5 Early Signs an Avoidant Is Finally Healing (From a Recovered Avoidant)

[00:00:00]Here are five early signs of healing presented by an actual healed avoidant.

[00:00:07]Welcome to my channel if you're new here. My name is Robert and in the past years I worked with four different therapists to work through my own avoidant attachment patterns. And I went from breaking up five long-term relationships to now finally being in a multi-year happy relationship with my lovely partner. And this video today is for everyone out there who's wondering if it's possible for avoidance to actually heal. And I want to share with you in this video from a really personal perspective the first signs that applied and that took place that I recognized when I moved from being absolutely unaware and being trapped in my avoidant attachment patterns to becoming a more secure person. And I also will present to you those five signs now in the exact order that they took place. So starting with sign number one which was the first sign of healing that took place especially in my current relationship and I will end with sign number five which is also up to this day for me still the most difficult to overcome.

[00:01:26]There are days where I manage that what I'm going to share with you better and there are also days where yeah I'm more triggered and I'm not able I don't have the capacity to manage that. But let's start right away with sign number one and that is usually the earliest sign of healing when an avoidant slowly transforms to becoming a more secure person. Hey, sorry to interrupt, but I have to share something that might really help you. If you had an amazing weekend together and then Monday there are distant, barely responding while you're hurt in bed wondering what you did wrong, here is what I built for you.

[00:02:02]An AI that gives you direct access to the avoidant mind built on four years of therapy work by an actual avoidant. It helps you understand why they go cold and what to do next. We had a fight and they went distant again. I'm just so hurt.

[00:02:16]>> See, again says a lot. Your hurt makes complete sense. What feels like rejection is usually their system shutting down, not a decision about you.

[00:02:23]>> Get the answers they won't give you themselves at understandable.net. And sign number one is that the panic is gone in the relationship, but the anxiety is still present.

[00:02:38]For an avoidant, usually a typical thing that they experience is anxiety and fear. And in general in all of their relationships, fear is one of the main drivers for them. It's like a companion that is always present. And for me still, even though I work with multiple therapists, I still in my relationships sometimes are companioned by fear and anxiety, especially at night. So there are faces where anxiety is less present. There are phases where um where I'm less triggered, but there are also phases where anxiety comes up again and I need more capacity to regulate myself. Well, well, if you're interested in a video where I share how a secure relationship feels like secure, right, earned secure attachment for someone who was avoidant before. Let me know in the comments and I can also create a video on that topic.

[00:03:42]So panic is gone. Panic in the beginning of the relationship plays a tremendous role why avoidance um break up, why they leave and why they pull away. So for me in the relationship I am right now in the dating phase and that's true for all my dating phases, I had panic. Okay? And I'm not just talking about I'm having a bad gut feeling here. when I was starting to date a person or I was starting to commit. No, my attachment system went online and I was extremely triggered at night. I was laying next to my partner in bed and I was sweating as hell. Panic was driving me. I was wide awake. I was feeling severe pain, physical pain and panic attack. And I described that in this video here how this tremendous pain during an avoidant having a panic attack can feel like. But right in the beginning when they can overcome that and they build the resources that are necessary for relationship then the panic will slowly leave and at some point they don't have those panicky feelings anymore. They don't feel that they're at the mercy of other people anymore. They feel like they can now finally um protect themselves. They can set healthy boundaries.

[00:05:15]There is no need to overprotect anymore.

[00:05:17]And there's there's not this feeling that um they are completely at the mercy of the relationship or that the I always explain like this that emotions completely fill them up, right? So they don't have this feeling of powerless energy anymore. They feel that they are more in charge. And this is exactly the moment where panic leaves them and where they're uh on the healing journey where anxiety is still present and they can now work with that anxiety. I personally do that also working with that anxiety by um trying to offer myself more self-containment by holding myself by truly allowing that emotion of anxiety to be there but at the same time to go on to never let that anxiety fully control me but continuing yes there is this anxiety I recognize it um it's my inner guard trying to protect me from getting hurt again. And I'm reminding myself, [snorts] and this is also coming up in the next signs, that this is my old protection strategy coming online here. But it doesn't say anything about the relationship or the person I'm dating. So, I can continue with that and go on and focus on other things again. And yeah, stay stay with myself. This is what my therapist always told me. Stay with yourself, Robert. And this is also the best advice that I can give here. If you're early in your healing journey, anxiety comes online, stay with yourself and go on. Sign number two which comes after that is that the avoidant even though they still sometimes maybe have panic, they are still driven by anxiety and fear but they trust themselves enough that they will find solutions and build resources in the future even though they have no idea how those resources and solutions might look or feel Like this is something and that comes out of very personal experience.

