5 Journal prompts to help you heal the fearful avoidant attachment style

Hi! In this blog I’m going to talk about five journal prompts to start healing the fearful avoidant attachment style. I am Paulien and I am so happy you are here because these are just very concrete questions you can sit down and just write out and they will definitely help you on your healing journey.

So to start this off, when I was in the middle of my fearful avoidant attachment style trigger phase/crash state and I started healing, or I wanted to heal, one of the very first things I did was actually buy a big book to write in. I call it my Braindump Book. And I still use it every day.

And I just had this moment. I remember the moment where I was like: my head is so full. I cannot deal with this. I feel like it’s going to burst. I have to let these thoughts out. And I didn’t up thill then, because I was just so scared that if I wrote things down, they would first of all become true, which is magical thinking, which is a cognitive distortion, which isn’t true. But second of all, I was just afraid that if I would start writing things down, I would realize that my boyfriend wasn’t the one and I had to break up with him. And I was also scared it would be real, in a way. It felt like as long as I kept it inside, as long as I kept it in my brain: it wasn’t completely real.

I am so happy those reasons didn’t keep me from writing after all, because all those things turned out to be my fear brain trying to keep me in fear. Your fear brain is just convinced that if you stay in fear and you stay alert (which means you have all these ruminating obsessive thoughts) that you will be safe. And that’s just not true.

So writing really helps. Writing anything really helps. When I got that book I started writing and I think the first session I wrote for 4 hours and I stopped at 07:00 PM. And I was just exhausted and just slept through the night, which was actually a good night’s sleep because there’s just something magical about letting it out on paper. And I remember thinking: okay, I’m just going to put it on paper so I don’t have to think about it right now. I can pick it back up tomorrow if I want to.

And what happened, is that a lot of the things I wrote down I actually processed just by writing about them or writing them out.

So it really helps to write anything. But I will give you five questions, five journal prompts that will actually really help you on your healing journey.

#1 Which part of me is scared?
And this is such an important and powerful question to ask, because the moment you ask it, you realize that it’s not all of you that is scared, it’s just a part of you that is scared. A lot of times it’s that small inner child that has been through trauma that is just triggered somehow. And we tend to give so much power away to fear, which is so logical. I do not want you to make yourself wrong because of that. It was a survival mechanism for a long time.

But when you see yourself as ‘just all of me is scared’: it can feel so powerless and so hopeless. And you always have this part of you, this core that is just peace and love that is always there, that will never be changed and has never been changed. It cannot be damaged, it is eternal and that is also part of you. So asking the question ‘what part of me is scared?’ actually puts you in that role of the loving but also powerful grown up that you are now.

You have the power to change things, to do things differently and it really helps to look at yourself that way and to also look at fear that way. That is just a part of you. And by asking which part, you actually shine a light on that and start healing it. So that is the first question.

#2 What is the worst that could happen?
And I can imagine you think: oh, I don’t want to think about that because that’s really bad. And I completely understand that. It’s scary to think about scary stuff that could happen. But the thing is, the more we think about it and we keep it in our brains: the more it is this vague threat, this vague black cloud. This sense of impending doom is very highly linked to the fearful avoidant attachment style.

A lot of people with the fearful avoidant attachment style have this sense of impending doom and that always feels vague and this vagueness of it makes it feel more scary. Your fear brain needs a couple of things to feel safe and one of them is to have things be really concrete. So vagueness is scary because you don’t have control over that, so you feel completely powerless. But as soon as you start writing down: okay, what is the absolute worst that could happen? And you get this clear sense of what it is: that will actually help your fear brain. Even if the worst is really bad which sometimes it leads to because your fair brain is quite dramatic sometimes also. So for a example: a lot of things could lead to being alone forever.

But it really helps to write that down and see it and see that and realize: okay, this could happen, but maybe it’s only like a 0.1% chance instead of the feeling that it is going to happen and it’s 100% chance.

You see what I mean? If your fear brain senses a threat, it thinks that it is going to happen 100% and that’s just not true. So by getting that on paper, just very concrete, it will put it in perspective.

Then ask yourself: why is it bad if that would happen?

Because a lot of times we obsess over these questions and then we’re so scared of thinking about a certain thing. For instance: a lot of people with fearful avoidant attachment style have relationship OCD or tendencies (also called relationship anxiety) are so scared to figure out that he or she is not the one, after you’ve been married or after you’ve bought a house together.

So what if you ask yourself: what is the worst that could happen after that? You might say: if I find out he or she is not the one, then we get a divorce. Then ask yourself again: why is that a bad thing? And that question alone might be a shock to your system because you probably just completely assume that getting divorced is like the worst thing ever. Then ask yourself again: why is that a bad thing? You might say: I’ll be lonely. And then again: what is the worst thing. Just as long as you keep asking ‘why’: you get more and more clarity of what you’re really afraid of.

