Anxious Attachment 101

well hello everybody I am excited to be back in here to the cinema cameras correctly it's nice to be back here doing our third and final installment of this three-day livestream series on attachment basics 101 so far we have talked about disorganized attachment what I like to refer to as spice of life or kind of attachment we've talked about avoidant attachment what I like to refer to as rolling stones and today we are going to talk about anxious attachment what I like to refer to as open-hearted attachment and so the this particular live stream event is in honor of a 30% off discount that I'm offering until September 1st for individuals that are interested in purchasing these courses you can find links to that in the caption this video and so really well I'm doing these live streams to give you a taste of what it's like inside these courses and what kind of material I am offering you so in keeping with our tradition for this live stream series again feel free to type your name and where you're coming from in the chat box there and or to ask any questions that may be popping up at the end I will try to answer some of those questions with the time that we have allotted and so without further ado I will jump right into our content for today so I'm gonna call this video segment three strengths of the open heart and love and so if you are sick of walking on eggshells or chasing after an unattainable partner in your relationships this is a video that you are gonna want to stick around for because I'm going to explain to you how you may be struggling with anxious attachment again what I call an open-hearted attachment style and how you can access three strengths of the open heart to inspire a lover to go from you're too good for me to you make want to be a better partner okay and so again today's videos in promotion of our 30% off discount on my 101 courses and that includes anxious avoidant and disorganized attachment so today we are highlighting anxious attachment and if you don't know me my name is Brianna MacWilliam and I am a licensed and board certified creative arts therapist author and educator and I've been in the field for about 13 years now and so using a psycho-spiritual approach with creative arts interventions I help individuals struggling with insecure attachment go from feeling fearful and Confused to achieving what I call self sovereignty and calling in those soul-shaking passionate partnerships that they want without having to talk in circles around their feelings for hours or even years on end with no tangible results and I use an approach which I call the Mac method and that stands for mastery awareness and creativity and it's founded upon a principle that self sovereignty evolves out of a continuous loop between conscious awareness and creative expression and so this loop uses three practical tools to maintain its momentum and that is cognitive reframing body activation and arts based experiential ''s and so today we are going to explore a bit of cognitive reframing with some psychoeducation around these three strengths of the open heart and then we're going to do an exercise that taps into body activation and arts based experiential x' so at the end again i'm going to try to answer some questions that pop up on the feed so if questions come up as we go through this content feel free to type them there in the top box and i will try to address them now when open hearts are in love they tend to be pretty desirous of affection attention they frequently need reassurance and they tend to be approval seeking so in our an open heart might be unaware of the appropriateness of their needs depending on a partner to be the primary source of their emotional well-being now on the other hand an open heart could be very keenly aware of their neediness and they try to suppress their needs fearful that there is going to push a partner away they don't want to be too much of a burden to them and so this may result in the condition in which you're feeling a state of constant preoccupation with a romantic partner and the relationship and so there's typically an underlying fear of abandonment or rejection as well as a fear of not being good enough and so there's an essential disconnect and a distrust of your own intuition or gut feelings so more specifically open hearts may struggle in the following ways you might be accustomed to a lack of love in your romantic relationships and so you tend to fall into people-pleasing mode you might give too much and then wait around a little bit too long for the reciprocation of loving feelings maybe you take on more than the lion's share of responsibility guilt and or blame in the relationship because you think that if you're responsible for something going wrong that it must be within your power to fix it you may have critically low self-esteem and struggle with feelings of unworthiness deep down you might believe that you have to earn love and approval and so you're drawn to partners that are more challenging or edgy or kind of make you work for it and on the other hand if a partner gives you love and affection to freely perhaps you find them too nice or too boring by being over helpful you kind of make yourself indispensable to a partner and you think if they need me they won't leave me but this generally tends to be kind of a double-edged sword because since you've worked so hard to make your partner need you you always kind of question whether or not they really love you for you and you probably struggle with knowing who the real you is anyway and so then you tend to get lost in the potential of the relationship rather than the reality of it and you may also struggle with other forms of addiction like drug abuse alcohol abuse food addictions shopping addictions hoarding gaming and so on but really the hardest thing for an open heart is that they usually attract other partners with insecure attachment styles and so they fall into what's often called the anxious avoidant which is a rollercoaster situation a circumstance where you typically find yourself with a partner that is emotionally unavailable and that proves your deepest fear which is that you are unlovable okay and so in partnership for the open heart the deeper and the more intimate your feelings become the more closeness and contact you desire and it's important for the open heart to learn how to allow a partner to make genuine contact with the parts that they may be trying to hide for fear of scaring a partner off because only then will they be able to genuinely feel the love that they so desperately desire now equally they have to be willing to stop idealizing their partners and holding their lived experience up to an impossible standard of perfection so hiding behind a dazzling performance or clinging to a perfect fantasy of what could be can lead to some damaging tendencies