[00:07:30]Um when I decided to finally commit and to to tackle those production strategies to work through those avoidant patterns, of course I had no idea how this would look like, where I would end up if this anxiety would ever leave me, how the resource would feel like that I needed to push through. And this is this is an very good sign and indicator of healing that even though the avoidant has no idea where they will end up in the future and they just let go. They commit and they just go on that journey and they follow that path. Even though they have no idea where this will lead them, they still have this feeling for the first time maybe this trust that it will work out someday and they will build the resources that are needed to trust other people and to trust into relationship and to trust themselves to show up vulnerable and to communicate the feelings that they maybe have been rejected before and the needs where their caregivers have met them with hostility. ility and I think and that's also that's the honest truth here trust okay is in the end the only thing that they can have in that moment to just hope trust and let go of that control that they usually tend to need the avoidant wants to control everything because it gives them the illusion of safety But to truly push through and to truly heal, they need to let go and to just trust into a future where they have no control over. That's a big big indicator.

[00:09:27]Sign number three, the third one for me was when I stopped blindly believing my emotions and thoughts. And that's quite fascinating because I sometimes still fall back into what I call the catastrophic inner dragon. And I made an episode about that up here. I'll link that in the description below. Um I describe in there how the avoidant mind actually feels like in a relationship and why we are quite often triggered, why we are defined, why we pull away. We have this belief set and I explained that in this video that we believe or at least I I always believed and I still believe that sometimes that people usually want the worst for me when it comes to emotional needs. So therefore, this deep belief system of always seeing um actions and behaviors of other people and relationships in general through that lens that especially when it comes to to needs to things that the avoidant wants or to different feelings where they had bad experiences with with other people. When it comes to those they always believe that if they now share themselves those things if they now appear vulnerable they will be judged they will be met with hostility and rejection. So they believe when I show that this part of myself then people will just yeah want the worst for me this is the best or the closest I can get by by using words and this is this catastrophic dragon. So maybe a small comment therefore can for the avoidant then feel like a breakup. There's this intense feeling of being hurt when someone, for example, says, "Oh, you didn't see that?" Or, "Did you forget to bring the trash out?" They feel incredibly criticized by that. And they instantly think they want the worst for me. They are judging me. Um, they just mean me with hostility. And they feel like absolutely not okay. They feel like absolutely ashamed for being as they are. And a sign of healing here is when the avoidant understands that this concept, this belief that they have that other people just always want the worst for them and they have this filter, this thought and belief system filter. Um, and also this feeling of of shame and the shame related emotions of guilt and anxiety uh etc. this is not who they are in the end. They learn to just see those information as data as as information.

[00:12:28]Um they believe is an information. The belie their their emotion is information. What they think their thoughts are information. It's just data. And they can understand that it's just something. And that's ironically just also the thing that which we call meditation, right? those things just come up uh in the conscious mind. We can perceive those but the avoidant slowly stops to identify themselves with those emotions with those uh thoughts and beliefs. And as soon as they stop identifying themselves with those things, the catastrophic dragon can be tamed and they can go on and also return to their adult self again. Because those, of course, those uh unfavorable beliefs, those thoughts, they come out of the inner child's protection system because they made those experiences usually early on with their caregivers.

[00:13:26]And if they still identify themselves with those experiences as adults, yeah.

[00:13:32]Then anytime they come up, the catastrophic dragon comes online again.

[00:13:37]And uh yeah, they just stop that. They just stop blindly believing that. And they distinguish between this comes out of the inner child's protection system of my attachment wound and this is how I am and this is maybe my adult self. So I don't need to see a tiny comment as criticism.

[00:13:58]Great. Now we're getting to the more difficult things here which is sign number four. And this is where the avoidant starts to share and becomes better in sharing vulnerable needs and especially emotional needs, relational needs. And they do that for the first time of their life, usually in an intimate bond without shutting down or constantly feeling guilty or wrong.

[00:14:27]This is something that I personally practiced for a really long time and I remember that moment in my first therapy where I found out that a lot of those difficulties and shame feelings, anxieties I have are around my needs. So I constantly feel ashamed for sharing specific needs. And um when I realized that I was of course in front of the challenge of doing different and of changing that of uh practicing to communicate my needs because it's not as obvious as you might think because whenever I realize I have a specific need and those needs can be just random things okay like for example I don't want to eat dinner. Maybe you want to eat dinner but I did eat a lot in the afternoon so I don't want to eat dinner.

[00:15:18]So then I have a different need than my partner has and already that is a difficulty to someone who never learned to communicate their needs because it triggers a guilt and shame feeling in them. Okay. So this is a big aha moment for an avoidant and this why I also um share a lot of those things around needs in our premium courses. There was my first part of this journey where I learned to share share those needs.

[00:15:42]Another part is also sharing vulnerable emotions. And I remember in my second therapy when I discovered the emotion wheel. God damn it. That's big of a thing for an avoidant. And I share that with you here in uh class number two.

[00:15:57]Where do we have it here? The emotion wheel. This is something that I also designed based on this emotion wheel that I had in therapy. And I realized, oh man, that there are so many emotions I never named before. and I never even had a term for. Right? So, for example, you can feel puzzled, you can feel hopeless, you can feel devastated, you can feel uncomfortable. There's so many nuances that you learn through discovering your true feelings. And you also learn if an avoidant does that, what actually makes you feel ashamed to share. Where are those shadow parts that you maybe express as a child where you haven't met with criticism and rejection? For me, it was for example, I always felt quite sensitive and I still feel like that quite often. I feel quite thin skinned. But this is not something that people expected from a boy, from a growing man. This for example, a feeling which I struggled with for quite a long time and I know that it's different for everyone. So an emotion wheel can definitely help. If you want to check that out, it's in our premium courses.

