10 Things you can do to shift your attachment style to secure

Your attachment style is not a character flaw or personality trait. It's not your identity.

It's a learned strategy, a set of memories and behaviours you employ to meet your needs for feeling safe, such as connection or distance.

It's the blueprint for how you experience relationships. That blueprint lives in your emotional memory and nervous system. It's in your body, not in your rational brain.

An attachment style doesn't shift itself. When a person shifts from being insecure, we call it "earned" secure, rather than "given", or "magically appearing".

There is no shame in being insecurely attached. I even argue that moving towards an earned security gives us a certain depth that we wouldn't have otherwise. It's a gift. See my earlier posts regarding the superpowers of attachment.

You've been using and reinforcing your attachment strategy for a very long time. To embody the new, secure patterns, you'll need to invest some effort, time, and practice into the process. It takes more than one quick hop to shift an attachment style.

Your secure wiring is buried beneath the insecure routes adaptations. You can't reason your way through to it, but you can rewire different patterns in your nervous system, body, and emotional memory.

1) Recognize and educate yourself on the attachment strategies you are using.

2) Become secure with yourself and have plenty of compassion for the ways you are attaching; we can't change what we don't accept.

3) Learn to regulate your nervous system. Because everything appears different from a regulated place, this should be your priority.

4) Explore the limiting beliefs behind your insecure attachment.

5) Adopt more helpful beliefs to help you feel secure.

6) Nurture your inner child with the wise parenting experience that fosters secure attachment.

7) Journal about the ways you'd act as your secure self. Assume that role.

8) Communicate your needs for safety; when those needs are met, you'll be able to act from a more secure place.

9) Embody and practice your new chosen ways

10) Reach out to an attachment-informed therapist or coach for support.

You got this.