I explore 3 core issues that I see over and over again in my work with women. I describe how each particular aspect shows up, the root cause, and what to do about it.
Whilst this list is certainly not exhaustive, I have included the core issues women often suffer alone with for years, not even knowing that it is a common experience, what the root cause is, and what we can do to heal.
If you recognise yourself in one or a few of these, please know that you’re not alone. These are widespread attachment issues and there IS a path back home to yourself.
Perpetually Putting Others’ Needs Before Our Own
THIS LOOKS LIKE
A hypersensitivity to what others are feeling and what they possibly need. After very quickly and automatically scanning the other person, we quickly attempt to regulate, fix, and advise them (without them asking) into a state where we have some sense of safety or security.
When we have this pattern of relating in our nervous system, people often describe themselves as empaths or highly sensitive. However, the reality is that we’re hypervigilant.
This way of relating to people often results in:
- Exhaustion – because it’s tiring to constantly scan everyone,
- Despair – because whilst we can potentially influence how another person is feeling, we can’t truly regulate or change them (but we keep trying)
- Resentment – because the person we’re trying to regulate or help isn’t grateful for our efforts (even though they didn’t ask for help).
- Resentment also happens because truly, in our hearts, we don’t want to regulate the other person but feel we ‘have’ to – to feel safe and relaxed. This produces anger towards ourselves, which is essentially what resentment is.
THE ROOT CAUSE
The root cause is survival terror. It’s common for survival terror to be experienced whilst in our mother’s womb because mum is perpetually under-resourced and emotionally unstable, or has a strong conflict about being pregnant or doesn’t want to be, and/or there is a major incident(s) like domestic violence or an accident where there is a real-time fear for one’s life.
Commonly though, it’s the former, where mum herself has built up pain, a nervous system in trauma response (fight, flight, freeze, fawn, hide, avoid, collapse, dissociate). What happens is the foetus, or young child feels this instability as dangerous, even life-threatening, because if mum’s not ok enough to take care of me – I might die.
So that mum is ok, the developing child’s system makes her a priority. Attending to mum’s needs, and adapting so that mum feels stable enough to take care of us. Therefore, the centre of loyalty towards ourselves primarily, shifts to giving priority to mum’s needs.
What happens is that we then tuck our own needs away, and we then have a pattern of relating that is others’ needs first (so that I’m safe) and our own needs get dissociated.
In our adult relationships, this can be extremely debilitating. Both for the person who is regulating, and the person we are attempting to regulate. When we have this pattern, we’re prone to being with people we might describe as more narcissistic, because there’s an energetic fit. Their needs are the priority, our needs are dissociated. However, this isn’t always the case.
I also want to add that for centuries, our societal structures have rewarded women for putting others’ needs before their own as well!
WHAT WE CAN DO
Recalibrate our attachment template with deep and thorough attachment work. Process the survival terror that created the need for the shift in loyalty.
This takes time. Our systems need to prepare for such deep work as the root survival terror is often experienced when we’re in the womb. It’s then common for there to be multiple attachment disruptions over time, that repeat the sense of terror, and thus consolidate our experience and relational patterns.
However, it is possible, over time, to prepare our system to process these roots. And when the terror is processed, it enables the whole pattern of relating to unwind. This also takes time. It doesn’t happen overnight because we are rewiring our brain and nervous system. Our system responds well to slow, steady orientation to the fact that we are now safe, and all parts of us can relax, come out of trauma response and live.
This all recalibrates our attachment template and transitions us from a foundation of fear to a foundation of love.
Over-functioning in Relationships
believing it’s our partner who needs to get help
THIS LOOKS LIKE
Becoming fixated on our partner needing to change so that the relationship can work; where they can grow, what they need to do, believing that IF ONLY they would go to therapy, stop doing this or start doing that, then the relationship would be ok.
If we’re genuinely doing our healing work, then we also need to look at why we are with someone who isn’t. That IS our attachment work. Parts of us that might be waiting or hoping for connection, rather than being able to assess if we’re still a good match. The perpetual trying to make things work is part of our attachment wounding and attempts to get a parent to love us.
