You’ve gotten into a difficult place with your partner, again. A wonderful evening that started out with fun and adventure, that then veered into THAT conversation that brought up vulnerable feelings. And then, he/she gets anxious about it, seemingly coming after you, and you avoid saying you’ll talk about it tomorrow. Or, it’s in reverse.
And if you only knew that everyone is operating from attachment styles (that govern how we do relationships, relating and vulnerability), and that almost 85% of the population has an insecure attachment style, you’ll be well on your way to not having to go to those difficult places so much.
We get education in school for apparently academics, home Ec, accounting, but nothing on relationship skills, (or child-raising for that matter) which is a crazy set up for everyone since relationships are everything and how we navigate them determines the outcomes on health, finances, and happiness. Even the coaching world is amiss with the prevalence of this syndrome operating how people do business. The world has yet to catch on in a bigger way.
Understanding how to navigate these scenarios successfully can be learned, it’s not your fault, and yet, you can have the capacity to learn, observe, integrate and rewire these underlying
Here’s how.
First, and I help my clients with this, you have to be willing to learn which style you are; insecure -anxious, insecure – avoidant, secure, or disorganized. And you can identify which type you are by looking at how you act when there is vulnerability and relationship challenge. Do you lean in for support? Do you cling and get anxious for an immediate? (i.e. ‘We really need to talk now, this minute’) Do you avoid, dismiss or deflect? (I don’t wanna do this now, talk to you in a couple days’) Or do you have some of both with other responses that seem contradictory? I.e. anxiety, dismissal, numbness. Secure couples lean in for mutual support and give it. Anything other than that represents an insecure style.
When you read this, do you resonate with one more than the other? Think back to your last edgy spot with your partner, your last conflict. What characterizes your actions, words and behaviors? How do you feel inside? You’ll see which one speaks strongest to you.
The thing is that each style is working to defend and protect something. And it is the work to find out what that is. Anxious styles are afraid of abandonment and being left alone, whereas avoidant styles are the opposite. They don’t want to feel engulfed, invaded or overtaken. The truth is both feel insecure and very often in a relationship one can attract the other. Opposites can attract for healing, and beyond that create incredible sexual friction and polarity. And this can be a portal into that, if you decide to look at what perceived vulnerability you are really protecting with your style.
And more than that, look into what history may have led to that protection style (what I like to call it instead of attachment), because that’s really what it is. Was your primary experience one of being left alone in vulnerable situations? Or maybe it was of being engulfed, entrapped or taken over by a primary caregiver. And then identifying what feelings and overwhelm may be stuck in your body that needs help getting cleared, rewired and resolved. Those have to get addressed, otherwise the roots of this disconnect won’t be resolved.
And when you do that, you can start to own the pattern at the edges of vulnerability that would make the old thing play out. You can voice the vulnerability of the anxious one, “I’m afraid you’re going to bolt out of this conversation and not wanna talk about it for three days”. Or the avoidant one can speak more honestly, “I’m afraid you’re trying to force me to stay here and I feel vulnerable.” It’s a start.
You keep doing these things, and then it can become easier to be more vulnerable while being emotionally and somatically resourced to walk through that together and to lean into mutual care and support with each other, rather than the strategies you once learned a long time ago. And that opens up lots of new conversations that have more space inside of them, more openness, more self reflection, more honesty, and because the intersecting attachment patterns aren’t unconsciously running the show, there’s far more creativity. And THAT, is where resolutions come from, because there is more freed up life-force and I call it love-force energy, free to create the desires of your partnership and relationship heart. Yum!
Now look, this isn’t easy. And what I’ve seen out there and what my clients tell me is that a book doesn’t resolve this. A single focus coaching program (that’s not THIS focus) is not resolving this for them either. And most weekend workshops might start to speak a line or two about this, but none provide the in-depth containment and emotional support and personalized safety that each couple needs. A plant medicine session can provide tremendous euphoria, but as far as integrating this material, I’ve seen it kick this material up for people, but have zero integration support and leave people far more disintegrated and ultimately disorganized in their attachment/protective style. It bothers me because I know the value of a secure relationship (having worked through massive disorganized and multiple intergenerational attachment wounding and injuries myself) and it’s one of the most precious gifts and resources to give yourself to have this, embodied and available for yourself. Spiritual retreats might help you become more mindful, but again, where is the necessary integrative support for THIS area? Where are the trained meditation teachers who are also experts at this? I’ve seen very very few. This is not an area that can be spiritually bypassed, sexually bypassed (I’ve tried both), nor hope it goes away over time. I saw one client choose to blame his partner and go through two marriages in the time I worked with him, and was not ready to face and this until marriage number 3 was about to go down the toilet. You don’t have to go down that path. And, if you’re open to being courageous, bravehearted and willing you will get you there faster.
And look, if you want super satisfying sex, love and closeness, this work is a non-negotiable piece of the peace and super-satisfaction pie. Feeling secure in partnership in the vulnerable love places, the vulnerable sex places, and the vulnerable intimacy and emotional places is worth it’s weight in gold and there are foundational pieces (which happen to be my expertise) that you can’t not do! Fortunately, with me, you get my expertise in this area, and personally curated 30,000 hours and 35 years of experience and Intimacy Alchemy genius to help you integrate it as simply and efficiently as possible. Not only that, this work bomb-proof’s your relationship from needless and countless conflicts and periods of painful disconnection that end up sabotaging your relationship over time and destroying love. Not necessary! I guarantee that this particular part of the work closes major gaps of connection between you two, and that is super satisfying on so many levels.
In my 3 month private, hybrid 1:1 and group program, I help coaches, entrepreneurs and professionals figure out how to specifically unearth, roto rooter, heal and dissolve the most disconnecting of relationship protection patterns and then move from the fallout and failing to give each other what the relationship needs to thrive, into real, sustainable, sex love and closeness. In addition, we address the corresponding trauma, mind, body and heart patterns that go with this, and thoroughly rewire them, along with decoding precisely what the root cause of the vulnerable disconnection is. Email me at joanna@joannaintara.com if you’re interested and we’ll have a quick chat to see if it’s a fit.
