If you’ve ever been in a romantic relationship, there’s a good chance you’ve either thought (or screamed?) these words in the heat of an altercation with your partner: “You’re just like my mother/father/primary caregiver.”
And, of course they are! As little ones, our sense of feeling both safe in the world and inherently worthy of love is shaped by our primary caregivers by the time we’re three years old.
For many of us, our sense of safety and being “enough” was compromised by the mis-attunement of our early caregivers. Unconsciously, we continue to play out these past hurts — our “attachment wounds” — in our current relationships, painfully recreating an unhealed past in our present interactions.
“Being comfortable in your own skin and having tools that help you relax is a really big deal, but learning how to feel safe with others is revolutionary. When your nervous system can co-regulate with other people, and you feel safe and playful and relaxed, you can develop a stronger sense of secure attachment and enjoy its profound rewards, no matter what environment you grew up in.”
— Diane Poole Heller
Attachment work helps us to re-work these old hurts, reparenting our inner children such that we give ourselves now what we didn’t get then.
In so doing, we free ourselves from the chains of the past, consciously creating a new future.