#194: When You Don’t Feel Like a Priority in Your Relationship
Feeling like an afterthought in your relationship can be incredibly painful. In this episode, we unpack why this dynamic is so triggering — especially for those with anxious attachment — and how to advocate for your needs without shame, panic, or self-abandonment.
Do you find yourself constantly striving to earn a place in your partner's life? Always initiating contact, making plans, and feeling like everything in your relationship originates with you? If you're nodding along, you're experiencing something incredibly common amongst anxiously attached people—the painful sense of not feeling like a priority in your relationship.
This dynamic creates an exhausting cycle where you feel like you're competing for attention, working overtime to prove your worth, and never quite feeling valued or important to your partner. Today, we're diving deep into why this happens, where it comes from, and most importantly, what you can do about it.
The Roots Run Deep
To understand why you might find yourself in this pattern, it helps to look back at the origins of anxious attachment. Many anxiously attached people grew up in relational environments marked by inconsistency. The overall experience was: "It feels really good when we're connected, but I can't always rely on that connection to be there when I need it."
This inconsistency often came from parents who were distracted by demanding jobs, their own mental health struggles, marital stress, or other life pressures. As children are quick to do, you likely internalised this unavailability as being about you—creating the story that "if I were better in some way, then my parent would show up for me the way I need them to."
This leads to a survival strategy of trying to be good, performing, people-pleasing, and striving—feeling like you have to earn and prove your worth. Sound familiar?
How This Shows Up in Adult Relationships
This childhood pattern doesn't just disappear when we grow up. It follows us into our romantic relationships, creating a dynamic where:
The relationship becomes your top priority, often to the exclusion of everything else
You make yourself endlessly available, leaving your calendar open "just in case"
You rearrange your entire life to accommodate your partner's needs
You over-function whilst secretly keeping score of what you're giving versus receiving
You build resentment when your extreme dedication isn't reciprocated
The painful irony? You end up blaming your partner for having boundaries when you have none.
The Anxious-Avoidant Dance
This dynamic becomes especially pronounced in anxious-avoidant pairings. While you're dropping everything to prioritize the relationship, your avoidant partner is likely protecting other areas of their life. They may actually pull away more when they sense pressure to match your level of relationship focus, feeling their autonomy threatened.
The more you up the ante in terms of prioritizing the relationship, the more they might resist—creating exactly the dynamic you're trying to avoid.
What You Can Do About It
1. Have the Conversation
If you're truly doing all the heavy lifting in your relationship, it's worth addressing directly. The key is approaching it without blame:
"Hey, I've been feeling like a lot of the time it's me who's reaching out or making plans, and it's starting to feel a bit imbalanced. I'm not sure if that's something you've been aware of as well, but either way, I'd really appreciate it if we could maybe rebalance the scales a little."
Take responsibility for your part while clearly expressing your needs.
2. Stop Over-Functioning and Start Prioritising Yourself
Here's a hard truth: the things that bother us most in our relationships are often the very things we're doing to ourselves. If you're complaining that your partner doesn't prioritize you, ask yourself—how good are you at prioritizing yourself?
If you're someone who consistently abandons your own needs to focus on others, you're putting enormous pressure on your relationship to provide everything for you. When your partner inevitably falls short of this impossible standard, the disappointment feels devastating.
The recalibration that needs to happen is this: Get better at actively taking care of yourself and prioritizing your own wellbeing.
This means:
Setting boundaries that protect your time and energy
Saying no when something doesn't work for you
Maintaining your own interests and friendships
Taking care of your needs instead of hoping someone else will
The Path Forward
Once you've had clear communication and started taking responsibility for how you're showing up, you'll get a much clearer picture of your relationship's true dynamic. If things still don't shift after you've stopped over-functioning, that gives you valuable information about whether this relationship is right for you.
But until you've done this inner work, it's hard to judge fairly—because a big part of the dynamic might be of your own creation.
Remember — this struggle is far more common than you might think. The pattern of not feeling like a priority touches so many people, and understanding its roots can help you approach it with self-compassion rather than self-criticism. The goal isn't to never need prioritisation from your partner—it's to build a relationship where both people are actively showing up, rather than one person desperately performing whilst the other remains passive.
