117. Disorganized Attachment: Why Your Nervous System Makes You Push and Pull in Relationships | Somatic Attachment Series Part 3

Have you ever felt completely pulled toward someone, only to find yourself wanting to escape the moment they get close? 

In this episode of Speak Honest, Jenn Noble is diving into Part 3 of the Somatic Attachment Series and getting into the part that nobody talks about enough... disorganized attachment. Jenn walks you through what is actually happening in your body during that push and pull, why it feels so chaotic and confusing, and how understanding your nervous system can help you stay with yourself instead of reacting from that place of overwhelm. Using real client stories and somatic tools you can actually use, this episode will help you start to see the cycle clearly so you can begin to move through it differently.

You might want to listen if:

• You find yourself missing someone deeply and then wanting out the moment they get emotionally close
• You often pick fights or question your relationship and then wonder why you did it once you calm down
• You feel like you are two different people in relationships and you cannot figure out which one is the real you
• You have heard the term disorganized attachment but still cannot quite make sense of what it actually feels like from the inside
• You are ready to stop reacting from your nervous system and start understanding what it is actually trying to tell you

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DISCLAIMER:  Speak Honest podcast content is informational, not professional or medical advice. Jenn is an ICF relationship coach, not a licensed therapist. Consult health professionals for specific concerns. Client opinions do not reflect Speak Honest’s stance. We aim for accuracy but are not liable for errors or outcomes from this information. 

