3 science-backed ways to shift anxious attachment in polyamory
By Orit Krug | June 22nd, 2023
Anxious attachment in polyamory is a common experience that can lead to deeper healing or further pain.
As human beings, we generally form one of two attachment styles within the first 2 years of life – secure attachment or insecure attachment.
A secure attachment is formed when our caregivers are emotionally attuned, reliable, and supportive through physical and emotional discomfort. An insecure attachment is typically formed when our caregivers are unpredictable, unreliable, neglectful, or a mix between attuned and absent.
Within the umbrella of insecure attachment types, there is the anxious attachment style. You may already know or suspect that you identify with anxious attachment.
Anxious attachment behaviors typically include needing constant reassurance from partners, having difficulty saying no (a.k.a people pleasing), and clinging intensely in relationships to prevent abandonment.
If you’ve displayed anxious attachment behaviors throughout your childhood and adult relationships, they’ll likely be intensified through polyamory. Even if you haven’t experienced them in a long time.
In general, different types of relationships can help diminish or exacerbate anxious attachment. For instance, you may feel insecurely attached to your mother, but you feel securely attached to your spouse.
In polyamory, you may be with a long-term partner who has helped you feel safe and secure, but you experience anxiety and insecurity in outside relationships. Or perhaps you suddenly display anxious attachment behaviors with your secure, long-term partner while they are experiencing New Relationship Energy (NRE) with a new partner.
When you experience anxious attachment in polyamory, you are presented with a gift. I know it doesn’t feel that way, because it can feel like a plague. I’ve experienced it too – sleepless nights, racing heart, and incessant thoughts. But these “symptoms” serve as loud messages, telling us that we still need to heal the trauma that fuels this anxious attachment.
Why does anxious attachment in polyamory feel so intense?
Anxious attachment usually feels intense whether you’re monogamous or polyamorous. However, with polyamory, you’re likely to experience anxious attachment in multiple relationships. Therefore, the anxiety typically comes at a much faster rate in polyamory than in monogamy.
Anxious attachment feels so intense because it reminds our bodies and nervous systems of a time when we did not feel safe in this world. This may sound like an exaggeration, but the events that contributed to the formation of your anxious attachment were all traumas. Whether they be “little” unintentional traumas, such as being left alone in your crib, or “big” traumas, like growing up with a volatile father who often yelled at you.
The way we remember trauma is primarily through the body. Research shows that trauma memories are stored as fragments of sensation in the body and non-verbal brain. It only takes a subtle sight, taste, touch or smell to make you feel like you’re experiencing your past trauma all over again. For instance, your partner may have a certain look on their face that reminds you of the way your mother looked before hitting you. When this happens, your body and nervous system automatically go into 1 or more of the following 4 reactions:
- Fight (become verbally or physically aggressive).
- Flight (leave the house and drive away).
- Freeze (dissociate and say nothing).
- Fawn (abandon your needs to please your partner).
You react in these ways to protect yourself even if your partner has never been abusive towards you.
Further studies show that the Hippocampus is smaller in trauma survivors. The Hippocampus is the part of the brain that distinguishes the past from present. When trauma survivors have common relationship mishaps or disagreements, they are more likely to experience them as a recurrence of past trauma from previous relationships. This adds to the intensity of feeling like the pain from the past is happening all over again.
Hence, an anxious attachment bomb drops with every little “wrong look,” late text, missed “I love you’s” and other common miscommunications.
Why anxious attachment in polyamory can feel like “dying.”
When you’ve experienced attachment ruptures or traumas, the pain from these memories comes rushing back with any faint reminder of the past. These reminders may come in subtle or obvious interactions with long-term partners or new lovers.
You could be triggered by your partner not looking at you in a longing way after they come home from a date. Or they’re texting their new lover instead of making direct eye contact with you. These are common issues that can make anyone upset, but it is the overwhelming intensity in which you react (and later regret) that indicates your body has re-experienced and reacted to past attachment wounds.
Your cognitive brain may know that you’re overreacting, or not actually in physical danger, but your primal body (or perhaps, your 6 month-old body) knows no better than to feel like you’re about to die (i.e., like the time your mother was emotionally absent, forgot to feed you on time, and your nervous system feared actual death).
These intense reactions are not rational. We cannot talk our way into telling ourselves we’re safe. As long as we have unresolved trauma being triggered around attachment, we will carry it with us in our bodies and into the majority of our relationships until it is healed. Any faint reminder of the pain from the past will cause a physiological reaction that makes us react as if we have to protect ourselves and save our lives.
When your partner doesn’t text back within a certain amount of time, you may feel an uncontrollable force take over to text and call 20 times in a row. You know “this is crazy” but your nervous system is already in “Fight” mode, kicked into action and doing what you can to “save your life.” This is how anxious attachment acts as a force that hijacks your primal body into behaviors that you can’t stop in the moment, but you wish so badly to stop repeating.