such as when it comes to expressing a need in the relationship now sometimes open hearts as I said before a hyper aware of their neediness and they work really hard to suppress it because they think that their partners are going to abandon them if they knew how insecure they really were underneath it all and so open hearts have a tendency to kind of give what they want to receive they ask what they want to be asked and they say what they want to hear and they assume that others won't ask and say what they want as well now similarly they also tend to believe that if I have to ask then it doesn't count so they believe a partner should be able to kind of read their minds and anticipate their needs because if they have to express a need then somehow their partner failed them or it creates a tremendous amount of anxiety because they're convinced that voicing their needs ultimately leads to abandonment and rejection but hoping a partner will just figure out the needs of the open heart and being disappointed and disillusioned when they don't is actually kind of a function of giving their power and authority away in a relationship additionally because they have discounted their own needs so much a lot of open hearts are actually confused about what their own feelings are and that they really need and want for themselves and so they tend to rely on their partners to kind of figure that out for them while at the same time trying hard to never be a burden as much as possible and it creates a dumble bind which eventually turns into a pressure cooker and so sooner or later the open heart ends up exploding and punishing their partner doling out ultimatums or turning that pressure in on themselves and then they become depressed and self criticizing and maybe that's when they turn to an addictive substance for relief or maybe they eat over their feelings such as you know trying to stuff it back down or maybe they obsessively control their intake as a form of managing feelings of helplessness and or inflicting a kind of self punishment so if we are to look at the anxious person's inner monologue it might look something like this partner says you know I think I might need a little bit of time alone you kind of immediately jump to what did I do wrong and how can I fix it ASAP okay a partner might say you know I'm sorry I didn't text you sooner I was chatting with a friend first thing you think is who is this friend and why is it that they're taking priority over me okay partner might say I'm gonna have to cancel work is piling up and I need to get this done and you might think I knew it they're getting bored of me already okay partner says I don't need your approval for every person I accept on social media you might think they're cheating on me and you know what they're not gonna get away with it okay so typically there's a jump to a negative outcome right from automatic negative thinking but I feel like a lot of what is explored in the literature and and in other media outlets are typically the problems that anxiety creates but I want to focus today primarily on the strengths because there are tremendous skills and abilities that evolve as a result of this type of insecure attachment so on the positive side open hearts are very affectionate and they give a lot to a partner they are empathic and they deeply enjoy offering care solace and loving support to their partners you will never feel like anything less than a top priority if your partner is an open heart because you can rest assured that you are always on your partner's mind and if you are an open heart it's likely that others see you as being loyal and compassionate and they come to you for advice or counsel or insight and these partners also bring a level of fire and passion and excitement to the relationship and they are constantly thinking up new ways to entertain and impress you they are romantic and they notice even the smallest things about their partners so they are very thoughtful and considerate with their compliments and their gift-giving they have a very endearing ability to make their partner's feel seen and appreciated which also makes them very attractive and easy to be around they're very forgiving and they usually are quite committed to working through whatever issues might arise in a relationship and this can be a lot of fun and it can lead to creative ways of expressing your love but it also might tend to foster an element of performance in the relationship so there may be a need to entertain a partner and please at all times and in all ways because you think you need to maintain a partner's attention that way and so for the open heart the challenge is learning when to stop and take off that mask in costume and apply what I think their three greatest strengths are to good use and that is empathy generosity and creativity so I want to talk a bit about empathy so empathy is the art of stepping into the shoes of another person and looking at the world from their perspective and feeling the way that that person feels so mirror neurons which are the smart cells in our brains that allow us to understand another person's actions and tensions and or feelings allow for us to experience empathy and they fire when we experience an emotion and similarly when we see others experiencing emotions such as happiness fear anger or sadness and so mirror neurons help us to be empathic and fundamentally what's called attuned to other people and in particular our partners and so if you have empathy as a significant strength you probably readily identify with people's situations and you can see things quite clearly from multiple perspectives you might find it relatively easy to put yourself in someone else's shoes and you appreciate not only what people are saying but why they are saying it okay and so you might have a keen interest in the understanding of what makes people tick what their underlying motivations and desires might be and so if the open heart can apply those empathic superpowers to increasing their emotional vocabulary assuming more compassion with their deep structure communications and prioritizing their own self-care it can actually be a tremendous place to start with strengthening the foundations of a relationship now on the shadow side however so most of our strengths usually when we express them in the extreme step over into a shadow side on the shadow side of this an open heart can sometimes feel as though their empathy gets them into trouble okay or it weakens their personal boundaries in love especially because if they empathize too deeply with the struggles of their partner then they too often deprioritize their own needs and desires but the issue is that's not really empathy it's really more a form of enmeshment because it starts to dismiss the individuality of your self and of the other person and it tends to perceive any disagreement