so much more knowledge and awareness around what got you here, but also give you the tools to get you to that next stage and to support you on your path to healing. So if you would like to take that next step, I would love to see you in my Healing Anxious Attachment programme as well. Okay, I'm going to leave it there. As I said, I so hope that this has given you some inspiration, that it has lit that little fire or that spark in you and I'm sending you so much love as you venture down this path of healing. Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment. If you want to go deeper on all things attachment, love and relationships, you can find me on instagram @stephanie__rigg or stephanierigg.com and if you enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a review and a five star rating.
Keywords from Podcast Episode
anxious attachment, healing anxious attachment, self worth, Black Friday sale, online programmes, breakups, relationships, Healing Anxious Attachment course, nervous system, self soothing, attachment styles, self respect, values alignment, therapy, somatic therapy, self validation, boundaries, relationship patterns, toxic relationships, career change, self discipline, gaslighting, self love, self trust, overcoming people pleasing, agency in relationships, attachment triggers, Secure Relationship Bundle, Secure Together course, personal growth