Look into your past to find out if for you significant persons have suppressed your feelings or overly punished certain behaviors. Once you recognize these events, reconcile your core values and assumptions with the new realizations and forgive your old self for making these misunderstandings. This will heal you of distrust, detachment and rejection reflexes. At least in the long run. It's not easy, but it's damn liberating. Source: my own journey
Oh my god, how did you manage to do it??? I started from having full blown avoidant personality disorder and still fighting this... It is so painful making the same mistakes !!!
@@UnifiedFriendsMost of my issues these days seem like more subtle communication habits. Things I will just absolutely not think about that are apparently highly important and eventually causing attachment ruptures. It happens a couple times a year and it almost feels hopeless at times. At some point I've been thinking that I just need to write a relationship manifesto and be a relationship anarchist, lay out all my baggage, and let people adjust or come and go as they see fit, as I cannot seem to adjust to common societal expectations around certain ideals of emotional sharing, as some levels of intimacy and vulnerability simply do not occur in my thought processes.
“Avoidants have fewer memories of painful events. The brain only stores long term memories when there's an emotional component. Since avoidant attachment creates emotional disconnection (as a learned survival strategy), memories aren't stored in the same way as they're stored with people who feel things more intensely. You don't have to remember specific events, to recognize unhealthy patterns.” -Julie Mennano
Holy crap, this is some next level content. This is 100% my strategy, for 40 years: feeling judgemental and impatient in lieu of feeling pain and hurt, which then results in the other person feeling invalidated. But then, *conveniently* the next day, like 80% of it goes down the memory hole, and I start rationalizing why the other person acted the way they did.
so true! my peers say i’m emotionally intelligent but i feel like since i started therapy its like the first time i’m ever experiencing real emotions and actually feeling like a human.. i’ve always been neutral and numb 24/7
And also our defense of being logical & unemotional & unresposive to the other person, can have them feel unheard & not cared about : So they escalate to get a response to feel like we care: And the situation keeps escalating & you leave that person feeling more hurt & not cared about etc:
"So when your partner is dysregulated, yelling at you, saying nasty about your character, it's unlikely you feel pain of that. Likely you're defensive and dismissing them, loud or inside. Problem: pain is not getting through, unable to learn the lesson: situation is painful and needs to be avoided." This explains a lot. And this is what CBT is doing wrong and social anxiety advice online: we are been told that we must not avoid people and that we must expose and be strong and confident and somehow other people will not hurt us with them being nasty. Then we end up not avoiding difficult people and due to stress and pain - we end up avoiding people in general - not meeting new people or organizing parties or being initiative in anything.
my brother said it best, "you act like I'm treating you like an emotional punching bag." He said this during a time where I was starting to learn to stay in my body and characterize my emotions (noticing where I felt sensations, describing the sensations, attempting to name the emotions, and paying attention to the thoughts I would have during my emotions). I learned that I couldn't heal if I kept pretending that I wasn't hurt.
That is so deep. Any lessons for a beginner? I was made ashamed by a colleague at work and since I started doing this work I finally felt furious, I was so furious, barely could speak with hurting and then I spoke but assertiviti type. I expressed the needs and called out the bad behaviour but... I was afraid that I was exposed to a narcissist by showing rage which could made me easier to manipulate or make fun of me, I felt very vulnerable and then I started to look for videos about shame and thought that whenever I hit a trigger, to embrace it and see where is coming from, healing the wounds. Bottom line.. where are you at in your journey? What should I be aware of and learn from you? ❤
It’s all about the feeling of being vulnerable. Fears. All related to childhood experiences. It’s all about defense mechanisms to ensure you don’t get hurt. There is no inner child. Avoidants don’t understand how those mechanisms inaverdantly hurt your partner because of their stress and anxiety. Your partner is not understanding your mechanisms. Communicate!! It’s tough to open up. Communication and dialogue build relationships. Shutting down does not.
DA and Anxious look EQUALLY crazy to each other when activated. Anxious look crazy and emotional and DA look like a psychopath lol but when you understand it it makes total sense :)
Yesss she thaught i was on okay and i needed help, on the other i was thinking who is this woman, what happened to the woman who loved me so intensely few months back
Quote 8:46 "But the ways in which you are in pain in your relationships often are not apparent to you because your brain has learned to cover it up with frustration and contempt." This is so true! Frustration and contempt are nothing more than a cover up for the pain I would/should otherwise be feeling. Thank you for pointing this out! Here is some more gold 8:22 "Your pain is not something you're hiding from other people. It's something your brain is hiding from you!" Your video transcripts are always a big part of my daily journal. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your insights!
YES! I would also say with the 8:46 quote that this is super common with avoidant types who tend to play the "hero/rescuer" role in the drama triangle. On some level the rescuer feels hurt that the victim isn't making the progress they "should" be making, but instead of feeling the pain they intellectualize it ("they can't help it" is a favourite saying), cover it up with frustration and contempt...and that lands them right into the persecutor role! This is 100% my mother right now!
This is blowing my mind right now. Because wait a minute… My whole life I’ve been thinking that the frustration & contempt I’m feeling IS the emotional pain. So my serious question is this: if the frustration & contempt I’m feeling isn’t in fact the emotional pain, if the frustration & contempt is what’s helping me be avoidant, then what is the actual emotional pain? Because damn….talk about a blind spot….I’m stymied. Any thoughts or insights are welcome.
@@beuller7When my (avoidant) wife decided to divorce me, there was a time in that process that she told me her therapist had asked her - “have you allowed yourself to cry about the ending of your relationship”, and my ex’s response was no. She hasn’t felt much of anything in regards to the demise of our relationship - instead she just felt frustration and contempt for me anda need to remove herself from me. I know how much I cried, how much pain I felt at the demise of our relationship. And I came to understand that with me she had removed the ability to feel hurt anymore. I can see how over time she began constructing this wall against those feelings. I remember when we had our first disagreements or something I did that hurt her, she had been vocal about not liking a decision I made but even then didn’t really communicate her actual feelings about it. And over time that communication dynamic got amplified - more expression of frustration and contempt through passive aggression and withdrawal, and almost zero expression of hurt sad scared feelings. I share this story to you because maybe whatever it is that you’re only able to experience frustration and contempt towards is like a callous that’s formed over an area that was repeatedly being injured. Maybe if you look at what it is that you’ve built up your defenses against, and see if there ever was a time you were vulnerable, we’re hurt or sad or scared, maybe you could consciously reconnect with those feelings and this time it would be a conscious choice to feel those raw feelings and even though it will still take courage to let yourself go through them, at least it will be your own conscious choice and not a hurtful situation that was forced upon you. So it will be kind of like a controlled environment for you to feel back into those areas and you can take it at whatever pace you need. Just a thought.
This revealed a lot for me, thank you. I'm not sure that I'm avoidant, because I don't share a lot of the traits around being cold and disengaged, but I definitely intellectualize instead of feeling the emotions. When you said "displaying negative emotions didn't get my needs met as a child" I was like hell no it didn't. The spankings just continued no matter how much I protested.
Wow, I'm not even halfway through and this stopped me in my tracks: "Your pain is not something you're hiding from other people, it's something your brain is hiding from you." I arrived here because I'm just now learning that there's likely an emotional root to the crippling migraines I've endured for 30 years and which are getting worse. I've known I have a dismissive avoidant attachment style for awhile, but I have a feeling a lot of things are going to fall into place by the time I finish this video. Thank you.
Ok, 30 seconds later and my mind is still reeling from this, which perfectly describes how I responded as an 11-yr-old to a major incident of emotional neglect by my mother: "The ways in which you are in pain in your relationships often are not apparent to you because your brain has learned to cover it up with frustration and contempt." I've been trying to touch into the pain I must have felt in that moment of betrayal, but so far there's nothing there except cold contempt. I was a child, I must have been hurt, but in my memory it's like I was a 40-year-old lawyer deciding she clearly wasn't qualified to be my mother, and I held onto that belief for decades.
Thank you ❤️ Lately, I started to believe that I am heartless psycho because I leave people easily after moments of crisis. And you helped me to understand that leaving is the only way I “can” solve the problems by blocking pain. For now, I just don’t allow myself to feel the pain, because of protective mechanism of my mind😭💔, it makes so much sense. I should accept all the negative emotions and pain, in order to learn how to truly prevent repeated unhealthy dynamics.
@@GSXR750wx First of all, the pain of other people is my second priority when I, myself, need help and support. Secondly, I don’t think that I should stay in relationships where people hurt each other with words and actions. The pain from distancing is more healthier than the pain caused by the things that cannot be undone.
@@dariyamakhmutova5780 first of all she's already acknowledged the fact that she's hurting people and she's now acknowledging what she needs to do about it. So your judgment and anything else you have to say after her comment is neither warranted nor relevant. Not to mention that everybody's healing journey is unique in its own way and at least she's doing something about hers and acknowledging that she's got things that she needs to work on and it's not your place or anybody's place other than her individual self. Maybe you should look inside of yourself to find out why you felt the need to call her out on something that she already felt bad about instead of trying to make her feel worse for something that you probably are guilty of and that is why you felt the need to say in the first place everybody that you or interact with in any way shape or form in your life is a mirror of yourself and your own inner reflection. She is the way that she is because of her past traumas and blinders that we ALL have in different forms. Let her heal man, because then and only then will she be able to make the conscious secure decisions to not perpetuate that cycle that you are perpetuating this very moment.
@@dariyamakhmutova5780 The pain is not "healthier." That's just how it makes sense to you when you've never been fully vulnerable to emotions your brain decided were unsafe for you to feel. Someday in your healing journey, I hope you may come to the means and the willingness to be vulnerable in the face of them. To borrow a phrase, "When someone tells us we hurt them, we don't get to tell them we didn't." And the pain we cause others in our efforts to avoid our feeling own is exponential and self-perpetuating. Wounding and being wounded are just as much part of being human as any other bodily function. It may be unpleasant, but it's necessary to address when the time comes.
I have lived an hurtful situation two days ago and I did all that : dissociate, then dismiss and rationalize and found a logical solution to it. When you talked about how you purposely dropped your guard and let yourself be hit, I did the same and cried because I could feel the pain it caused me that I was repressing. I don't want to be hurt like that again. You are right, emotional pain is what I was missing to enforce boundaries. Thank you Heidi. I love you. Your videos are guiding me to authenticity very steadily and I'm grateful.😊
Im very high on the DA attachment style. It has served me very well in my professions (army vet with multiple combat deployments and current police officer). In my relationships its been very difficult. Going through a divorce currently and I was very cold and aloof throughout the marriage and didn't know why until recently discovering attachment styles. She had her issues too but me being highly unemotional didn't help the marriage at all. Its been a strange divorce, no betrayals or any big events but the little resentments built up over time to where they are insurmountable. I'll try to use this going forward but the odds are low that I will ever actively seek out a relationship again.
I hope that things get better for you as you learn more about your attachment style. Sorry to hear they're kind of falling apart at the moment, but it's never too late to start healing once you're still breathing. Sending love
Have to say, as someone who is very skeptical of online gurus, your reasoning around boundaries and the "fists and child" example really drove home the point. Good job!
This is so clear, and so spot on. Thank you 🙏 I have a lot of avoidant qualities, and I’m in a situationship with another avoidant, and I’m just learning how to set boundaries, and what they even are, for the first time. When I was younger instead of setting boundaries, even with friends, my strategy was to literally just abandon them with no explanation. I honestly didn’t believe it was safe or even possible for me to express my own needs, or to stand up for myself. This work isn’t easy, and I am so grateful for your compassionate approach 🙏✨💛
„Instead of feeling wounded, You’re going: okay. This person who did that thing to me was not thinking logically and I can comfort myself with the fact I know better than them” The way my jaw dropped…
I recognized how part of the disorganized attachment style I used to employ was this numbing technique. I prize pain now as an important news outlet instead the enemy.