contra or contrast between you as an empathic or as an abandonment of the relationship now in my experience there are really three types of empaths and that is the diffuse and path the fix-it empath and the secure empath and the diffuse and the fix-it empath usually have the most trouble and how they respond to those struggles usually defines their attachment style as well so if you're interested in learning more about that I do recommend checking out my 101 course on interest attachment through the links in the caption of this video in the course I also just discuss Karen McClaren six essential aspects of empathy a bit more in depth but for the purposes of today's video I want to move on to our second strength and that is generosity so when we think about generosity you know mo stavos liken it to kindness or compassion we think of qualities that are gentler tender and potentially self-effacing and I would say is a big misconception we think it's more aligned with weakness than with strength and this is because we tend to think of generosity in terms of giving something up for someone else so we think of generosity really as a form of self-sacrifice but I would say that generosity generates its power from a gesture of letting go of being able to give to others it demonstrates our ability to let go of attachments let's say ego attachments that otherwise keep us in prison by a need and desire for things to go exactly just so exactly the way we imagine they must be and so while open hearts are really no strangers to giving a lot they often keep a bit of an invisible scoreboard hovering above the relationship so some part of them really gives in order to get and if they don't get rather than get angry at a partner because that would threaten the relationship and thus their attachment security they might turn it in on themselves and then they become anxious and depressed and so true generosity is really not about giving without expectation of receipt so much as it is giving with the understanding that it need not come from a place of scarcity to be of value so when you give to get it's because you think that you have depleted yourself in some way and that the measure of your sacrifice makes you worthy but when you are fully sovereign within yourself and you know that all of life flows through you with an endless supply you are never depleted and generosity becomes an expression of non-attachment to this minutia of life so generosity becomes source from a place of abundance okay and this doesn't mean that generosity eradicate Saul of our ego attachments automatically or even immediately I want to give you a quote here and I'm in her article it's called the real power of generosity by Sharon Salzberg she says when we practice the act of simply observing our attachments through acts of generosity they loosen they become less opaque and less solid in that place we can find greater spaciousness in our great capacity for it and if that can come from a place of self care and endless resourcefulness then that is going to shift an attitude of scarcity in any relationship okay and so the last strength I want to talk about here is creativity so sometimes when I suggest creativity's a means by which we can step into our lives as an authority of it rather than as a survivor of it people's defenses just go right up immediately they are concerned about performance and product but creativity is just not about product it's about process to be creative doesn't mean that you can make brilliant works of art poetry or music per se it just means that you are able to think divergently in any given circumstance you are coming up with various solutions to a problem and you know researchers refer to this as little C creativity and it's a form of everyday creativity so the mental hamster wheels that a lot of anxiously attached folks find themselves on you know that might feel like torture to them because you're stuck in a negative feedback loop but it often reflects a tremendous capacity for creativity all those predictions and scenarios that you are dreaming up as possible outcomes to any number of variables to any number of contexts and conversations you may be having with your partners are actually wonderful reflections of your capacity to visualize and then manifest those visions and so your creativity to vision a new way to be in a relationship is actually going to be able to give you a blueprint of the kind of relationship for which you may not have had any models so in fact this is maybe one of the most important strengths that you have because if you have no models for the thing that you want you will are responsible for visioning it okay so developing a practice of shifting your mindset and your feeling States around love is probably one of the most creative endeavors a person can pursue particularly someone who is an open heart and so in my one courses being able to tap into your strengths to support a more secure position in love also requires naming your fears and recognizing the desires on the back side of it the unspoken desires on the back side of it and so using the Mac method and starting with cognitive reframing we've been talking about this here with talking about the three strengths of the open heart now in my anxious attachment 101 course I teach you how to do this with a seven step focus we'll today I'm going to jump ahead a little bit and I want to share with you a few of the fears and desire statements that would be the results of a focus reel like this and as you listen to these I want you to just notice any shifts in your body in your emotional state as you simply listen to these desire statements because once you hear them out loud already things are gonna start to change for you and then we're gonna go and do a small demo of an exercise that's going to utilize body activation and an arts based experiential so before we transition into that I would love it if you could just give me a thumbs up or a like or a comment in the feed there to let me know if any of this is resonating with you so far and or if there are any open hearts here with me today or someone who feels like their partner is an open heart and they feel like this could be a benefit we have been here feeling like I'm an open heart okay great open heart sounds so nice how about compulsive and needy well we talked a bit about that do you do Q&A livestreams yes this is a Q&A live stream that was my ex I'm more the avoidant one it was a push-pull cycle mm-hmm yep I'm actually on two cameras here today this is embarrassing how precisely you're describing me right now how do we overcome this is really beautifully put okay well how do we overcome so we're gonna we're gonna dive into that right now so that's what we're gonna be demoing here and again this is a taste of my attachment anxious attachment 101 course which is 30% off and this