How to Self-Soothe When Your Anxious Attachment Is Triggered

When your anxious attachment gets triggered, it can feel like a fire alarm going off in your body.

And every part of you wants to DO something about it… right now.

Text them. Call them. Figure it out. Fix it.

I want to start by saying this isn’t a flaw. It’s biology. It’s what happens when your nervous system senses a relational threat. And the good news is that self-soothing is something we can all learn, and all get better at.

(Not sure what your attachment style is? Take my free attachment style quiz… over 22,000 people have taken it.)

What happens in your body when you’re triggered:

When connection feels uncertain, your body can read it as a threat and flood your system with cortisol. Your HPA axis is basically your nervous system’s fire alarm.

Your heart races. You move into fight, flight, freeze or fawn.

With anxious attachment, it can feel like the alarm is constantly going off. It pushes the gas pedal on trying to manage things, trying to fix things… and there’s this urgent experience of help me, please. I can’t handle this on my own.

I sometimes describe insecure attachment as a clog in the pipes. Emotion builds up and there’s either an explosion, or a complete shut off. Secure attachment is more like being able to gradually adjust the gauge so the water keeps flowing.

The four ways we regulate:

It helps to know where you tend to go when you’re stressed. There’s no judgment in this.

• External regulating. You need to talk it through with someone. (This is where anxious attachers tend to go.)
• Auto regulating. You tune out with TV, video games or work. (This is more avoidant.)
• Co-regulating. Slow, quiet love. Holding hands, being quiet together, eye gazing, physical affection.
• Self-regulating. Journaling, meditation, yoga, anything you do intentionally to settle your nervous system.

Securely attached people tend to do both co-regulation and self-regulation most often. And self-regulation is the one that’s available to you any time, whether someone is around or not.

How to self-soothe when you’re triggered:

These are the steps I teach my clients and members. Go through them in order, and slowly.

1. Notice the trigger:

This is the first step to having a little more control over the stress response.

What gets your stress going the most? For a lot of people with anxious attachment it’s not knowing what’s next. A lack of planning. A slow reply. A plan that falls through.

2. Get curious about your body:

Picture the situation for a second, and focus on the physical sensations.

• Does your jaw get tight?
• Does your chest tighten?
• Is there fast thinking, or worst case thinking?
• Is there an urge to DO something?

You don’t have to fix any of it. Just notice.

3. Hit the brakes:

Being triggered is like pushing down the gas pedal. What we want to do is hit the brakes.

So the first thing is always… stop. Pause.

Relax your jaw. Feel your feet. Slow your breath. Try breathing in for a count of four, holding at the top, breathing out for four, and holding at the bottom. Do that for about 60 seconds.

If you’re on the dating apps and getting flooded, this is the perfect time to close the phone and step away. Put your oxygen mask on first.

Put your oxygen mask on before you do anything else.

4. Call on your secure state:

In my Secure State Framework, a secure state is made of six states of being: loved, supported, connected, mattering, alive and at ease. You don’t have to wait for a relationship to feel any of them.

To anchor one in:

1. Choose the state you want to feel more of.
2. Remember a time you felt it, even a small moment.
3. Notice where you feel it in your body, and breathe into it.
4. If you want, gently tap your shoulders or knees, back and forth, to make it stronger.
5. Come up with a word, phrase or image for it. Put your hands on that part of your body and say it to yourself.

The next time you’re triggered, you can come back to that anchor. Hands on that spot, that word, that memory.

5. Call in support:

If you can’t reach the anchor, call on a resourcing figure. This could be a wise figure, an ancestor, someone who loves you. For anxious attachment this can help a lot, because you can imagine doing the external regulating you’re craving… with them.

You can also go to your peaceful place, somewhere real or imagined where you feel calm and safe.

6. Ask what your secure self would do:

Once you’ve slowed down, ask yourself: if I were living from my secure state, what would I do next?

One thing I want to clarify about trust. With anxious attachment, it’s tempting to think being trusting means I should just trust that this person is reliable. That’s usually not where your trust needs to go.

Folks with anxious attachment often grew up without enough support. So part of healing is expanding your experience of support in life.

This looks like learning to trust that life has your back… that things can work out for you, and that the support you need is AVAILABLE. Over time, mattering and support become a day to day experience, far beyond the person you’re dating or in a relationship with.

This is what secure feels like.

From there, you might still reach out. It just sounds different: Hey, I know you’re probably busy and there might be a lot going on. Just checking in. More grounded, more relaxed… and you’re still asking.

A short practice: call your energy back:

When you notice your attention being pulled toward a person (or a phone):

• Breathe in and out a few times.
• Imagine drawing threads of yourself back to you, like golden strands pooling around you.
• Say to yourself, I call back all of my energy to me. I call back my calm, my joy, my secure self.
• Let all of your parts return.

Why this works:

Shifting into your secure state regularly, over time, is what secure attachment is. And when you do it over and over again, having someone relate to you in a secure way becomes a natural consequence of who you’re being.

You stop hustling for love… and you start receiving the love that’s already there.

I teach the secure state fully in Part 1 of my free training, Attachment Essentials. It also gives you access to my free community.

With love,
Sefora