[00:17:02]Class number two, understandable.net.

[00:17:05]You can join the membership.

[00:17:08]All right. So, the avoidant becomes better in sharing their needs, in sharing their feelings, and as well expressing boundaries without shutting down and feeling guilty. This is a long process until they actually feel less ashamed. For me, it's still ongoing, but I'm getting way better in that today.

[00:17:27]It's definitely also something that is well needed for a healthy relationship.

[00:17:32]And sign number five, and that is still for me the most difficult to overcome.

[00:17:38]And this is the avoidant learns to overcome their defiance.

[00:17:45]Defiance for me personally is the most difficult thing to overcome and is also one of the most disgusting feelings. So, defiance is this little angry boy that still thinks the world is unfair and that people are unsafe, that I can't rely on anyone, and that people just want the worst for me. And this is obviously a protection pattern that comes online whenever someone for example asks me for a favor when they want to compromise.

[00:18:27]When I should take care and help someone else especially my partner. So this mostly comes online in intimate relationships. So the closer the relationship, the more intimate it is, the more defined the avoidant usually is. And this feeling of this angry little boy that thinks the world is unfair actually was born very early on when the avoidant child learned that the only person they truly can rely on is themselves.

[00:19:01]So, I always told myself as a nine-year-old already, oneman army always wins. I'm the only person in this world who act who I actually can rely on. And if I want to survive, I need to figure things out alone. And therefore, I also develop this expectation and this belief set that I believe everyone else also have to take care for themselves first. Everyone else has also figured out things alone. And if you show vulnerability, if you ask for help, then you're weak. This is what I learned early on and what all avoidance see the world through. This is the lens. This also makes them appear very selfish, which makes sense because they always try to focus on themselves first. And that's also the reason why some people think, well, this is not an avoidant.

[00:19:58]This is maybe a narcissist. Why are so many people narcissist these days, right? They always focus on themselves.

[00:20:05]They never help you. There's not even a true gentleman anymore. No one is actually um opening the door for someone else or holding the door um helping an old lady maybe carrying their groceries or guiding her over the street or something as that. So I think that's highly related to this belief set that an avoidant developed early on that they only can rely on themselves.

[00:20:31]And this is not narcissistic. Well, it is narcissistic behavior, but it is not coming out of the narcissistic personality disorder. This is coming out of a protection strategy. And it can be changed. That's the great thing here because the avoidant is allowed to learn. And this is why it's so difficult to create awareness for that. They allowed to learn that a healthy relationship actually allows both parties to ask each other for help to help each other fulfilling their needs.

[00:21:02]Both people sometimes are triggered.

[00:21:04]Both people are sometimes needy and both people are allowed to share their vulnerable emotions and maybe needs and help each other to fulfill that. So this is a normal thing for relationship for a healthy adult relationship and the avoidant needs a lot of time and awareness to understand that they are defiant and that they are that they never learned to actually rely on a close intimate relationship and bonding to calm themselves. So they don't have this concept in their mind yet. They will develop that over years usually that a healthy relationship or relationship at all is actually a source of stability and regulation instead of chaos and instability and disregulation and stress. But this takes them years and years and years and years. And I'm also still not there. I'm also sometimes reacting defined and my catastrophic dragon comes online and I see my relationship through this lens of um yeah that people want the worst for me and I also don't have that in my relationship but I also have that in general right when I'm in a city center I always think that people just I don't know just criticize me or judge me just by seeing me and I'm curious if you also have that let me know in the comments below. Um, but I worked a lot on that as well, especially with my with my partner. And she helped me to see that most people don't even care and she's also not judging me in any way. And this helps me a lot to grow out of this inner defined boy who constantly need to protect themselves to an actual confident grown-up man who's not always thinking that people want the worst for me. Good. And this way then I can take care for that inner little boy. Those were the five early signs of healing. If you're an avoidant yourself or you are with an avoidant and you see those signs, then you're probably on a good path here continuing on your healing journey. And if you want to get support with that, I also share everything that I learned while working with four different therapists in the past years on understandable.net. all premium courses online and also the understandable AI and I want to help you to understand and work through avoiding attachment patterns. I see you in the next video or in the premium courses.

[00:23:38]Have a fantastic hopefully secure day.

[00:23:42]Hey, sorry to interrupt, but I have to share something that might really help you. If you meet someone great, but still suddenly feel the urge to pull away and ruin it. Here is what I built for you. The first ever AI for people who lose all feelings when it gets serious. Trained on everything I learned from working with four therapists. It help you reflect and work through your reactions even at 2 a.m. in your bed. I really like this person, but I just got the ick out of nowhere. Are they the wrong partner?

[00:24:08]>> It usually isn't about the wrong person.

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