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💡 I help people who currently have an insecure attachment style *earn* Secure Attachment. I cover this in my 12 session program!
If you are struggling with symptoms like relationship issues (including the relationship to yourself), depression, anxiety, addiction, grief, rage, trauma, conflict, communication problems, boundary issues & other recurring patterns, cycles & challenges, chances are that your life is out of alignment & you're stuck in a loop of subconscious programming that isn't serving you.
The root-cause of the above symptoms is oftentimes the result of an 'insecure attachment style' that can be forged by 'developmental trauma' that stems from what we experienced & learnt in childhood about ourselves, relationships & the world. I define trauma as what happens inside of you as a result of what happened to you, or, what needed to happen for you but didn't. A lot of people don't realise the significance of how what we saw, were modelled, taught or weren't given in our childhood by our caregivers impacts how we now show up as adults in the world & relationships.
The subconscious makes up 95 - 97% of our patterns, thoughts, beliefs, behaviours, emotions. The conscious mind only makes up about 3 - 5%. To not know the true workings of our subconscious leaves us helpless, powerless & thinking 'this is just how I am.' Also, if subconscious programming is running through generations, it often becomes normalised, so it's harder for people to identify & therefore break free from. I help people shine a light on their subconscious mind/body so that they can clearly see their predictable programming patterns & see that there's a difference between their programming & their actual authentic self. Oftentimes what people have believed is just a personality trait is actually a trauma response that they've normalised. I help people see the difference, recover, heal, & connect to their authentic self.
Your 'attachment style' programming is the single largest predictor of success in your relationships, whether they are romantic partners, familial (such as parents, caregivers, or siblings), or platonic (friends).
What are attachment styles? Why are they SO important to know?
There are 4 main attachment styles:
Dismissive Avoidant Attachment.
Anxious Attachment aka Anxious Preoccupied Attachment.
Fearful Avoidant aka Disorganised Attachment.
Secure Attachment.
(more detail on each of these down below).
**A lot of people want to be seen/known as 'secure' which I understand, but if we're having ongoing issues throughout life & relationships, this is often an indication that we have one of the three insecure attachment styles.**
Dismissive Avoidant attachment:
Feels trapped in relationship.
Emotionally closed off.
Hyper-independent.
Anxious Preoccupied Attachment:
Worry about being abandoned.
People-please & approval seeking.
Codependent.
Fearful Avoidant Attachment:
Flip flop around commitment.
Struggle with trust.
Over-give in relationships.
Secure Attachment:
Comfortable in relationships.
Strong sense of self worth.
Interdependent.
⬇️ To find out your attachment style for free, please check out this 5min quiz link below ⬇️
https://attachment.personaldevelopmentschool.com/
Please note that there's a difference between intellectually healing our attachment style & somatically healing our attachment style. I help people with both.
What does my 12 session program cover? How can we earn 'Secure Attachment?'
Feel free to book a no cost, no obligation 15min Zoom consultation with me where we can discuss the program together & see if it aligns for you!
✨ Please see link below to book your free consultation ✨
Many people believe that their relationship issues are because of incompatibility. But, chances are, it's not that you're incompatible — you could just be lacking the right tools & awareness. We're not born knowing how to have healthy relationships. This is something we must learn or be modelled by our caregivers. If we haven't been modelled healthy relationship behaviour like communication skills, conflict resolution, setting & expressing healthy boundaries, healthy behavioural coping mechanisms, capacity for emotional depth & meeting our core human needs in healthy ways, then we can unlearn unhealthy dynamics & relearn healthy ones.
Relationship issues are often a symptom of people's unaddressed individual issues showing up in their relationships.
"If you do not address your childhood traumas - Your romantic relationships will."
- Barbra Russell.
I can assist clients in identifying & working through their own individual issues that might be impacting their relationship.
A healthy relationship to self is paramount to being able to offer that to someone else.
"We can only meet someone as deep as we've met ourselves." - Matt Kahn.
Relationship work is self work. We can't change other people. We CAN create a healthier relationship which only requires one person.
Arguments & disagreements occur within all close relationships & are a normal part of dealing with differences in ideas, beliefs, & perspectives. However, chronic relationship conflict & stress is a serious issue. It has been linked to emotional trauma & poorer overall health. It can affect other areas of life such as relationships with family, friends & work colleagues. Children also suffer when exposed to high levels of conflict at home which can lead to developmental trauma. They are at a greater risk for anxiety, depression, behavioural problems, & poorer health.
One of the greatest gifts we can give to the next generation is our own healing.
Learning effective & respectful ways to communicate differences is an important step in building a healthy, fulfilling relationship & which can benefit our overall wellbeing & those around us.
I don't believe there's such a thing as 'positive' or 'negative' emotions. Fear, sadness, anger, surprise, happiness & disgust are all part of the human experience. We need all of them. They serve different purposes. Sometimes, we haven't been modelled this type of perspective. Maybe we've been taught to hide or suppress certain emotions.