Important news outlet, I love that!! Physical exercise has taught me a lot about pain too. It's information, that's all. We get to decide how we interpret that information, and what we do with it.
Heidi, it's like you're in my head. Wow, thanks so much for summarizing this aspect of how avoidants deal with emotional pain. I've been like this for years and it's caused great harm in my relationship. Looking forward to watching your follow up video.
I know the videos good when I’m not even a quarter of the way through and I have to pause and come back to it. You just called me out so bad, thank you
This is me! I didn’t realize it until my children were grown and I had to deal with the impact it had on them. From not nurturing them properly to allowing the wrong people into our lives.
once i discovered attachment theory, i was pretty sure that i am an avoidant type. now that i watched some of your videos, im very sure of it. even the way i grew up makes sense, my parents were indeed unreliable, so i developed in a way that was always like "how can I fix xy". asking others for helps doesnt even cross my mind in emotional things. when i first noticed that some ppl do that, i was like "you can do that, with like... success?" honestly, i feel understood by you and thanks to your explanations, i think i can make my relationships more satisfying for all parties. im very grateful to have found your channel and i wish you the best 🙏
I have a more anxious attachment. this was helpful to gain insight into the mind of my on/off partner. in our case, I'm usually trying to explain to him how he's been unfair to me and he won't hear it. he tells me that my words mean nothing and I'm not saying anything of value. which hurts desperately from someone who swears they love you. he then leaves and ghosts me and refuses to ever talk about it so nothing improves. he treats my needs and concerns like I'm being disobedient. that's why we keep ending. he sees it as him holding a boundary against my "craziness" but honestly I would not get to the point that I lose my cool if he'd respect my needs that I vocalize in neutral ways the first ten times
I always recommend focusing on one’s own attachment style in the healing process - the video for anxious blind spots comes out tomorrow! Hopefully it can help 💕
@@heidipriebe1 Thanks Heidi! And to you & the original poster ~ yes totally, I am focusing on my own shit, always, BUT ~ I also super appreciate the insight into this style's possible interpretations. For obvious reasons. We all have pieces of many styles of many things in life. and they bleed into one another on the edges. So I just had to tell you both that. WOOT! Wow, Heidi you really hit a stride in this line of work & I wish you and anyone reading this so much success and wholeness.
@@mudchatpotterynbricks Going from your brief informative description of the dynamic; I would Grey Rock him and observe his response/reaction. Did you feel heard as a child? Is this a pattern in your life? Cycles tend to keep repeating, until we learn from our mistakes. My ex has NPD. He would say such things as ‘You talk too much’ ‘I know everything I need to know about you, you don’t need to tell me any more’ ‘Shut up’ ‘Stop repeating yourself’ ‘I don’t listen’ When I started to actually listen to his words, rather than react, explain, defend, I took his advice, stopped talking and stayed silent. The reaction was; ‘Why are you not speaking with me?’ ‘Well, if your not going to talk to me..’ ‘I feel like you don’t want to talk with me.’ ‘I don’t like it when you don’t say anything’. ‘I try to talk to you but you don’t say a word’. Now I practice listening more and speaking less. It is working wonders on my inner peace! He would use silent treatment to punish me and then I’d get a text ‘Hello! 👋 as if nothing had happened (A form of gaslighting)we would go through the narcissistic abuse cycle/stages of love bombing, devalue and discard faster and faster the longer we were together. If your unfamiliar with the Grey rock technique, I highly recommend listening to Tamie M Joyce. Just my humble opinion. Sending love from Spain ❤
@@nickieglazer33 Oh my GOODNESS! what a fantastic adding to the conversation! and how healing... as we share our experiences i believe we help others in immense ways ~ it's also its OWN form of healing. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the work you've been doing and shared here. this is a seemingly insurmountable obstacle ~ learning our ways out of this stuff ~ but it's NOT .. not at all, with the resources we now have ~ those of us fortunate enough to learn and share with one another online . YES OF COURSE i was not heard as a kid and all you describe i've been through. i happened to have dated someone new recently , and was still working through things, and kinda slipping back into my "oh , i can help him see" - i can be so quick to try to help another with their blindspots, i am READY to take accountability as everything was my fault as a kid, blahhhh blah blah. but know what - i got out of this phase already, i'd already broken it off with the person,, but still was examining myself - obviously - and this video came up and i'm AMAZED at what work people do NOW - this didn't used even EXIST. when i had my worst experience 10 years ago, and it took me out for a decade, i had to find my way through the most - WOWWING of a maze of .. all of it. the WHOLE NPD stockholm people pleasers everything dynamic. enmeshment all that. all of it. it's now become my work , one of the layers, as i am an artist, musician, etc. thank you SO much for your heartfelt comment, for HEALING and BLOSSOMING! and sharing. it's amazing how articulate so MANY are these days, and it's explosively exciting to me ~ who used to be alone in so many of these studies. now it's becoming LOGIC to many of the younger folks. I've actually never been more at peace and inspired in determined to stay calm in my nervous system, AND talk a lot like I CAN because I feel ~ i know some things, i can lecture - it's natural to me ~ and those who vibe with me , LEARN from me, appreciate me? i know who and when that is. who ever got this far - KEEP GOING. and learning to love yourself first ALWAYS - this is it. it may be your EXACT JOB to do on this earth. and you can have love relationships still. but keep doing you. cry the tears. i cry all the time! did this AM! i still purge, i cried for a minute, with many simultaneous emotions.. SO MUCH PRAISE FOR ME, so much credit to my younger selves who suffered so tremendously. i will ALWAYS be there for people who are around me or come to me or need feedback.. i will tell my story , i KNOW what is possible for healing, i AM LIVING PROOF. i started talking to a remarkable person a few days ago. someone i knew years ago, worked with briefly, and had trust already. it's amazing how as life has moved forward, how i've grown from so FCKN much trauma, my life has been marked by it in more ways than can be counted ~ ~ i can be detatched and amused amazed and thankful to have this new relationship. but i have such strength being in my OWN cockpit now ~ i dont have the denial thing going on - not even slightly like i did with the person who loved bombed me, etc, he was great, not like a terrible abuser, BUT i am more advanced, i dont need any more riff raff, can still be his friend but - i dont have ANY time for relationships that have those dynamics. when they showed, i got spooked, but i was upset for a few weeks. we dated for 3 months or so, and even though he was IN LOVE with me, he'd act weird, triangulate SO subtly , walk things back, it HURT. i knew what it was and it was a test. i then re-met someone so sincere and mature, and - it was SUCH a proof. such a proof. and i am MUCH stronger just from having revisited just SLIGHT behaviors from that other person. i do personal work AS my life habit, and so does this person, and - it's just NEAT, nice -- to "like" someone and be *inspired to stay very centered* in my creative process and life, and do wholesome stuff sometimes. we live an hour from each other, and it will make us conscious of things in a different way. i'm in my 40's so each decade is different ~ but i assure you . THE THING you need is to re-raise those inner children and never EVER stop. YOUR SELF LOVE and assurance CAN be cultivated. it CAN. so do what needs to be done. SO MUCH LOVE TO YOU! muah.
I’m so glad you put this together. I was working with a trauma therapist for a couple years and about the time I stopped seeing her due to a lack of income, she was showing me these massive blind spots I had. I had a lot going on in my life and still do and I didn’t want to do another”loop” so I persisted getting to the root of the problem when I should have yielded. The shame I had for being so naive about somethings I was completely oblivious to was so intense and I’ve been in a bad spot for over year now. Not trusting myself, my motives, my decisions, my capacity and there has been so much riding on them with no idea how to move forward. I also had a hard time with the idea I had that this therapy was going to free me up to be even more resilient than I already was, instead it was the exact opposite, spiritually and physically. My health tanked for about two years, I’m beginning to get better now and do all I can to put the pieces back together. Your channel has been a big help. Trying to understand attachment style and the infp stuff has been interesting.
You are such a gift to intelligence. I have accept a job in on line therapy… have not worked due to retirement for 6 years . When I started receiving clients I noticed so much depression is linked to attachment style. Since I was adopted I used to use attachment theory in practice when I was working. Since watching your videos a whole flood of emotions and insecurity has encapsulated me to crying and feeling so lonely. All my family has died except my son and his family. I am now questioning my ability to be helpful to my new online clients. I love that you discuss your past as a fearful avoidant. That’s what I am for sure. Because you have so beautifully been able to come to secure attachment. I am glad you give so much great therapy advice on healing. Thank Heidi❤
As someone brought up on the "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me" mantra to avoid getting into physical altercations as a child, it seems in retrospect that helped to cultivate an avoidant mental state as a child, sadly something that has taken a long time to come to terms with.
I've made my own version of that saying: Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words break hearts - so choose wisely🙂 I have been accidentally hurt by people who care for me, but words have really had the staying power😅
I feel my inner child is talking sitting opposite to me. I’ve tried many articles&videos but nothing took me sooo close to understanding my inner core like this video. Heidi, you are really doing a phenomenal job. The clarity you give and the way you make your narrative look from the inside is amazing. You have a great potential. I’m going to constantly follow you from now on and looking forward for any workshops specifically to avoidant attachments. Great job. Thank you for this video😊
Another amazing video omg 🤯😵 I have tested as Securely attached, slightly leaning to Preoccupied/anxiously attached. But my Dad is definitely avoidant. I sent him this video. I swear, you are touching on such nuances that I don't hear anyone else talking about with attachment styles! 🤯 Thank you so much. Keep up the good work 💜
I appreciate your ability to speak the language of dismissive avoidants as we are working on becoming integrated. Dissociation was my SOP for decades, and I'm now able to be more engaged in my personal and business interactions. What's odd is that I've always been told by observers that I have above average rapport building in spite of it.
Mindblowing insight. Literally freeing me from old entrenched habits. Maturity. Heidi, you have a gift. Im going to donate to your channel. Thank you so much.
Wow, this blew my mind. It explains so much of what I was trying to understand in myself. Now I have an idea of what I can work on, in regards to negative emotion. Your analogy of putting down the defenses makes a lot of sense.
Wow. Just in my most recent therapy session I was recounting incidents from an old business relationship, where I was getting insulted and humiliated all the time. Still, I kept going back for more because I had reasoned to myself that the guy is just a jerk and none of what he says is valid or makes sense. From up there on my high horse of integrity and superior analytical skills, I couldn't see the ways this was actually damaging for me. Thinking back to it, I said it felt like I was a boxer who kept getting punched and stood bruised, bleeding, yet content that they won the fight. I have a lot of work to do in acknowledging the hurt and I'm still kind of stuck between contempt and resentment, but your metaphor totally resonates :)
Blew my damn mind! My friend sent me the Anxious Blind Spot video. I always thought I was anxious -- but that vid did not describe what's been going on in me. So I looked for other attachment styles. This one is ME! I never knew I was avoidant. I have tears in my eyes.
As a fearful/secure person, i believe that dismissive and anxious have the same core wounds, but they process them very differently, so like two sides of the same coin. Just that the anxious clings while the avoidants pushes away.
@@couch_philosoph3325 Then my friend sent me 3 attachment style tests, and my results for all 3 was anxious. Thinking about it: My private feelings are anxious, but my way of interacting with people is rational, and avoidant.
