Shift Your Anxious Attachment to Secure Attachment in 8 Steps

Anxious attachment style is very common, and if you have it, you know it’s not fun. What causes it, what are the signs you have it and how do you shift to secure attachment?

I know firsthand how difficult it can be to have an anxious attachment style, because I used to have it. It’s miserable, isn’t it? It was dire for me, and I think my life would have been a lot different if I had developed a secure attachment style earlier on. 

I’ve realized the work I have done on myself to heal my attachment style was the key game changer for me – by doing so, I have improved my relationship, my friendships, my feminine energy, and my confidence. 

So, I want to dive into this subject today because I know how it consumed my life and hindered my relationships until I fixed it. If you are trying to navigate this, I want to tell you exactly the steps I took to heal because I know it will help you, too. But first, let’s get to the root of the issue. 

What causes anxious attachment? 

Somewhere along the line, possibly during your childhood, you experienced trauma or neglect that led you here. It’s nothing you did wrong, or anything someone else did, necessarily. It doesn’t have to be life-altering or done with malintent by any means – it could be that when you were little, your mom had to drop you off at daycare while she went to work. When you were left there, your subconscious made you realize: People can abandon you. 

That subconscious grew and was validated as you grew older as people came and went from your life. You developed a belief, subconscious or conscious, that people will leave you and so you develop an anxious attachment relationship style as a self-protection mechanism when you care for someone. 

The truth of life is that nothing and no one is guaranteed to hold a permanent place in your life. People die, people move, people leave and people choose others every day. It’s not fair, but worrying about it is pointless because, at the end of the day nothing is certain. 

No one can predict the future. All we can do is be present, be our most authentic selves and decide who we allow to enter our lives by interpreting their character based on the information they are giving us. 

Understanding this is a crucial first step in your healing journey. 

Signs you have anxious attachment 

Anxious attachment styles typically come to life in relationships – family relationships, friendships, and romantic relationships. 

If you have anxiety in relationships, generally you are always searching for validation in other people, or proof that they are going to validate your fear they will leave. So, you do incredibly unhealthy things to make yourself feel better and are, in general, always fixated on the relationship. 

I read a book lately called Don’t Believe Everything You Think, by Joseph Nguyen, which essentially highlights that the result of suffering to too much thinking. And that’s exactly what you are doing – you overthink every single thing in the relationship, overanalyze and hyper fixate on things that don’t matter. 

Below are some examples of what this looks like. 

You may have anxious attachment if you…

• Are always checking your phone to see if they have replied 

• Want to control what he does to make yourself feel more secure 

• Feel the urge to reach out and follow up when you don’t hear from them 

• Constantly think and worry about the relationship 

• Are not comfortable being alone 

• Have trouble setting boundaries 

• Put other people on a pedestal 

• Need verbal validation from people – on your looks, intelligence, etc. 

• Feel addicted to needing closeness with someone 

• Tend to people-please in order to win people’s affection 

• Don’t trust easily and constantly think people want to hurt you 

• Self-sabotage by acting and reacting overly emotionally 

• Feel obsessive or fixated on the person and your relationship 

8 steps to shift from anxious to secure attachment 

1. Regulate your emotions and detach 

Girl, learning detachment changed everything for me. Before I learned detachment, I felt like a piece of drifting wood being tossed around in the ocean. I had no spine, no anchor to keep me grounded. 

Learning how to self-regulate my emotions and detach was THE game changer for me. It starts with awareness, mapping out your goals for yourself and focusing on you. Learn more in my blog on detachment. 

2. Be your own self-validation

You need to stop looking for validation in other people and start finding it in yourself. Until you stop depending on other people to tell you you’re good enough, you will never be happy. The reason you are anxious is because somewhere deep down, there’s a part of you that doesn’t feel good enough or lovable enough to be in a healthy relationship.  