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:04]:
You're listening to On Attachment, a place to learn about how attachment shapes the way we experience relationships and where you'll gain the guidance, knowledge and practical tools to overcome insecurity and build healthy, thriving relationships. I'm your host, relationship coach, Stephanie Rigg, and I'm really glad you're here. Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. In today's episode, we are talking about what to do when you don't feel like a priority in your relationship. So maybe you are always feeling like you're striving to get a place in your partner's life, like you're always competing for their attention, like you're the one who's always initiating contact or initiating plans, basically that everything is originating with you and your really having to earn your place. And that creates this overall impression of not feeling important or valued to your partner. And I think that this is incredibly common among anxiously attached people.
[00:01:10]:
It's certainly something that I'm fielding questions on every week, multiple times a week from students in my courses. It's so endemic and yet it's probably not one that we talk about in so many words. Enough. And so today I want to address this head on in this episode, talking about why it's such a common dynamic for anxious attachers to land in how it interfaces with some of our other wounds and patterns around unworthiness and fear of abandonment and fear of rejection and all of the protective strategies that can accompany those wounds, what it looks like in an anxious avoidant kind of pairing, and why those differing attachment styles might exacerbate this dynamic. And ultimately what you can and maybe should be focusing on. If you find yourself in a relationship where you are constantly battling to feel like a priority, you know, where is your energy best spent? Because I think oftentimes the instinct is to just keep pushing and try harder and keep striving and keep over functioning. But oftentimes that keeps us in the pattern rather than releases us from the pattern. And so I'm going to be sharing some thoughts on what to do if this is a position that you find yourself in so that you can hopefully shift into something that feels a little bit more balanced and sustainable and reciprocal.
[00:02:28]:
Before we get into today's episode, a couple of quick announcements. The first being if you are in or around London, I'm super excited to share that I am running an event there in September, on the 13th of September. You might have heard me mention this over the past couple of months, that it was, you know, a potential plan in the works. It is now confirmed and tickets are on sale. I'm going to be giving a talk on the path to secure love, so much of which is about healing our inner relationship. So if you're a podcast listener and everything I speak about here resonates with you, and you'd like to hear me speak in more depth, in person, in an intimate setting, there'll be plenty of time for Q and A and meet and greet and all of that afterwards. So I'd really love to see any of you there. If you're in or around London and would like to come along on 13th September.
[00:03:17]:
The link to purchase tickets is in the show. Notes Second quick announcement is just a reminder about my free training on how to heal anxious attachment. This training has now been attended by close to 5,000 people. In the last couple of months, it has received some amazing feedback. So if you're someone who struggles with anxious attachment and you'd like a bit of a deep dive into why you struggle the way that you do and what the path to healing looks like, my free training is a really great starting point. Okay, so let's talk about what to do when you don't feel like a priority in your partner's life or in your relationship. So, as I said, this is way more common than you might think. It is truly something that I'm answering questions on all the time.
[00:03:58]:
And so I can assure you that you are far from alone in feeling this way. Now, as I said in the introduction, I think it's really important to recognise and validate, like, where this comes from in us and why it makes so much sense that we land here in our relationships. And to do that, I want to just jump back to the origins of anxious attachment, which some of you will be familiar with, others of you might not be. But many anxiously attached people grew up in relational environments, so in a family system that was marked by inconsistency in one form or another. And so the overall impression is it feels really good when we're connected, but I can't always rely on that connection to be there when I need it. And so that's what creates in me this hypervigilance around separation. That's what creates in me all of these people pleasing behaviours, all of these ways to keep love close, because I don't trust in the safety of letting go, even temporarily. And part of that experience of inconsistency is this perception of unavailability and not feeling important enough.
[00:04:56]:
You know, children are so quick to internalise whatever's going on out there as being about them. And so for a lot of children, if parents were very distracted, if they had very demanding jobs, or if they had other stuff going on, their own, mental health issues, or the marriage was very under stress and strain, and so there were just a lot of demands on their attention. A child can sense all of that and see all of that and somehow internalise the message that if I were better in some way, then my parent would show up for me the way I need them to, they wouldn't be so misattuned to my needs, I wouldn't have to compete and strive and perform to get their attention. And so that's a really, really common picture for anxiously attached people. And obviously, you know, that's fairly generic and that can have lots of different permutations, but that overall environment of inconsistency and some perception of unavailability and the resulting strategy around trying to be good, you know, performing people, pleasing, striving, feeling like we have to earn and prove that is really, really common and that stays with us into our adult relations. And if you're sort of connecting the dots, you might notice that that similar kind of dynamic is present in a lot of your relationships or has been present in a lot of your relationships. So feeling like it's so great when we're connected and close, but I always feel like you're at risk of slipping away and then I won't know how to get you back. And I feel like I'm losing control in that way.