And a lot of times it comes back to a few core fears and one of those is ‘I am a bad person and people will figure that out’ or ‘I will be alone forever and that is just way too painful’ or ‘something bad will happen’ and that’s that vague threat again.

So the more you keep asking ‘why’: the more you get to those three core fears. It will help you so much to see that that is actually what you’re scared of. And those are not true. Those are survival mechanisms. Those are core beliefs that you adopted when you were very young and you went through trauma. So getting a very concrete sense of what is the worst that could happen and asking yourself ‘why’ (at least seven times) that helps so much in actually giving you back a sense of of power.

#3 How is this thought or feeling protecting me?
With the fearful avoidant attachment style pretty much your whole system is just focused on protection. You need to be safe, you need security. So pretty much everything you do, I almost am going to say 100% of the things that you do, are geared towards protection and safety and security. So all those things that happen, all those thoughts that you have, all those feelings that you have that you just don’t understand, that are so confusing, so painful, so awkward sometimes or uncomfortable: those always have a goal and that goal is protecting you. And getting a sense of the way you are protecting yourself and the way thoughts are protecting yourself and feelings are protecting yourself really helps you in seeing that they are not true, that they are not as scary as they look.

For example: it is actually not the fact that you will find out that he or she is not the one that you are scared of, that’s just the thought that your fear brain puts into the feeling. You are just really scared to let go of the fear. So you have these thoughts that keep you in fear and in that way kind of protect you.

I know it’s very weird but as soon as you start understanding your fear brain more, what it needs and how it works: it’s so much easier to do this. Questions like these will help you in that proces. How your fear brain works in depth is part of my online program Healed & Happy 😊  

#4 How am I trying to get control?
One of the ways you are trying to protect yourself is by getting control. This comes from a feeling of being powerless and helpless and you try to get control by influencing external factors. So for example in your relationship with your partner, but also in your feelings and your thoughts. ‘I should not be thinking this’, ‘I have to be thinking this’, ‘I have to be feeling this’. As soon as you ‘have to’, something must happen: that’s control. And that control is always fear based and it’s really hard to let go I know.

I mean, this is also a survival mechanism. So be kind to yourself, give yourself grace. It’s not something to make yourself wrong about. But if you can see how you are trying to get control in every situation, like if something happens, and you’re just like: whoa, I feel so wound up, I feel so tense about that. How am I trying to get control? That really helps you to see what your patterns are.

You are way more powerful than you think. That is also part of the fearful avoidant attachment style: feeling powerless.

So how can you get a sense of control? And a lot of times this comes down to boundaries. Boundaries in all sorts and shapes and forms. And that is also something a lot of fearful avoidants struggle with. There are so many things you can do, so many boundaries you can set around your time, around your energy, around your vulnerability, that will actually help you feel more in control from the inside out.

So instead of trying to control things outside of you or trying to control your thoughts and feelings, (which is just not possible, nobody can do that and you don’t have to): you can control your boundaries, you can control more. But that is a very main core thing. If you start putting up really clear boundaries, that will give you more of a sense of control from the inside out.

#5 What would it look like to be healed from this fearful avoidant attachment style?
This is such an important question. Because the more clear your vision is on what it’s like to be healed: the easier it is to step over to that secure attachment. And as long as you don’t have a clear vision, your fear brain is like: we’re not going there. Because your fear brain needs clarity, it needs a concrete vision to be able to feel safe enough to go there.

So it’s so valuable, so incredibly valuable to write about this and to just write out what it looks like. In a way it’s actually scripting and I don’t know if you’re into scripting or visualization at all. If you are, let me know in the comments. I’m actually quite curious if you’ve ever heard of scripting or visualization because it’s also such a powerful tool.

And then also: what would be my identity? Because a lot of times we get wrapped up in this survivor mode and this insecure attachment identity. And then it can be really hard to find out who you are without this trauma. The more you find that out and the more you have a vision of that: the easier it is to let it go.

So these are five really concrete journal prompts to help you at least kickstart your healing journey. They will really help you if you take the time to just journal it out. And writing in and of itself will help you so much as well.

I am so excited to hear if this helps. If you want to dive deep: the online program Healed & Happy is here for you.

Thank you.
Thank you for being here, here for you.

Much love,
Paulien

This is not to diagnose. I’m not a psychologist and it’s not black and white. You can definitely recognise so much of the fearful avoidant attachment style and maybe you’re even dominantly securely attached. So don’t see this as this is a strong diagnosis. I am just here to tell you all about it and really help you understand yourself a little bit better.