To truly level up in this life, you need to elevate your perception of yourself. To do this, set personal goals for yourself: your career, your fitness and your life, and be dedicated to these goals. Achieving them will naturally help you become your own source of validation. 

3. Cultivate independence 

Start getting comfortable being alone – it’s not other people’s jobs to entertain you and fill your time. Pick up a hobby. Go read a book. Focus on your goals. The more you learn to cultivate a life where you’re happy being alone, the more you start to realize, ‘It’s okay if this person leaves. I am all I need. I can create my own happiness right here by doing things I truly love to do.’

4. Set boundaries 

Be unwavering in the boundaries you set and watch how people treat you differently. You do this by putting yourself and your goals first. For example, if your partner wants to hang out but you made a promise to yourself to go to the gym and you only have a certain time slot to do so, you say no to hanging out. Or maybe your boundary is that you don’t text your partner during your working hours, so that you can do what you need to do without distractions. 

You can set boundaries on your time and energy, girl. It allows you the opportunity to establish self-respect, and when you do that, others will respect you more, too. I promise! 

5. Don’t over pursue someone 

Think of yourself as a rare, elegant, prize – like that designer bag you want. Designer bags are not available to everyone, they are very expensive and even if you can afford one, they are often limited and hard to find. If you’re the designer bag, you’re not chasing people to buy you – it’s the other way around. So why would you ever chase after a man? 

You’re a precious, rare, gem. If he doesn’t see that, someone else will. But over pursuing, or in other words chasing a man, will only hurt your self esteem and therefore amplify your anxious attachment.

6. Set personal goals 

It’s time to focus on YOU, baby girl! I want you to sit down and dream up the version of you that you aspire to be. What’s her vibe and esthetic? What are her daily habits? What kind of food does she eat? What kind of clothes does she wear? 

Outline exactly who it is you want to be, perhaps make a vision board for inspiration. Then, map out the exact steps you will have to do every day to become her. I promise, when you fulfill this prophecy, you will build so much confidence in yourself that you’ll be able to naturally detach from needing other people. Because when you’re your own dream girl, why would you need someone else to validate that? 

7. Reward effort, not attention 

There’s a difference between effort and attention. When a man has good intentions and is genuinely pursuing you, you’ll know, because he’s spending time, energy and money on you. You can reward and encourage that behavior by being gracious, thankful and classy. 

But when he hasn’t talked to you for a week and then comments on your Instagram picture with some fire emojis, that’s called attention, and it doesn’t mean much. Don’t think too much into this, it will only exacerbate your anxious attachment. And do NOT reward this inconsistent behavior by reaching out to him, it will only validate his feeling that he can get away the bare minimum in order to receive your energy. Your energy is too valuable for that, love.  

8. Trust people until they give you a reason not to 

This is a side to anxious attachment that I don’t feel is discussed enough – you are paranoid. You constantly try to search for proof that this person will leave you, which leads to unhealthy behavior like checking their phone. My love, you need to learn to hold back on doing things like that and simply trust until someone shows you valid red flags that they are not trustworthy, and then you can approach this situation in a healthy, communicative way. 

But for now, stop self-sabotaging. This does NOT mean you have to put your entire heart in their hands and completely trust someone early on – please don’t do that. But have some faith and assume that there are people out there who genuinely have good intentions and genuinely like you (why wouldn’t they?), or you will live your life in constant fear and paranoia. 

Level up and become “her” with a new set of rules  

Good news, my love – I am officially an author. In my new book, The New Rules: The Ultimate Guide to Being Her, I detail everything I know about navigating confidence, self-improvement, dating and relationships, and ultimately becoming “her” – THAT girl. The BEST version of you. The kind of girl who moves through life with poise, authenticity, happiness and radiance from the inside out. That’s the kind of girl who attracts the type of man you deserve. 

If you want to delve even deeper then sign up for BECOME HER, my 8 week coaching program. Read all about it here. Or sign up with the early bird special today.

Love you lots like jelly tots, 

XX Margarita