[00:06:25]:
So I never trust in the good times because it feels like the bad times are just lurking around the corner. And so I'm always in this mode of hyper vigilance and anticipation, waiting for bad to happen in my relationships, waiting for connection to be withdrawn, waiting for love to be taken away. And then I'm going to be left all on my own to deal with this. And I don't know how to do that. And it's going to be my fault because I tell myself the story, whether I realise it or not, that it's because I'm not good enough, that this keeps happening. And so that's a really heartbreaking story. And I think, as always, when we can connect it to what its origins often look like, we can have so much compassion for the fact that this has followed us through life, into our adult romantic relationships. But with that as the backdrop, we can start to look at this dynamic of not feeling like we're a priority and start to go like, wow, okay, maybe this isn't just about my current relationship or my current partner and whatever is going on there.
[00:07:23]:
Maybe there are some deeper layers to this which have something to do with my stuff as well. And that's not to say that there isn't real stuff going on in the relationship that might need your attention, but just to recognise that we. We are often drawn to relational dynamics that activate our wounds and that reflect back to us the stories that we carry about ourselves and about others. So in this case, the things around unworthiness, the things around not being important, the things around, like, no one ever loves me as much as I love them, no one ever tries as hard as I do, no one ever gives as much as I give. And that's so unfair. And I don't know why I can't just find someone who meets me in that. Oftentimes we actually gravitate towards relationships where that's true, rather than it being an objectively true story about everyone in the world. Right.
[00:08:13]:
And so getting really curious and taking ownership for that, and the fact that maybe this pattern is serving us in some way, even if we don't like it or we say we don't like it, getting curious around, like, what's actually going on here can be part of the process of bringing more awareness to this and ultimately shifting it. So I did say that I was going to talk about, you know, what this specifically looks like in a more anxious, avoidant dynamic. And I think it's important to acknowledge here that for anxiously attached people, the relationship will almost always be the priority, oftentimes to the exclusion of all else. And people with more anxious patterns will quite happily drop other balls to make sure that all of their attention can be on the relationship, if that's what's required. So they might make themselves available in the sense of not making other plans, even if you don't have plans with your partner, particularly in the early stages, I think this can be true, that you just leave the calendar open, so to speak, in case they want to hang out, because you're so committed to being completely available to them all the time. And that's just ranks so far ahead of anything else that you could do with your time. So you don't want to forego the opportunity to potentially see your partner. But it can also look like, you know, if your partner asks you to do something and it's actually really inconvenient for you, but you don't acknowledge that, you just rearrange everything behind the scenes to make things go smoothly for them, to accommodate them, to help them out, which, you know, there's nothing wrong with.
[00:09:37]:
Like, that can be a really beautiful trait. And there are points at which we might push back and advocate for ourselves and say, like, oh, I wish I could help out, but actually that would totally, you know, throw my day out. So I probably can't this time. What we often do is we just do all of the things because we're so committed to being, you know, endlessly adaptable and flexible and helpful and making ourselves so needed. And then when someone maybe doesn't mirror that back to us, they don't reciprocate to the same degree, we start to harbour resentment around it. We notice ourselves keeping score and going, well, I always do this, this and this, this, but you don't even do that. And that's where it really starts to brew and bubble away. And we really can see that toxic resentment building in our relationship and we so readily point the finger at someone else and say, like, it's your fault because you're not doing X, Y and Z.