Welcome to, being told repeatedly that you are the worst type of person ever. Go to the comments sections of other videos to find out just how much you constantly wreck everyone else’s lives. There will be long trauma stories of how awful the avoidant is. You will even be slotted beside and likened to the narcissist, and in fact, it will allegedly be hard to tell us avoidants apart from the narc. Just more reinforcement of how unwanted we really are. Yay.
So, to be clear, you want me to let others abuse me and hurt me, and not defend myself, and let the devastation of the circumstances go through me, to accept the pain, so I can learn where, in future, to put healthy boundaries and not be just in my logic self (cause that isn’t as helpful). My analogy: That’s like asking me to piss on an electric fence so I know not to do it in future. I think you’re asking that when a situation crops up, I should allow myself to feel, rather than implement my go to defences. Practice allowing myself to feel emotions and the discomfort?? This was over my head.
THANK YOU for covering the stereotype about dismissive avoidants deciding to ignore their emotions. I swear there’s a subtype of anxious-preoccupied that pretends to be DA but they’re just passive aggressively seeking validation
I think the word ‘avoidant’ can be misleading for people when trying to identify their style. Ironically, those with anxious or fearful-avoidant styles are the ones who are most aware of their attempts to avoid their emotional experiences, since they’re so heightened and therefore so consciously painful, so I can see them latching onto the term ‘avoidant’ when not aware what it means in an attachment sense.
I think they just might be trying to do something differently so to not get hurt. Being told you're 'emotional', etc in current times isn't something looked well upon like being 'rational' or 'logical' is.They could just be mimicking something they've seen (being these 2 styles are drawn to the other) since they don't see the avoidant attachments hurting.
We end up “passively aggressively” seeking validation, because so many times seeking it in a healthy way goes unnoticed. It then becomes the norm after being ignored, criticized and judged for so long .. we too, are just playing out our roles we had as a child.
This video is singlehanded reframing the entire wiring of my brain around pain and the importance of developing emotional discernment. I definitely identify with the more stoic/reserved/cool and calm level-headed type when in high conflict situations. It’s never occurred to me that in those moments my dismissal of their perpective never - with anger/lashing out is deflecting my own processing of the pain/hurt. Making excuses vs. giving them grace for their emotionally disregulated self something I’m learning about more and more. I tend to withstand so much emotional hits that I can’t tell the difference and hear my own needs/body silently yelling “this hurts and while you are kind hearted, you don’t deserve to experience this”.
I am fearful avoidant and more on the anxious side of things, but this still gave me a lot to think about. Actually all of Heidi's videos do! Such a clear style of explanation, thank you
Fascinatingly insightful explanation had me saying yes, yes, yesssss more than a few times! I didn't even understand why I was like this but you explained it in a way I haven't heard before. More please!
Answer: 8:02 "Be present with, absorb, and learn from NEGATIVE emotions. This is the avoidants biggest blindspot / weakness." Also, avoidants have a had time processing and being attuned to their emotions, let alone the emotions of others. Emotional intimacy is not their strong suit. Which hinders them in close relationships.
Hi Heidi. I and others im sure have missed your videos and have been hoping your doing ok. You really have some of the best attachment style content out there and your video’s literally changed my life. Wishing you well.
Your content is worth gold. It took me many many years until I finally realised the dammed pain that lurked beneath the surface for a long time, Only because I instinctively thought that negative emotions are useless
Thank you for making these videos. I’m fearful avoidant and only learned that for the first time in my life after being with an anxious/stable partner for 5 1/2 years. We recently had our first actual break up after attempting to break up four other times without success. After having finally broken up, so much became clear to me and I’m still processing much of it but one of the takeaways that I got was that I do indeed want love, and I want to share a love, but my fearful attachment style always kept me away from that intimacy and vulnerability. Mostly when I was totally unaware. In fact, I realize a lot of my behavior in the relationship was just sort of steering me away from getting too close, but the interesting thing is, I do want to get close. I just learned somehow through my growing up how to avoid that because of fear of abandonment. For me, the key to change might be realizing that my behavior actually keeps me away from the thing that I want even though in the moment it convinces me to run away. Just have to remind myself that I’m running away from the very thing that I want in life.
I could so totally relate to that moment you literally let your fists down and took the blows. I saw you truly felt it at that moment and it resonated so much with my own experience of being hurt by a caregiver when I was young. Thank you for connecting me with these crucial feelings.
I was afraid you were going to say 'put down your fists and try to hear what the other person is saying without calling them irrational' 🤣 ...I also let myself finally accept I felt emotionally beat up from a parent's tirades and walked away. It feels great to have maintained standards the last few years for how I let people treat me and for what safe people I can let into my intimate space. Life feels incredibly peaceful and my inner child feels much better taken care of 🥰 Thanks for these attachment videos!
I have been studying attachment theory for six months and was surprised (and thankful) by how much I learned from this one video alone. I connected with this so much! Thank you!
I am going to join the choir in here and give you a huge thumbs up for your amazing ability at explaining attachment styles with so many nuances and still in a clear, understandable language for us. Your videos are helping me so much I want to cry! I will definitely focus on honouring my “negative” emotions in the future, and find out what they are there to guide me towards. My guess is it is always towards self-love and better connections with others.As an avoidant myself, the healing work you advice here seems like very deep and sacred work to do, because we find out we can save ourselves by opening up the world to ourselves and gradually open up emotionally to those around us. Thank you for the very intelligent insights in your videos.❤🎉😊
I don't think I've ever listened to a more well-spoken episode on and I've watched quite a few you are a hard time usually listen to women and eat but you are easy to listen to got yourself a listener for life very well done.
My goodness! This is spot on for my soon to be husband. I admire the logic but noticed quickly how he didn't process or even want to speak on negative emotions. We've each done some therapy and are both evolving. Me FA leaning anxious in this dynamic. I finally understand where the defensiveness and contempt come from. To watch him lean more into his emotional side with me has been beautiful. Handling conflict is where we both are still improving, but there's been great progress. Your videos have helped me so much to further understanding of myself and others in my life. ❤
The avoidant I was with had many blind spots. He was very defensive even in neutral moments when dialiguing, as well as when conflicts came up. Things were mostly like a silent war, or like there was an undercurrent of constant contempt. It was like you lose if you speak, or you lose if you don't speak. Of course, the relationship didn't make it beyond 1.5 year mark in good health. His need to be counter dependent (or hyper-independent) was his MO. So, imo, him being out of touch with his emotions is just the tip of the iceberg for blind spots. When he started to express his emotional experiences nine months after ending things, he said he felt hated. I empathized with him on that, and took accountability for becoming resentful and critical about every 3-4 months. I just held space for that to be received. It was overwhelming too. I actually was glad to see that he had shifted, and got more in touch with his emotions, and was able to express them more. It's growth towards emotional availability toward self to some degree or another. At this point I don't think he is aware of his lack of accountability, flexibility, and emotional availability that show up regularly even when coparenting.
So glad to see you back. Thank you for all you have discussed on your channel, it has been another aspect I may have not read about, thought about or maybe even something I fully relate to. You are a blessing!!
Thank you Heidi! This video was very helpful. I have fearful avoidance attachment and divorced narcissistic husband last year. The greiving and self blame has been brutal. I'm on a healing journey at 60 years old and I want to learn how to have boundaries. Thank you again for this helpful video. Keep them coming! Please more on fearful avoidance.❤
I don’t know who needs to hear this but I’m currently in the process of becoming a psychologist so I can help people with this. If you want to heal then I’d like to recommend a process that you can do to heal yourself from the avoidant attachment style. First it’s important to understand that the core root of your attachment style is self limiting beliefs. All things extend from this; all your behavior, all your deactivation strategies, all the anxiety, all the fears of commitment and abandonment and engulfment. All of it stems from your limited beliefs about yourself. The core beliefs I’ve found are “I am unlovable”, “I am not enough”, “I don’t matter/am not important”. You fear abandonment because it triggers the belief of being unlovable and not enough. You get intense anxiety when you stand up for yourself and assert your wants/needs because it triggers your belief that you don’t matter. This is also why avoidants tend to get in toxic relationships because it’s comforting to have those beliefs being confirmed by the toxic partner but healthy partners trigger those beliefs and trigger anxiety as a result. I’m speaking from personal experience because I have healed my fearful avoidant attachment. If you want to heal then I recommend this. Every day affirm/repeat these affirmations 300 times a day. You can do less but the more you do the quicker you will heal. You can download a counter app and use it to count the number of times you affirm. The affirmations to affirm are these “I know when affirmations are beliefs” “I am enough” “I am lovable” Then when “I am enough” becomes a belief affirm “I matter” the same number of times a day. You may get resistance to the affirmations, if you find the resistance is too strong, you can record the affirmations and listen to it in the background as you go about your day. But still affirm the affirmations yourself. Please feel free to comment if you have questions. You do matter and you’re worth becoming secure so you can experience strong healthy relationships.
This topic resonates with me so freaking much. Thank you for this video, Heidi, and I'd really love to see the one that you mentioned in the end - on the topic of integrating and communicating pain as an avoidant. I'm still very awkward with this part, and I'd love to hear more about your experience with it.
I really enjoy the examples of avoidant relationship behavior that you give in this video. Noticing my own passive-aggressive behavior when I felt attacked in a relationship was what opened the door for me to seeking mental health help. Now I try to look at the issues in my life from differing perspectives, or as you put it from an emotionally present and honest place. It was very difficult at first to hold space for negative emotions, but getting in the clear about them has really freed me up to do more interpersonal work, which I love doing. Thanks to the therapists and nurses that have held space for me when I most needed to understand my emotional environment.
I often feel that I don't allow myself to speak my emotions about how something or someone makes me feel because I can't justify it under scrutiny. I feel a certain way about what someone has said, but I can't put into words why.
Right… and when I try to explain it to that person, I lose my thought and I feel like I’m grasping for what the emotion even was but it’s slipping. Do you feel that way?
@@loveforeva12 sort of, the original emotion becomes background noise and gets replaced with frustration that I haven't been able to fully describe my feeling and also feel like I've been heard. I'd spoken to a friend about this and described it like this: You have a bag full of words that relate to how you feel, some are true and relate and some are not really related. When I talk about how I feel it's like the bag is upended and the words scatter all over the floor. Sometimes they fall into quite hurtful or caustic sentences or ones that dont make sense. I need someone to help me pick through them and put them in the right order. However, if the person helping you is bad at listening or listening with an agenda, they can rearrange these words into a statement that isn't correct or just straight up manipulate you.
@@TeethSink wow… that is so true. My boyfriend is amazing at figuring out what I’m feeling. But it’s not until he goes through multiple suggestions of what the emotion could be until I understand what it really was. You described it perfectly.
@@loveforeva12 I guess it's a little bit like drawing, I can picture an apple really clearly but translating what I imagine to lines on a page seldom works.
Such a helpful way to describe this and I only began to heal and protect myself from harmful connections after I began to allow myself to feel and set these boundaries too.
Yeah when my partners are disregulated and start throwing nasty insults at me and treating me like crap just because they dont know how to name and express their own emotions and ask for what they need, I just tell them "i dont deserve to be talked to like that." And then they obviously dont calm down and i just wait for them to stop and I tell them that it was hurtful and im not ok with it and that they cant take back something once it leaves their mouth. I used to just stay in emotionally abusive relationships with anxious partners, or I would leave and go back to the same person the next time they coaxed me back into it. Now i don't. And somehow people think that since im avoidant, I must be wrong for leaving. Lol. -_- no.
Idk, that sounds pretty healthy to me. The usual anxious-avoidant dynamic has both parties sticking around FAR longer than they should. Leaving when someone berates you is something a secure person would do.
