Anxiously Attached Quotes

“We become like an octopus, expanding our energy by reaching out in all directions as we engage in a series of what are called activating strategies. Driven by fear and desire, these behaviors will continue until we get a response that reassures us the relationship is intact.”
― Jessica Baum, Anxiously Attached: Becoming More Secure in Life and Love

“We will know we are moving into more healing when we have a different response to the old feelings arising. Now, we recognize their origin, and no longer have to act on them in the same dramatically protective ways.”
― Jessica Baum, Anxiously Attached: Becoming More Secure in Life and Love

“I started to seek emotionally present friendships, leaning on the friends who were warm and consistent. This helped me feel supported while I worked on repairing my inner world.”
― Jessica Baum, Anxiously Attached: Becoming More Secure in Life and Love

“Those of us who are anxiously attached have a particular vulnerability. Everybody could feel a little bit avoidant to us.”
― Jessica Baum, Anxiously Attached: Becoming More Secure in Life and Love

“If you are in love with someone who doesn’t love you back the way you need and loving them more only results in you completely losing yourself, the most profound lesson lies in letting go and realizing that love alone is not enough.”
― Jessica Baum, Anxiously Attached: Becoming More Secure in Life and Love

“Either they learned that the only parts of them that were valued were those that focused on work and success, proper behavior, and not showing much emotion;”
― Jessica Baum, Anxiously Attached: Becoming More Secure in Life and Love

“toward their caregivers goes unmet, they also develop a felt sense, which is the feelings, sensations, and a bodily knowing that there is something wrong with them. As a result, many of us, myself included, enter our adult relationships with this sensation of “wrongness” tucked deep inside and out of sight—until we find ourselves moving toward intimacy and there is no more hiding it.”
― Jessica Baum, Anxiously Attached: Becoming More Secure in Life and Love

“don’t beat yourself up about it. Remember, in infancy, you likely learned that in order to get your needs met, you needed to turn up the volume and expand your energy. You may have screamed to exhaustion to try to get a parent to pick you up.”
― Jessica Baum, Anxiously Attached: Becoming More Secure in Life and Love

“When they feel the threat of intimacy, which would expose them to the enormous pain of not having their emotions acknowledged, their system shuts down and focuses on the tasks at hand.”
― Jessica Baum, Anxiously Attached: Becoming More Secure in Life and Love

“For people with an avoidant attachment style, there has been a core wounding related to emotional neglect.”
― Jessica Baum, Anxiously Attached: Becoming More Secure in Life and Love

“All your feelings need to know they matter, all our feelings need to be heard, and all our feelings have a right to be acknowledged.”
― Jessica Baum, Anxiously Attached: Becoming More Secure in Life and Love

“mirror neurons, which means that the feelings, moods, thoughts, fears, and actions of each individual are shared. While these originate within one partner, the other is able to sense them.”
― Jessica Baum, Anxiously Attached: Becoming More Secure in Life and Love

“The majority of our relationships, including our close friendships, are meant to teach us valuable lessons about ourselves so that we can continue to grow and evolve as individuals.”
― Jessica Baum, Anxiously Attached: Becoming More Secure in Life and Love

“freeing than the permission to simply be us—and in a healthy relationship, this permission is granted on both sides in an ongoing, unconditional mutual exchange of acceptance and appreciation.”
― Jessica Baum, Anxiously Attached: Becoming More Secure in Life and Love

“the need to see and know ourselves through the eyes of another in a way that allows us to feel supported and safe, and the satisfaction of long-term intimacy with another. In our most intimate relationships, the ones where we feel truly safe and relaxed enough to be our “real” selves, we are able to access even deeper states of being and discover the joy of being accepted for who we truly are.”
― Jessica Baum, Anxiously Attached: Becoming More Secure in Life and Love

“interoception. This means listening to our body’s sensations to bring us into contact with our inner world.”
― Jessica Baum, Anxiously Attached: Becoming More Secure in Life and Love

“very short definition of codependency is trying to control another person’s emotions and behaviors so we don’t have to experience our own painful feelings.”
― Jessica Baum, Anxiously Attached: Becoming More Secure in Life and Love

“Seeing that it was dangerous to depend on others in a relationship, avoidant types learned to protect themselves by staying distant from intimacy. They are often dedicated to their careers and tend to back away when closeness threatens.”
― Jessica Baum, Anxiously Attached: Becoming More Secure in Life and Love

“Anxious attachment stems from a deep sense of inner instability where old wounds make people anticipate that they will be abandoned again and again.”
― Jessica Baum, Anxiously Attached: Becoming More Secure in Life and Love

“I believe that people come into our lives for a reason, and that each person we cross paths with has a valuable lesson to share with us. We just need to be open to receive it. Seen this way, we might say that the underlying nature of all relationships is spiritual. This is why the path to becoming self-full is also a spiritual journey toward wholeness, one in which we seek to establish a connection, not only to our inner selves, but to a source of unconditional love and support that’s greater than anything we can put into words.”
― Jessica Baum, Anxiously Attached: Becoming More Secure in Life and Love

“Connection is a biological imperative and our whole system has evolved to expect to be in safe, warm relationships.”
― Jessica Baum, Anxiously Attached: Becoming More Secure in Life and Love

“Love is its own energy and it never dries up.”
― Jessica Baum, Anxiously Attached: Becoming More Secure in Life and Love

“Science tells us that ninety-three percent or more of our composition is the same as stardust.”
― Jessica Baum, Anxiously Attached: Becoming More Secure in Life and Love

“Healing core wounds is like running a marathon while rewiring your whole house.”
― Jessica Baum, Anxiously Attached: Becoming More Secure in Life and Love

“The HeartMath Institute is an organization that researches how people can bring their physical, mental and emotional system into balanced alignment with their heart's intuitive guidance. Their research shows that the heart-brain is equally as smart as the brain in our skull and belly.”
― Jessica Baum, Anxiously Attached: Becoming More Secure in Life and Love

“We are social creature from birth until our last moment, always reaching for safe people we can lean into who can also lean into us. Nothing say 'I am safe" like truly connecting with another person.”
― Jessica Baum, Anxiously Attached: Becoming More Secure in Life and Love

“This inner consolation is what we really crave, although our consumer culture teaches us otherwise.

No achievement or possession will bring us a lasting sense of self-worth.”
― Jessica Baum, Anxiously Attached: Becoming More Secure in Life and Love

“if it was safer to not be in our bodies as children, our response now may be to become disembodied. if we can't sense stress, pain, or fear we will feel safer detaching from our feelings. This is often how the body protects itself from annihilation.”
― Jessica Baum, Anxiously Attached: Becoming More Secure in Life and Love

“Maybe you even believe that in order to receive love you must keep giving, as if love is something that must be earned.”
― Jessica Baum, Anxiously Attached: Becoming More Secure in Life and Love

“Being with yourself in the present moment through listening to your body and holding space with compassion for your whole self is medicine for the psyche.”
― Jessica Baum, Anxiously Attached: Becoming More Secure in Life and Love