# How do I heal an anxious attachment style so I stop pushing my ex away?

> By Benny Lichtenwalner, breakup coach and author of "How to Get Your Ex Back".
> Canonical: https://bennylichtenwalner.com/videos/anxious-attachment/

**Short answer:** Anxious attachment traces back to inconsistent or absent care in childhood, but naming the source rarely fixes the behavior. Two things do: regulating your nervous system when triggered (breath work, movement, getting out of your head) and building genuine confidence by investing in the disciplines you're currently neglecting. Both close the gap that anxiety is trying to fill with reassurance-seeking.

Anxious attachment is one of the three insecure attachment styles Benny Lichtenwalner talks about constantly, and in this video he narrows in on what actually changes it, not just what explains it. Most people who recognize themselves as anxiously attached can already name the childhood root: inconsistent care, an early abandonment, a broken trust. That insight rarely stops the behavior on its own.

Benny points to two practical levers instead. The first is nervous-system regulation. Anxious attachment spikes hardest in the moment of a trigger, a slow reply, a night alone with your thoughts, and the instinct is to reach for reassurance immediately. Learning to notice that spike and ride it out, through breath work, movement, or just getting out of your head, closes the gap between feeling anxious and acting on it.

The second lever is confidence, built the unglamorous way: by identifying the specific disciplines you're neglecting and investing in them directly, rather than waiting to feel more secure before you start. Anxious attachment often runs on a scarcity story about your own worth, and closing that gap with real action does more than any amount of insight about where the wound came from.

The point isn't to stop caring about your ex. It's to get steady enough that their silence doesn't run your nervous system, which is also what makes someone easier to want to be around.

## Full transcript

Here's how to step out of anxiety and claim your power back in a relationship and heal that anxious attachment style. This is coming from a practical, personal-development angle, not a clinical one.

If you go down the rabbit hole in therapy, you'll find that anxious attachment usually comes from some kind of abandonment, maybe by a parent, or from inconsistent care: sometimes they were there for you, sometimes they weren't. Maybe your trust got broken somewhere along the way. The anxiety is coming from somewhere in your childhood or your past relationships.

But getting clarity on where it comes from usually isn't enough to solve it. The light bulb goes on, you understand why you act this way, you're striving after love. Okay, but what are you going to do about it? Knowing the source doesn't stop you from getting walked over in a relationship, and it doesn't stop you from turning people off, because if you can't go two seconds without texting them or needing reassurance about where they are and what they're doing, you're going to consistently push people away, including relationships that otherwise could have been great.

There are two things you need to address. The first is learning to regulate your nervous system. When you get triggered, that spike of "are they going to meet someone better tonight," notice the anxiety in your body and practice calming it down instead of acting from it. Meditation, breath work, or anything physical helps: running, surfing, skateboarding, working out. Anxiety comes from projecting into a future that doesn't exist yet, so getting out of your head and back into your body interrupts that. Since this usually crops up at night when you're alone, a simple breathing pattern, in for four seconds, out for six, resets your nervous system back into the present moment when you don't have a trail to run on.

The second thing to address is confidence. Anxious attachment comes from a place of feeling not good enough. As an exercise, picture someone you genuinely admire, someone who represents the qualities you want in yourself, and get specific about what they actually do differently. Then invest in the disciplines you're not currently investing in. As you fill in those missing pieces, you have less left over to believe about yourself that isn't true. You'll still have the root wiring from childhood, but it won't dominate your life, and you won't need someone else's reassurance to feel steady.