Idk, that sounds pretty healthy to me. The usual anxious-avoidant dynamic has both parties sticking around FAR longer than they should. Leaving when someone berates you is something a secure person would do.
This stuff is so good and awesomely specific. I loved therapy when I first discovered sobriety, self help, meetings, and a therapeutic community. However, much of it was vague and I couldn't directly correlate the ideas into real life. It felt quite corny at times. I have sat through a few of your videos just blown away at the depth you go into. Problems are created over a lifetime of behavioral patterns and beliefs. I feel like you're in my head!
Whenever i try to think back like this and try to work on what i could have done better i just get reminded everytime that i was abused for no reason and had no effect whatsoever on the person/ people doing it to me.
I went back to the fam almost 2 years ago and recently experienced a deeper awareness through another rupture. I did do the avoidant escape to protect myself from a sibling also in crisis, and I've been able to reflect on my part. Having to look at the part of me that wants to endure and tough things out with people who aren't ready to meet me anywhere near the middle.
Your video is the most informative one I have ever seen; everything you said makes sense. TBH, I don't know if I will ever be able to do so. I'm trying, but entering new relationships, where I know that things are going to turn out badly just like before, keeps me from trying, especially when I meet very nice people who think that the things I say make no sense to them and that I am just paranoid or unreasonable. So, they ignore my emotions. It has taught me to never let anyone get so close that they can hurt me, and when they do, I wouldn't care anymore. And, I don't think there is anyone in this life who really cares about other people's boundaries or emotions. Those who have found such people are just lucky. Maybe I will find mine later in life, hopefully.
unbelievably enlightening video. the bike metaphor is perfect and everything you said makes so much sense with my thought processes and past relationships. You make the transition to secure seem possible
Really insightful stuff, I definitely fit squarely into this category and I've always known that my pattern of numbing my emotional pain was doing me harm but I've never been able to link it to my avoidant attachment and put it all together like this. This is very helpful, thank you.
You are amazing Heidi!!! I'm so glad to see more videos coming with your beautiful smiling face and vast emotional knowledge! Not only is your smile radiant but your heart is as well. I love love love that you neutralize the animosity between the styles while others who are making these types of videos hone in on it and create more. When I first saw a video of yours, I had already been on my healing journey for 2 years but really didn't feel like I was getting anywhere. Therefore, I cannot even begin to express my gratitude enough. I also can't even tell you how useful your videos, combined with a newfound personal interest of mine in energy psychology, when used both inside and outside of my personal relationships. They've helped significantly in my romantic (fearful avoidant with a dismissive avoidant) relationship as well. Needless to say, you had a big hand in it when it comes to my own personal healing journey. From you, I learned how to (mostly) regulate my own emotional state. Which then led me to be in a mental state well enough for the first time to start applying myself in the real world. So I started going to school studying Emotional Freedom Techniques (also known as Tapping or EFT) and while I don't have an actual practice yet, I am a certified practitioner now and I'm continuing further studies to become a master practitioner (chronic illnesses and life clients etc.) And because your content was so impactful in my healing, I feel I have to continue your work of helping the world understand the mass importance of attachment styles and roles in the dysfunctional family dynamics (scapegoat here) but in my own way of combining it with EFT. Most of my emotions and behaviors that you helped me realize were present, I was able to process and break down on my own but some things I just wasn't able to get over the hump without EFT which I won't go all the way into cuz this comment is too long as is but in case you're not familiar with it, it's a mix of psychology and acupressure where we focus on the emotions while tappng on pressure points and it can be very (very very very) useful to get rid of intrusive thoughts, bad habits, bothersome memories, limiting beliefs, and can even address physical illnesses...90% of which are caused by negative emotions and stress and then this list goes on and on of things it can help with but Anyways. Heidi, I just want you to know how profoundly I have been impacted by your work and let's be real, how truly blessed I am to have accidentally stumbled across your videos that one time that changed my entire worldview. So I thank you, with every ounce of my entire being. Thank you. I could never repay you for what you truly gave me.. The gift of understanding everything I never could before, never. However, if you're ever in the market for an EFT practitioner don't you dare spend a dime on it girl I got you!! ❤❤❤❤❤🙏🙏🙏❤❤❤❤❤
Heidi, thanks for making this whole series. You explain and teach so well. I'm not so sure I'd "get it" if it were someone else,like say a lot of my college profs :). You are a gift.
Thank you for sharing your personal struggle as the result for me is far better understanding of my avoidant husband, who will never come to terms with attachment theory of avoidance. I also saw my own issue of anxiety & how useless my combative behavior is. It actually drives him deeper into his shelter with no comprehension of my needs. ❤
Do U also feel/think Like: "OK, I do Not need any Person, coz I can do IT all by my own. That Behaviors are stupid, so I Go. But still, Sometimes U try to find reasons, analyze situations and people"?
@@SeelenTaucher: Let me try to understand: when we say that a DA hurt us with some behavior that we may find toxic in the relationship, you think: "I don't need this situation, it doesn't make sense. I don't even want to explain myself". But at the same time, don't you listen to the person through that place of pain? Do you easily let go of people because they hurt you? Honestly, I don't understand how a conflict can be so bad, if conflicts lead us to create bounderies.
@@sushisam3010 😊🎇Thanks for Ur communication. I wished there was a "speaking" Button in UA-cam, maybe I ask for IT...coz speaking is easier. Via writing I can Not Express aß good as what I feel and what I wanna say. ITS about Devine Feminine and Masculine Powers within. I did explain to many people over and over, yet they gave me No good Treatment Most of time, coz I Go for devine calm respectful lightful treatment, since Most people are Not that way, coz they are Not at the Same Spiritual Level (which is OK), I decided to Go and built my own Friends inside, as Well as my own Woman, man, Wife, husband. I did understand and listen to their Feelings and yet I can Set clear boundaries of "No, Not this way dears" and If IT Not feels healthy any longer, coz my inner Core shifted much, than I Go. I gave them so many chances to Transform their inner self, now I Put the Energy and Love to myself and Others than say either "Go for IT, do yourself good" and Others say "U are egoistic". In any way, I Go for what feels right good for the Heart and that is Rising my phönix within, coz I am bored by all the lame Low Energies in Most of people. I enjoy Solitude so much as nature, animals, music, many more. We all deserve devine, so Go for IT. 😊😊🌟 All my Life Long in Most of cases I Put so much Energy in Solving Relationship Issues, Like a councler, infj, that I am tired of IT. Now I say: I have them Tools and they as Well need to Work in their Spirit and Heart, as I did and do. My "to do" is: Giving now myself, what I gave away to people, Setting boundaries and speaking clearly what I want and Not want. I really enjoy a good fight, Like I do with intp or my sister, coz ITS creative and respectful. But Overexplaining and overgiving was Not healthy for my system. Now I am balancing my chacras more. From top, to Root. I missed the lower chacras since years. So now Others have been given the Chance to feel and think more, while I simply enjoy and Create, which is New to me. Have U every been envolved in the Idea of chakra Energies? ❤️💛🧡💚
Yes!! I realized during my breakup with my ex (10 years older and also avoidant) that I didn’t want to turn out like him bc he’s miserable. So when we broke up, I let myself FEEL and face the emotions head on vs previous breakups where I would suppress and ignore them. Feeling the negative (without vices) is the first step the breaking the cycle!
This is so insightful. My husband has ADHD and has explosive rage outbursts. This explains why I walk away from them not really remembering everything he said. I would love to learn more about Avoidants and their partners who can't regulate their emotions.
I love your channel!! But I wish the titles would be more “detailed” eg how to heal avoidant attachment. Find it difficult to find what I’m looking for and have to go through all videos. Other than that you are fantastic. Thank you so much ❤
This video worth than the psychology app I have subscribed to. Thank you! I never knew how I processed things before I came across this. Need more of this pls... 🙏
I felt that i must have done something like this to allow for a relationship i was in 6 years ago to go from happy with alot of arguing, to more unhappy with a lot of arguing, to actually being physcially attacked. If i had felt what Was happening emotionally long before it got to that i wouldn't have been physically hurt, I'd have taken different actions, and likely left before that started. On maybe it would never have started as he always seemed to be trying to "get through to me".
Well now I know why I have a weird secret goal of surviving the most pain. Like those monks set on fire. Or rolfing. Or when that lady in the good earth gives birth by herself. Heidi, you are.absolutwly on point with this video. I've been in therapy for 10 years and altho my therapist always tells me to feel feelings instead of go into my head a. It's really hard to do that and b. Not knowing why doesn't work very well for me. I love the visualization of letting yourself get punched emotionally. I KNOW I have trouble feeling emotions (all, not just pain) but it's so automatic. This makes me really sad for my inner child/inner me who IS still feeling those things. And I suppose it's manifesting physically and keeping me stuck. Thank you so much for what you do. ❤
Letting my guard down in public seemed like a bad idea until I shook the hand of someone I had just helped and found out a bit later that I was missing the emotional experience that I had blocked.
MAYBE AND IDEA FOR A separate VIDEO -- @heidipriebe1 I loved the anxious attached blindspot video. This one missed for me but for a very specific reason. First, it assumes a conflict where the pain inflicted is loud, hurtful, cruel, and something for which a boundary should be set. My avoidant is good at that. The miss for me is with complex trauma (both of us) and with an emotional flashback (EF) active in her, the reaction to me is from deep in her past....The loop of negative behavior in this case is from the EF with a past relationship, her mother! ....I am left feeling I'm always answering "Am I done beating my child?" There's no personal responsibility? This is a 20+ yr friendship....deep wounds hit on both sides, and a recent rupture....one of us healing, the other not considering they have any issue. How do avoidants ever allow themselves to look inward? Given the attitude that they are superior and you are just wrong? I'm concerned for her and her future.
Girl. Just write the books. It’s never enough lol. You are magical. Healing an avoidant attachment style seems impossible
Look into your past to find out if for you significant persons have suppressed your feelings or overly punished certain behaviors.
Once you recognize these events, reconcile your core values and assumptions with the new realizations and forgive your old self for making these misunderstandings.
This will heal you of distrust, detachment and rejection reflexes.
At least in the long run. It's not easy, but it's damn liberating.
Source: my own journey
Oh my god, how did you manage to do it??? I started from having full blown avoidant personality disorder and still fighting this... It is so painful making the same mistakes !!!
@@UnifiedFriendsMost of my issues these days seem like more subtle communication habits. Things I will just absolutely not think about that are apparently highly important and eventually causing attachment ruptures. It happens a couple times a year and it almost feels hopeless at times.
At some point I've been thinking that I just need to write a relationship manifesto and be a relationship anarchist, lay out all my baggage, and let people adjust or come and go as they see fit, as I cannot seem to adjust to common societal expectations around certain ideals of emotional sharing, as some levels of intimacy and vulnerability simply do not occur in my thought processes.
Yeah gurl!
I heard DA saying ‘ I don’t want to change for anyone, who stays with me have to accept me the way I am’😒
"we need negative emotions to break loops of negative behavior" - this is gold!!!
“Avoidants have fewer memories of painful events. The brain only stores long term memories when there's an emotional component. Since avoidant attachment creates emotional disconnection (as a learned survival strategy), memories aren't stored in the same way as they're stored with people who feel things more intensely.
You don't have to remember specific events, to recognize unhealthy patterns.”
-Julie Mennano
Holy crap, this is some next level content. This is 100% my strategy, for 40 years: feeling judgemental and impatient in lieu of feeling pain and hurt, which then results in the other person feeling invalidated. But then, *conveniently* the next day, like 80% of it goes down the memory hole, and I start rationalizing why the other person acted the way they did.
