How to Nurture a Healthy Attachment Style

There’s something beautiful in the fact that broken things can be mended. There’s a Japanese art called “Kintsugi,” a word that means “join with gold.” This art is traditionally about using gold lacquer to repair broken objects, typically ceramic pottery or glass. The broken pieces are joined together using the lacquer, and the result is a stunningly beautiful object that looks all the more refined for its breaking and repair. This is a lot like healthy attachment.

In a similar fashion, our relationships, our habits, and ourselves can be broken – less than their ideal selves, and far from the flourishing that the Lord intends for us. There is a Psalm that reminds us that the Lord “heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds” (Psalm 147:3, NIV). There may be things in your life that break you and affect your well-being. You, too, can find healing in areas of concern like your attachment style.

Attachment Styles and Relationships

Your attachment style is how you form and maintain the relationships you have with other people. A person’s attachment style influences how they relate to others, including whether they can form relationships with healthy emotional connections, trust, and communication. In other words, your attachment style affects whether you have healthy relationships with other people.

There are several attachment styles, and they are influenced by experiences in formative relationships, whether as a child or as an adult. Neglect or abandonment can lead a person to the conclusion that either their needs don’t matter to others or that others cannot be trusted to meet important needs. This introduces several forms of dysfunction into how they form and maintain relationships.

Some of the attachment styles that may be dysfunctional include anxious attachment, which is where a person is afraid of abandonment, leading them to seek constant reassurance from loved ones that everything is okay. They may seek out intimacy, but they are also afraid of it because they may lose it and the relationship.

An avoidant attachment style is when a person is emotionally distant; they prioritize being independent over being emotionally connected to others. In relationships with others, there may be frustration from loved ones because they appear aloof and don’t want to be drawn deeper into relationships with others. There is also a disorganized attachment style, which stems from trauma or neglect, resulting in difficulty regulating emotions.

Your attachment style isn’t fixed

Alongside these other attachment styles is a healthy or secure attachment style. Such an individual is independent, but they are also comfortable with intimacy and expressing their feelings. A healthy attachment style emerges when a person expresses their needs, and those needs are consistently met by loved ones. The lesson learned is that it’s okay to express a need, and it builds a reasonable expectation that those needs will be met.

A person’s attachment style develops based on their experiences. You could start with a healthy attachment style as a child, but experiences in relationships with others as an adult could lead to developing an insecure attachment style. Similarly, though you may have had a challenging start, it’s possible to develop or nurture a more secure and healthy attachment style.

Nurturing a Healthy Attachment Style

There are several ways to nurture or develop a healthier attachment style, and these include the following:

Growing self-awareness You must learn to identify patterns in how you relate to others. Some of these patterns you’ve learned from past relationships may be unhealthy. Growing self-awareness also means being aware of your emotions and recognizing your triggers and coping mechanisms. You can learn about attachment styles to better understand your patterns in relationships.

Be patient and compassionate When you struggle with something, it can be tempting to get angry at yourself or give up. Instead, show kindness to yourself and be patient. It may have taken years for you to learn certain ways to be in a relationship, and it will take time to undo those habits and patterns. Setbacks will come, but you can keep pressing on.

Choose healthy relationships One way to undo unhealthy patterns is to choose relationships with a different sort of person. Seek relationships with individuals who are reliable, responsive, and empathetic. Share your feelings, needs, and desires openly, and build trust as you see traits such as reliability, consistency, and vulnerability.

You can also nurture a supportive community and have relationships with supportive loved ones who desire you to have healthy relationships. There may also be online forums and communities, as well as support groups that focus on building healthy attachments.

Set boundaries Healthy relationships have boundaries, and you can learn how to establish, effectively communicate, and maintain healthy limits in your relationships.

It can take time to learn effective ways of communicating without falling back on patterns informed by insecure attachment. Boundaries also allow you to create space to prioritize self-care and your well-being.

Seek help and healing Doing all the work described above isn’t something that you have to do on your own. If you have only known one way of doing things, it’s hard to comprehend how to do them differently. You can work with a counselor or therapist. Your counselor or therapist can help you to process past trauma or attachment issues, as well as work through their impact on you and your relationships.

Next Steps to Develop Healthy Attachment

Your counselor can work with you to self-reflect and find healing. They can walk alongside you to teach you how to set and communicate healthy boundaries and discern unhealthy patterns of thought and behavior that you may default to.

Nurturing a healthy attachment style takes time, and in some ways, it’s a lifelong process. Get the guidance you need to start that journey. Contact our office today to learn more.