is supposed to give you a taste of what you get if that's something you're interested in so so I'm my method of practice I call the Mack method it stands for mastery awareness and creativity okay and in the Mack method I believe that our fears can also be very revealing of not only where our resistance to allowing things into our lives to allowing for aspects of ourselves to express themselves to allowing ourselves to let go of ego attachments our fears can can be revealing of not only where those things lie but also of where our deepest desires are truly sourced from okay and usually it is not we often think that my desire is wrong or my desire as what's making me so miserable but it's not that it's the fearful beliefs you have constructed around your desires and so often when you actually hear your deepest desire in its purest form you will notice and you will feel a significant shift okay you there will be a resonance in your heart so what I want to share with you here are a couple of fears that were offered by some open-hearted individuals in my community and I'm offering the unspoken desires statement on the backside of them so these are statements that would be the result of those seven step focus wheels that I teach you how to do okay so first fear would be my deepest level of fear is emotional and physical abandonment annihilation of self surrounding layers of fear include exposure of defensive adaptations fear of authentic connection and vulnerability loss of a partner and a relationship fantasy so if they will love me unconditionally then I must be worthy and good enough there's a fear of grieving what was lost in childhood I just have so many layers and so many fears okay so this is what an unspoken desire might be on the backside of these fears that we just discussed because I stand so sovereignly within myself and I know myself so well I know I will survive any great loss of love because I would never abandon me and I choose to write my story as one of resilience and enduring vitality I have a deep and abiding faith that this Gill's I have hone to help me through the hard times can be reshaped and contribute to the construction of meaning around any hardship that I might face presently or in the future I am completely capable of repairing myself and rewriting my childhood stories so they reflect the great capacities that I have already acquired I know my worth is inherent in my obvious integrity and capacity to alkalize that which no longer serves me ok do you hear the power of the statement do you hear the power of the desire ok and that is and and and that is what our anxious fears actually tell us ok here's another one I'm afraid I won't feel excited or inspired by a secured person or triggered I'm afraid I will feel bored with a secured person and I'm afraid of being too much too burdensome or too intense ok so that is the fear and you know what if if these fears if you feel like these fears resonate with you again just give me a thumbs up or like or just raise your hand in the comment box there and I'll know if these if these resonate so here's the unspoken desire on the other side of that fear I am in complete command of my excited feelings and I am on fire about life regardless of my partner's attitude I do not need external sources of stimulation to dictate my thoughts feelings or behaviors nor do I need them as distractions from a negative self opinion I know I'm worthy and will succeed at anything I value enough to commit myself to including relationships I appreciate and acknowledge the pull of infatuation but I don't let it sweep me away I am perfectly fine with taking things slow because I know relationships of substance take time and a steady pace and my life experience has taught me that substance is what I truly want at this time to accomplish this I can establish firm but flexible boundaries with lovers so that I don't let things pile up before expressing what I'm really feeling and being too much or too intense because I know that because I know these things about myself I know I am perfectly capable of finding a loving and healthy healthy relationship okay okay so a few people are resonating with that so here's one more fear I fear that I will end up alone that the older I get the less interest partners will have in me and I'll have to choose between being alone or settling for someone because I just don't want to be alone that there are things fundamentally wrong with me that will prevent me from finding love and true happiness unless I hide certain aspects of myself so again just give me a like or a comment there in the chat box to let me know if this is a fear that resonates with you here is the unspoken desire on the backside of that fear with age I am graced with the ability to make discerning selections when it comes to partnership and I know I will have my pick because I know the world is full of magic and endless possibility anytime I get stuck in either/or thinking I can always access the wisdom of my inner being and find a multitude of alternative options because of this ability I know I never have to settle in partnership because I have built a community of friends and loved ones that confirm for me everyday that love is always available to me in a variety of forms I feel worthy of love and confident in my uniqueness as a singularity in the world there is only one me and this acceptance of myself allows me to understand and receive the love and regard of those who understand how special I truly am and deeply appreciate that about me okay okay so I want to transition now so here those are some fears and unspoken desires that often I think plagued some of the anxious heart and the anxious open heart and you know what's interesting is when I was collecting these fears and unspoken desires through my private Facebook group and they were being shared in the feed a lot of what people noticed was that the fears of someone who is a spice of life ER or rolling or an anxious open-heart are actually quite similar a lot of them are actually quite the same so that is that is one thing to keep in mind now I want to transition into our brief experiential which is going to utilize some body activation as well as some arts based experiential so I have some paper on the wall here behind me if you have something to write in or draw with I invite you to grab that now I have some colored utensils you might you might like to do that but first what I'd like you to do is I would like you to identify a fear that you have it could be one of the three that we just are that I just shared with you or it could be another fear that you have okay and based on the examples that I just shared with you imagine what might be the desire statement on the backside of it okay what might be the desire statement on the back side of it doesn't have to be as complex as the ones that I shared