There's often a misunderstanding that if we don't think about emotions / bodily sensations, that they go away. This isn't actually the case. What happens when we distract, avoid, or numb ourselves from them is that they store within the nervous system & over time, become more & more compacted. This can often cause the nervous system to be under so much stress & pressure to contain it all, that it may eventually erupt into physical illness symptoms or emotional outbursts in an attempt to get our attention.
We're all human. We all need to allow ourselves to process emotions (e-motions = energy in motion) out of our nervous system for our overall wellbeing.
My experience enables me the ability to show others how to build a relationship to their emotions in a safe way, in a way where we see that emotions are just a part of us, they're not all of us & that feeling our emotions is not going to drown us... It's going to free us.
Gently, over time, we begin to trust that our emotions are our allies - not enemies. This is a skill that must be taught & if we weren't taught it by our caregivers, the good news is we can learn now.
The addictive behaviour of choice depends on what the individual has personally learnt through their particular environment / influences to be the quickest way to self-soothe / avoid / distract / numb / lift a mood / meet a need.
Addictive behaviours aka coping mechanisms aren't just drugs & alcohol, they can be anything we use to calm ourselves, or, give us a lift, that in the short term help, but long term are harming us. This can look different for everyone.
We can be addicted to food, not eating food, shopping, gambling, mind-altering substances, work, screen time, gaming, sex, relationships, other people, smoking, caffeine, painful emotional patterns, control, dysfunctional comfort zones, conflict, chaos, drama, gossiping... The list is quite exhaustive...
When our nervous system is in a state of survival & dysregulation (anxious, depressed, grief, rage etc) it is a very natural response to seek relief from those quite painful states. We will use anything we can in order to regulate ourselves. The more the dysregulation, the more the compulsion, the more our nervous system is stuck in Fight, flight, freeze, fawn, the more we will seek something externally to calm or override that uncomfortablility.
The cycle of Addictive Behaviours (Coping Mechanisms):
1. Underlying Trauma & the uncomfortable felt sense it creates in the body
(Subjective & individual)
2. The Compulsion to escape the uncomfortable felt sense
(Same mechanism in all humans)
3. The addiction we see
(Themes, archetypes, shared behaviours)
Overcoming an addiction can be challenging. Becoming aware that you have an addiction is the first step to recovery. Recovery from any type of addiction is absolutely possible for anyone willing to reach out for help.
I help people work through their addiction both intellectually & somatically.
💡For those who want my help with addiction, if you are in the active stage of using an illegal substance or a high risk substance, then before we can work together, I will need a referral from your GP giving the ok for us to work together. This is for legal & ethical reasons.💡
Each of our emotions show up as messengers trying to tell us something. For example, 'fear' is the emotion (e-motion = energy in motion) that is at the root of anxiety.
Anxiety symptoms (which may feel like a knot in the belly, nausea, digestive issues, faster heart rate, throat contraction etc) activate when our nervous system perceives a threat. It gets into fight-or-flight mode & activates cortisol & adrenaline (stress hormones) to protect us, sending blood to our arms & legs ready to fight or flee. This is a must-have system designed for real physical danger like a lion stalking us for example. The issue is, in our modern world, our nervous system may perceive opening a text/email as a potential threat, expressing our boundaries or needs to someone as a threat, getting emotionally hurt by someone as a threat, socialising as a threat, money issues as a threat etc - the list of potentials is long. When we are in a low-high state of anxiety day in day out, that means that we have those stress hormones flowing through our system continuously to some degree. Our system isn't designed to have stress hormones around all the time & this can impact our physiology, leading to physical illness systems, lower immune system etc.
Sometimes we need anxiety because it helps / protects us in certain unsafe situations. Thankyou anxiety! However, if it's showing up in situations where physical death or harm isn't reality, it can cause blocks.
Instead of turning away from anxiety by trying to block it out, distract from it, numb it or medicate it, we can empower ourselves by changing our relationship to it by turning towards it with compassion - Why is my anxiety there in the first place? What is it trying to tell me? What's in my control & what's out of my control? Is there real danger? Or is my nervous system just perceiving danger/unsafety now & it's misfiring because of past events? What does this anxious part of me need in this moment? Reassurance? Comfort? Support? Can I give that to myself? What's my relationship to self like? Have I heard of how we can become addicted to emotions i.e. addicted to getting 'hits' of the biochemical expression of anxiety in our bodies? Have I made anxiety subconsciously part of my identity & because our subconscious prefers its comfort zone & what's known, it's hard for me to break out of this identity? Am I getting 'secondary gains' out of having anxiety around daily?
We aren't anxiety, we have feelings of anxiety. There's a difference.
All humans experience anxiety at times to one degree or another. Acknowledging that it's there & offering it love instead of rejection can be life changing.
I help people build a healthy relationship to their anxiety (both intellectually & somatically) which as a by-product eases its intensity.
Everyone has ups & downs. Sometimes you might feel a bit low for lots of different reasons.