In sum, anxious attachment feels so intense because your body and nervous system have evolved to do whatever it takes to protect you from real OR perceived danger. When you experience challenges in relationships today that even subtly remind you of the pain from the past, you will automatically react to prevent yourself from experiencing this hurt again.
You’ll constantly ask your partners to reassure you until you feel a fleeting sense of security again.
You’ll intentionally hurt your partners to let them know how much they’ve hurt you, but then apologize profusely because you don’t want them to leave.
You’ll say yes to everything they want without voicing your own needs, so that you decrease the chance of them rejecting you.
These are behaviors rooted deeply in unresolved trauma, but they do not have to define you forever. You can heal the underlying trauma and begin to relate to partners in a much healthier way.
Why anxious attachment can be so difficult to change.
Since attachment is formed in the first 2 years of life, our attachment styles are set PRE-VERBALLY through touch, smell, posture, gestures, and other body movements.
The way we remember a caregiver being aggressive may be through their accelerated advancement towards us, or the way they forcefully picked us up when we refused to listen.
We do not remember WHAT they said when they made us feel unsafe. We do not know the exact words they used. We remember, non-verbally, the visual picture and bodily sensation that we experienced when they walked away while we were crying and begging for attention. Our bodies remember.
This is why so many people struggle to heal their anxious attachment patterns. Because they are trying to change it with words; but as preverbal children, we did not form our anxious attachment style in words. We formed them with our bodies.
It may be helpful to talk about your anxiety in therapy, repeat affirmations for feeling secure, or journal about your thoughts. However, these cognitive-based techniques are not enough to shift anxious attachment into secure attachment.
The body must adopt a new way. Neural pathways must be rewired in the non-verbal brain, so we can stay present and respond instead of react. We must learn how to literally move in ways that lead to more security (i.e., keeping eye contact and leaning in for a hug even when we’re deathly afraid of getting hurt).
Movement is where true change begins. If you truly want to heal the trauma that’s feeding your anxious attachment patterns, then you must engage your body in a process that allows your entire physical being to feel secure in all types of relationships and interactions.
3 science-backed ways to shift anxious attachment in polyamory.
Here are 3-science backed ways to navigate anxious attachment in polyamory. The following tips are not a substitute for therapy, or a cure-all for healing trauma. They are helpful ideas that you can try to implement into your overall healing journey:
1. Regulate your nervous system & body through anxiety
When we experience anxiety, we are either in the hyper-arousal or hypo-arousal state. It’s important to understand each of these states in order to know how to regulate through anxiety.
In hyper-arousal, we are usually revved up. We can be irritable, agitated, and aggressive. You may hear yourself thinking, “I just can’t calm down.”
Hypo-arousal is a less obvious type of anxiety. Symptoms on the outside may look non-existent; however, your nervous system is still driven by fear in this state, which is the basis for all anxiety. In hypo-arousal, we feel numb, depressed, or lethargic. You might recognize this state by feeling like “I don’t feel anything.”
On the flip side, when you’re in a calm, cool state within your body & nervous system, you are in your Window of Tolerance (WOT).
There is a lot of misinformation out there about how to regulate our nervous systems into our WOT. Many coaches or therapists will suggest things that are typically known to be helpful, like yoga, meditation, and nervous system “hacks.” However, many of these tend to be prescribed in a generic way without fine-tuning to the momentary needs of our nervous system in different states.
Let’s look at the chart above to learn how we must regulate through anxiety. In HYPER-AROUSAL, what you need to get back into your WOT is to decelerate (or downregulate) into slow and gentle movement.
This COULD look something like yoga… sometimes. It could also look like a gentle sway with hands on your heart, or slowly rolling your shoulders. There is NO one answer to this. You’ll likely need something different each time, because it’s crucial to follow your body’s lead and allow yourself to be guided to move in whatever way will help you regulate in the moment – NOT following a blanket prescription of poses.
In HYPO-AROUSAL, you need to gradually accelerate (or upregulate) into stronger, energizing movements to feel a sense of aliveness again.
Again, this could look like yoga sometimes, but often it isn’t. Yoga is generally a slower gentler practice, even though it typically requires body strength.
What often works reliably is following through with unplanned organic movement. For example, my client Felicia started freezing up as we moved together more assertively in session. In other words, she began to enter a state of HYPO-AROUSAL because her nervous system felt threatened by being assertive (doing more direct & confrontational movements towards me).
Usually, what most clients do when this happens is they stop their movement completely. It’s an obvious natural response to stop moving when you’re freezing up. But instead of letting Felicia repeat her pattern of hiding/freezing, she moved through the fear with my guidance to follow her body’s lead. She moved in an organic way which brought her back to WOT and out of an anxious state in that exact moment. This broke her pattern of freezing up during conflict, and allowed her to finally stay present and voice her needs instead.