[00:10:27]:
And we don't really acknowledge that maybe we overextended ourselves in the first instance, maybe we made someone a priority to such an extreme degree. And then we're blaming them for the fact that they're not reciprocating our extreme behaviour. In other words, we kind of blame them for having boundaries when we have no boundaries. And I think this will often happen in an anxious, avoidant dynamic because someone who's more avoidant is unlikely to do that. We know that avoidant folks are not likely to prioritise the relationship above all else and drop everything in their life. If anything, they might be quite protective of other areas of their life and the expectation that they are to drop everything, to just focus on the relationship might be something that they have quite an aversion to and might really push back against. And so whether you're directly or indirectly employ that they should do that, that might actually see them pull away more because they feel this need to protect their autonomy, to protect their selfhood outside of the relationship. And so you just continuing to up the ante in terms of how much you prioritise the relationship and hoping that they follow suit, might actually have the opposite effect.
[00:11:36]:
That might create in them a bit more resistance and pulling away because they feel a bit smothered or overwhelmed by the extent of that expectation. So what to do here? How best to navigate what does the path forward look like if you feel kind of chronically deprioritized by your partner now, as always, it's nuanced and it's hard for me to give a one size fits all solution. So I'm just going to throw a couple of things out there and you can be discerning and adapt that to your situation as makes sense. But the two key pieces that I want to focus on are having a conversation about it, obviously. So to the extent that you really are doing all of the heavy lifting in your relationship and maybe without your instigation, like nothing would ever happen in your relationship, you'd never see your partner, you'd never talk to them because you're the one initiating all contact. And it feels like the effort and input is really, really asymmetrical, like it's just all coming from you and you're really, really over functioning. There might be something to call out there and not in a blaming way, but just in an acknowledgment of like, hey, I've been feeling like a lot of the time it's me who's reaching out or it's me who's making plans and it's starting to feel a bit imbalance. I'm not sure if that's something you've been aware of as well, but either way I'd really appreciate it if we could maybe rebalance the scales a little there and if you could put in a bit more effort into reaching out or planning dates or whatever.
[00:13:03]:
The thing is, obviously again, this will depend on where you're at in the relationship, if it's relatively new versus if it's well established. But the same principle, basically naming it, having a direct, honest, non blaming, non accusatory conversation around it where you take responsibility and go look, partly my doing because I just always fill the gap. That's just what I do by default. But I also realise that it's making me feel a little bit resentful and things do feel a bit imbalanced. So just to flag that, I'm not going to be doing that as much anymore and I'd really appreciate it if you could kind of meet me halfway. So that might be one thing to do is just to name it and acknowledge it and have the conversation and be clear in what your needs and desires are there. The other piece, which sort of goes hand in hand is that you probably need to stop over functioning and you probably need to prioritise yourself. I was saying this to a student in my course the other day around the topic of self abandonment, but it's amazing that the things that we complain about or that really bother us or trigger us in our relationships like, you know, they're not prioritising me, or, you know, they're not taking care of me, or they're not validating my needs or whatever it might be.
[00:14:15]:
Or invariably, I can guarantee that the person saying that is doing the same thing to themselves, that they're not validating their own needs, that they're not prioritising themselves, that they're not taking care of themselves, that they're not supporting themselves. And yet we point out there over at them and say, you're the reason I'm feeling this way because you're not doing the thing that I want you to do. And again, it's not to discount the realness of the relational piece and the importance of that to our overall sense of wellbeing. But we do want to come back to what is within my direct control. Where can I really shift things and transform my relationship from the inside out? Where can I take responsibility for the way that I'm showing up, the way that I'm feeling? And I really think that the way we treat ourselves and relate to ourselves is an incredibly powerful way to do that. So if you are feeling consistently like you are not a priority in your relationship, my question for you is, how good are you at prioritising yourself and your wellbeing? Because my guess is, as we've talked about in today's episode, that if you're someone who is often in this pattern, you probably spend a lot of time focusing on other people and their needs and their convenience and how you can make their lives easier. And in the process, you probably deprioritize yourself as well. And your hope is that somehow you doing that is going to mean that they're going to do the same thing back to you and it'll all even out.
[00:15:38]:
But that isn't what usually happens. They probably happily receive all of your giving and then you get resentful. So I think the recalibration that does have to happen is that you get better at actively taking care of yourself and prioritising yourself and saying no to things if they don't actually work for you. You know, having those boundaries in place that really protect your wellbeing, rather than overextending yourself and over functioning and over giving and then getting pissed off about the fact that everyone else isn't doing the same thing and playing by the invisible script. So getting really clear and really carving that time and space to honour your own needs and to take care of those needs as best you can. But, like, the more we abandon ourselves and drop everything to just be available to the relationship. It does really put a lot of pressure on the relationship to provide everything for us. And then we feel all the more let down, disappointed and frustrated when our partner maybe isn't showing up.