"emotional pain gifts you with discernment"
mind blown. i can see all these defense mechanisms at play quite clearly when named...
so true! my peers say i’m emotionally intelligent but i feel like since i started therapy its like the first time i’m ever experiencing real emotions and actually feeling like a human.. i’ve always been neutral and numb 24/7
And also our defense of being logical & unemotional & unresposive to the other person, can have them feel unheard & not cared about : So they escalate to get a response to feel like we care: And the situation keeps escalating & you leave that person feeling more hurt & not cared about etc:
💯💯💯
"So when your partner is dysregulated, yelling at you, saying nasty about your character, it's unlikely you feel pain of that. Likely you're defensive and dismissing them, loud or inside. Problem: pain is not getting through, unable to learn the lesson:
situation is painful and needs to be avoided."
This explains a lot.
And this is what CBT is doing wrong and social anxiety advice online: we are been told that we must not avoid people and that we must expose and be strong and confident and somehow other people will not hurt us with them being nasty. Then we end up not avoiding difficult people and due to stress and pain - we end up avoiding people in general - not meeting new people or organizing parties or being initiative in anything.
my brother said it best, "you act like I'm treating you like an emotional punching bag."
He said this during a time where I was starting to learn to stay in my body and characterize my emotions (noticing where I felt sensations, describing the sensations, attempting to name the emotions, and paying attention to the thoughts I would have during my emotions).
I learned that I couldn't heal if I kept pretending that I wasn't hurt.
I had this exact conversation omg
That is so deep. Any lessons for a beginner? I was made ashamed by a colleague at work and since I started doing this work I finally felt furious, I was so furious, barely could speak with hurting and then I spoke but assertiviti type. I expressed the needs and called out the bad behaviour but... I was afraid that I was exposed to a narcissist by showing rage which could made me easier to manipulate or make fun of me, I felt very vulnerable and then I started to look for videos about shame and thought that whenever I hit a trigger, to embrace it and see where is coming from, healing the wounds. Bottom line.. where are you at in your journey? What should I be aware of and learn from you? ❤
It’s all about the feeling of being vulnerable. Fears. All related to childhood experiences. It’s all about defense mechanisms to ensure you don’t get hurt. There is no inner child. Avoidants don’t understand how those mechanisms inaverdantly hurt your partner because of their stress and anxiety. Your partner is not understanding your mechanisms. Communicate!! It’s tough to open up. Communication and dialogue build relationships. Shutting down does not.
DA and Anxious look EQUALLY crazy to each other when activated. Anxious look crazy and emotional and DA look like a psychopath lol but when you understand it it makes total sense :)
So true! Haha
Yesss she thaught i was on okay and i needed help, on the other i was thinking who is this woman, what happened to the woman who loved me so intensely few months back
Quote 8:46 "But the ways in which you are in pain in your relationships often are not apparent to you because your brain has learned to cover it up with frustration and contempt."
This is so true! Frustration and contempt are nothing more than a cover up for the pain I would/should otherwise be feeling. Thank you for pointing this out!
Here is some more gold 8:22 "Your pain is not something you're hiding from other people. It's something your brain is hiding from you!"
Your video transcripts are always a big part of my daily journal.
Thank you so much for taking the time to share your insights!
Definitely helped me understand avoidants better
YES! I would also say with the 8:46 quote that this is super common with avoidant types who tend to play the "hero/rescuer" role in the drama triangle.
On some level the rescuer feels hurt that the victim isn't making the progress they "should" be making, but instead of feeling the pain they intellectualize it ("they can't help it" is a favourite saying), cover it up with frustration and contempt...and that lands them right into the persecutor role!
This is 100% my mother right now!
This is blowing my mind right now. Because wait a minute… My whole life I’ve been thinking that the frustration & contempt I’m feeling IS the emotional pain. So my serious question is this: if the frustration & contempt I’m feeling isn’t in fact the emotional pain, if the frustration & contempt is what’s helping me be avoidant, then what is the actual emotional pain? Because damn….talk about a blind spot….I’m stymied. Any thoughts or insights are welcome.
@@beuller7When my (avoidant) wife decided to divorce me, there was a time in that process that she told me her therapist had asked her - “have you allowed yourself to cry about the ending of your relationship”, and my ex’s response was no. She hasn’t felt much of anything in regards to the demise of our relationship - instead she just felt frustration and contempt for me anda need to remove herself from me. I know how much I cried, how much pain I felt at the demise of our relationship. And I came to understand that with me she had removed the ability to feel hurt anymore. I can see how over time she began constructing this wall against those feelings. I remember when we had our first disagreements or something I did that hurt her, she had been vocal about not liking a decision I made but even then didn’t really communicate her actual feelings about it. And over time that communication dynamic got amplified - more expression of frustration and contempt through passive aggression and withdrawal, and almost zero expression of hurt sad scared feelings. I share this story to you because maybe whatever it is that you’re only able to experience frustration and contempt towards is like a callous that’s formed over an area that was repeatedly being injured. Maybe if you look at what it is that you’ve built up your defenses against, and see if there ever was a time you were vulnerable, we’re hurt or sad or scared, maybe you could consciously reconnect with those feelings and this time it would be a conscious choice to feel those raw feelings and even though it will still take courage to let yourself go through them, at least it will be your own conscious choice and not a hurtful situation that was forced upon you. So it will be kind of like a controlled environment for you to feel back into those areas and you can take it at whatever pace you need. Just a thought.
You might be aware of both, but using the frustration and contempt to stop feeling your pain to your fullest extent@@beuller7
This might be the single best synthesis of avoidant reactions to emotional pain I have ever seen. Thank you so much.
This revealed a lot for me, thank you. I'm not sure that I'm avoidant, because I don't share a lot of the traits around being cold and disengaged, but I definitely intellectualize instead of feeling the emotions. When you said "displaying negative emotions didn't get my needs met as a child" I was like hell no it didn't. The spankings just continued no matter how much I protested.
Wow, I'm not even halfway through and this stopped me in my tracks: "Your pain is not something you're hiding from other people, it's something your brain is hiding from you." I arrived here because I'm just now learning that there's likely an emotional root to the crippling migraines I've endured for 30 years and which are getting worse. I've known I have a dismissive avoidant attachment style for awhile, but I have a feeling a lot of things are going to fall into place by the time I finish this video. Thank you.
Ok, 30 seconds later and my mind is still reeling from this, which perfectly describes how I responded as an 11-yr-old to a major incident of emotional neglect by my mother: "The ways in which you are in pain in your relationships often are not apparent to you because your brain has learned to cover it up with frustration and contempt." I've been trying to touch into the pain I must have felt in that moment of betrayal, but so far there's nothing there except cold contempt. I was a child, I must have been hurt, but in my memory it's like I was a 40-year-old lawyer deciding she clearly wasn't qualified to be my mother, and I held onto that belief for decades.
Thank you ❤️ Lately, I started to believe that I am heartless psycho because I leave people easily after moments of crisis. And you helped me to understand that leaving is the only way I “can” solve the problems by blocking pain. For now, I just don’t allow myself to feel the pain, because of protective mechanism of my mind😭💔, it makes so much sense. I should accept all the negative emotions and pain, in order to learn how to truly prevent repeated unhealthy dynamics.
And what about the poor people you leave in order to avoid your own pain. What about their pain?
@@GSXR750wx Who are you to judge
@@GSXR750wx First of all, the pain of other people is my second priority when I, myself, need help and support. Secondly, I don’t think that I should stay in relationships where people hurt each other with words and actions. The pain from distancing is more healthier than the pain caused by the things that cannot be undone.
@@dariyamakhmutova5780 first of all she's already acknowledged the fact that she's hurting people and she's now acknowledging what she needs to do about it. So your judgment and anything else you have to say after her comment is neither warranted nor relevant. Not to mention that everybody's healing journey is unique in its own way and at least she's doing something about hers and acknowledging that she's got things that she needs to work on and it's not your place or anybody's place other than her individual self. Maybe you should look inside of yourself to find out why you felt the need to call her out on something that she already felt bad about instead of trying to make her feel worse for something that you probably are guilty of and that is why you felt the need to say in the first place everybody that you or interact with in any way shape or form in your life is a mirror of yourself and your own inner reflection. She is the way that she is because of her past traumas and blinders that we ALL have in different forms. Let her heal man, because then and only then will she be able to make the conscious secure decisions to not perpetuate that cycle that you are perpetuating this very moment.
@@dariyamakhmutova5780 The pain is not "healthier." That's just how it makes sense to you when you've never been fully vulnerable to emotions your brain decided were unsafe for you to feel. Someday in your healing journey, I hope you may come to the means and the willingness to be vulnerable in the face of them.
To borrow a phrase, "When someone tells us we hurt them, we don't get to tell them we didn't." And the pain we cause others in our efforts to avoid our feeling own is exponential and self-perpetuating. Wounding and being wounded are just as much part of being human as any other bodily function. It may be unpleasant, but it's necessary to address when the time comes.
I have lived an hurtful situation two days ago and I did all that : dissociate, then dismiss and rationalize and found a logical solution to it. When you talked about how you purposely dropped your guard and let yourself be hit, I did the same and cried because I could feel the pain it caused me that I was repressing. I don't want to be hurt like that again. You are right, emotional pain is what I was missing to enforce boundaries. Thank you Heidi. I love you. Your videos are guiding me to authenticity very steadily and I'm grateful.😊
Im very high on the DA attachment style. It has served me very well in my professions (army vet with multiple combat deployments and current police officer). In my relationships its been very difficult. Going through a divorce currently and I was very cold and aloof throughout the marriage and didn't know why until recently discovering attachment styles. She had her issues too but me being highly unemotional didn't help the marriage at all. Its been a strange divorce, no betrayals or any big events but the little resentments built up over time to where they are insurmountable.
I'll try to use this going forward but the odds are low that I will ever actively seek out a relationship again.
I hope that things get better for you as you learn more about your attachment style. Sorry to hear they're kind of falling apart at the moment, but it's never too late to start healing once you're still breathing. Sending love
As difficult as things maybe be sometimes, we are always loveable and deserving of love, starting from our own self-love. Good luck
I've found these blind spot videos the single most helpful thing in my self work. Thank you so much for your content, it's a game changer.
Have to say, as someone who is very skeptical of online gurus, your reasoning around boundaries and the "fists and child" example really drove home the point. Good job!
This is so clear, and so spot on. Thank you 🙏 I have a lot of avoidant qualities, and I’m in a situationship with another avoidant, and I’m just learning how to set boundaries, and what they even are, for the first time. When I was younger instead of setting boundaries, even with friends, my strategy was to literally just abandon them with no explanation. I honestly didn’t believe it was safe or even possible for me to express my own needs, or to stand up for myself.
This work isn’t easy, and I am so grateful for your compassionate approach 🙏✨💛
„Instead of feeling wounded, You’re going: okay. This person who did that thing to me was not thinking logically and I can comfort myself with the fact I know better than them”
The way my jaw dropped…
I feel called out and exposed in a major way. Wow! What a wake up call 🙏!
I recognized how part of the disorganized attachment style I used to employ was this numbing technique. I prize pain now as an important news outlet instead the enemy.
Important news outlet, I love that!! Physical exercise has taught me a lot about pain too. It's information, that's all. We get to decide how we interpret that information, and what we do with it.
Me texting my friends how happy I am to realize I feel the pain I caused them
Heidi, it's like you're in my head. Wow, thanks so much for summarizing this aspect of how avoidants deal with emotional pain. I've been like this for years and it's caused great harm in my relationship. Looking forward to watching your follow up video.
