What is a Secure Attachment Style?

What is My Attachment Style?

Everyone has an attachment style, regardless of language, culture, gender, or personality.

An attachment style is an accumulation of experiences, interactions, and beliefs about love, relationships, and the world around you, formed during childhood and based on how your parents (or caregivers) raised you.

It's based on the Attachment Theory, developed by John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth. Think of attachment styles as a rulebook (or attachment patterns) that keeps us safe by avoiding pain, loss, and discomfort. They are one of the most powerful influences in your life.

It all starts with how your parents or caregivers supported your emotional (loving and caring), primary (food and shelter), and physical (support and affection) needs.

If your parents unintentionally (or not) didn’t meet your needs growing up, you would develop an “insecure attachment style”. And there are three of them: anxious preoccupied (also known as anxiously attached), fearful avoidant (also known as the disorganized attachment style), and dismissive avoidant.

But if they do support your needs emotionally, openly, and transparently, you would develop secure attachment patterns, making you more likely to connect and communicate with someone openly and honestly.

This means you learn to have healthier relationship patterns that include closeness, healthy coping mechanisms, and better emotional regulation.

What is Secure Attachment Style?

The secure attachment style is the only attachment style that is, as you may have guessed, secure in their attachments.

It is developed when a child enjoys more positive experiences during their upbringing than negative ones, such as consistent emotional and physical connection, predictable and supportive environments, open communication and transparency, and the ability to manage feelings and emotions healthily.

If you had this experience, you would have learned to approach relationships, challenges, and beliefs with safety, openness, and vulnerability. You would be confident in your ability to solve problems and regulate emotions when single or not, and thrive in resilient, secure, and stable relationships.

However, while securely attached individuals seem perfect in every way, they consistently experience unbalanced relationships and might have a secondary attachment style that can interfere with their relationships.

The Origins of a Secure Attachment Style

Secure attachment styles are developed when as a child, you were embraced with love, respect, care, trust, and emotional closeness in a stable environment.

A great example of this is when you experience something that profoundly upsets you, like emotional abuse or hurting yourself.

So, rather than being hard on you or telling you to “toughen up,” your parents and primary caregivers wanted to understand your emotions, attune themselves to the situation, and give feedback that is conducive to the problem.

Other examples include your needs being recognized, when you receive soothing and reassurance when distressed, and when you feel valued when exploring and doing things so you can develop healthy self-esteem.

These securely attached children then become securely attached adults due to those positive experiences.

Secure Attachment Signs

People with a secure attachment style are strongly recognized for their ability to regulate their emotions and feelings in a healthy manner, particularly in triggering situations.

Having these healthy coping mechanisms to manage feelings means you are able to communicate openly and honestly with others about triggers, challenges, and emotions.

You can approach things with calmness and clarity and can conceptualize others’ viewpoints with relative ease – so much so that you rarely (but sometimes) get triggered by others or situations.

That’s why securely attached people can be very supportive of their partner, are loving and generous in equal measure, are balanced in their beliefs, and are able to give and receive emotion connections willingly, without overstepping boundaries.

Furthermore, unlike fearful or anxiously attached people, you view yourself in a positive light. You are confident in their abilities to handle difficult situations while maintaining a healthy balance between relying on your partner and meeting your own unmet needs.

You have a positive self-image, can embrace empowering self-talk (as opposed to common negative self-talk), and can have a positive view on life.

However, this doesn’t mean that you don’t face hardships about yourself or your relationships.

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Secure Attachment & Insecure Relationships

What happens to most people with a secure attachment style is that they find themselves in relationships that feel wildly out of balance, leading them to feel drained and frustrated.

Unfortunately, whether the person has an anxiously attached, fearful, or dismissive avoidant attachment, they might not have the communication skills or healthy relationship skills (like a securely attached person) to actively sort out problems, embrace intimacy and emotional closeness, and build trust and openness in a relationship.