it could be like well I'm afraid of I'm afraid of being alone so most people will think well the desire on the backside of that is to be with someone but it's not the desire on the back side of that is I feel like I am perfectly fine and thriving and excited and on fire about life whether or not I am alone I am perfectly comfortable being by myself and I know that this doesn't mean that I have to live in isolation away from the stimulus of the world and away from the stimulus of loving relationships that I am flexible and resourceful enough to be able to get those needs met in a variety of ways because I am an open heart and I know how to access my creativity right and I know how to expand my empathy beyond the narrow focus of romantic relationship right so so that would actually be the desire statement on the back of a fear like that so I'd have you identify one that feels particularly prominent for you right now you might even just write that down okay and then let's say well bring some people bring in some sound healing here too sometimes I bring in some instruments too to play with so let's see here okay I'm gonna bring in my singing bowl just gonna mark the beginning and end of this practice so I'm gonna have you find a comfortable spot just kind of settle in if possible I'd invite you to remain seated with your feet flat on the floor just helps you to attend bitter and take a breath just notice the way the oxygen fills your lungs and the way you are releasing it without any need to change it just witnessing your inner space and I'd like you to imagine that with every inhalation you are creating even more spaciousness inside of you simply recognizing that you have an inner space and that the more you breathe into it the wider it might expand and the farther or your inner vision might see you might even put your hands on your belly noticing the expansion as you inhale and releasing any tension as you exhale just widening that inner space intentionally [Music] now I'm gonna have you call your energy home and to do this I'd like you to imagine opening up your crown the top of your head almost like it's a door to your basement or a trapdoor just imagine opening up a door on the top of your head and giving your soul your essence your energy full permission to really sink down and inhabit your sacred temple oftentimes we walk around with our energy floating just above our heads and we've been talking a lot on this call so there's a lot of energy in your mind and in your brain now we're inviting it down and like ribbons we're going to slip your energy out of any thoughts or entanglements beyond the present moment just calling it home and letting it become concentrated in your body and once you are fully situated in your body I'd like you to draw your awareness to your mind's eye and I'm going to call this your third eye which is an energy center in the center of your brow between your eyes this is a place of visioning it's light aspect is wisdom its shadow aspect is illusion and so today we're talking about the illusion of fear and tapping into the wisdom of desire so in your mind's eye I would like you to call up that fear that you identified and to project it on a screen almost as if you are in a movie theater just project that fear onto the screen and for today's practice imagine that fear has form that it is figurative that it has color and shape and texture and see it there and now with the breath I'd like you to imagine breathing some life into that image almost as if you just pressed play and just watch what unfolds so take a snapshot of what ever you may have been witnessing in your mind just take a mental note of what you saw regard the energy tied up in that image that fear and like a stone through water on the next exhalation drop it into your body just imagine dropping it down like a stone down the length of your body and notice where it lands it is going to want to go somewhere in your body your body is the inner landscape and just notice where it wants to go use your imagination for this this is how this part of you speaks to you if it doesn't come to you immediately just imagine where would it go now take note of it we are situated in the theater in the movie theater take another breath and now we are gonna project on the screen your desire the unspoken desire to which this fear points I'm just imagine projecting that on the screen also giving it shape color form texture allowing it to be somewhat figurative see it there on the screen and with the breath breathe life into it give it some vitality and animation and just watch the film that plays now take snapshot of that witnessing in your mind breathing it in almost as if it is a fragrance just taking a mental note of what you saw and now collecting all the energy surrounding that desire and that witnessing on your next exhalation drop it like a stone into your body just drop it down and notice where it lands where it wants to go it will want to go somewhere inside the landscape of your body and just allow it to go there [Music] and take note of it now I invite you if it is comfortable to take both hands and make contact with your body identifying where your fear resides and where your desire resides just touching those parts of your body right now and seeing those forms in your mind eye your mind's eye just remain open to whatever wisdoms or guidance the conversation between the two has for you today if there is a deeper wisdom or a knowing that you are intended to take away from this practice just allow that to come to you now [Music] and so I invite you to breathe in that witnessing almost as if it is a fragrance taking a snapshot in your mind allowing it to sink in through the breath and the lungs into your bloodstream pumping to the rhythm of your heartbeat from your crown to your toes from your fingertips to your nose just letting that witnessing become cell memory body knowledge and knowing and trusting that even if the answers are unclear to you now in time the deeper wisdoms will rise to your conscious awareness and if action is required you will know what to do these things will reveal themselves through your dreams imagination intuition creativity synchronicities in your environment another subtle forms of communication and so remembering to breathe just sinking into that wisdom noticing your contact between your feet and the floor the back of the chair that holds you [Music] attending to the most subtle sensation you may be having and then noticing the most prominent sensation you may be having and I'm going to wring the bowl five times and after the fifth time we can release this practice until I invite you to take a breath wiggle your fingers and or your toes and just allow yourself to come back into the present moment moment opening your eyes as it feels comfortable for you and without too much interpretation conscious