I know the videos good when I’m not even a quarter of the way through and I have to pause and come back to it. You just called me out so bad, thank you
This is me! I didn’t realize it until my children were grown and I had to deal with the impact it had on them. From not nurturing them properly to allowing the wrong people into our lives.
I’m so very impressed with parents having the guts to be self reflective!
once i discovered attachment theory, i was pretty sure that i am an avoidant type.
now that i watched some of your videos, im very sure of it. even the way i grew up makes sense, my parents were indeed unreliable, so i developed in a way that was always like "how can I fix xy". asking others for helps doesnt even cross my mind in emotional things. when i first noticed that some ppl do that, i was like "you can do that, with like... success?"
honestly, i feel understood by you and thanks to your explanations, i think i can make my relationships more satisfying for all parties.
im very grateful to have found your channel and i wish you the best 🙏
I have a more anxious attachment. this was helpful to gain insight into the mind of my on/off partner. in our case, I'm usually trying to explain to him how he's been unfair to me and he won't hear it. he tells me that my words mean nothing and I'm not saying anything of value. which hurts desperately from someone who swears they love you. he then leaves and ghosts me and refuses to ever talk about it so nothing improves. he treats my needs and concerns like I'm being disobedient. that's why we keep ending. he sees it as him holding a boundary against my "craziness" but honestly I would not get to the point that I lose my cool if he'd respect my needs that I vocalize in neutral ways the first ten times
I always recommend focusing on one’s own attachment style in the healing process - the video for anxious blind spots comes out tomorrow! Hopefully it can help 💕
@@heidipriebe1 Thanks Heidi! And to you & the original poster ~ yes totally, I am focusing on my own shit, always, BUT ~ I also super appreciate the insight into this style's possible interpretations. For obvious reasons. We all have pieces of many styles of many things in life. and they bleed into one another on the edges. So I just had to tell you both that. WOOT! Wow, Heidi you really hit a stride in this line of work & I wish you and anyone reading this so much success and wholeness.
@@mudchatpotterynbricks Going from your brief informative description of the dynamic; I would Grey Rock him and observe his response/reaction.
Did you feel heard as a child?
Is this a pattern in your life?
Cycles tend to keep repeating, until we learn from our mistakes.
My ex has NPD. He would say such things as ‘You talk too much’
‘I know everything I need to know about you, you don’t need to tell me any more’
‘Shut up’
‘Stop repeating yourself’
‘I don’t listen’
When I started to actually listen to his words, rather than react, explain, defend, I took his advice, stopped talking and stayed silent.
The reaction was;
‘Why are you not speaking with me?’
‘Well, if your not going to talk to me..’
‘I feel like you don’t want to talk with me.’
‘I don’t like it when you don’t say anything’.
‘I try to talk to you but you don’t say a word’.
Now I practice listening more and speaking less. It is working wonders on my inner peace!
He would use silent treatment to punish me and then I’d get a text ‘Hello! 👋 as if nothing had happened (A form of gaslighting)we would go through the narcissistic abuse cycle/stages of love bombing, devalue and discard faster and faster the longer we were together.
If your unfamiliar with the Grey rock technique, I highly recommend listening to Tamie M Joyce.
Just my humble opinion.
Sending love from Spain ❤
@@nickieglazer33 Oh my GOODNESS! what a fantastic adding to the conversation! and how healing... as we share our experiences i believe we help others in immense ways ~ it's also its OWN form of healing. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the work you've been doing and shared here. this is a seemingly insurmountable obstacle ~ learning our ways out of this stuff ~ but it's NOT .. not at all, with the resources we now have ~ those of us fortunate enough to learn and share with one another online . YES OF COURSE i was not heard as a kid and all you describe i've been through. i happened to have dated someone new recently , and was still working through things, and kinda slipping back into my "oh , i can help him see" - i can be so quick to try to help another with their blindspots, i am READY to take accountability as everything was my fault as a kid, blahhhh blah blah. but know what - i got out of this phase already, i'd already broken it off with the person,, but still was examining myself - obviously - and this video came up and i'm AMAZED at what work people do NOW - this didn't used even EXIST. when i had my worst experience 10 years ago, and it took me out for a decade, i had to find my way through the most - WOWWING of a maze of .. all of it. the WHOLE NPD stockholm people pleasers everything dynamic. enmeshment all that. all of it. it's now become my work , one of the layers, as i am an artist, musician, etc. thank you SO much for your heartfelt comment, for HEALING and BLOSSOMING! and sharing. it's amazing how articulate so MANY are these days, and it's explosively exciting to me ~ who used to be alone in so many of these studies. now it's becoming LOGIC to many of the younger folks. I've actually never been more at peace and inspired in determined to stay calm in my nervous system, AND talk a lot like I CAN because I feel ~ i know some things, i can lecture - it's natural to me ~ and those who vibe with me , LEARN from me, appreciate me? i know who and when that is. who ever got this far - KEEP GOING. and learning to love yourself first ALWAYS - this is it. it may be your EXACT JOB to do on this earth. and you can have love relationships still. but keep doing you. cry the tears. i cry all the time! did this AM! i still purge, i cried for a minute, with many simultaneous emotions.. SO MUCH PRAISE FOR ME, so much credit to my younger selves who suffered so tremendously. i will ALWAYS be there for people who are around me or come to me or need feedback.. i will tell my story , i KNOW what is possible for healing, i AM LIVING PROOF. i started talking to a remarkable person a few days ago. someone i knew years ago, worked with briefly, and had trust already. it's amazing how as life has moved forward, how i've grown from so FCKN much trauma, my life has been marked by it in more ways than can be counted ~ ~ i can be detatched and amused amazed and thankful to have this new relationship. but i have such strength being in my OWN cockpit now ~ i dont have the denial thing going on - not even slightly like i did with the person who loved bombed me, etc, he was great, not like a terrible abuser, BUT i am more advanced, i dont need any more riff raff, can still be his friend but - i dont have ANY time for relationships that have those dynamics. when they showed, i got spooked, but i was upset for a few weeks. we dated for 3 months or so, and even though he was IN LOVE with me, he'd act weird, triangulate SO subtly , walk things back, it HURT. i knew what it was and it was a test. i then re-met someone so sincere and mature, and - it was SUCH a proof. such a proof. and i am MUCH stronger just from having revisited just SLIGHT behaviors from that other person. i do personal work AS my life habit, and so does this person, and - it's just NEAT, nice -- to "like" someone and be *inspired to stay very centered* in my creative process and life, and do wholesome stuff sometimes. we live an hour from each other, and it will make us conscious of things in a different way. i'm in my 40's so each decade is different ~ but i assure you . THE THING you need is to re-raise those inner children and never EVER stop. YOUR SELF LOVE and assurance CAN be cultivated. it CAN. so do what needs to be done. SO MUCH LOVE TO YOU! muah.
@@heidipriebe1 The anxious attachment blindspot video was fantastic.
I’m so glad you put this together. I was working with a trauma therapist for a couple years and about the time I stopped seeing her due to a lack of income, she was showing me these massive blind spots I had. I had a lot going on in my life and still do and I didn’t want to do another”loop” so I persisted getting to the root of the problem when I should have yielded. The shame I had for being so naive about somethings I was completely oblivious to was so intense and I’ve been in a bad spot for over year now. Not trusting myself, my motives, my decisions, my capacity and there has been so much riding on them with no idea how to move forward. I also had a hard time with the idea I had that this therapy was going to free me up to be even more resilient than I already was, instead it was the exact opposite, spiritually and physically. My health tanked for about two years, I’m beginning to get better now and do all I can to put the pieces back together. Your channel has been a big help. Trying to understand attachment style and the infp stuff has been interesting.
You are such a gift to intelligence. I have accept a job in on line therapy… have not worked due to retirement for 6 years . When I started receiving clients I noticed so much depression is linked to attachment style. Since I was adopted I used to use attachment theory in practice when I was working. Since watching your videos a whole flood of emotions and insecurity has encapsulated me to crying and feeling so lonely. All my family has died except my son and his family. I am now questioning my ability to be helpful to my new online clients. I love that you discuss your past as a fearful avoidant. That’s what I am for sure. Because you have so beautifully been able to come to secure attachment. I am glad you give so much great therapy advice on healing. Thank Heidi❤
As someone brought up on the "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me" mantra to avoid getting into physical altercations as a child, it seems in retrospect that helped to cultivate an avoidant mental state as a child, sadly something that has taken a long time to come to terms with.
I've made my own version of that saying:
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words break hearts - so choose wisely🙂
I have been accidentally hurt by people who care for me, but words have really had the staying power😅
I feel my inner child is talking sitting opposite to me. I’ve tried many articles&videos but nothing took me sooo close to understanding my inner core like this video. Heidi, you are really doing a phenomenal job. The clarity you give and the way you make your narrative look from the inside is amazing. You have a great potential. I’m going to constantly follow you from now on and looking forward for any workshops specifically to avoidant attachments. Great job. Thank you for this video😊
Another amazing video omg 🤯😵 I have tested as Securely attached, slightly leaning to Preoccupied/anxiously attached. But my Dad is definitely avoidant. I sent him this video. I swear, you are touching on such nuances that I don't hear anyone else talking about with attachment styles! 🤯 Thank you so much. Keep up the good work 💜
Agreed 👍
I appreciate your ability to speak the language of dismissive avoidants as we are working on becoming integrated. Dissociation was my SOP for decades, and I'm now able to be more engaged in my personal and business interactions. What's odd is that I've always been told by observers that I have above average rapport building in spite of it.
Mindblowing insight. Literally freeing me from old entrenched habits. Maturity. Heidi, you have a gift. Im going to donate to your channel. Thank you so much.
dropping such facts ❤️
plainly and logically telling me what I wished I could see on the exit survey of 20 yrs of failed relationships
so fkn grateful
Wow, this blew my mind. It explains so much of what I was trying to understand in myself. Now I have an idea of what I can work on, in regards to negative emotion. Your analogy of putting down the defenses makes a lot of sense.
Wow. Just in my most recent therapy session I was recounting incidents from an old business relationship, where I was getting insulted and humiliated all the time. Still, I kept going back for more because I had reasoned to myself that the guy is just a jerk and none of what he says is valid or makes sense. From up there on my high horse of integrity and superior analytical skills, I couldn't see the ways this was actually damaging for me. Thinking back to it, I said it felt like I was a boxer who kept getting punched and stood bruised, bleeding, yet content that they won the fight. I have a lot of work to do in acknowledging the hurt and I'm still kind of stuck between contempt and resentment, but your metaphor totally resonates :)
Wow, you just made me realize something similar in my own life!
" From up there on my high horse of integrity and superior analytical skills, ,,,,,"
Ooooomy god, this.
I can so relate.
Thank you for sharing your experience. It really brought clarity to a situation I was in as well.
Heidi has the most insightful content, I love your stuff and get so much help from it.
Blew my damn mind! My friend sent me the Anxious Blind Spot video. I always thought I was anxious -- but that vid did not describe what's been going on in me. So I looked for other attachment styles. This one is ME! I never knew I was avoidant. I have tears in my eyes.
As a fearful/secure person, i believe that dismissive and anxious have the same core wounds, but they process them very differently, so like two sides of the same coin. Just that the anxious clings while the avoidants pushes away.
@@couch_philosoph3325 Then my friend sent me 3 attachment style tests, and my results for all 3 was anxious. Thinking about it: My private feelings are anxious, but my way of interacting with people is rational, and avoidant.
