12/05/2025
🌀Learning to Stay With Myself in the In-Between
Most people probably don’t know this about me, but I conducted my master’s thesis research on adult romantic attachment
(*working with the National Institute of Marriage–Branson).
Ever since I was a young girl, I’ve been fascinated by psychology, human behavior, relationships — and especially the ways we love.
And how our early experiences with primary caregivers shape our nervous system’s responses & beliefs around love…
aka, attachment.
And now at 40…
I’m meeting this work in a whole new way.
Not as a researcher.
Not as a therapist.
Not as a facilitator.
But as a woman finally willing to look at her own patterns with a brutally honest, tender heart.
I’ve navigated an anxious–avoidant (aka disorganized) attachment style my whole life.
(It’s the most complex one — the one that says “Come close” and “Stay back” in the same breath.)
And it has shaped so many of my relationships — the ones that broke me open, the ones that stayed, and the ones I walked away from before I had to risk losing myself.
Here’s the truth I’ve been sitting with lately:
Underneath the push–pull of disorganized attachment is a nervous system shaped by unpredictable emotional attunement — not the absence of love, but the absence of feeling truly seen and understood in the moments I needed it most.
It’s not drama.
It’s not indecision.
It’s not being “too much” or “too messy.”
It’s survival wiring.
It’s a body that learned:
Connection is where comfort lives…
and where overwhelm lives.
Both at the same time.
And in attachment language, this means:
❗ “I can’t reliably predict how my emotional world will be met.”
For anyone who grew up with inconsistent emotional attunement:
• connection = the place you went for soothing
• connection = the place where you were often misread, missed, overwhelmed, or left alone with big feelings
So of course I spent years swinging between clinging and withdrawing, between longing and overwhelm, between wanting to be fully seen and wanting to disappear the moment someone actually saw me.
And for the first time in my life, I’m actually learning how to stay with myself in that in-between space —
the space where I used to shut down, run, chase, caretake, numb out, or make myself small.
This is what healing looks like for me now:
Letting myself stay with my body when old panic rises instead of abandoning myself.
Letting myself be seen when I’m messy instead of only presenting the polished, spiritual, “put together” version of me.
Letting myself trust that someone can meet me emotionally without me managing the moment.
Letting myself speak my needs clearly instead of hinting, hiding, or hoping.
Letting myself take space without fear and stay connected without losing myself.
Letting myself be held by people who don’t punish me for the parts I’m still learning to regulate.
It feels uncomfortable as hell sometimes.
It feels like rewiring my entire nervous system from the inside out.
It feels like meeting a younger version of me who never had this level of safety —
and showing her a different way.
And it feels… holy.
Like I’m finally giving myself the love I spent a lifetime trying to earn, chase, or perform for.
If you hold disorganized or anxious–avoidant attachment, please hear me:
You are not broken.
You are not confusing.
You are not “too much.”
You are not the mess you were made to believe you were.
You are a human whose earliest experiences taught you to be hypervigilant about closeness —
and now you are learning that love doesn’t have to be a threat.
You can learn to stay.
You can learn to soften.
You can learn to receive.
You can learn to open without abandoning yourself.
And if I can do this work — after studying it, teaching it, running from it, and circling back to it over and over —
then you can too.
We don’t heal this pattern by performing perfection.
We heal it by letting ourselves be loved exactly where we are.
Messy.
Tender.
In process.
Human.
And still so, so worthy of consistent love.
I’m deeply grateful for the soul family, friends, and special loves walking thru this season of my life, showing up with me — loving the raw, messy, human parts and reminding my body what safe connection can actually feel like. I couldn’t do this without you. ❤️🔥
And if this resonates within you, I’m opening another round of Big Heart, Strong Boundaries at the end of January — a 6 week live online journey for women ready to heal deeper layers within themselves.✨
DM me if you want in. I’ve got a special early-bird Christmas rate available.🫶
Soul much love
Emily 🌹