interpretation and are trying to figure things out right away I recommend that we move straight into the arts-based peace okay and because we did a body activating exercise I'm going to use the body so I invite you just to draw a basic figure on your page doesn't have to be anything fancy I'm just going to do a generic human figure big arm and shoulders today so now that you have your figure out I would invite you to locate first the fear where when you dropped the fear down into your body where did it go where'd it go it's important to know that so when you drop the fear down into your body where did it go so for example in my situation coming down here and I'd invite you to depict that fear in any way that you want I like to be expressive because it allows my hand to move and that further provides some body activation um but you can also if you're not ready yet to to go this far with your expressiveness you can also just right you know where your fear was sort of like a graph or diagram you know fear doesn't feel so good to me so Matt looks like that um now the other thing I would have you locate is your desire where did your desire live okay so I actually experienced my desire all the way from my solar plexus I would say all the way up to my crown so I'm gonna it was golden shooting out the top of my head Definitely Maybe channeling a little bit and so then you might take a look at what it looks like and just see if you notice anything what are some things that come come up for you immediately the thing that comes up for me is I feel like I feel like my fears blocking a flow if if we're talking about a liberating current of energy which is considered bottom-up energy so like earth energy body energy the the upward momentum of movement then then that might go in one direction for talking about manifesting energy this is the energy of when you attend to something then you have an intention with it you speak it aloud then you bring it into the heart so you you you you gather people to you to help you manifest that intention you bring it down into the solar plexus where you take action and you exert it in the physical world bring it down into the sacral and the root and that's where you start to really inhabit in the real physical world the manifestation of what you attended to and desired right so that's considered the manifesting current so this is the current of consciousness and the liberating current is considered to be kind of like the feminine aspect okay stealing earth energy so I look at this and I interpret it as my fears are blocking the flow of energy for me in my body and it's interesting because I I have myself gone to energy healers and they have often told me that while I function quite well from the knees and up I actually when they see me they see me as having heavy heavy like boots of mud that's it's it's difficult for me to [Music] to move around it's kind of like I'm going like this on top but my feet are stuck in mud and I think that speaks to my essential security fears I mean why do you think I talk so much about attachment because I've had my own attachment disruptions right I have my own security fears and if we're talking about like security fears that often pertains - like root chakra stuff and that's in that genital area so so then you can have a dialogue with this then you can say okay so as you were holding these parts of you or as you're holding these parts of you as you are attending to the dialogue and the communication between your fear and desire what were the wisdoms that came up for you what what did you feel what did you see what did you notice what memories came to mind what thoughts popped into your head right and then that becomes a further explanation if these two aspects of yourself were to be in dialogue what would their conversation sound like write that out right if this drawing needed anything what would it need and think about it metaphorically if my drawing need anything I don't know what came up for me I was like you need the bulldozer it needs a bulldozer this is gonna like push get this out of the way or maybe I need music because music I draw a little music sign because music is gonna make my feet want to move they're gonna make them want to dance and then all the mud will crack and kick off and then I'll be able to move again right and so we talk about these things metaphorically but it may be that I do actually need more music in my life because it's gonna allow me to inhabit my body and my sense of self-expression in a way that's gonna bring me joy and then I'm gonna start generating some momentum and passion around something that brings me joy and then that's energy momentum and focus and and actions that I am taking in the world that is pulling my energetic momentum away from the obsessive preoccupation I have with that's caught up in my fear whatever that fear might be right and now all of a sudden because I am so enthralled in something that is actually bringing me a sense of enjoyment and passion and allowing me to be on fire about life now who knows now I'm going to events now I'm meeting new people now I'm taking classes now I'm doing other things and all of a sudden you are in a whole new sphere of existence and you were calling in new relationships into your life and now you are creating a space to allow for something that you could not ever possibly predict or anticipate if you spend all your time caught up in that kind of preoccupied energy right and all that starts from doing an exercise like this and that becomes the manifestation of the inner wisdoms that you witnessed in going through a process and a practice like this and a practice like this is as essential to your daily life as brushing your teeth taking a shower and going to work because as much as we train ourselves and we teach our children how the routines of life in order to exist in an external world we do not train them and teach them how to move through the world with an inner experience with a quality of inner life and practices like this are what allow you to access those skills and I say access because you don't necessarily need to develop them they're already there but you need to learn how to access them more and more and more and more I truly believe it's already there ok so I hope that you enjoyed the experiential this is all an example of what you receive in the anxious attachment 101 course and again that's 30% off until September 1st which is - I think a day tomorrow's the 31st so day after tomorrow and if you want to know more specifically what's in the course if you head on over to the info page their whole course curriculum is outlined for you there's lots of videos and exercises like this in addition to a lot of psychoeducation altogether I think I have 160 plus page downloadable workbook and then I have another 50 plus page downloadable workbook