Attachment for Everyone
Attachment for Everyone
Skills for Restoring Healthy Attachment (ebook)
By Dr. Diane Poole Heller
How can you practice secure attachment?
Of course, romantic partnerships are wonderful, but love encompasses much more than just that. Love exists in many forms and enhances our lives immeasurably — whether it's between friends, colleagues, family members, neighbors, with pets, nature, as well as yourself!
One of my favorite definitions of love is contingency — a felt sense of significant understanding or connection, a meeting of minds, a communion of souls. It’s that feeling when you "get gotten" and "feel felt", where you are seen, understood and appreciated on a deep level.
Contingency is built through presence and attunement — two of the most effective and important secure attachment skills.
Attunement and secure attachment are very similar concepts. Both involve understanding someone deeply –– and involve listening, tuning in and expressing empathy. Similarly, presence is a skill that involves mindful and intentional listening, so you can better support someone with whatever they’re experiencing.
Why Attunement Matters
Attunement is one of the cornerstones of secure attachment. When we’re babies, we’re reliant on our caregivers for our survival. If a parent or caregiver is attentive to our needs and responds consistently and appropriately, we understand that our environment is generally safe and that we matter and are valued.
If we did not receive consistent emotional support and attention as children, we may develop insecure attachment adaptations (or styles) that can influence our adult relationships and outlook.
The good news is that we are innately designed for secure attachment, and we can develop skills and practices that help us move back toward this state.
Attachment wounding and trauma is relational — and healing happens in relationships as well.
To get you started, I’m sharing some of my favorite strategies below. These practices help you become more aware and mindful, which promote safety, deepen connections and boost contingency.
If you’re a therapist, counselor, educator or coach, these practices also support the therapeutic relationship (for you and your clients) as you begin the healing journey together.
And, if you already have a secure attachment style, strengthening these skills will only deepen and enhance your relationships!
Practicing Presence & Attunement
- Listen attentively. This may be one of the more obvious steps, but it’s incredibly important. Many of us never learned how to really listen well. We tend to interrupt or plan our rebuttal instead of waiting patiently to truly hear and understand the other person's perspective. This is crucial, even (or especially) when we disagree! Intentional listening means we don’t immediately respond with denial or defensiveness; instead –– we listen, pause and then respond.
Strategies for more effective listening include reflecting back what we hear and asking caring and clarifying questions to better understand and attune with the other person. This can include phrases such as: "I hear you saying __. Is that accurate? Is there anything I’m missing or misunderstanding?"
You can further enhance contingency by adding: "I understand why you feel upset about that and I can see that it really hurt you."
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- Notice nonverbal communication. We should not only listen to the words a person is saying, but also pay attention to their tone and manner of expression in order to attune actively. We can read body language, tone and facial expressions to gain a clearer understanding of what they are trying to communicate.
We can also use our own nonverbal communication to further demonstrate our understanding and compassion. We can try moving closer, putting a hand on their shoulder, or using other forms of physical intimacy (appropriate to the relationship), to communicate our empathetic presence.
- Use the Kind Eyes Exercise. Another very effective way of demonstrating that you are fully "there" for another person is to practice gentle, kind and consistent eye contact. (Keep in mind that some attachment styles may find too much eye contact unsettling and you may need to find a balance.)
One of my favorite practices is called Kind Eyes. A great example of this attachment gaze is the Dalai Lama, and the way his face just radiates joy. I like to look at a picture of him, and I just can’t stop myself from smiling in return!
Think of someone you really love, someone who just makes you want to smile, and imagine sending love through your eyes at them, like a beam of light. Now try to use this "beam gleam" during a conversation and notice the effect it has on both you and the other person.
- Put away distractions. In a world where we’re constantly plugged into our devices, it can be especially important to log off and create time and space to interact with the people who are important to you.
People can sense if you’re fully present or not — and it matters. In fact, looking at your phone while someone is telling you a story about their day can feel like rejection. Even if you think you’re being present, it may not come across that way.
Try giving dedicated, undistracted attention to conversations and interactions, and see the transformative effect it has on your relationships!
If you’d like to learn more practical skills that promote and strengthen secure attachment (including how to support a partner with insecure attachment patterns), we’ve put together an all-new eBook, Attachment for Everyone. It’s available for immediate download now for only $7.