Anxious-Preoccupied Attachment: My Experience With It

What Is Anxious-Preoccupied Attachment?

Anxious-preoccupied attachment is a term commonly used to describe a pattern of relating that can involve worry about rejection or abandonment, a strong need for reassurance, and close attention to changes in connection.

Adult attachment research commonly examines attachment through two dimensions: anxiety and avoidance. This is more precise than treating people as belonging to fixed personality types.

I use anxious-preoccupied attachment as a lens for recognizing certain patterns in my own life. I do not see it as a clinical diagnosis, a permanent identity, or a label that explains everything about me.

Growing up, I did not think in terms of attachment theory. I knew only that one of my parents wanted the best for me and often expressed that love through worry, pressure, and close attention to whether I would succeed.

I felt that I needed to perform, outperform, and compete. I tried to be the first in class, and when I wasn’t, which was often, I sometimes felt that my efforts, or even I as a child, were not fully appreciated.

Looking back, I cannot know whether these experiences directly caused the relationship patterns I later recognized in myself, and I do not want to diagnose my parent. What I can say is that learning about anxious-preoccupied attachment gave me a useful lens through which to understand parts of my own experience.

---

Gratitude Without Denying the Impact

As I write this, I am aware that these experiences remain part of my present moment and part of who I am today.

I can feel gratitude for my parents and recognize the love, effort, and care they gave me. That gratitude does not require me to deny how some experiences affected me. In the same way, acknowledging their impact does not require me to blame my parents.

Both can be true. I can appreciate what I received while remaining curious about what I learned to carry.

This allows me to keep what continues to nourish me and begin releasing what no longer serves me.

---

Making Sense of What I Experienced

As a teenager, I rebelled against the constant pressure to perform. Eventually, I realized that if I wanted to reach my own goals, I needed to maintain at least passing grades.

The pressure did not disappear. I remember frequent reminders to study, questions about whether I was doing enough, and moments of criticism or shame when I fell short.

Later, I began to see how love, worry, and performance had become tangled together in my experience. I can imagine that some of my parent’s behavior may have come from fear, uncertainty, and a need for safety or reassurance. But that is my interpretation, not a diagnosis.

This understanding brought a moment of recognition: “Yes, of course.”

Knowing what I do about my parent’s own life, I could better understand their need for safety, connection, and reassurance that they, too, mattered.

That understanding allowed me to hold more compassion for my parent without minimizing how controlling or emotionally unsafe some of those interactions felt to me.

But insight alone did not erase what I carried forward from those years.

---

How These Patterns Appeared in My Life

As I grew older, I began noticing how fear of rejection and the need for reassurance appeared in different parts of my life.

I cannot reduce every experience to anxious-preoccupied attachment. The framework simply helped me see possible connections between patterns I had previously viewed as separate.

In my personal and professional life, I noticed:

• Fear of rejection that sometimes led me to isolate myself rather than engage with new people or groups.

• Feeling threatened or unsafe within groups, even when there was no clear sign that I was unwelcome.

• Overanalyzing messages, silence, and changes in another person’s behavior.

• Doubting whether I was doing enough or performing well enough at work.

• Looking to managers for reassurance and the push that told me I was on the right track.

• A drive to remain busy, productive, and constantly achieving.

• A tendency to keep paddling against the wave, even when it placed strain on relationships.

• At times, expecting too much from colleagues, friends, or people I loved.

Seeing these patterns together did not give me a complete explanation of myself. It gave me a starting point for asking what I feared, what reassurance I was looking for, and what happened inside me when connection or approval felt uncertain.

---

How Mindfulness Helps Me Respond Differently

Mindfulness has not erased these patterns or changed them overnight. It helps me notice them earlier and creates space between what I feel and how I respond.

These are some of the practices I return to:

Noticing thoughts, feelings, and the body

I pay attention to physical tension, repetitive thoughts, and the urge to seek reassurance. This is not about watching myself for danger. It is about gently recognizing what is present.

Checking in with myself

I ask:

• How am I feeling right now?
• What story am I telling myself?
• What am I afraid might happen?
• What reassurance am I looking for?

Pausing before interpreting

When a message, a silence, or a change in someone’s behavior creates uncertainty, I try to notice my reaction before treating my fear as fact.

Finding some reassurance within myself

Before immediately looking to someone else for certainty, I ask whether I can offer myself some steadiness. This does not mean I should never seek reassurance or communicate my needs. It means I can pause before deciding what I need from another person.

Creating clarity at work

When I doubt whether I am doing enough, I try to return to clear expectations, agreed priorities, and the feedback I have already received rather than relying only on my fear of falling short.

Setting boundaries with kindness

I try to set boundaries softly but firmly, with compassion for the other person and compassion for myself.

My experience does not prove that mindfulness changes attachment patterns for everyone. However, a systematic review and meta-analysis found an association between attachment insecurity and lower self-reported mindfulness. Most of the evidence reviewed was correlational, so it cannot show that mindfulness causes people to become more securely attached.

For me, mindfulness offers a way to see these patterns more clearly, hold them more gently, and experiment with a different response. That is where change begins.

---

A Note on Support

Attachment language can offer a useful framework for reflection, but recognizing yourself in an article is not the same as receiving a professional assessment.

If fear of rejection, repeated reassurance seeking, or relationship distress is significantly affecting your relationships or daily life, consider speaking with a qualified mental health professional.

Coaching can provide space to explore patterns, choices, and personal development. It is not psychotherapy and does not diagnose or treat attachment difficulties or mental health conditions.

