The one thing I did to heal the fearful avoidant attachment style

Hi I’m Paulien and I’m so happy you are here! In this blog I’m telling you more about the one main thing I did to heal the fearful avoidant attachment style. Because, gosh, this whole healing journey can be so frustrating to know what to do and who to turn to and what can really help release a lot of that trauma that drives the fearful avoidant attachment style.

If I had found this one thing right from the beginning I would only use this and heal my whole attachment style. But that wasn’t the case when I was in the middle of I call it the crash state. So it’s like the worst part of the fearful avoidant attachment style when it’s when it really gets triggered and you’re just kind of like overwhelmed with all the intense emotions and emotional flashbacks.

I had no idea that was happening back then, but I just knew I was so unhappy, so confused, so scared. And I was full of doubts about my relationship. But I also realized I didn’t want to break up with my boyfriend because he actually was really good to me, even though I had all these horrible thoughts also about him.

I started an experiment
I said, OK, you know what, I do know that I have a hard time accepting his love. I don’t know what’s happening, but I do know that I don’t ever want to regret losing him or losing this relationship because of something that is ‘inside of me’. So I started this one year experiment of just trying everything I could get my hands on. With the thought that if after a year I still wanted to break up with him, I could still decide to do that.

I did all kinds of things and it helped. I did feel a little bit better and I started allowing more and more love. And that was the reason for me to say: OK, I’m not where I want to be, but I am going to continue this. But it genuinely wasn’t until I found EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) that changes really started happening fast.

This technique helped me so much. And I just want you to know about it, even if you think it’s rubbish. That’s fine. I just want you to know that it exists and that it can help.

I remember that first week I started releasing things. I was like: Oh, my gosh, this is such a relief, I feel so much lighter! And I think in the end EFT was responsible for releasing about 80 to 90 percent of the trauma that was underlying my fearful avoidant attachment style. So that’s a lot. And it really is the main thing that I used, to heal and to allow love to just be there.

EFT is a technique that uses meridian points and you ‘tap’ on them with your fingers instead of like with acupuncture, you use needles. And yeah, it looks really, really, really weird 😉 But it really, really does help. And it’s actually proven scientifically that it does.

EFT in itself is amazing. And there’s a lot of videos and scripts you can find on the internet. But in the end, I found that using it in one particular way actually helped me the most.

What I started doing when I used EFT was just tapping on everything that came up, so whenever I was afraid I would tap on that and I would feel better and that helped. I would almost always feel more calm, more at peace. So that was really good.

And then I was like: But I want more, like I want to release these triggers that I have because I just don’t want to be scared all the time anymore.

Digging deeper
So then I started digging a little bit deeper and I started working on my specific memories and traumas that I kind of like, assumed maybe would be related to the fearful avoidant attachment style that I was experiencing. And that really did help also. It really did release a lot of the triggers, which was even more freeing.

And then I realized I was kind of like a hamster in a hamster wheel: I was just like tapping and tapping

and tapping and just more shit came up and came up and came up. And I sometimes felt like I was getting closer to the goal. But then sometimes I would have these, like relapses and I was like: OK, well, this might not be working and maybe I’ve tried a lot of different things in between, but the next big thing, like the next big step was the process that I’m going to explain now.

And so what I was missing that whole time, is that I did not have a clear picture of where I wanted to go. And this is so instrumental because your fear brain, above all, craves certainty, consistency and predictability. So if you are tapping away, you can actually really release a lot of things, but it might be that your fear brain is like scooping in and making sure that you do still stay in this comfortable space.

So what you want to do is take your fear brain along for the ride, don’t work against it and push through it because your fear system is so well trained. And that’s not something you should rebel against; it’s something to work with.

So what you want to do, is make this new situation as safe as possible and you make it as safe as possible by knowing exactly where you are, taking yourself and your fearbrain while releasing through tapping: having a really, really clear, vivid picture of where you want to go.

What it will feel like to be healed, what it will feel like to be securely attached. How will you be? How will you think? What is the norm? Like the normal, like the secure way of going about these things. So it might involve some digging, like what does respect look like? What does love look like and how does a healthy, loving relationship function? And especially like what do you do and what do you feel in those moments?

So the more you have this realistic, clearer picture of where you can go when you release more and more and more, it really, really, really helps your fear brain.

When you have that clear, vivid image of what it would be like to be healed, every single time you imagine that, you visualize it. Stuff will come up like you will see it when you visualize it, you will see it and you will feel resistance or you will feel the tension or fear. And that’s where the magic will happen with EFT. Every time you visualize that and you allow those feelings to come up, all of them, really feel it and not trying to repress it, then you can release that. And every single time you do that, you are being drawn closer to that picture.

If you don’t have a picture, you’re like just tapping all over the place, which still can help so much. But the clearer and more vivid and more realistic that picture is and the more safe it feels to your fear brain, the faster you will get there!

Everything is ‘just a feeling’
And the more you do this, the more you realize that, everything is ‘just a feeling’. And I know this can sound diminishing and that’s absolutely not the way I mean it, What I mean is that feelings are just energy and sensations. And your body is made to feel those and to process those. And that realization gave me a sense of peace that I really want for you too!

The more you practice with it, the more you will be able to handle big, heavy feelings and allow your amazing body to to process them with the help of tapping!

Of course EFT is part of the Healed & Happy program too. It will help you so much in releasing trauma and healing the fearful avoidant attachment style.

And as always, I’m just so incredibly happy you are here!

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.