Transcript

Welcome To Speak Honest

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hello, and welcome to Speak Honest. I am your host and certified relationship coach, Jennifer Noble. It has been my passion for over a decade to help women like you heal, what's been holding you back from having the relationships you deserve. Are you struggling with a relationship where you can't seem to voice your emotions, needs, and boundaries without having it blow up in your face? Then you have found the right podcast, my friend. Get ready for practical tips, empowering truths, and honest conversations. Now, let's dive in. Hello, ladies, and welcome back to another episode of Speak Honest. I'm Jen Noble, your go-to relationship coach and author of the best-selling book, Dance of Attachment. And on today's episode, we are diving right back into the world of somatic experiencing. Now, in the last two episodes, we looked at what anxious attachment feels like in the body, that urgency, that tightness, that feeling like you need to do something right now. And then we looked at avoidant attachment, the subtle disconnection, the numbness, the feeling like something is off even when things are going good. And today we are bringing those two together in a sense. Because I want to bring you into a moment that might feel a little bit more chaotic and maybe a little harder to explain. You're with someone. And when you're not with them, you miss them. You think about them. You want them to be closer. You want to pull towards the connection. And then you're with them. And something changes, something shifts. Maybe they say something honest. Maybe they reflect something back to you. Maybe they get a little closer emotionally, and suddenly your body freaks out. Your heart starts racing. Your chest tightens. There's this surge of energy that feels almost overwhelming. And at the same time, there's another part of you that just wants to run away and shut it all down. So now you're in this internal push and pull. Part of you wants to lean in. You want to lean all the way in, really get into the relationship. The other part of you wants to get the hell out of there right now. And the confusing part is both of those feelings, they're real. And so maybe you pick a fight. You might say something like, Oh, I don't I don't think this is right or I deserve better. And you start questioning the entire relationship. And then later you calm down, you've had a moment to think, and now you're sitting there and you're thinking to yourself, Wait, why did I do that? And now you miss them again. And you want to reconnect. And you wonder if maybe you overreacted. And this cycle just keeps repeating. What most people don't realize is that this isn't inconsistency. This is your nervous system trying to do two opposite things at the exact same time. You want to move towards connection and to move away from danger. And that's the part I want to slow down today. Because just like anxious and avoidant attachment, this is not something you're thinking your way into. This is something your body is doing. And if you don't understand what's happening in those moments, you will keep reacting to the feeling instead of understanding it. So what I want to do today is help you start to see what's actually happening underneath that push and pull. So you can begin to stay with yourself instead of getting caught in the cycle. And I'll tell you more about how we go deeper into this work inside of the Speak Honest Academy at the end of the episode. But for right now, as you're listening, I want you to pay attention to three things. First, notice the moment the shift happens. That exact point where you go from feeling connected to feeling activated. Second, notice what your body does when you feel seen or called out. That reaction is really important. And third, notice how quickly you move into action, whether that's pulling away, coming closer, or creating conflict before you've even had a chance to understand what you're feeling and what is going on. Now, let's dive in. So most of the conversations that are happening out there right now around disorganized attachment tend to feel a little confusing, even when you're listening to them. So people will describe it as a mix of anxious and avoidant. Or they'll say things like, it's a push and pull, a hot and cold, an on and off. And while that is part of the lived experience, I mean it's how I talk about it myself, it still doesn't fully capture what it actually feels like from the inside. Because from the inside, honestly, it just feels fucking chaotic. Trust me, I lived it for a very long time. And there is this moment that happens. And if you have a disorganized attachment, you'll know what I mean. Or you meet someone or you're in a relationship. And when you're not with them, you miss them. You think about them. You want to be closer to them. There's this pull towards the connection that feels really strong. And then you're with them. And all of that just kind of goes out the window. Maybe they say something really honest towards you. Maybe they ask for something that they need that you're not giving them and that really hurts your feelings. Maybe they get a little bit closer emotionally. They want you to meet their parents or their friends and their family, and all of a sudden your body changes. Your heart starts racing. Your chest tightens. There is this rush of energy that feels overwhelming. And at the exact same time, there is a part of you that just wants to shut it all down and get out. So now you're in this push pull. You might say something like, Ooh, I don't think this is right. Or what might actually happen in a relationship is you start saying something like, I deserve better, because you are now projecting the problems of the relationship onto them. Or you start questioning the relationship altogether in that moment. I remember at the height of my disorganized attachment, I was Googling, Am I settling? while also madly in love with my partner at the time. And then later, I would calm down and I'm sitting there thinking, why did I just do that? And if you don't understand what's happening in your body, this cycle will just keep repeating. So today, we're going to walk through three key ways of looking at this. First, we're going to look at how to identify what disorganized attachment actually feels like in your body. Second, we're going to talk about how to work with that push and pull instead of reacting from it. And third, we're going to look at how to start bringing this into your relationships so you're not stuck in the same cycle over and over and over again. So let's start with identifying. The first key point here is learning how to identify what disorganized attachment actually feels like in your body. So let me talk to you about my client, Christina. She came in because she felt very, very stuck and trapped in her relationship. She had been in this on and off again dynamic for years now. So they would get really close, things would feel really good, and then out of nowhere, she would end up picking a fight or say that she was done. And then after some time