Can you expect to have relationships with someone who has Secure Attachment when you don’t?
Maybe or maybe not. But surely it’s easier to find a secure partner and even secure friends when you yourself have Secure Attachment.
But then how do you develop Earned Secure Attachment if you don’t have it?
Well first off let’s map out what secure attachment looks like in adults.
Then we’ll discuss how you get it.
Traits of Secure Attachment in adults:
- Value connection
- Desire to protect others and expectation that loved ones protect you
- Ability to attune to others and the expectation of attunement from others (respond and empathize with the emotions of the other)
- Ability to physically comfort and soothe and expectation to receive the same (including compassion)
- Willingness to support explorations of loved ones and expectation of support from them in return
- Delight in the other and the expectation that others delight in you
- Getting and giving guidance
- Physical and mental entrainment and synchronization with loved ones which creates a sense of belonging
- Ability to trust and to be trustworthy yourself
- Generosity
- Ability to forgive and the expectation of forgiveness
- Clear self-definition (knowing who you are and what you are about)
- Well developed self-agency: the ability to execute and go after what you want in life
- Healthy self-esteem
- Emotional self-regulation skills
- Resilience (stress tolerance)
(This list draws from the book “Attachment Disturbances in Adults” by Brown & Elliott (2016), Dan Brown’s “best-self” writings, the writings of Mary Main, and those of Allan Schore.)
So, how do we cultivate these qualities?
Likely there are many ways. However at Attachment Repair we use guided visualization meditations where we practice embodying these qualities, seeing ourselves act out these qualities in our daily lives.
This is the focus of the meditation course “Building Up the Healthy Self: Self-Definition, Self-Agency, Self Esteem, and the Ability to Show Up for Others”
In this course we will cultivate the "Healthy Adult". This implies 1) developing the capacity to be a secure attachment figure for others, 2) to develop better self definition, 3) self agency, and 4) self esteem.
This course is for those who have already worked through the basic attachment repair courses or who come to this work already secure attachment established. Said differently, this course facilitates positive development beyond basic secure attachment.
In this course we will cultivate the "Healthy Adult". This implies 1) developing the capacity to be a secure attachment figure for others, 2) to develop better self definition, 3) self agency, and 4) self esteem.
This course is for those who have already worked through the basic attachment repair courses or who come to this work already secure attachment established. Said differently, this course facilitates positive development beyond basic secure attachment.
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Useful for:
- Metacognition
- Dating Issues
- Confidence & Exploration
- Self Definition / Agency / Esteem
