Attachment Styles Are Not Always Fixed

Abeja Rise | Substack no.03

Happy Summer for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere. I hope this season brings you joy and warmth wherever you are. And for all my queer loves, Happy Pride!

Speaking of holidays, with Juneteenth just a few days behind us, if you are white or POC and not Black, please check out the following Instagram posts. Even though Juneteenth is “over,” the work definitely isn’t.

10 WAYS NON-BLACK FOLKS CAN HONOR JUNETEENTH by @embodiedblackgirl

How to Celebrate Juneteenth: A non-exhaustive list for how to celebrate for non-Black people by @thebrooklynbruja

And here are two great resources for people interested in fund distribution but either don’t know where to start or feel resistance around that.

Getting Unstuck by @payblacknow

Resistance by @payblacknow

I highly encourage you to follow all three Instagram accounts and support these folks’ work. PayBlackNow has a lot of helpful resources on their IG. Black liberation is liberation for all of us and we owe it to ourselves and everyone else to participate in that liberation.

Here are your plans for Sunday afternoon! 😉

You may have already seen me mention this in our Abeja Rise | Substack chat or notes, but here it is again. 💗

The first Community Talk since my first attempt in March is happening this Sunday! This is a free virtual gathering to discuss shadow work for eldest siblings. That said, you don’t have to identify as an eldest sibling, have any siblings, or identify with any particular family dynamic or “traditional” family structure to participate. We value all experiences and expansive identities around this topic.

Community Talk: Shadow Work for Eldest Siblings

Sunday, June 25, 2023

12pm PT | 3pm ET

Virtually on Zoom

More info here: https://www.abejarise.com/event-details/community-talk-shadow-work-for-eldest-siblings

Again, the gathering is free and RSVP’ing is not required but is available at the link above. Feel free to show up how you show up. 🌟 I hope to see you there. Please share the link with anyone you think might be interested.

Now let’s talk about attachment styles.

Do you have a comfortable understanding of attachment theory and attachment styles? Feel free to skip ahead to the next heading. If not, hopefully this helps.

If you’re unfamiliar with attachment style theory, I encourage you to check out the book, Polysecure by Jessica Fern. Even if you are not in a polyamorous relationship, this book has useful and insightful info that anyone can use in relationships of any kind.

Attachment theory was developed by John Bowlby in the 1940s and inspired by the works of Anna Freud, Dorothy Burlingham, and Rene Spitz. Since then, the theory has been further developed. Essentially, attachment theory explains the ways we attach in relationships as children with our caregivers and how that can affect our relationships as adults.

Here is a decent exploration of attachment theory from Positive Psychology. Below is a table from the link above that might help visual learners.

credit: PositivePsychology.com

And lastly, here is a YouTube video from Sprouts breaking down attachment theory.

Now, current theory says that attachment styles can vary depending on the people in your relationships and how you attach within a given relationship.

This is important because it means that our attachment style is not fixed forever and the people we are in relationship with have an impact on our attachment style as well. (Likewise, we have an impact on theirs too.)

We are quick to pathologize ourselves and each other. All too often I hear things like “I am an avoidant” or “I have an anxious attachment,” as if these attachment styles are fixed and not fluid. You might experience a particular attachment style as dominant in most of your relationships. I get it, I do.

And when we talk about healing, we have been taught that secure attachment is the end goal if that is not the attachment style that you identify with. So already we can acknowledge that change is possible with attachment style dynamics.

I have experienced attachment styles somewhat differently. I can come into an interpersonal experience with a secure attachment, for example, and depending on how the interaction plays out, I can exit that experience with a completely different attachment dynamic.

I have had experiences where the attachment I feel with a person can shift or cycle multiple times, sometimes within minutes, depending on how my bid for connection is received or how I receive another’s bid for connection.

What’s the point?

How we show up for each other and ourselves has profound impact on how we see each other. Because kyriarchy often demands that we must believe we are damaged if we are not “healed,” unpacking what we individually identify with, how we assign identities onto individual or groups of people as a way to other, and the black and white thinking that usually coincides with that, is necessary work.

Consider this a gentle pushback to those demands.