Transcription
So, if you're watching this video right now and you're in love with an avoidant and you're recognizing some of these dynamics that you are in relationship with, it is very important that you stop internalizing their lack of relational capacity meaning something about your value. And it is not your job to fix them. It is not your job to save them. It is not your job to love them back into health.
The only thing you can truly do is either walk away and stay connected to yourself so that you don't abandon who you are for a relationship that is not reciprocated or move into secure attachment, which actually might look like walking away, but it could also look like communicating from secure attachment, bringing your needs, bringing your leadership into the dialogue, and then seeing what kind of difference you can make when you become a champion for secure healthy love rather than letting your anxious attachment drive the show, which might look like withholding, shapeshifting, people pleasing, giving too much and then resenting the person, which is a really key sign that if you're resenting the person while you're waiting for them, that you are abandoning yourself.
If any of those things are happening, you're locked in your own pattern, being counter triggered by their avoidance into your anxiety, and the move is to move into secure connection. Move into deeper connection with you so that you can take a real stand for what it is that you want in relationship, and that might inspire them to step up and meet you at a higher relational level or it might mean that you are able to trust life and trust yourself enough that you'll be able to create something better and you walk away out of love.
Remember, you can't inspire someone to face their fear of relationship from you coming from a place of fear of being alone. When you become secure, the whole system shifts. The groundedness that you demonstrate disarms the avoidant's defense system. You stop chasing and they actually finally have space to come toward you if they want to.
So, how do avoidants heal and how do you actually find peace? You know, for me, being a recovering avoidant, I had to go through a number of different relationships until I realized that I was the common denominator and there was something that I was doing that was stopping love from growing. And there came a point where that became so painful that I had to realize that what I really wanted is I wanted a relationship that would allow me to feel more free than I was when I was single. I wanted the challenge of relationship because I could feel that the avoidant patterning was actually making my life smaller and more shallow, and there was a way in which I had a value around growth and depth, and I knew that relationship was a path to that.
So, there are going to be avoidants that you are dancing with that also feel something similar where they want a relationship, they want to do the work, and that is a key piece. They are going to heal when they want to heal. But if they are saying, "Hey, I don't have capacity for you. I don't want a relationship right now. I want to keep this casual." You have to listen to them and you have to be willing to let them go because they're telling you the truth. They're just not ready.
And if you're currently in a relationship or a marriage with an avoidant and you're experiencing a variation of these dynamics, your work is to keep moving into secure attachment because the more that you can operate from a place of empowerment where you are not afraid of being abandoned and you're also not afraid of asking for closeness, and you don't get triggered by them taking some space, but rather you can start to see space as an ally in the relationship, and rather than get defensive, you get curious. Rather than close down and take what they're doing personally, you're able to stay open and have fun with it, you actually start to disarm them. They actually start to feel that it is safe for them to be themselves, that they can get space and have autonomy in the relationship, that there's a way that they still can be themselves and honor themselves in your presence, and that is another way that avoidant can start to heal in relationship with you is when you start to occupy the place of secure attachment, and they will eventually, if the two of you continue to work this edge, both of you will start to move deeper and deeper into secure attachment where you trust each other, you trust life, and you trust what the two of you are building.
My name is Clayton Olson, and if you like this video, please like it. Please comment below if there's any questions. If you want to share your experience, if you're an avoidant and you found our value in this video, or you wanted to add to a point that would be helpful to the people that are watching that might be anxious, uh feel free to comment below. And if you'd like to enter into a one-on-one dialogue with me about how we can take you from anxious or avoidant in your relationship into deeper levels of secure love, secure attachment, which I believe is arguably the holy grail of relationship where we trust life, we trust ourselves, and we trust relationships so that we can take more risk and be more expansive in how we're living, then I want you to get in touch. You can do that by clicking the link in the description below to fill out a coaching application form and somebody from my team will be in touch. Thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next video.