[00:16:34]:
And I think it's only once we've done those things. So I've had clear communication around it, really taken responsibility for how we're showing up, how we're treating ourselves. You know, if things still don't shift and it still feels like you're just not getting anything back from someone, well, that's going to give you a pretty clear picture on like, is this relationship right for me? But until we've done those things, it's maybe hard to judge because there might be, you know, a big part of that is of our creation. Like if we really are contributing to that over functioning, under functioning dynamic, we just won't really know until we make some of those changes and then see what the ripple effect is. So that would be my suggestion if you're in this, is to pull back a bit, maybe have a conversation about it if that feels appropriate, and then see what shifts as a result. Okay, I'm going to leave it there, guys. I really hope that this has been helpful. I did want to say if this is something that's interesting to you, I really recommend the book the Origins of youf by Vienna Farren.
[00:17:32]:
She was on the podcast a couple of years ago. She's a really wonderful marriage and family therapist. She has a really big Instagram account which is is mindful mft. I'm not affiliated with her in any way. I just love her work. And her book the Origins of you goes through five different origin wounds and one of them is the prioritisation wound. And that is pretty much everything we've been talking about today. This wound around never feeling like a priority.
[00:17:57]:
And so I think that while that is not a book about attachment specifically, I suspect it will resonate with many of you and I really, really recommend it. So maybe go check that out if you're, you know, interested in this topic and want to dive a bit deeper into it. Okay, gonna leave it there guys. Thank you so much for joining me and I will see you again soon. 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 at stephanyrigg or stephanyrigg.com and if you enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a review and a five star rating. It really does help so much. Thanks again for being here, and I hope to see you again soon.
Keywords from Podcast Episode
anxious attachment, avoidant attachment, prioritization wound, insecure attachment, emotional unavailability, relational patterns, over-functioning, under-functioning, people pleasing, self abandonment, boundaries, hypervigilance, inconsistency, self prioritization, resentment, communication skills, self worth, fear of abandonment, fear of rejection, childhood wounds, inner child healing, origin wounds, attachment dynamics, anxious-avoidant pairing, emotional safety, unmet needs, self advocacy, personal responsibility, inner healing, attachment repair, secure love, relationship coaching, autonomy, emotional labor, invisible scripts, relationship imbalance, self regulation, validation, self compassion, attachment triggers, intimacy blocks, self trust
#193: The Gifts of Anxious Attachment
We often focus on the challenges of anxious attachment — the overthinking, the fear, the insecurity. But what if some of your most “anxious” traits are actually your greatest strengths? In this episode, I explore the hidden gifts of anxious attachment and how, with the right support, your sensitivity can become your superpower.
When we talk about anxious attachment, the conversation often centres on challenges — the overthinking, the relationship anxiety, the patterns that feel difficult to navigate. But what if we've been missing something crucial? What if some of your most "anxious" traits are actually your greatest strengths?
As someone who works with anxiously attached individuals daily, I've witnessed incredible beauty in the way anxiously attached people move through the world. It's time we shift the narrative from what needs fixing to what deserves celebrating.
Understanding Anxious Attachment Beyond the Struggles
Anxious attachment develops when we learn early that love might be inconsistent or conditional. Whilst this can create challenges in relationships, it also cultivates remarkable capacities that often go unrecognised. These aren't compensatory behaviours or coping mechanisms — they're genuine gifts that make anxiously attached people extraordinary partners, friends, and colleagues.
Research shows that our attachment wounds and gifts are closely connected. The same sensitivity that can cause anxiety also creates profound emotional intelligence. The vigilance that feels exhausting can translate into incredible attunement to others' needs.
1. You Crave Deep, Authentic Connection
In our age of surface-level interactions and casual everything, your desire for genuine intimacy is revolutionary. You're not interested in shallow small talk or superficial encounters — you want the real deal. This craving for depth means you're more likely to:
Build meaningful, lasting relationships
Create emotional safety for others to be vulnerable
Invest in quality over quantity when it comes to connections
Refuse to settle for relationships that don't nourish your soul
While this trait can sometimes lead to disappointment in a world that often prioritizes casual over committed, it's ultimately what creates the deeply fulfilling relationships you're seeking.
