A little while back I joined a healing circle with my therapist Carina, focused on healing relationships. First of all I just want to highlight the power of a healing circle. It’s a safe space for women to come together and share their stories (or not if you’d prefer to remain anonymous and just listen). I promise you’ll start to feel so much less alone and realise we’re all in this together. Mental health can feel so lonely at times, like you’re the only person going through it, but receiving support from other women can do wonders for the soul. Plus you’ll gain so much wisdom from your teacher, giving you the tools to continue on your own healing journey afterwards. They are a wonderful way to start receiving support if you’re not ready for 1-1 sessions, and they cover a whole host of subjects depending on what you want to focus on.
The reason I joined this particular circle was because relationships are difficult. Whether it’s romantic, family, friends or colleagues, it comes down to two people trying to navigate their own issues whilst trying to understand the other. And most of us are carrying a lot of our own issues. There are certain things I personally struggle with when it comes to relationships and I wanted to understand why, and what can I do to heal them. It was no surprise that it all stems from childhood...
Here’s the main things I learnt about healing relationships:
What we fear in relationships today we more than likely have already experienced in our childhoods. For example if we’re scared of being ourselves in a relationship, we may have been bullied or mocked for something we did as a child, therefore making it feel unsafe to truly express who we really are. Or if we find it difficult to trust in our relationships perhaps an adult we should have trusted hurt us when we were younger, therefore making us believe we can't trust people we love.
To fully connect in your relationships you need to be your authentic self. It may feel easier to live in a world with a mask on but it’s exhausting trying to be someone else. When you let someone in and let them see who you really are, you begin to heal. Relationships are where we heal if we allow ourselves to. Although they will always bring up your deepest wounds, they also offer you the chance for your deepest self-love and healing. My relationship has been my mirror, showing me what needed to be healed.
Our relationship patterns are a by-product of our childhoods and how we were brought up. As a child we needed safety, love, understanding, acceptance, to be heard and to be seen. If you only received a few of these, or you received them inconsistently, you may struggle in relationships as an adult. To add to this, if you suffered adverse childhood experiences, you’re even more likely to struggle with relationships.
It is always important to prioritise our own mental and emotional health before focusing on relationships. Other people can’t be everything to you and you should never expect your partner/friend/family member to fulfil your every need. You also need to learn how to give yourself everything you’re searching for in someone else. You are your one constant and it always comes back to loving yourself first.
As I learnt about attachment styles I identified with characteristics of both anxious (overthinking, fearing the worse case scenario, desperate for love, sensitive to others needs, needs reassurance), as well as avoidant (struggle to receive compliments/love, trust issues, closing off your heart, withdrawing from difficult situations). I was confused how I could be elements of both. Then I learnt there was an attachment style called disorganised - a mixture of the two. People with disorganised attachment styles have almost always suffered childhood trauma.
A person's attachment style is their specific way of relating to others in relationships. According to attachment theory, attachment style is shaped and developed in early childhood in response to our relationships with our earliest caregivers. There are four main adult attachment styles: secure, anxious, avoidant, and fearful-avoidant (aka disorganised).
It is absolutely possible to move from an avoidant, anxious or disorganised attachment style to a secure attachment style with the work of inner child healing. When I first realised my attachment style I felt angry at things that have happened to me, angry that I have the ‘worst’ attachment style and have to work harder than most to feel secure. But then I reminded myself that I am now an adult and no longer a child. As adults we can no longer play victim and have to take healing into our own hands. I can’t be angry and blame other people forever.
A secure attachment style sounds like a dream and what I’m working towards every day. It means feeling confident and secure in yourself, not settling for anything less than you deserve, able to be your authentic self and be vulnerable with people you love, living by boundaries, being able to openly communicate with others, no more assumptions or worse case scenarios, not taking things personally, being able to receive love and support, being fun and playful, being able to give and receive praise and affection. When you reach a secure attachment style you get to experience all this good stuff and fully enjoy all relationships because they are the best thing about life. If that’s not worth healing yourself for I don’t know what is.
How to work on developing a secure attachment style
I can safely say I’m well on my way to feeling more secure after a lot of inner work and therapy. But I still have days where I feel either avoidant or anxious, which I'm sure can make me a very confusing person to be with sometimes. If you have this attachment style I completely understand how difficult it is. Human beings need connections with other human beings. We are genetically programmed to make those connections from birth when we reach out by clinging and crying for our mother. When we struggle with connections it's hard. But ultimately I love people, I love being in love, I love forming deep connections with others and being completely vulnerable, and that's why the inner work is so important to me. I believe that one day I'll have a secure attachment style but until then I'm going to keep working on it.
Here's to us all being secure one day 💗
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