Attachment: The Key to Healthier Relationships and Wellbeing

Have you ever wondered why some relationships feel effortless while others leave you anxious or emotionally exhausted? Or why you might push people away just as you’re getting close? The answer often lies in your attachment style, the blueprint for connection formed in your earliest relationships.

Understanding your attachment style isn’t about labelling yourself or finding excuses for behaviour. It’s about gaining insight into your patterns so you can build healthier relationships and practice self-care that actually works for you.

Attachment theory (John Bowlby) suggests early caregiving shapes how we relate to others. These patterns influence how we give and receive love, handle conflict, and respond to stress across life.

The Four Attachment Styles

• Secure Attachment

People with secure attachment tend to feel comfortable with both closeness and independence. They express needs openly, trust others, and maintain healthy boundaries.

• Anxious Attachment

Often linked to inconsistent caregiving. It can involve seeking reassurance, fearing abandonment, and worrying excessively about relationships.

• Avoidant Attachment

Often linked to emotionally unavailable or dismissive caregiving. It can involve discomfort with closeness, a strong emphasis on independence, and preferring self-reliance.

• Disorganised Attachment

Often linked to frightening or chaotic caregiving. It can involve conflicting desires for closeness and distance, with emotions feeling hard to regulate.

How Attachment shapes Your Wellbeing

Attachment patterns reach beyond romance. They affect your friendships, workplace dynamics, stress responses, and even physical health. Insecure patterns are associated with higher rates of anxiety and low mood. Anxious patterns can bring chronic worry and rumination; avoidant patterns can lead to loneliness despite appearing independent. But fortunately, attachment isn’t fixed. With awareness and practice, many people develop “earned secure attachment.”

Tailoring Self-Care to Your Attachment Style

For Anxious Attachment

• Build internal security as well as external reassurance.

• Practice self-soothing (breathing exercises, grounding, and short mindful check-ins).

• Set boundaries around checking behaviours (e.g., repeated reassurance texts, frequent social media checking, over-analysing tone).

• Journal to process emotions without overwhelming the relationship.

• Nurture interests and friendships beyond a primary relationship to strengthen your sense of self.

  
  

For Avoidant Attachment

• Practice sharing small, specific feelings with trusted people.

• Stay present with uncomfortable emotions instead of withdrawing.

• Set gentle reminders to connect (e.g., once or twice weekly).

• Notice when you’re pulling away; kindly explore what feels threatening about closeness.

• Therapy can be a safe space to practise emotional openness.

For Disorganised Attachment

• Prioritise nervous system regulation through consistent routines.

• Use grounding and mindfulness to manage intensity.

• Seek trauma-informed therapy if available.

• Build a circle of “stable, reliable” people who are consistent, emotionally available, and trustworthy.

• Practice self-compassion: conflicting feelings about closeness can make sense given your history.

For Secure Attachment

• Keep doing what supports you: name needs, set boundaries, and stay flexible.

• Model healthy relating for others.

• Even secure patterns wobble during stress. Ongoing self-awareness helps.

Try This Now

• 60-second body scan: name one sensation, one feeling, one thought, no fixing needed.

• Text a safe person with one line about how you’re feeling today.

• Choose a small regulation tool: 4–6 slow breaths, a brief walk, or five minutes outdoors.

• Name one boundary you’ll honour this week.

Moving Towards Security Progress often looks like small, repeatable steps: more self-awareness, kinder self-talk, and relationships that model secure connection. Approaches such as attachment-informed or schema-focused therapy can help rewire old patterns within a steady, attuned relationship.

Understanding your attachment style isn’t about self-criticism; it’s about self-compassion. Your patterns were adaptations. They made sense then. Recognising them now is the first step towards the connection and wellbeing you deserve.