In some cases, the person might become "codependent" on the secure person as a way of keeping them, despite it not being healthy at all. On the other, if you have a secure attachment style, you’ll most likely embrace the chance for an interdependent relationship.

This leaves you frustrated about the relationship, at a loss as to how exactly to support your partner, and even resentment due to the lack of respect or appreciation you deserve for your efforts.

Ultimately, you might end the relationship out of fear or frustration.

The best way to overcome this situation is twofold: the you recognize ways to approach your relationship better, and/or your partner must start taking the steps to become securely attached themselves.

• Can end up in wildly out-of-balance relationships
• Relationships can be frustrating and draining
• Lack of consistent and healthy communication
• Struggle to understand insecurely attached partner
• Lack of acknowledgment and respect in relationships
• Becomes more anxious in these unbalanced relationships

Secure Attachment & Secondary Attachment Styles

Many people who are securely attached also have a secondary attachment style, which is noticeable when a triggering situation occurs, and they act differently than usual.

Examples can include pulling away or withdrawing (like dismissive avoidants), becoming anxious or upset when your partner pulls away (like anxiously attached), and becoming on edge when you notice signs of possible betrayal (fearful avoidant).

These secondary and insecure attachment styles come with a set of unhealed wounds and can surface in behaviors when people are put in triggering situations (but they typically experience them less frequently and intensely than other attachment styles). These secondary attachment styles can develop at times of great and traumatic events and life moments.

They are often the reason you might feel anxious or insecure in your relationships sometimes, and without making improvements, you might continue to struggle with communication and prematurely end growing relationships.

Secure Attachment in Relationships

ASecurely attached people thrive in relationships because they can communicate, regulate emotions, understand boundaries, and explore conflict.

Plus, because of your upbringing, you see relationships as a positive and emotionally gratifying experience.

You believe that conflict can be overcome with clear and transparent communication, a willingness to discuss feelings or share experiences, and the ability to give and receive support, as well as to show vulnerability when necessary.

Now, unlike insecurely attached people, you can effectively meet your own needs, such as harmony and peace, mutual care, feeling connected, and problem-solving.

On top of that, because you can meet your needs yourself – and understand the difference between needs and reasonable expectations – you don’t really place any unrealistic expectations on relationships.

Ideally, you would prefer to be in a relationship with another securely attached person because they would be able to communicate and connect emotionally with ease.

In most cases, though, as a securely attached person, you’ll probably connect with insecurely attached people, which is why the relationship isn't as smooth as expected.

Navigating Relationships as a Securely Attached Person

Even though you are secure in yourself and your relationships, there are going to be times when they can be very complex and overwhelmingly challenging to handle. That’s why gaining the right tools, strategies, and skills can make navigating them much easier.

Here are some of the ways you can do it:

1. Understand Other Attachment Styles Better
With our courses, you’ll learn key information about other attachment styles and, most importantly, how to recognize and understand each other fully.

2. Learn to Communicate with Insecure Partners
I’ll teach you powerful and simple-to-utilize communication skills to resolve challenges with an insecure person with confidence and grow your relationship.

3. Uncover Your Secondary Attachment Style
Gain the skills to peer beneath yourself to uncover and understand your secondary attachment style, where you got it from, and how you can overcome it.

4. Reprogram Your Damaging Beliefs to Form Healthier Ones
Learn the powerful tools and strategies for reprograming your subconscious mind so you can transform your beliefs, actions, and behaviors into healthy and happier habits.

5. Learn the Causes of Your Anxiety in Certain Situations
Your beliefs prevent you from embracing a more positive and beautiful future. I’ll explain and showcase specific exercises to create powerful thoughts.Take a deep dive into your thought process to recognize the cause of your fears and anxieties in your relationship, then learn how to handle them in the moment with clarity and calmness.

6. Consistently Get the Love & Respect You Deserve
Understand how you can cultivate a relationship with balance, harmony, and respect so you can both thrive and build a meaningful future together.

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