and a bonus toolkit so many videos and experiential xand tutorials like this downloadable audio lectures all kinds of stuff to really delve into this and if you are someone who is ready to tap into your creativity as a fun easel and pleasurable way to start processing what otherwise feels like really uncomfortable anxious feelings this is a course for you so I want to dive in and just respond to some of the things I've been seeing popping up in the feed here we've had some individuals sharing their fears okay yeah agreeing to some of the fears that I shared impostor syndrome yeah that one stuff impostor syndrome is all about shame shame and you know shame and guilt are kind of interesting things because they're slightly different qualitatively and there's a lot of differing opinions about how shame and guilt manifests themselves I think brené Brown actually has the opposite opinion of me which they're just flip-flopped I think guilt is more about feeling as if you are inherently bad and shame is about feeling ashamed that like you've been found out I feel like shame is associated with impostor syndrome like it's more about other people it's more about like other people like other people found out that you weren't what you thought you were what you were tears portray yourself to be guilt is more like really believing that you are not what what you believe yourself that you want to be like it's more like you feel like you have a sense of internal malignancy or um melon tension like I am inherently a bad person whereas shame is more like oh they think I'm a bad person okay just want to give some shoutouts here we've got Ben we've got Raj we've got Zachary Sarah baby lilia David um mal Cree I agree but it's the pacing of when to turn up the heat that gets me okay Marty crow we have McCoy yes you caught me live we have Rachel I've watched you so many of your videos you've helped me understand and heal so much thank you very much for sharing great what is a good channel to learn more about body energy chakras and healing mine that would supplement my stuff um I don't know I would say I don't really watch that stuff to be honest with you I would I read it I would read Eastern body Western mind I need a Judas actually anything by Anita Judas is great I've read like a bunch of her books she just came out with another book called charge I think that you would really like if you liked the discussion of chakra stuff and things like that I do I do work with chakras in my private work I don't talk about chakras so much in the attachment 101 courses I kind of remain in the realms of attachment lingo but I do bring that into I do bring a discussion of energy and activities like this and guided visualizations and talking about the body and body activation arts based experiential into those courses I don't explicitly describe them through the lingo and language of chakra work for example but for those of you that are familiar I I am a Reiki I am a certified Reiki practitioner so I am familiar with chakras and how they work and it does influence the way I address attachment issues could you quickly give clarification on the difference between fearful avoidant and anxious attachment yes we talked about this yesterday so so fearful avoidance and anxious attached so first thing I want to preface this by saying that I tend to think of anxiety and avoidance as existing on the same spectrum it's just how it manifests that comes to be qualified as either anxious or void attachment and that's defined by behavior so okay so if you have I prefer for you to think of it as like on an XY axis okay so when I say attachment styles are not categorical they're dimensional so it means that you have high let's say high avoidance let's say you have low avoidance okay so this is high avoidance that's low avoidance now let's say you have um high anxiety and then you have long anxiety okay so I think it's better to think of these things like an XY access so that you understand the dimensional dimensionality of it so when you have high anxiety and high avoidance then this is what's called disorganized attachment sometimes that term is used synonymously with fearful avoidant okay now if you have low avoidance but high anxiety you're likely preoccupied anxious if you have low anxiety but high avoidance you're more likely dismissive if you have low anxiety and low avoidance you're secure okay now what what measures this exactly is is ambivalence so if you have high voidance and high anxiety of high ambivalence which is to say you've got a lot of both and therefore a lot of conflict now if you have low avoidance and high anxiety because there's low avoidance there's not so much ambivalence and so typically with individuals that are preoccupied there's also not a whole lot of consciousness around it so there's a lot of so this is sort of a lot of like you don't you you cannot assume someone else's perspective it's really hard for you to put assume someone else's perspective you are so mired and obsessive and anxiously reaching for control that it's extremely difficult for you to step outside of it okay and and and you're not you're not really conflicted about it there's no conflict over your needs as much it's like I need it and I need it now and you know maybe that maybe they think I'm Nene but I don't care because I really need it you know like that's not gonna stop me from getting what I need and it's not gonna stop me from doing what I need to do in order to get what I need okay so there's a lot of momentum there's a lot of momentum okay now I want you to notice that even though like the most extreme here might be preoccupied there's still a range I mean there's still a whole range in here so someone who might be let's say on the whole more anxious preoccupied there they can still have varying degrees of avoidance and they can still have varying degrees of anxiety right but this this quadrant is defined by a range of internal attitudes and external behaviors okay so same thing same thing goes for secure actually that you can have someone who's secure who leans towards anxiety no it's being somewhat anxious you can have someone who's secure who leans somewhat towards being more avoidant right similarly with dismissive so if you are if you have more avoidant tendencies and you don't have this high avoidance but not a lot of anxiety around your avoidance then I you know um the chemistry's just off you know I'm sorry it didn't work out the chemistry's off and meanwhile the anxious preoccupied person's like they're not acknowledging their truth they're just they're just suppressing all their feelings for me I just know it they absolutely are in love with me and they're just they're just sabotaging meanwhile if the person's dismissive it's likely they're just like ah I'm pretty sure the chemistry's just off or it's just because you're an egg