During these situations - I believed my feelings were true, If I have this feeling it must be true, it must mean I have to reach out- I must have to connect with them- I must really really love them. I really won’t be able to live without them. The hard part about “trusting our gut or our feelings” as anxiously attached people- is that we have to clarify is this my gut, my intuition or is this fear because of my anxious attachment?
You see our anxious attachment can be triggered or activated in situations where we think something is going wrong, where we think people are going to reject us or abandon us or not like us- and especially during breakups. And definitely a breakup because it is our brain's biggest fear coming true - someone is actually rejecting us and leaving us.
Here is the tricky part- we don’t always hear our brain going to this worst case scenario sometimes they are just covered up by thoughts like: “ they don’t like me” “I am not good enough” “ See I knew I was too much” I am too needy” - however these thoughts all lead to our biggest fear thoughts: They won’t stay, they are going to leave. They don’t love me-
When I am working with women who experience this primal panic- this urgency to do something now- they tell me I want to just not reach out, I want to not feel crazy when I don’t reach out-
So what I hear them saying is they feel crazy when their emotions are high, and their brain is consumed with anxious thoughts that make them want to reach out. They don’t want to reach out in a “needy” way.
Before I teach you these concepts I want you to keep in mind as I teach these concepts separately they are simultaneously happening at once. So much is happening at one time inside of our body when we feel this intense urge to do something- half why we feel crazy is because so much input into our brain and nervous system at one time.
I will do my best to break it down- but know when our anxious attachment is triggered we have a lot of things happening at once:
So I teach them a few concepts:
- I teach them about this intense feeling called Primal Panic and where it comes from.
- I teach them that all feelings are true but the thoughts creating them are not always true.
- I teach them about their thought cycle- and how the thoughts they are thinking right now, are creating more fear on top of their primal panic
- I teach them about the Urge Cycle and how our brain is seeking immediate relief.