Written By Ashley Gray, LCSW, MFTC
In a previous blog post, I addressed the age-old question as to whether or not you need to heal yourself before you can be in a relationship. I also promised to address how to have a healthy relationship with yourself as a way to work towards a secure attachment. Well, I'm making good on that promise today! Often, when we talk about attachment we talk about giving and receiving love with someone else. Meeting the needs of someone else and allowing someone else to meet our needs and there is nothing wrong with that. AND it isn't the whole picture. You may have seen me write before that what we do or don't allow within ourselves, we project onto others. This is why we must be kind and gentle with ourselves, so we can love others with kindness and gentleness. It is important that we love ourselves well. It is important that we love others well. It is also important that we love ourselves well, so that we can love others. I say it this way to emphasize that loving ourselves or loving others is not just a means to an end, but important in its own right. It is also very important to remember that if you want to love others well, you must also love yourself well or you will be pouring from an empty cup and burnout. Let's jump into how we do this!
Connect With Younger Versions of You
I don't know that I love any guidance better than this right here. You can call this connecting with your inner child. When we connect with this part of ourselves, we allow ourselves to see an innocence that time and trauma has sullied with shame. We also get to extend compassion in a way that often feels easier to access than when we're trying to be compassionate for who we are today.
Okay, so enough of the build up, already. When venturing into connecting with a younger version of yourself, you want to think about which version of you needed a healthy, protective, supportive adult that could provide wise guidance. There may be more than one age that comes to mind and that is okay. It is often easiest to start by focusing on just one age at a time. You can choose you at ANY age where you needed support, not only you as a child. Trust that whatever age comes to mind, is where you need to focus. To connect with that version of yourself, picture yourself at the chosen age in all the trappings of that age. What did you wear at that age? Where did you hang out? What did you like to do for fun? What did you eat? What did you need? You visualize these parts of yourself to help you connect more deeply, which can help you respond to this younger you a bit more compassionately. Some people like to keep a picture around of a younger version of themselves to help remind them to listen to the younger version of themselves.
When you first start listening to the younger you, you can close your eyes, picture yourself at this younger age and then picture yourself approaching younger you and asking them what they need from present-day you. It could be protection, fun, kindness, simply listening or anything else you may have needed. Promise younger you, that you'll be there for them, that they can come to you anytime to tell you what they need. And then truly commit yourself to listening to younger you. Make time to do things that younger you enjoyed (unless those things don't feel good now), take time to guide younger you to make good choices for yourself and protect younger you's needs. So when you feel yourself getting angry in the way you did as a teen, that doesn't serve you now, you can gentle parent that younger version of you that is showing up. It can sound like thinking or saying to yourself, "I see you're really angry and that makes so much sense in this situation. Let's take a deep breath, take a break from this situation to journal and return once we're calm." It is okay if it feels strange to do this in the beginning. It can take a bit of practice before responding to your needs feels comfortable.
2. Learn Your Attachment Patterns
You may have heard of attachment styles before. If you have been reading my blog posts, you've DEFINITELY heard of attachment styles before. Attachment styles are the ways we give and receive love based on how we have experienced love and care taking before. They are compromised of secure attachment, anxious attachment, avoidant attachment and disorganized attachment. If you would like to learn more about the different attachment styles, read this (point 3). Also, many people think that you have only one attachment style. However, you can have different attachment styles showing up in different situations with different people. For instance, you might be mostly secure with your partner, anxious with your dad and avoidant with your mom. However, in that same scenario, you can have anxious patterns show up with your partner when they are out of town. Avoidant patterns with your dad around the holidays and anxious patterns with your mom when you're going through a hard season of life. You don't want to just be familiar with the bullet points that characterize your main attachment styles, you want to be familiar with which patterns show up and when are they are most likely to show up.
Once you start to get familiar with the patterns, you can start to identify the needs. Sometimes you might identify the needs before the patterns and that is okay too, the point is just to identify the needs and patterns, learn to meet your needs and take responsibility for the parts of your patterns that are unfair to yourself or others. For instance, if you fear distance with your partner so much that you push too much for conversations, in doing so you don't respect their boundaries and become critical and hurtful. Then you would want to move forward by learning your need that you're trying to get met through the conversation. The need might be connection, reassurance, clarity through communication, a combination of these things or something slightly different. If it is any of the things that I mentioned, you would want to learn to meet these needs for yourself if your partner is unavailable. You would need to learn connect with yourself (maybe through hobbies, journaling or therapy), work to reassure yourself (with positive self talk or affirmations, considering the facts of the situation) or maybe learn other forms of self-regulation. You could start by getting my free 9-page guide on how to learn to self-regulate, here.
3. Identify Negative Core Beliefs and Replace Them With Healthier Beliefs
This can be harder than it may sound. The hardest part can be identifying the belief and that is where a therapist can be really helpful. A therapist will look at your family patterns, values, trauma, current behavior tendencies and within that they will help you identify what negative core beliefs exist. Once the negative core beliefs are identified, we want to look at what the truth of the story is. For instance, if you have a negative core belief that nobody likes you, the truth might be that some people don't like you or don't like you in particular instances. The rest of the story (which is still the truth) is that there are people in your life that love you very much. Reminding yourself of those facts can help you stay grounded in reality instead of shame spiraling and then making decisions from a place of shame. How you talk to yourself matters whether you're using positive affirmations, gentle self-talk, practicing gratitude or reminding yourself of the less bleak reality of the situation help you stay healthier by making more value-aligned decisions.
4. Engage In Regular Self-Care As A Part Of Your Routine
Many times when people think of self-care they think of pampering, or spending money or of something that just happens once in awhile. This is sometimes paired with the thinking that self-care should happen as a reaction to stress. However, if you can incorporate self-care into daily life, you can become more resilient to stress and make life more enjoyable. Self-care should include things that bring you joy and it should also include things that need to get done, like an errand that has been hanging over your head. Below are some examples of some other ways to engage in regular self-care.
Spending time outdoors
Moving your body (ex: hiking, swimming, running, etc)
Trying new things
Cleaning your home
Having a regular bedtime
Knowing your values, needs and boundaries and advocating for them
Cuddling your pet
Enjoying art (through creation or appreciation)
Cooking and/or eating quality food
Savoring a comforting scent
This certainly isn't an exhaustive list. The guidance is that if it feels nurturing, then it probably counts as self-care. :)
5. Connect With Others
No one is meant to live in isolation. Even introverts need to have community with other people. Spending time with others reminds us that we aren't alone in our struggles. It gives us a special purpose to learn to give and receive in community. It makes us resilient in spirit and in function. All of these factors coming together in healthy community (emphasis on HEALTHY) can help you feel even more like yourself. If you're someone who tends to go it alone in life or feel like it would be selfish to prioritize your social life, I strongly encourage you to reconsider.
If you use this post as a guide to establish a stronger relationship with yourself. I encourage you to start where you feel most comfortable and then slowly move into the areas that feel slightly more challenging.
I'm wishing you the best on your healing journey! :)
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This post is written by individual and couples therapist, Ashley Gray of Arvada, Colorado. Ashley works with her clients using Gottman Method Couples Therapy, EMDR Trauma Therapy, Prepare and Enrich, attachment focused therapy and techniques from Emotionally Focused Therapy, Couples Intensives and EMDR Intensives. As a therapist, she is passionate about helping people build healthy relationships and supporting people with the resources they need. In her free time, Ashley hikes, paddle boards, reads, spends time with her husband and her cuddly dog. For more information about Ashley and her practice, click here.
