Mentioned episodes:
EP 164: A different look at anxious and avoidant attachment
EP 186: From self-fixing to self-cultivation – a mindset revolution
You can “know” you’re safe… while your nervous system reacts like you’re not. That’s what insecure attachment really is: certain moments in relating get tagged as unsafe inside you.
Distance. Closeness. Anger. Slowness. Receiving. And suddenly you’re not choosing—you’re surviving.
This series isn’t here to label you as anxious or avoidant. It’s here to give you tangible signs to track… and a way to turn them into healing.
In this episode, I share the five most common signs I see in insecure attachment—and how each one points toward your power when met with presence. You’ll learn how to separate sensation from story, listen to protective parts without letting them run the show, and start building secure attachment as a felt experience (not a concept).
Love can feel simple in our heads and chaotic in our bodies. This episode explores why: certain moments in relating get tagged as unsafe by the nervous system and trigger survival responses that overpower logic. I’m back from leading the power journey in Mexico with so much energy and invite you into a series on insecure and secure attachment without leaning on identity labels. Instead of diagnosing yourself as anxious or avoidant, you learn to notice what situations your body treats as threats: distance, closeness, slowness, speed, boredom, or being asked to receive. That clarity builds compassion and opens a practical doorway into change.
The first major theme is survival reactivity. When attention gets pulled away or someone comes close, the body may flip into fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. In that state, stories feel absolutely true and nuance disappears. The work is not to argue better but to recognize the amygdala has taken over and to re-establish a felt sense of safety before you act. This is pillar work: map your breath, heart rate, muscle tension, and inner monologue so you can spot the switch. Only then do options return. This is not about excusing harmful behavior; it is about restoring choice so boundaries, repair, or leaving can happen from a grounded place.
Next comes the “false dilemma” that traps many of us: keep the connection and lose yourself, or keep yourself and lose the connection. That inner conflict signals insecure attachment because the system has not experienced both belonging and self-respect together. Neural pathways have paired closeness with self-abandonment or boundaries with isolation. The shift begins by naming the pattern and then practicing micro-experiments that pair connection with self-trust: asking for a pause without withdrawing love, sharing a limit while staying warm, or receiving care without performing worth. Each rep teaches your body that both can coexist.
Another key pattern is what happens to emotion: we either project it outward or dismiss it inward. Projection turns discomfort into accusations that someone doesn’t care or is controlling. Dismissal gaslights our own feelings as “just a wound.” Neither approach resolves the core fear. The middle path is to separate sensation from story: hold the raw ache or constriction like you would a child while refusing to confirm untested narratives. This is the craft of nuanced presence. Over time, it drains the charge from old imprints and restores accurate perception, which makes conversations cleaner and intimacy safer.
Self-doubt and fragmentation are the fourth theme. When we hunt for the “right” answer outside ourselves, we reenact early dependence where others set rhythms for our needs. Parts inside us pull in different directions—one wants truth-telling, another pleads for peace. Rather than forcing a verdict, the host teaches inner leadership: listen to each part’s protective intent and align them under a shared goal of safety and aliveness. As trust grows, willpower converges, and choices feel coherent. This is not a mental trick; it’s a somatic negotiation that turns inner noise into a stable signal.
Finally, meaning-making can wound our self-esteem. We read breakups, distance, or mismatches as proof we are unhealed or unlovable. That inner narration mirrors how our emotions were met early on. The antidote is compassionate accuracy: acknowledge the pattern without turning it into a verdict about your worth. When you stop shaming yourself, you reclaim the love and playfulness those hurt parts were guarding.
Your invitation: Watch for the five signs, use others as mirrors to spot your own patterns, and commit to practice over theory. With repetition, safety becomes learnable, and secure attachment stops being an idea and starts being a feeling.
