Anxious Attachment Reprogramming

Part 1

Let's do some work around minimizing your concern around anxious attachment patterns coming back up. This exercise will allow you to be proactive instead of reactive if a pattern or action triggered by anxiety is coming up.

Create 4 columns on a page.

In one column, create a list of triggering events you can think of from the past and present around your relationships.

In another column, write down the core beliefs that feel associated with each event.

Here is a list of common beliefs, you can pull from here but try to come up with your own first:

I am not enough

I am too much

I am abandoned/alone 

I am unloved
I am bad 

I am weak 

I am unsafe
I am stupid 

I am unworthy 

I am helpless
I am unseen/unheard 

I am unimportant 

I am defective/broken

I don’t belong 

I am disliked 

I am misunderstood
I am disconnected

I am excluded

I am disrespected
I am rejected 

I am trapped/stuck 

I am powerless/no control

Next, write down how that event/belief felt or feels now.

Root these descriptions as sensations in your body or more general feelings like "angry/mad/sad).

Finally, write in a new column the actions that you took after this event (your coping behaviors).

Once you have this list, go do some self-soothing activity or self-care activity.

For example: take a walk or make a cup of tea.

Part 2

The purpose of this exercise is to isolate your subconscious core beliefs in a situation and work to equilibrate them by finding opposing pieces of evidence.

This will assist you in creating emotional relief and the repetition of this (when
triggered or frustrated) will actually reprogram these beliefs over time.

Create 4 columns.

In the first column, name a challenge around dating where you feel disempowered/blocked.

Second column: What beliefs come up around this challenge? What's your story around this?

Third column: What is the opposite belief or narrative?

Fourth column: What evidence can you find that makes the opposite true?

Practice applying this when you feel upset about a situation or when negative thoughts come up. 

The goal of this exercise is to add doubt to the stories you tell yourself when you notice negative emotions have arisen.

Most of our painful stories really are untrue if we are genuinely willing to question them.

Again, after you finish this practice, treat yourself to something nice – a massage or walk!