apart, she would miss him, come back, and the cycle would start all over again. If that sounds familiar to you, then I want you to keep listening to Christina's story. And that was confusing for her because she genuinely felt both sides. So she didn't quite understand what was going on. So we're in our sessions together. And at first, she went into the story. She started talking to me about what was happening, what she was thinking. And so I would bring her back and I said, No, what did you feel? And she paused and she says, I don't know, Jen, but my foot won't stop moving. And when we looked down, sure enough, her foot was tapping the entire time. So I had her stay with it. And I said, Hey, what does that feel like? And she says, I don't know, it just feels like I need to get out of here, like I need to run. That was her somatic signature. And now that we know how to identify it, the next step is learning how to work with it. And this is where it gets really important because the instinct here is to act quickly. Christina's instinct when her foot started tapping was to stop it. But instead of stopping the behavior, we got curious about it. I asked her, What does your foot need right now? And she just laughed at me and she's like, I don't know, Jen. Like, I need to walk. And so I said, Great. So instead of forcing her to sit there in the middle of our Zoom coaching session and to ask her to calm down, we changed the environment. We moved our session to our phones and we both went out for a walk while we finished the rest of the conversation. See how instead of shutting it down or acting out about it or thinking there's something wrong with it, we worked with it. Movement, grounding, orienting to what is actually happening right now. And you are learning how to honor the sensation without letting it control you. You are transforming your impulse into mindful action. And now that we know how to identify it and work with it, the next step is learning how to use this in your relationships so you are not stuck in the same cycle every time. See, Christina didn't need to stop feeling that urge to leave. That urge, it will continue to show up in her life. What changed is what she does with it now. So instead of immediately threatening to break up or creating conflict or projecting the issues of the relationship onto him, she now gets to pause. She starts noticing the foot tapping or any other urges that are coming up in her body. She gets curious with them and compassionate. She gives herself space to stay in the moment before making any decision. She gets curious about what the need to run actually meant. And when we dove deeper into our sessions together, we learned that typically she needs to run out of the relationship when she needs something more in the relationship and she doesn't know how to ask for that. But see, we never would have gotten there if we hadn't listened to her body in the first place. So instead of, I don't think this is working, it became, I'm feeling really activated right now. And a part of me wants to shut down. And that is a completely different way to look at your lived experience. Now, from a research perspective, this is how we build secure attachment. Your nervous system learns through experience. So every time you stay in connection while feeling that activation, your body starts to learn that being seen does not automatically lead to something bad happening. And this is where repair becomes so important. Because the goal is not to avoid these moments. It's never, ever the goal. We don't want to push these away. The goal is to move through them differently, to come back, to reconnect, and to stay. You feel the push and pull, but then you work with it. And then you choose how you want to show up. And that is how you stop the cycle. So as we wrap up today's episode, I want you to really take all of this in. If you are someone who feels that push and pull, that hot and cold feeling, that confusion, where part of you wants connection and another part of you wants out at the exact same time. I just want you to know you're not alone. Not only did I myself go through this for so many years, but this is exactly the work that I do inside of the Speak Honest Academy. This is where we take everything we talked about today and actually apply it in real time. We slow those moments down. We look at what is happening in your body, and we build your ability to stay with yourself even when your system feels conflicted. This is also where I teach my signature somatic affirmation practice. We learn it inside of the Dance of Attachment course, which is not something that you just say inside of your head like I am enough. What I do is I teach you how to feel this in your body on a somatic level so you can start creating a different experience from the inside out. This doesn't just happen in the moment. When we work with somatic affirmations, it starts happening naturally. Now, inside of the academy, you get access to both group coaching and one-on-one coaching with me. So you are not trying to figure this out on your own. And if you are disorganized, if you find yourself getting close and then wanting to pull away or reacting in moments and then questioning it later, this is where I help you slow that down and actually understand what is happening in your body in the moment so you can move through it differently. Now, if any of that interests you, you can head over to speakhonestacademy.com or scroll down to the link in the show notes to sign up. And as a special gift for anyone who is following along in the Somatic Attachment Series, I do want you to be able to try us out for a full month before deciding if this is the right path for you. You can use the code secure start when you are signing up for your monthly membership. All one word, secure start, because I know how many programs and coaches are out there right now. And it can be so confusing to know which one to join or who to trust or are you going to waste your money again. So I love to say, why don't you just try us before you buy, right? Just come and try us out. And then if it's something that does interest you, then you can stay on. Now we meet every Tuesday and Thursday at 7 p.m. Eastern. So if that is something that you can make, you can literally come join us this week. We would love to see you there. Now, as we're finishing up, remember, you are not trapped in this cycle. You are learning how to stay with yourself in the moment that used to take you out. And that, ooh, girl, that is what changes everything. I will speak with you all next week. Take care. As we wrap up today's conversation, always remember that healing is a journey, not a destination. And it is an honor to be a part of your healing journey. If you want to dig deeper into the topics we cover today, be sure to head over to our show notes where you can find all of the valuable information mentioned in today's episode right there. And please remember to rate, review, and subscribe if you enjoyed today's podcast. Your feedback means the world to us and helps others discover our podcast. Until next time, remember to speak up and speak honest.