Welcome to, being told repeatedly that you are the worst type of person ever. Go to the comments sections of other videos to find out just how much you constantly wreck everyone else’s lives. There will be long trauma stories of how awful the avoidant is. You will even be slotted beside and likened to the narcissist, and in fact, it will allegedly be hard to tell us avoidants apart from the narc. Just more reinforcement of how unwanted we really are. Yay.
So, to be clear, you want me to let others abuse me and hurt me, and not defend myself, and let the devastation of the circumstances go through me, to accept the pain, so I can learn where, in future, to put healthy boundaries and not be just in my logic self (cause that isn’t as helpful). My analogy: That’s like asking me to piss on an electric fence so I know not to do it in future.
I think you’re asking that when a situation crops up, I should allow myself to feel, rather than implement my go to defences. Practice allowing myself to feel emotions and the discomfort?? This was over my head.
THANK YOU for covering the stereotype about dismissive avoidants deciding to ignore their emotions. I swear there’s a subtype of anxious-preoccupied that pretends to be DA but they’re just passive aggressively seeking validation
I think the word ‘avoidant’ can be misleading for people when trying to identify their style. Ironically, those with anxious or fearful-avoidant styles are the ones who are most aware of their attempts to avoid their emotional experiences, since they’re so heightened and therefore so consciously painful, so I can see them latching onto the term ‘avoidant’ when not aware what it means in an attachment sense.
I think they just might be trying to do something differently so to not get hurt. Being told you're 'emotional', etc in current times isn't something looked well upon like being 'rational' or 'logical' is.They could just be mimicking something they've seen (being these 2 styles are drawn to the other) since they don't see the avoidant attachments hurting.
We end up “passively aggressively” seeking validation, because so many times seeking it in a healthy way goes unnoticed. It then becomes the norm after being ignored, criticized and judged for so long .. we too, are just playing out our roles we had as a child.
This video is singlehanded reframing the entire wiring of my brain around pain and the importance of developing emotional discernment.
I definitely identify with the more stoic/reserved/cool and calm level-headed type when in high conflict situations. It’s never occurred to me that in those moments my dismissal of their perpective never - with anger/lashing out is deflecting my own processing of the pain/hurt.
Making excuses vs. giving them grace for their emotionally disregulated self something I’m learning about more and more. I tend to withstand so much emotional hits that I can’t tell the difference and hear my own needs/body silently yelling “this hurts and while you are kind hearted, you don’t deserve to experience this”.
I am fearful avoidant and more on the anxious side of things, but this still gave me a lot to think about. Actually all of Heidi's videos do! Such a clear style of explanation, thank you
Woah. The visual of allowing the (psychological) blows to land to find out where my boundaries are just made everything feel suddenly very obvious.
It's like putting a bike tire under water to see where the holes are
Fascinatingly insightful explanation had me saying yes, yes, yesssss more than a few times! I didn't even understand why I was like this but you explained it in a way I haven't heard before. More please!
Answer: 8:02 "Be present with, absorb, and learn from NEGATIVE emotions. This is the avoidants biggest blindspot / weakness." Also, avoidants have a had time processing and being attuned to their emotions, let alone the emotions of others. Emotional intimacy is not their strong suit. Which hinders them in close relationships.
Hi Heidi. I and others im sure have missed your videos and have been hoping your doing ok. You really have some of the best attachment style content out there and your video’s literally changed my life. Wishing you well.
Your content is worth gold. It took me many many years until I finally realised the dammed pain that lurked beneath the surface for a long time, Only because I instinctively thought that negative emotions are useless
Thank you for making these videos. I’m fearful avoidant and only learned that for the first time in my life after being with an anxious/stable partner for 5 1/2 years. We recently had our first actual break up after attempting to break up four other times without success. After having finally broken up, so much became clear to me and I’m still processing much of it but one of the takeaways that I got was that I do indeed want love, and I want to share a love, but my fearful attachment style always kept me away from that intimacy and vulnerability. Mostly when I was totally unaware. In fact, I realize a lot of my behavior in the relationship was just sort of steering me away from getting too close, but the interesting thing is, I do want to get close. I just learned somehow through my growing up how to avoid that because of fear of abandonment. For me, the key to change might be realizing that my behavior actually keeps me away from the thing that I want even though in the moment it convinces me to run away. Just have to remind myself that I’m running away from the very thing that I want in life.
I could so totally relate to that moment you literally let your fists down and took the blows. I saw you truly felt it at that moment and it resonated so much with my own experience of being hurt by a caregiver when I was young.
Thank you for connecting me with these crucial feelings.
I was afraid you were going to say 'put down your fists and try to hear what the other person is saying without calling them irrational' 🤣 ...I also let myself finally accept I felt emotionally beat up from a parent's tirades and walked away. It feels great to have maintained standards the last few years for how I let people treat me and for what safe people I can let into my intimate space. Life feels incredibly peaceful and my inner child feels much better taken care of 🥰 Thanks for these attachment videos!
I have been studying attachment theory for six months and was surprised (and thankful) by how much I learned from this one video alone. I connected with this so much! Thank you!
I am going to join the choir in here and give you a huge thumbs up for your amazing ability at explaining attachment styles with so many nuances and still in a clear, understandable language for us. Your videos are helping me so much I want to cry! I will definitely focus on honouring my “negative” emotions in the future, and find out what they are there to guide me towards. My guess is it is always towards self-love and better connections with others.As an avoidant myself, the healing work you advice here seems like very deep and sacred work to do, because we find out we can save ourselves by opening up the world to ourselves and gradually open up emotionally to those around us. Thank you for the very intelligent insights in your videos.❤🎉😊
I don't think I've ever listened to a more well-spoken episode on and I've watched quite a few you are a hard time usually listen to women and eat but you are easy to listen to got yourself a listener for life very well done.
My goodness! This is spot on for my soon to be husband. I admire the logic but noticed quickly how he didn't process or even want to speak on negative emotions. We've each done some therapy and are both evolving. Me FA leaning anxious in this dynamic. I finally understand where the defensiveness and contempt come from. To watch him lean more into his emotional side with me has been beautiful. Handling conflict is where we both are still improving, but there's been great progress. Your videos have helped me so much to further understanding of myself and others in my life. ❤
I love reading comments like this. Happy to hear that the work is paying off for you both 💜
The avoidant I was with had many blind spots. He was very defensive even in neutral moments when dialiguing, as well as when conflicts came up. Things were mostly like a silent war, or like there was an undercurrent of constant contempt. It was like you lose if you speak, or you lose if you don't speak. Of course, the relationship didn't make it beyond 1.5 year mark in good health.
His need to be counter dependent (or hyper-independent) was his MO. So, imo, him being out of touch with his emotions is just the tip of the iceberg for blind spots. When he started to express his emotional experiences nine months after ending things, he said he felt hated. I empathized with him on that, and took accountability for becoming resentful and critical about every 3-4 months. I just held space for that to be received. It was overwhelming too.
I actually was glad to see that he had shifted, and got more in touch with his emotions, and was able to express them more. It's growth towards emotional availability toward self to some degree or another. At this point I don't think he is aware of his lack of accountability, flexibility, and emotional availability that show up regularly even when coparenting.
Sounds like it must have been a burden for him stuck with someone who who is so righteous.
@joygibbons5482 like being stuck with someone who gets defensive from a stranger talking about their own experience with their partner?
Healing Sometimes is Walking through the pain and triggers, with Awareness. 💕
So glad to see you back. Thank you for all you have discussed on your channel, it has been another aspect I may have not read about, thought about or maybe even something I fully relate to. You are a blessing!!
Babe wake up Heidi posted
This is so insightful! I've always wondered why I couldn't feel pain even when I'm supposed to.
Thank you Heidi! This video was very helpful. I have fearful avoidance attachment and divorced narcissistic husband last year. The greiving and self blame has been brutal. I'm on a healing journey at 60 years old and I want to learn how to have boundaries. Thank you again for this helpful video. Keep them coming! Please more on fearful avoidance.❤
I don’t know who needs to hear this but I’m currently in the process of becoming a psychologist so I can help people with this. If you want to heal then I’d like to recommend a process that you can do to heal yourself from the avoidant attachment style.
First it’s important to understand that the core root of your attachment style is self limiting beliefs. All things extend from this; all your behavior, all your deactivation strategies, all the anxiety, all the fears of commitment and abandonment and engulfment. All of it stems from your limited beliefs about yourself.
The core beliefs I’ve found are “I am unlovable”, “I am not enough”, “I don’t matter/am not important”. You fear abandonment because it triggers the belief of being unlovable and not enough. You get intense anxiety when you stand up for yourself and assert your wants/needs because it triggers your belief that you don’t matter. This is also why avoidants tend to get in toxic relationships because it’s comforting to have those beliefs being confirmed by the toxic partner but healthy partners trigger those beliefs and trigger anxiety as a result.
I’m speaking from personal experience because I have healed my fearful avoidant attachment. If you want to heal then I recommend this.
Every day affirm/repeat these affirmations 300 times a day. You can do less but the more you do the quicker you will heal. You can download a counter app and use it to count the number of times you affirm.
The affirmations to affirm are these
“I know when affirmations are beliefs”
“I am enough”
“I am lovable”
Then when “I am enough” becomes a belief affirm “I matter” the same number of times a day.
You may get resistance to the affirmations, if you find the resistance is too strong, you can record the affirmations and listen to it in the background as you go about your day. But still affirm the affirmations yourself.
Please feel free to comment if you have questions. You do matter and you’re worth becoming secure so you can experience strong healthy relationships.
This topic resonates with me so freaking much. Thank you for this video, Heidi, and I'd really love to see the one that you mentioned in the end - on the topic of integrating and communicating pain as an avoidant. I'm still very awkward with this part, and I'd love to hear more about your experience with it.
I really enjoy the examples of avoidant relationship behavior that you give in this video. Noticing my own passive-aggressive behavior when I felt attacked in a relationship was what opened the door for me to seeking mental health help. Now I try to look at the issues in my life from differing perspectives, or as you put it from an emotionally present and honest place. It was very difficult at first to hold space for negative emotions, but getting in the clear about them has really freed me up to do more interpersonal work, which I love doing. Thanks to the therapists and nurses that have held space for me when I most needed to understand my emotional environment.
I often feel that I don't allow myself to speak my emotions about how something or someone makes me feel because I can't justify it under scrutiny. I feel a certain way about what someone has said, but I can't put into words why.
Same.
Right… and when I try to explain it to that person, I lose my thought and I feel like I’m grasping for what the emotion even was but it’s slipping. Do you feel that way?
@@loveforeva12 sort of, the original emotion becomes background noise and gets replaced with frustration that I haven't been able to fully describe my feeling and also feel like I've been heard. I'd spoken to a friend about this and described it like this:
You have a bag full of words that relate to how you feel, some are true and relate and some are not really related. When I talk about how I feel it's like the bag is upended and the words scatter all over the floor. Sometimes they fall into quite hurtful or caustic sentences or ones that dont make sense. I need someone to help me pick through them and put them in the right order. However, if the person helping you is bad at listening or listening with an agenda, they can rearrange these words into a statement that isn't correct or just straight up manipulate you.
@@TeethSink wow… that is so true. My boyfriend is amazing at figuring out what I’m feeling. But it’s not until he goes through multiple suggestions of what the emotion could be until I understand what it really was. You described it perfectly.
@@loveforeva12 I guess it's a little bit like drawing, I can picture an apple really clearly but translating what I imagine to lines on a page seldom works.
This was simply AMAZING.....more beneficial than I can articulate.
Amazing exposition on the avoidant attachment style… thanks Heidi. They are anesthetized to pain….
Amazing content! I haven’t heard anything so articulate on this topic before. Thank you!
I am eternally grateful I found your YT.