Each of our emotions show up as messengers trying to tell us something.
Depression is often misunderstood as sadness. Many people who are depressed aren't sad at all. They may feel nothing. Their bodies may be in a 'freeze' trauma response state. When we don't feel as though 'fight' or 'flight' will work, we often resort to 'freeze.'
Look at the word 'depressed.' What does 'depress' mean?
- To lower in spirits; deject.
- To cause to drop or sink; lower.
- To press down.
When we talk about 'depression', what's being 'depressed?' - Our emotions.
Think of it this way, if we can't run or hide from real danger (or perceived danger), our body uses the 'freeze' trauma response (shutdown). If we can't run, the body goes into immobilisation or freezing to survive. Freeze is most common with people who had a high level of fear or instability in childhood. As a child, running wasn't an option, so freeze becomes our pattern for survival well into adulthood.
Ideally freeze is temporary, the threat passes, we eventually mobilise & we go on. But when the threat is ongoing: chronic grief, a toxic marriage, no sense of self or who you are, dysfunctional workplace, lack of support in life, self shame, struggling to make ends meet,
unresolved childhood trauma, feeling stuck in life? Our bodies can stay in freeze, which looks like long-term dissociation (physically present, but mentally gone), a spaced out feeling, feeling numb, a blank state, no motivation or curiosity, a negative world outlook, a desire to 'hide away' from the world, hopelessness, powerlessness, helplessness that can become 'learned helplessness' etc. Often we call this depression & consider something to be wrong or shameful about ourselves, not understanding this is actually our body attempting to protect us, to survive/get through the current situation the only way it knows how at the time. We're not meant to be ok when we're in environments that are unhealthy. Depression is a way that our body speaks to us.
A handful of things to add for clarity:
- There is nothing wrong with you as a person for having depression symptoms.
- If you feel that medication works for you, then that's ok. Each person is different. This is something to work out with your GP or a Psychologist or Psychiatrist.
- Nutrition, gut health & movement are very important things to also consider if you have depression symptoms, but (again) if the environment you're in on a regular basis feels like a threat, the body can still go into freeze/depression states.
- There will be times in this life when we will feel down, sad, & be grieving. These are a natural part of the human experience. If you have times of wanting to go inwards, sleep a lot or spend time alone, this is ok & a natural part of the cycle of life.
- We are emotional, spiritual beings. We have needs to create, connect, belong, give back, have meaning in life etc. If we're stuck in a life where we can't do these things, our body will let us know.
If you're depressed, your body might be trying to let you know that it needs change, to start doing things that align with your true needs, interests & values in life. Part of what I do is help people process frozen/depressed emotions & help them work through the blocks that might be stopping them from aligning with the life they really want.
Anger. It's a normal, healthy emotion that's usually there to signal that something isn't right & needs addressing. The emotion of anger is not shameful, it's a necessary piece of our emotional makeup that helps us thrive in life. *What we do with our anger can be what causes issues.*
When our anger is paid attention to in healthy ways, we can allow it to move through us. When it starts to move through us, we often find that it will turn into something else deeper (feelings of being misunderstood, unheard, hopeless, lonely, overwhelmed, sad, helpless, disrespected etc). Anger can be a surface emotion, a body guard for a more vulnerable emotion underneath.
Oftentimes anger shows up because we have unmet needs or violated boundaries happening. What we can do is ask our anger what it's trying to tell us? What has happened? What it needs from us? What parts of our angering situation are in our control & what are out of our control? Do we need to explore what our needs & boundaries are a bit more so we can then communicate them to others? Do we know how to communicate to others assertively? Is this something we need to work on? Do we have a fear of conflict when we do speak up (trauma)? Or do we feel guilty for having needs & boundaries (trauma), so we don't share them?
Anger suppressed, avoided or ignored for too long can develop into a nervous system in overwhelm, uncontrolled rage & violent outbursts. We want to work on releasing our anger in healthy ways so it doesn't build. Anger channeled in healthy ways empowers us, it can help our 'no' mean 'no' & also be a great driver for change.
I help people build a healthy relationship to their anger & also teach them how to use healthy communication to express their needs & boundaries to others. If they have any trauma around expressing themselves in this way, I help people recover from this.
Grief is a healthy, normal response to the loss of someone or something that was considered important to a person. It can occur after a death, divorce, breakup, finding something out that you didn't know, friendship loss, job loss, pet loss, emotional or spiritual awakening, belief change, revelation, illness etc & it can affect your overall health.
Grieving is an individual process & it is different for everyone.
There are usually 7 stages to grief & loss. These are not necessarily linear & we can also return to the stages & re-experience them along our healing journey.
1. Disbelief & Shock.
2. Denial.
3. Guilt & Pain.
4. Bargaining.
5. Anger.
6. Depression.
7. Acceptance.
I help people navigate their grief both intellectually & somatically in order to relieve the pain they may be experiencing.
Adyashanti.
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