and I don't know my feelings just changed sometimes what of it right there's not a lot of anxiety around it they're not they're not sowing beveling they're just like yeah you know my feelings are over there somewhere I don't know why I feel that way I don't know why my feelings change but that's life it is what it is not too conflicted about it do you see what I'm saying so so we're talking about a range of ambivalence right now now someone who is secure they don't have a lot of ambivalence but but they also have known they don't have a need to dismiss feelings right oh well let's talk about that let's explore it a little bit maybe we can work out a solution together they're also not so afraid of anxiety oh you're needing a little bit more from me well thank you for telling me like let's work out a plan we can see what what what accommodates both our needs right it's different it's different dismiss it's like whoa your needs are out of control I can't I can't deal with that and I also don't know how to handle conflict because it stirs feelings in me that I don't necessarily want to feel so I cut them off altogether and don't know I have those feelings or if you are more fearfully avoidant or you feel your fears of abandonment are being stimulated and now you're acting out and unpredictable and maybe even the addictive ways because you're trying to assert some level of control in the relationship right alternately anxious person you're upset what what did I do wrong how am I gonna fix it oh my god what can I do to make this better how like like how can I be better how can I love you better so that you can be the person that you need to be so that I can be happy in this relationship okay and if you want to learn more about fearful avoidance we did the very first livestream we did a couple days ago was that is called disorganized attachment 101 three strengths of the spice of life er the whole live stream is about this topic so I recommend checking that out okay therapist says that she sees me more anxious but I identify more with fearful well again it may be that your therapist is seeing a certain behavior but your inner attitude and experience could have more avoidance tied up in it right and this is why I want to say there's no one clear label or definition because as you can see depending on context depending on your partner depending on whatever your life experience you could be moving around in this you could be moving around here right you can be in any different quadrant but it's if you recognize a a more frequency of attitude and behavior and it's likely you're hanging out and maybe like the far reaches of one quadrant right it's more likely but if you have a traumatic event in your life if you have a very significant relationship go awry if you have a death in the family even if you have like a major illness if suddenly you lose your job and you have to move somewhere all of a sudden when all of your secure foundations are disrupted you move to a new town get a new job whatever suddenly you're you're a lot more anxious in relationships because all your other basic attachment needs are disrupted so so the the momentum and the focus and the emphasis that you now have on a romantic partner is as sub-clip supplementing those other things that are feeling shaky maybe increased okay so my point is that these are dynamic states of being okay they're not static but you may find and notice about yourself that you tend to hang out in one quadrant more frequently than another and this is also why we can polarize each other to one end or the other right okay so attachment Styles they're not necessarily in a constant state of flux I mean it just depends on the person they've done studies that show that whether or not you're susceptible to change is actually less dependent on your environmental circumstances and it is more dependent on how flexible your personality is to change so so and they actually feel that individuals who have insecure attachment are more likely to have an attachment style that can change as opposed to a secure person for example because their concept of self tends to be malleable because it isn't so intrinsically formed because you know oftentimes we talk about insecure attachment it's because there is a disconnect essential sense of self which we might describe as a source of anxiety but on the other hand it also means that your changeable so that can also be a good thing right if someone never dates but just Pines after emotionally unavailable people is that avoidant or anxious well this is one of those situations where it's kind of both right you're anxiously avoiding people because or pining after unavailable partners because there's never a risk in those circumstances of becoming emotionally wounded you're never actually accessible to anyone in thus you're not really risking anything I would say however that it's probably more fearful fearfully avoidant you've just answered something I was pondering things okay all right it's just one more question here I've got all kind of lights in my face I so used to be that person efforting Mythili just to make them see how I would be for them if only they'd be different than where he is in the now mm-hmm yeah yeah we do that do that to ourselves all right so it's been an hour and a half oh no it's been an hour it's all the time we have for today but I want to thank you all for joining me here for this livestream I'm glad we got such a good crowd and again if you could put a thumbs-up and Ora like if you've enjoying this content it just lets me know that you're enjoying these kinds of things and I can come back and do more of them and again this is an honor of our thirty percent off discount we are offering on attachment 101 courses maybe you're not anxious if you feel like you're more avoidant or disorganized go back and check the live streams we did yesterday and the day before this is a wealth of information there as we've been demoing some of the content over the past few days any other questions things like that you can also comment in the feed here on the replay and I hopefully look forward to seeing you on the inside of the course curriculum thank you so much for joining me here today

Channel: Briana MacWilliam

Views: 96,057

Rating: 4.9389458 out of 5

Keywords: Attachment, attachment styles, attachment theory, anxious attachment, anxious-ambivalent attachment, avoidant attachment, insecure attachment, secure attachment, disorganized attachment, therapy, psychotherapy, psychology, art therapy, creative arts therapy, mindfulness, energy healing, meditation, relationships, dating, dating advice, enmeshment, sex addiction, avoidance, boundaries, trauma, infidelity, emotionally unavailable, codependency, narcissism, empath

Id: XRnU4nVi03o

Length: 68min 53sec (4133 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 30 2019