2. You're Highly Emotionally Attuned
Your emotional radar is finely tuned. You can sense when something's off in a room, pick up on subtle mood changes, and deeply empathize with others' experiences. This emotional attunement manifests as:
Exceptional ability to read nonverbal cues
Natural capacity for empathy and compassion
Skill at navigating complex emotional dynamics
Talent for making others feel truly seen and understood
This is why many anxiously attached individuals thrive in helping professions — therapy, coaching, social work, healthcare. Your nervous system's sensitivity, whilst sometimes overwhelming, is also a superpower for connecting with others' humanity.
3. You're Committed to Growth and Self-Reflection
Anxiously attached people are often incredibly growth-oriented. You're willing to look within, question your patterns, and do the sometimes uncomfortable work of personal development. This commitment to growth includes:
Openness to feedback and self-reflection
Willingness to challenge limiting beliefs
Investment in therapy, coaching, and personal development
Ability to integrate new insights and make meaningful changes
Whilst this can sometimes tip into over-analysing or thinking you need to "fix" yourself, the underlying willingness to evolve is a tremendous asset for building secure relationships.
4. You're Deeply Loyal and Committed
When you're in a relationship — romantic, friendship, or family — you're all in. Your loyalty runs deep, and you're willing to work through challenges rather than giving up at the first sign of difficulty. This commitment looks like:
Dedication to working through relationship challenges
Reliability that others can count on
Willingness to invest time and energy in relationships
Persistence in pursuing meaningful connections
In our swipe-right culture where people often seek the next best thing, your commitment to showing up consistently is increasingly rare and valuable.
5. You Care Profoundly
Perhaps most beautifully, you care deeply about the people in your life. Your capacity for love is boundless, and you naturally want to support, help, and nurture others. This profound care manifests as:
Generosity with your time, energy, and resources
Natural instinct to support others through difficulties
Ability to celebrate others' successes genuinely
Willingness to go out of your way to help those you love
Honouring Your Gifts Whilst Building Security
The goal isn't to change these beautiful qualities — it's to build enough inner security that you can express them in healthy ways. When we lack self-worth or feel insecure, these gifts can sometimes lead us into unbalanced patterns:
Deep connection-seeking might become accepting less than we deserve
Emotional attunement might become people-pleasing or emotional caretaking
Loyalty might become staying in relationships that don't serve us
Profound care might become self-abandonment in service of others
Building secure attachment doesn't mean becoming less sensitive, caring, or invested. It means developing the inner foundation to love from a place of wholeness rather than need. When you feel secure in your worth, these gifts become even more powerful:
You can seek deep connection whilst maintaining healthy boundaries
You can be emotionally attuned without taking responsibility for others' feelings
You can be loyal and committed to relationships that reciprocate your investment
You can care deeply whilst also caring for yourself
You are not a problem to be solved or a project to be fixed. You are a deeply feeling, incredibly caring human being with remarkable gifts to offer the world. The sensitivity that sometimes feels like too much is also what makes you capable of profound love, genuine empathy, and meaningful connection.
The work isn't about changing who you are. It's about creating the inner security to be who you are — fully, freely, and without apology.
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:04]:
You're listening to On Attachment, a place to learn about how attachment shapes the way we experience relationships and where you'll gain the guidance, knowledge and practical tools to overcome insecurity and build healthy, thriving relationships. I'm your host relationship coach, Stephanie Rigg, and I'm really glad you're here. Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. In today's episode we are talking about something a little different, which is the gifts of anxious attachment. I put a post on Instagram up a couple of weeks ago on the beautiful traits of anxious attachment and it really resonated with people and I received so many lovely comments of people thanking me for shining a light on some of the positive attributes of anxiously attached people. Because naturally we spend so much time talking about the things that are hard and the traits that might make relationships difficult or the low self worth, all of the things that we feel are quote unquote wrong with us as anxiously attached people. And so I thought it might be nice to shift focus to all of the things that are beautiful about folks with anxious attachment.
