Attachment style usually gets talked about in the context of dating and romance. Rarely do we turn that same lens on friendship, even though it shapes those relationships just as much.

In this episode, Michelle and Danyelle break down the four attachment styles, secure, anxious, avoidant, and disorganized, and where they come from developmentally. Then they turn the framework on themselves, getting honest about which styles they've each brought to their friendship, including a moment from that very week when one of them wanted to retreat instead of saying "I'm not okay."

This isn't a diagnosis of who's the anxious friend and who's the avoidant one. It's a look at how the earliest relationships in our lives help to script the ones we're in now, and what it takes to write a new ending.

In This Episode

• What secure, anxious, avoidant, and disorganized attachment actually look like in friendship
• Why attachment style forms in early childhood, and why it's not a life sentence
• The overlap (and difference) between anxious attachment and generalized anxiety
• Danyelle on disorganized attachment, avoidance, and how birth order shaped her patterns
• Michelle on the anxious-secure overlap and the practice of asking "is this true, or is this a story?"
• How enmeshed or overly independent caregiving in childhood shows up as attachment style in adulthood
• A real-time example of moving from avoidance into secure attachment, mid-friendship
• The role of Nonviolent Communication in shifting attachment patterns
• A judgment tarot pull on self-forgiveness for the ways we've shown up imperfectly

Reflection Questions

• Which of the four attachment styles do you resonate with most, and does it shift depending on the relationship?
• Is there a friendship where you notice yourself pulling away when things get close? What do you think that protects you from?
• When you feel that anxious pull to seek reassurance, is it rooted in this relationship or in an old pattern?
• What did your caregivers model for you about closeness, independence, and asking for what you need?
• Is there a conversation you've been avoiding with a friend the way Danyelle almost avoided one this week?

Resources

• Take the attachment style quiz at theattachmentproject.com
• Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg (recurring framework; workbooks available by subscribing to our newsletter)
• What It Takes to Heal by Prentis Hemphill
• I Hope We Choose Love: A Trans Girl’s Notes from the End of the World by Kai Cheng Thom
• Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment by Amir Levine & Rachel Heller
• Wired for Love by Stan Tatkin
• Queerly Attached Podcast with Kyleigh Weathers
• Essays and writing on relational accountability by Adrienne Maree Brown
  
  

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