So if you’re persuading someone to be nice to you, to like or love you, then it’s time to look at that perpetual try. Once that is understood and mostly dissolved, we can think more clearly, assess the situation as it is, and make a clear decision from our adult selves.
Staying in love-less relationships (particularly thinking it’s for the children’s sake), getting breadcrumbs of something that looks or feels like love, over-understanding a partner (you’re not his psychologist), we’re enabling the notion that he’s a little boy, and ignoring that we are also operating from a younger wounded place.
THE ROOT CAUSE
Over-functioning and over-attuning are wired into our attachment template because we have had to attune, adapt and stay vigilant with a parent repeatedly, and this way of being has become ingrained.
What it also does is have us avoiding looking at ourselves, and wondering what our part is in the relationship as adults.
WHAT WE CAN DO
Stop, take a breath, realise that it’s us who needs the help, and then get the relevant help. The healing focus is on the gestational period – when you were in the womb – however, there needs to be a good amount of system preparation and healing within our system to be able to get this deep. This looks like lots of acknowledgement and processing of pain in stages of childhood and adolescence – because those parts of us need the connection before moving to our foetus ages self.
Trying To Get Unmet Childhood Needs To Be Met By Parents – As An Adult
THIS LOOKS LIKE
This one is fairly straightforward in how it looks. It’s the perpetual hoping, waiting, trying, longing for the love we didn’t get, and trying to get that from the people who couldn’t give that when we were young.
Yes, sometimes we humans do change, we do wake up. However, if your parents weren’t in a state of growth and development when we were children, the chances are high that they won’t be for the duration of their lifetime.
Sometimes, parents do awaken and do the work needed to develop themselves and have better relationships. In these cases, it comes from the parents’ decision. It doesn’t come from their adult children persuading them. It’s their decision entirely to look within themselves.
Interacting with our parents as an adult, whilst having the unexpressed expectation that they should love us in the way we want to, only has both parties feeling the strain, and keeps us stuck in a dynamic that just doesn’t work.
THE ROOT CAUSE
Again, this one is fairly straightforward! The root is that we didn’t experience enough love, safety and attunement as children.
Sometimes, when we don’t get enough from our parents – if there were older siblings around, we can have some sense of attachment from them. Again, sometimes, the anger and sadness of not getting enough from parents gets displaced onto older siblings, which is another way to divert from that pain of lack.
Because if we didn’t get enough, then it’s highly likely that our siblings didn’t either. And the oldest child is usually at the coal face of the new parents’ issues.
WHAT WE CAN DO
If we have expectations that our parents should love us in a certain way, do the work or whatever else so that we can heal/get the love we missed out on – try getting clear on that expectation and communicate that with your parents. That way, they have a choice to say yes or no to that expectation.
Chances are you might get a vague, checked-out answer. Which is also a no. Anything but a clear YES is a NO to that expectation. Either because they don’t want to, are too dissociated to hear you, or are aware they don’t have the capacity and simply don’t want to do inner work, which is their choice.
Then we can process the original pain of lack because the perpetual trying covers that up.
If your lack of care is projected onto a sibling, start by acknowledging that, owning your expectations, and then breathe back in your expectations, into your own body. This might sound strange, but it works. Now turn your gaze towards your parents and see what comes up.
In summary, this episode provides valuable insights into the complex world of attachment patterns and their influence on our relationships. By understanding these dynamics and addressing the root causes, we CAN embark on a transformative journey towards secure attachment from within and fulfilling relationships based on love. Through dedication and root work, we truly can regain a sense of our true self and safety.
All the ‘what to do’ recommendations can be summarised as turning our gaze inwards, processing pain that was previously unbearable, and finding love, value and secure attachment within.
Doing this across our Souls Journey takes account of our whole consciousness including victim, perpetrator and failed rescuer states of being.
Working multi-dimensionally, as well as the roots in this life – including in the womb – helps us to thoroughly recalibrate our attachment template.
Part of the purpose of this podcast episode is to offer reassurance that deep healing IS possible. I have direct experience of this within myself, and with those I work with. I hope this comes as some comfort to you as you navigate life.