[00:01:13]:
The traits that I see as being absolute gifts and that make you a beautiful partner, friend, colleague, family member. Because there is truly so much goodness in anxiously attached people. And I think it's important that we acknowledge that and really own those gifts rather than always seeing ourselves as some sort of project that needs fixing or a problem that needs solving. So that's what we're going to be talking about today. Quick announcement Before I do, my Secure Self Challenge kicked off two days ago. If you want to sneak in, I'll leave registration open for the next couple of days, after which I will close doors for this round until maybe end of this year or early next year is likely to be the next time I run the Challenge. So if you're interested in spending four weeks with me diving deep into building self worth in a really supportive community space, I would love to have you there. Second quick announcement is more in the vein of a favour.
[00:02:06]:
I've been working on growing my YouTube channel recently and I've been recording a lot of exclusive videos and content for YouTube. So if you're someone who enjoys watching YouTube, I would be so grateful if you could head over there and support my channel by subscribing, sharing, liking all of those things. That would be a huge help to me and hopefully you can get a lot of value out of the content that I'm creating there. Okay, so let's dive into this conversation around the beautiful traits of anxious attachment and the way that I want to structure. This is sort of inspired by a quote that I really love from I believe Alexandra Solomon, who's a therapist and author, which is that our wounds and our gifts are next door neighbours. And so as I share each of these gifts of anxious attachment, I'm also going to talk about most like the underbelly side of it or what can happen when we maybe lack self worth or we are in less healthy relationship patterns. So sort of looking at the way that these traits can express when we've done the work and what can happen when we maybe don't have guardrail around that, when we lack that inner security. So I hope to sort of paint a vision for you of how you can really honour and own all these beautiful gifts that you have, rather than having them maybe lead you astray or lead you into patterns that are not serving you.
[00:03:17]:
Okay, so the first one is you crave deep, true connection. I think that in a world where there is so much casual, superficial everything, being someone who really values depth and intimacy and connection, that is a beautiful trait, that is an asset for sure. That is something that we want to honour and own. I think so many anxiously attached people make themselves wrong for that. There's this sense of like, oh, I should be more chill, I should be more open to casual sex or whatever it might be. But I think that your desire for and commitment to depth and intimacy and the fact that you don't want shallow interactions, you're not interested in superficial encounters, I think that we need more of that in this world. And so it's not something to make yourself wrong for at at all. It is something to own and honour.
[00:04:09]:
I think what we need to watch out for there around craving depth is that sometimes when we do have a deep connection with someone, it can blind us to other things. So we can be so fed by the depth of connection that that's all that matters and it becomes our whole field of vision. And we maybe lose sight of not only other things in our own life, but maybe things that aren't quite right about the relationship because the connection takes priority and deep connection feels so deep, nourishing to us that maybe we don't want to see things that might not be right there. But I think that as a starting point, our desire for and commitment to depth of connection is a beautiful trait and something to really be celebrated. Okay, the next one is you are highly emotionally attuned. So the EQ of anxiously attached people in terms of reading other people's emotional states, really deeply attuning empathy, compassion, the anxiously attached person's capacity for these things and skill at navigating complex and nuanced emotional dynamics is an incredible asset. Again, it's something that I think is increasingly rare. So if you're someone who can read the room, can sense if something's off, can know if someone's upset or something's bothering them, I think that that is absolutely a gift.
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It's not something that we need to pathologize or make ourselves wrong for. And when channelled and used with appropriate boundaries so we're not overstepping into someone else's inner world or making ourselves responsible for managing, managing everyone's moods or people pleasing, doing those sorts of things, the actual underlying ability to attune to other people, to make them feel seen, to empathise, to feel genuine compassion for what other people are going through, that is something that is so, so valuable. And I think it's why so many people with anxious attachment patterns end up in helping professions. So being therapists, being coaches, facilitators, social workers. I think that that's why is because we really do feel into the humanness of others and we have this gen desire to help and support and such a natural skill set in that area. Okay, the next one is you are so growth oriented, you're so willing to reflect and self explore and learn more and understand yourself and other people and what is driving your patterns. And that is such an asset, right? Having that willingness to look within and to question and to reflect and to integrate, that is such a valuable trait. I think the underbelly side of this is that we can maybe approach ourselves with an energy of needing to fix, thinking that there's something wrong with us.
