Fearful Avoidant Attachment & Conflicted Self Esteem

[00:00:00] So I wanna talk about some really crucial tools for how to improve your self-esteem as a fearful avoidant attachment style individual. So fearful avoidantstend to really oscillate in terms of their self-esteem in a similar way that they do in terms of how they feel about their relationships.

[00:00:16] They are really hot and cold. Now, if you're not already aware, what a fearful avoidant attachment style is, it's one of four major attachment styles, a k a love styles that we have in relationships. And it's important to note that every single person has an attachment style, and the fearful avoidant tends to be the one in relationships.

[00:00:32] that is the hot and cold partner. Now when it comes to your self-esteem as a fearful avoidant, you probably find that some days you feel really great about yourself, and other days you're feeling not so great about yourself, and you can really find yourself oscillating in extremes now at its actual root.

[00:00:48] at the core, this tends to represent all or nothing thinking patterns that are often a byproduct of trauma research tells us. And so the more we go through extreme experiences and situations in our upbringing, the more we tend to learn to perceive the world in extremes. And the more, as a result of that, we tend to see things as all or nothing.

[00:01:09] or in these sort of extreme situations, feeling really great about yourself are really horrible about yourself. So there are some really crucial things that as a fearful avoidant you can do to improve your self-esteem. And to actually feel like you have this sense of stability in terms of your self-confidence that will really positively impact you, not just in your romantic relationships and personal life but also in your work life, in your relationship to money and your relationship to pursue your goals and your dreams, and that things are really important and valuable to you as a person.

[00:01:37] Impact your self-esteem in regards to, you know, you being a feeling like you're a good enough parent a good enough friend, family member, all of those different things, because really our self-esteem spills out into all of those different aspects of our lives. So one of the first things that's really important is to learn to manage your internal dialogue.

[00:01:55] fearful avoidants more than any other attachment style tend to have the most core wounds. And what I mean by core wounds are really painful. Limiting beliefs about yourself that you've come to believe at the core actually is a byproduct of past experiences that were painful and that you couldn't properly emotionally process, and so instead, your mind made meaning out of them.

[00:02:13] Some examples of core wounds for fearful avoidants are. I will be trapped. I will be helpless. If I rely on other people. I am powerless. And again, you may not see that a fearful wound constantly feels this way, but they're constantly reacting to this poor wound. If you are a fearful avoidant, think of how you react to things when you feel trapped.

[00:02:30] I. Helpless or powerless. It's probably not a very nice feeling and you probably find yourself really strongly responding to that, and that is a signifier that you've got this deep core wound because of painful experiences in the past of feeling trapped, helpless, or powerless. Other really common core wounds according to, integrated attachment theory.

[00:02:48] Are things like, I'm not good enough. I am unworthy, I'm a bad person. And feeling this really strong sense of guilt or shame if you make a mistake or do something wrong or accidentally hurt somebody's feelings. And I don't just mean like that healthy amount of, guilt and recognition, but I mean like a huge magnification of how much guilt or shame you feel for the tiniest of errors in a relationship.

[00:03:07] Fearful Avoidants Also fear being abandoned. Being alone. Being excluded. And so you'll see a lot of these different core wounds. Now, you can actually reprogram these core wounds. You weren't born with them. They got conditioned into, essentially through principles of neuroplasticity and conditioning and using specific tools that involve leveraging repetition plus emotion.

[00:03:24] You can actually recondition these things quite easily. So by learning to manage your internal dialogue, recondition your core wounds, or reprogram your core wounds, and to learn to have a healthy amount of self-compassion when you make a mistake, those are three of the root things that you can do.

[00:03:40] There's a lot more, but those are three of the root things that you can do to really target the deepest level of your subconscious mind and sort of pluck out those wounds like their weeds in a garden. Now, another really important thing you can do as if you're a full avoidant attachment style is learn what your needs are and learn to meet them in the relationship to yourself.

[00:03:59] Fearful avoidants often are very codependent before they do a lot of healing work, so they can be very preoccupied with meeting everybody else's needs, and then you get put in the back burner and then how do you feel about yourself? Right, like try to notice this. Imagine you're dating somebody in a romantic relationship and they always put you last.

[00:04:16] Well, it's gonna make you feel not so great in terms of your self-esteem and relationship to that person, cuz you're always last. And the relationship we have to ourselves impacts us more than any other relationship, even more than your romantic relationship. So recognizing the impact of, Hey, I'm on the back burner all the time, I put myself last.

[00:04:34] That has a huge impact on your self-esteem. So the next big thing, so we've got the core wounds, the garden of your subconscious mind and your thought process being self-compassionate. We've got. You know, this ability to learn your own needs, respect about your needs, and really meet them so that you're not constantly put on this back burner.

[00:04:50] And then a huge part of self-esteem is having healthy boundaries. think about if you are dating somebody. And they follow you around all the time and every time you need to set a boundary or say no to something, they're like, Hey, don't say no. Just say yes. Like who cares about what you're feeling?

[00:05:05] Like your needs and feelings don't really matter. Just, just say yes to them, like make them happy. Don't embarrass me. Like, just make them happy. I. If somebody's doing that, they're gonna make you feel like crap, just quite honestly. And if you have poor boundaries and you're really struggling with that, you are doing that to yourself all the time.

[00:05:20] And it has a direct effect on your self-esteem and how you feel about yourself. So learning to be fearless in just asserting yourself in healthy ways, having healthy boundaries, speaking up for yourself and your needs and your boundaries in an ongoing manner. This has a massive impact on your self-esteem.

[00:05:37] Now there's other things we can talk about that the course really gets into a lot more deeply, like the comparison game, how to stop the comparison game and the relationship to yourself. And really how to be able to slow down and introspect and really build a self-loving relationship to yourself.

[00:05:51] Because a lot of high self-esteem equals high self-compassion, high self consideration, you know, a lot of these different dynamics. So these are really important things to keep in mind. This is a really important place to start as if you're a avoidant, regulating your internal dialogue, nothing being so mean to yourself.

[00:06:03] If you make a mistake or something bad happens, reconditioning those core wounds. Learning to have better boundaries, learning to meet your own needs, and learning to respect your feelings and emotions, right? They're giving you feedback. They're not there to punish you. Don't judge yourself or shame yourself for having emotions.

[00:06:18] Listen to them, Hey, why am I feeling bad? What is this trying to tell me? Have I been telling myself negative stories? Do I have unmet needs? Like your emotions are there to guide you towards healing those things if something is out of alignment. So pay attention.