It's always a great video when I have to pause and re-watch parts. Good job this is great info to reflect on and work on!
Such a helpful way to describe this and I only began to heal and protect myself from harmful connections after I began to allow myself to feel and set these boundaries too.
Wow this was the best explanation I have found until now! Please tell us more!
Yeah when my partners are disregulated and start throwing nasty insults at me and treating me like crap just because they dont know how to name and express their own emotions and ask for what they need, I just tell them "i dont deserve to be talked to like that." And then they obviously dont calm down and i just wait for them to stop and I tell them that it was hurtful and im not ok with it and that they cant take back something once it leaves their mouth.
I used to just stay in emotionally abusive relationships with anxious partners, or I would leave and go back to the same person the next time they coaxed me back into it. Now i don't. And somehow people think that since im avoidant, I must be wrong for leaving. Lol. -_- no.
Idk, that sounds pretty healthy to me. The usual anxious-avoidant dynamic has both parties sticking around FAR longer than they should. Leaving when someone berates you is something a secure person would do.
Idk, that sounds pretty healthy to me. The usual anxious-avoidant dynamic has both parties sticking around FAR longer than they should. Leaving when someone berates you is something a secure person would do.
This stuff is so good and awesomely specific. I loved therapy when I first discovered sobriety, self help, meetings, and a therapeutic community. However, much of it was vague and I couldn't directly correlate the ideas into real life. It felt quite corny at times. I have sat through a few of your videos just blown away at the depth you go into. Problems are created over a lifetime of behavioral patterns and beliefs. I feel like you're in my head!
Whenever i try to think back like this and try to work on what i could have done better i just get reminded everytime that i was abused for no reason and had no effect whatsoever on the person/ people doing it to me.
I went back to the fam almost 2 years ago and recently experienced a deeper awareness through another rupture. I did do the avoidant escape to protect myself from a sibling also in crisis, and I've been able to reflect on my part. Having to look at the part of me that wants to endure and tough things out with people who aren't ready to meet me anywhere near the middle.
Thank you for always being so real you've been a big help to my secure attachment journey.
Your video is the most informative one I have ever seen; everything you said makes sense. TBH, I don't know if I will ever be able to do so. I'm trying, but entering new relationships, where I know that things are going to turn out badly just like before, keeps me from trying, especially when I meet very nice people who think that the things I say make no sense to them and that I am just paranoid or unreasonable. So, they ignore my emotions. It has taught me to never let anyone get so close that they can hurt me, and when they do, I wouldn't care anymore. And, I don't think there is anyone in this life who really cares about other people's boundaries or emotions. Those who have found such people are just lucky. Maybe I will find mine later in life, hopefully.
unbelievably enlightening video. the bike metaphor is perfect and everything you said makes so much sense with my thought processes and past relationships. You make the transition to secure seem possible
It's like you've watched the tape of my whole life. I'm shook
Really insightful stuff, I definitely fit squarely into this category and I've always known that my pattern of numbing my emotional pain was doing me harm but I've never been able to link it to my avoidant attachment and put it all together like this. This is very helpful, thank you.
You are amazing Heidi!!! I'm so glad to see more videos coming with your beautiful smiling face and vast emotional knowledge! Not only is your smile radiant but your heart is as well. I love love love that you neutralize the animosity between the styles while others who are making these types of videos hone in on it and create more. When I first saw a video of yours, I had already been on my healing journey for 2 years but really didn't feel like I was getting anywhere. Therefore, I cannot even begin to express my gratitude enough. I also can't even tell you how useful your videos, combined with a newfound personal interest of mine in energy psychology, when used both inside and outside of my personal relationships. They've helped significantly in my romantic (fearful avoidant with a dismissive avoidant) relationship as well. Needless to say, you had a big hand in it when it comes to my own personal healing journey. From you, I learned how to (mostly) regulate my own emotional state. Which then led me to be in a mental state well enough for the first time to start applying myself in the real world. So I started going to school studying Emotional Freedom Techniques (also known as Tapping or EFT) and while I don't have an actual practice yet, I am a certified practitioner now and I'm continuing further studies to become a master practitioner (chronic illnesses and life clients etc.) And because your content was so impactful in my healing, I feel I have to continue your work of helping the world understand the mass importance of attachment styles and roles in the dysfunctional family dynamics (scapegoat here) but in my own way of combining it with EFT. Most of my emotions and behaviors that you helped me realize were present, I was able to process and break down on my own but some things I just wasn't able to get over the hump without EFT which I won't go all the way into cuz this comment is too long as is but in case you're not familiar with it, it's a mix of psychology and acupressure where we focus on the emotions while tappng on pressure points and it can be very (very very very) useful to get rid of intrusive thoughts, bad habits, bothersome memories, limiting beliefs, and can even address physical illnesses...90% of which are caused by negative emotions and stress and then this list goes on and on of things it can help with but Anyways. Heidi, I just want you to know how profoundly I have been impacted by your work and let's be real, how truly blessed I am to have accidentally stumbled across your videos that one time that changed my entire worldview. So I thank you, with every ounce of my entire being. Thank you. I could never repay you for what you truly gave me.. The gift of understanding everything I never could before, never. However, if you're ever in the market for an EFT practitioner don't you dare spend a dime on it girl I got you!! ❤❤❤❤❤🙏🙏🙏❤❤❤❤❤
That is just the sweetest comment! I bet you are going to be an amazing healer and helper yourself someday!
@@Julia29853 Thank you! I appreciate your kind words.
This was THE most helpful vid for me as an avoidant. Thank you so much for taking the time :)
Heidi, please definitely do write a book or a series of them. Your command of these subjects is apparent. Share it in longer form, please.
Heidi, thanks for making this whole series. You explain and teach so well. I'm not so sure I'd "get it" if it were someone else,like say a lot of my college profs :). You are a gift.
Thank you for sharing your personal struggle as the result for me is far better understanding of my avoidant husband, who will never come to terms with attachment theory of avoidance. I also saw my own issue of anxiety & how useless my combative behavior is. It actually drives him deeper into his shelter with no comprehension of my needs. ❤
OMG, this is me. I've never heard it put like this. Thank you.
Do U also feel/think Like: "OK, I do Not need any Person, coz I can do IT all by my own. That Behaviors are stupid, so I Go. But still, Sometimes U try to find reasons, analyze situations and people"?
@@SeelenTaucher: Let me try to understand: when we say that a DA hurt us with some behavior that we may find toxic in the relationship, you think: "I don't need this situation, it doesn't make sense. I don't even want to explain myself". But at the same time, don't you listen to the person through that place of pain?
Do you easily let go of people because they hurt you? Honestly, I don't understand how a conflict can be so bad, if conflicts lead us to create bounderies.
@@sushisam3010 😊🎇Thanks for Ur communication. I wished there was a "speaking" Button in UA-cam, maybe I ask for IT...coz speaking is easier. Via writing I can Not Express aß good as what I feel and what I wanna say. ITS about Devine Feminine and Masculine Powers within.
I did explain to many people over and over, yet they gave me No good Treatment Most of time, coz I Go for devine calm respectful lightful treatment, since Most people are Not that way, coz they are Not at the Same Spiritual Level (which is OK), I decided to Go and built my own Friends inside, as Well as my own Woman, man, Wife, husband.
I did understand and listen to their Feelings and yet I can Set clear boundaries of "No, Not this way dears" and If IT Not feels healthy any longer, coz my inner Core shifted much, than I Go. I gave them so many chances to Transform their inner self, now I Put the Energy and Love to myself and Others than say either "Go for IT, do yourself good" and Others say "U are egoistic". In any way, I Go for what feels right good for the Heart and that is Rising my phönix within, coz I am bored by all the lame Low Energies in Most of people. I enjoy Solitude so much as nature, animals, music, many more. We all deserve devine, so Go for IT. 😊😊🌟
All my Life Long in Most of cases I Put so much Energy in Solving Relationship Issues, Like a councler, infj, that I am tired of IT. Now I say: I have them Tools and they as Well need to Work in their Spirit and Heart, as I did and do.
My "to do" is: Giving now myself, what I gave away to people, Setting boundaries and speaking clearly what I want and Not want.
I really enjoy a good fight, Like I do with intp or my sister, coz ITS creative and respectful. But Overexplaining and overgiving was Not healthy for my system. Now I am balancing my chacras more. From top, to Root. I missed the lower chacras since years. So now Others have been given the Chance to feel and think more, while I simply enjoy and Create, which is New to me.
Have U every been envolved in the Idea of chakra Energies? ❤️💛🧡💚
Yes!! I realized during my breakup with my ex (10 years older and also avoidant) that I didn’t want to turn out like him bc he’s miserable. So when we broke up, I let myself FEEL and face the emotions head on vs previous breakups where I would suppress and ignore them. Feeling the negative (without vices) is the first step the breaking the cycle!
This is so insightful. My husband has ADHD and has explosive rage outbursts. This explains why I walk away from them not really remembering everything he said. I would love to learn more about Avoidants and their partners who can't regulate their emotions.
I love your channel!! But I wish the titles would be more “detailed” eg how to heal avoidant attachment. Find it difficult to find what I’m looking for and have to go through all videos. Other than that you are fantastic. Thank you so much ❤
17:30 - 18:30...I so needed to hear this...thank you! ✨️
This video worth than the psychology app I have subscribed to. Thank you! I never knew how I processed things before I came across this. Need more of this pls... 🙏
I felt that i must have done something like this to allow for a relationship i was in 6 years ago to go from happy with alot of arguing, to more unhappy with a lot of arguing, to actually being physcially attacked. If i had felt what Was happening emotionally long before it got to that i wouldn't have been physically hurt, I'd have taken different actions, and likely left before that started. On maybe it would never have started as he always seemed to be trying to "get through to me".
Well now I know why I have a weird secret goal of surviving the most pain. Like those monks set on fire. Or rolfing. Or when that lady in the good earth gives birth by herself.
Heidi, you are.absolutwly on point with this video. I've been in therapy for 10 years and altho my therapist always tells me to feel feelings instead of go into my head a. It's really hard to do that and b. Not knowing why doesn't work very well for me.
I love the visualization of letting yourself get punched emotionally. I KNOW I have trouble feeling emotions (all, not just pain) but it's so automatic. This makes me really sad for my inner child/inner me who IS still feeling those things. And I suppose it's manifesting physically and keeping me stuck.
Thank you so much for what you do. ❤
No, that's just masochism.
🎉 Always happy to see you post a video
This is so freeing. I feel so seen and understood.
This compassionate wisdom is exactly what i needed to hear. Thank you.
Letting my guard down in public seemed like a bad idea until I shook the hand of someone I had just helped and found out a bit later that I was missing the emotional experience that I had blocked.
Oh my goodness…this is spot on. I absolutely do that with painful memories and always wondered why 😮. Thank you 😊
MAYBE AND IDEA FOR A separate VIDEO -- @heidipriebe1 I loved the anxious attached blindspot video. This one missed for me but for a very specific reason. First, it assumes a conflict where the pain inflicted is loud, hurtful, cruel, and something for which a boundary should be set. My avoidant is good at that. The miss for me is with complex trauma (both of us) and with an emotional flashback (EF) active in her, the reaction to me is from deep in her past....The loop of negative behavior in this case is from the EF with a past relationship, her mother! ....I am left feeling I'm always answering "Am I done beating my child?" There's no personal responsibility? This is a 20+ yr friendship....deep wounds hit on both sides, and a recent rupture....one of us healing, the other not considering they have any issue. How do avoidants ever allow themselves to look inward? Given the attitude that they are superior and you are just wrong? I'm concerned for her and her future.