How am I only now learning about attachment styles? Having the vocabulary to frame our experiences helps us make sense of our world. Knowledge is power and by better understanding our nature, we can modify our behavior to cultivate healthier dynamics in our relationships.
So I guess as with everything, it’s better late than never to learn about something that can only help my relationships. At least now, I can view my past relationships in a completely different perspective, helping me develop healthier dynamics in my next one.
I first started hearing about attachment styles on a recent podcast of “How to Do Hard Things” with Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach. My individual therapy has opened me up to all sorts of self reflection and insight. I’m loving the podcasts. It’s reassuring to know that I’m not a freak of nature – that there are valid reasons for why I am the way I am!
So what are attachment styles and why is it meaningful to me as an adult?
The attachment theory was first developed by John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth and postulated that we are all born with an attachment system designed to have our needs met by connecting with our caregiver, usually our parents. Our emotional bond formed during our earliest relationships between us as an infant and our caregiver, in my case, my mother does contribute to how we perceive our close relationships and in turn influence our ability to interact in stable relationships with others. There are essentially four attachment styles: secure, insecure, avoidant, and disorganized. They’re usually represented on a continuum with secure being near the middle (or as close to the middle if there were five data points). And they way we form attachment to others in our adult relationships is plastic and can change dependent on the attachment styles of the person we are engaged in relationship with. Which means, there’s hope for us!
The original research was based on seeing how babies responded to parents in different scenarios including as the parents left the room and when they returned. Curiously, even babies can be overstimulated and need a break from their caregiver. As expected, evidence showed an elevated level of cortisol, the primary stress hormone, for babies who showed they wanted comforting. Unexpectedly, babies who seemed to respond with indifference also showed an equally elevated level of cortisol. The findings suggested that all babies regardless of the superficial appearance of the response, react similarly biochemically. They just manifested their responses differently. The two key concepts underlying the attachment theory hinges on the role of the primary caregiver in the baby’s first year life. They provide 1) a secure base from which the child explores the world and 2) a safe haven to which the child can return for comfort from discomfort and stress. To put it simply, without this early model of relationship of security and safety, children may have difficulty in forming healthy relationships outside of the caregiver and extending into adulthood.
Fortunately, for those of us who do not have a secure attachment style, our attachment systems can change if we are aware of our behaviors of reacting and who we choose to partner with.
As adults in relationships, healthy attachments take work. While some of us avoid conflict because we fear it’s too hard, all healthy relationships will at some point have conflict. In fact, it’s normal and healthy to have conflict. There’s an amazing statistic that blew my mind. Seventy percent of the time in our relationships we will have some type of conflict. It makes sense. As adults coming together in a relationship, we have so much life experience to share. It’s illogical to believe that harmony will prevail all the time. Conflict may lead to rupture of the relationship but it doesn’t have to be long lasting or permanent. The key is what we do in the remaining thirty percent of the time when we don’t have a conflict – we repair the rupture. Learning how to effectively repair a rupture is key to transforming conflict into an opportunity for deepening our relationship. So the lesson is that we should not only accept conflict, we should embrace conflict knowing that in our battle, we can grow closer to the people in our lives as long as we work on effectively repairing the rupture. My goodness. It’s life affirming to know that I can have conflicts, can fix them, and have healthier relationships.
The idea of having a conflict used to frighten me and I would avoid it like the plague. I recently read a quote from Gandhi, “A “No” uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a “Yes” merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.” When we say “Yes” and we don’t mean it, we’re not expressing our true selves. If we say “no” to the ones we love, we risk disappointing people even as we are satisfying our true needs. But we are not responsible for how other people respond and feel. Life is hard enough without taking on a burden that we are not meant to shoulder. We can only be responsible for ourselves, we can only be in control of our own actions.
So be honest when we’re not sure and say “maybe” or “no for now”. Or when we don’t agree, be courageous and say no and perhaps risk conflict. But for goodness sakes, communicate so that others can hear you. Have the conversation for why we feel as we do. Even our soulmates can’t read our minds.
As I’ve learned the painful way, saying “yes” just to please someone else is to compromise yourself and that in the end, only chips away our self esteem, self respect, makes us smaller until we no longer may be able to recognize ourselves. And that dear friends is the opposite way to live our short life on this beautiful earth.