So, how can you regulate through anxiety?
Start listening to your body when you start to feel anxious in relationships. If you’re feeling low, heavy, and numb – try something more active instead of meditation, which is likely to trigger even more numbness if you have unresolved trauma.
If you’re feeling on edge and irritable, try to close your eyes, feel the strongest sensation present in your body, and then let your body move with it. You may find yourself naturally wanting to shake it out or sway through the feelings of anxiety in your body.
Most importantly, don’t ignore what your body really wants to do, simply because you read on Instagram that you should do something else. Your body holds the highest wisdom. A skilled coach or therapist can guide you to listen to the wisdom of your body, but not override it with blanket interventions.
If you’re not sure how to start listening to the wisdom of your body, I recommend starting with this movement-based meditation right here.
2. Move from fear into security and safety
One of the trendiest pieces of advice to “move anxiety out of your body” is to punch a pillow or scream as loud as you can.
For f**k’s sake, please don’t follow this advice.
It may feel really good in the moment, but it’s actually harmful advice for your body & nervous system in the long-term.
In order to understand why, you must first know that there are 2 layers to the Mobilization and Immobilization States (Fear vs. Without Fear).
Mobilization, also known as Fight/Flight, is a Sympathetic Nervous System State that’s actually very useful in deepening relationships when it’s activated WITHOUT fear.
Immobilization, a.k.a Freeze, is our Parasympathetic Nervous System Response that can be very healthy within ourselves and relationships when it’s activated WITHOUT fear.
Thus, the Healthy Habits vs. Unhealthy Habits that you see in the chart above.
A Fight/Flight – or Sympathetic Nervous System State – will produce unhealthy habits when in FEAR, or healthy habits when NOT in fear (top half of chart).
A Freeze or Parasympathetic State will produce unhealthy habits when in FEAR, or healthy habits when NOT in fear (bottom half of chart).
Screaming, fighting, and other aggressive mobilization of the body are unhealthy behaviors. Sure, it feels SO good (like a drug taking the edge off) in the short term to “get out that energy” and alleviate anxiety, but it is NOT conducive to a real, lasting healing.
Wouldn’t more people be healed by now if we could just simply scream or punch things?
To help your body move from fear to safety & security, try to implement the behaviors and actions that you see on the “healthy habits” side of the chart above.
3. Activate your social engagement system in therapy
According to Dr. Stephen Porges, a leading expert in the trauma field, we must strengthen the vagus nerve in order to be able to regulate our nervous systems and stay calm even in the face of conflict or stress.
His research shows that in order to strengthen the vagus nerve, we must activate our social engagement system by engaging with others through smiling, having pleasant and calm interactions, and playing or moving together.
These social interactions activate the neural circuits in our bodies that enhance our sense of safety by literally slowing down our heart rate and breathing, and drops our blood pressure to an optimal level, which eliminates the fear response. This makes us feel safe and able to move closer to other people, which reinforces even more calm, and rewires us for love, intimacy, safety, and excitement in relationships.
In other words, rewiring our nervous systems must happen in a relationship.
But we can’t do this in ANY relationship. We can’t just appoint our friend or partner to be our unqualified therapist (even if they are a qualified therapist!). Believe me, I tried this. I subconsciously tried to heal with my husband when we began dating and he broke up with me because he failed at this job. We both got so frustrated because he wasn’t helping me in the way I truly needed, which was a very unfair expectation I placed on him.
Safe and healthy personal relationships can absolutely support our process of rewiring. However, it is crucial to have an outside professional be the primary relationship to help you access your trauma and release it safely.
This may be frustrating to hear if you’re set on healing trauma on your own. You might even have a strong reaction to hearing this. You might think, “I’m strong enough, I CAN do this on my own. I don’t need anyone else!” If you hear that voice, it’s probably coming from an old pattern of trauma where you needed to be fiercely independent, because you’ve already survived PLENTY on your own.
But this isn’t personal. This is actual scientific reasoning why we can’t heal body-stored trauma on our own. It’s okay to get professional support. With the right therapist who can support you to heal safely, it’s a game changer!
Join our somatic retreat for polyamorous folks navigating trauma
The latest trauma research consistently shows that trauma gets stored in the non-verbal parts of our brain and body. If you’ve been in therapy or seeking support for a while, but you still feel that trauma is hijacking your nervous system & body’s responses, this is NOT your fault. A somatic, embodied approach is necessary to process & release trauma. Talking can only get us so far.
I am co-facilitating a Poly Retreat with Dedeker Winston (co-host of Multiamory Podcast), where we will be using somatic therapy practices to help you integrate and embody the ability to deeply love yourself and your partners through your poly journey. Our neuroscience-backed practices are effective in processing traumas, working through current non-monogamy challenges, and deeply celebrating your incredible & courageous journey of practicing open love!
Click here to learn more about our next Poly Somatic Healing Retreat!