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Like that desire to grow can almost feel like at a bottomless pit or a horizon that we're never going to reach. It's like we maybe think that if we can just keep taking in more information or keep learning more, then we'll be able to outsmart our anxiety or outsmart the things that feel hard. And so I think there is something to be said for the way that we approach all of that growth and the energy that it comes from. But at its core, I think the willingness of anxiously attached people to do that work, to look within, to reflect, to grow, is something that will stand you in such great stead in your own inner relationship and any relationships that you have, whether romantic or otherwise. Okay, the next one is you are loyal and committed. I think that again, in our modern world, loyalty and fidelity and commitment, these are really valuable and Increasingly rare, particularly in dating culture and even in relationships more broadly. I think people are pretty quick to jump ship and to feel like someone better. Something better is only a swipe away.
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This almost like fast food dating and relationship culture that apps and the Internet and social media has promulgated for anxiously attached people. There is this sense of I'm in this and I'm all in. And I think that can be a really important and beautiful trait because obviously relationships are hard. And so being willing to do the work and being in it for the long haul, being dedicated and committed and loyal is a really beautiful and again, increasingly rare trait. So that's not something to make yourself wrong for in and of itself. Again, the maybe not so healthy expression of this trait might be overstaying in relationships that are not working. It might be refusing to see the reality of a relationship that isn't meeting our needs, that isn't aligned, being loyal and committed in a really imbalanced way. So where someone isn't reciprocating that at all.
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But we struggle to not continue giving and giving and working and committing even when we're not being met in that effort. So I think that can be the underbelly side of this trait, even though the trait in and of itself, I think is a beautiful thing and a real asset. And last but not least, you care so deeply about the people that you love. And again, this is in romantic relationships, it's family friendships. You really deeply care. And what a beautiful thing that is. You are so generous with your love. You go out of your way to help people, to support people, to check up on people, people you want, to make people feel loved.
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And you really will go out of your way to do that. When someone's going through something hard, your instinct is to help and to support. And that makes you a beautiful friend, it makes you a beautiful partner, it makes you a beautiful family member and colleague. People know that you care. There's never a doubt in anyone's mind that you are there for them when they need you and that you will always be there as a shoulder to cry on or open arms, an ear for listening. And that is, is such a beautiful thing and something that you should really acknowledge about yourself and celebrate about yourself. Again, I think the only thing we need to watch for here is the tendency to invest so much in relationships that are maybe imbalanced, where you're maybe not getting that same degree of care back. And part of that can be our own difficulty in receiving, but part of it can be where we choose to invest our time and energy.
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So just being mindful of that potential for a mismatch in effort and care and attention. But fundamentally, your generosity of spirit and your capacity to care for and support the people around you is boundless and beautiful and something that you should be really proud of. Okay, so those were five beautiful traits gifts of anxiously attached people. I hope that if you're listening to this as an anxiously attached person, you're feeling really seen and feeling the love and maybe feeling encouraged and even uplifted by the recognition of all of that. Because I think we can so often fail to see all of that in ourselves. We do tend to focus on what feels hard or what we perceive as being our neg negative traits. But there is so much goodness in you. And really the work is not about being different.
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It's just creating enough security that we can love in a really healthy way. We can channel all of those gifts into relationships that feel safe and reciprocal and mutual so that we can be free to love and care generously without the fear and anxiety that can go along with it. So sending you so much love. And if you're listening to this and you're in a relationship with someone who's more anxious, I hope that this has shone a light on those things for you and you can give them some extra love and recognition of all of the goodness that they bring to your life. Okay, gonna leave it there guys. Thank you so much for joining me and I look forward to seeing you again next week. Thanks guys. Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment.
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If you want to go deeper on all things attachment, love and relationships, you can find me on Instagram at stephanyrigg or stephanyrigg.com and if you enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grate. Could leave a review and a five star rating. It really does help so much. Thanks again for being here and I hope to see you again soon.
Keywords from Podcast Episode
boundaries, anxious attachment, secure relationships, self worth, communication skills, setting boundaries, requests, ultimatums, deal breakers, threats, insecurity, self advocacy, core wounds, self compassion, self regulation, self care, integrity, self respect, self honouring, inner critic, non negotiables, relationship coaching, self trust, control, surrender, attachment patterns, emotional safety, unmet needs, self abandonment, personal limits