---

Related Reading

• Without Our Triggers, Our Growth Is Hindered
• Stop Blaming Your Parents: Turning Mindfulness into Self-Responsibility
• Is Awareness the Same as Freedom?

Sources and Further Reading

• Adult Attachment, Stress, and Romantic Relationships
• The Relationship Between Adult Attachment Orientation and Mindfulness: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Self-Love: The Way to True Love Begins With What Hurts

From Treating Yourself to Meeting Yourself

For more than a decade, I understood self-love mostly as giving myself something enjoyable.

Take that vacation. Go on that trip. Buy yourself an ice cream after a difficult day. Spend the weekend playing your favorite video game because you deserve the break.

There is nothing wrong with any of that. Pleasure, rest, and play can be genuine ways of caring for ourselves.

But I began noticing that they did not always reach the parts of me that were hurting.

I could give myself an enjoyable weekend and still return to the same fears, reactions, and patterns. I could offer myself comfort without understanding what I was trying to comfort. The treat changed the moment, but it did not necessarily change my relationship with myself.

Over time, I began discovering another form of self-love.

It was not only about giving myself what felt good.

It was also about learning to remain present with what did not.

---

What I Had Been Missing About Self-Love

This shift did not come from rejecting comfort or enjoyment. It developed through my encounters with mindfulness and Buddhist teachings on love.

Years ago, the teachings of Thích Nhất Hạnh introduced me to love as a practice rather than only a feeling. More recently, I attended a retreat at the European Institute of Applied Buddhism in Germany, led by Thầy Pháp An. The theme was Teachings on Love.

Within the Plum Village tradition, love includes the willingness to be present, to understand suffering, and to respond with compassion. That practice does not begin only with how we treat other people. It also includes how we meet ourselves.

I began realizing that I could not offer myself only pleasant experiences and call that complete love.

If I ignored the parts of me carrying fear, shame, loneliness, anger, or grief, I was still abandoning something within myself, even while believing I was practicing self-care.

The question became more demanding:

Was I willing to love the parts of myself that were not easy to love?

---

Loving the Parts of Ourselves We Learned to Avoid

I began sitting more honestly with my pain and the patterns of suffering within me.

I did not always try to solve them. Sometimes I simply noticed what was there: the fear beneath a reaction, the shame behind a silence, the younger part of me still waiting to feel safe, or the old story repeating itself inside a new situation.

I tried to bring light to those places by giving them attention and meeting them with care.

That does not mean approving of every reaction or allowing every pattern to continue. Compassion and honesty can exist together. I can understand why a part of me learned to protect itself while also recognizing that its way of protecting me may no longer be helping.

This form of self-love can be uncomfortable.

It asks me to remain present when distraction would be easier. It asks me to listen without immediately judging, fixing, or turning away. It asks me to stop treating my pain as something shameful that must be hidden before I can be worthy of love.

The more honestly I meet those parts of myself, the less energy I need to spend concealing them from the world.

I can become vulnerable without feeling weak.

I can become more authentic because I am no longer demanding that I appear untouched.

---

Learning to Care for the Inner Child

In Reconciliation: Healing the Inner Child, Thích Nhất Hạnh writes about the wounded child who remains present within the adult we have become.

For me, this was not an abstract idea.

Sometimes an old fear, a strong reaction, or a painful belief carries the voice of a younger part of me. A part that once felt frightened, rejected, unseen, or alone.

I do not need to force a memory or immediately understand everything. I can pause, breathe, and acknowledge what is present.

I can say to that younger part of myself:

I know you are there. I am here with you.

Caring for the inner child does not mean remaining trapped in the past. It means no longer asking a younger version of ourselves to carry that pain alone.

The adult I am today can offer some of the presence, protection, and understanding that may once have been missing.

Self-love then becomes an act of companionship.

I learn not to abandon myself when something hurts.

---

Ice Cream Can Still Be Self-Love

None of this means that buying myself ice cream, taking a holiday, or spending a quiet evening playing video games cannot be acts of self-love.

Sometimes ice cream is exactly what I need.

Pleasure, rest, and play matter. They can nourish us, offer relief, and remind us that life is not only about examining our pain.

The difference, for me, lies in what I am asking the experience to do.

Am I enjoying something because it brings me genuine pleasure?

Or am I using it as the only way to avoid what is asking for my attention?

Self-love does not require me to choose between comfort and awareness. I can enjoy what feels good while also remaining curious about what hurts.

The ice cream can stay.

But I no longer need to use it to numb my pain.

---

Loving Others Without Abandoning Ourselves

As I learn to remain present with my own pain, the way I love other people also begins to change.

I can enter a relationship wanting to share love rather than asking someone else to rescue me from the parts of myself I have avoided.

I can notice when my desire for connection is asking me to become smaller, silence what I feel, ignore my boundaries, or betray what I know to be true.

Self-love gives my boundaries roots rather than walls.

It allows me to say yes more honestly and no without believing that love will disappear. It helps me leave what repeatedly diminishes me while remaining open to relationships in which I can be fully present.

We still need one another. We still long for closeness, care, reassurance, and belonging.

But true love does not require self-abandonment.

When I stop leaving myself behind in order to be loved, the love I offer can become more honest, generous, and free.

---

Related Reading

• Healing Your Inner Child Through Self-Awareness
• How to Rebuild Self-Worth and Overcome Inner Criticism
• When Pain Becomes Part of Your Identity

Exploring Self-Love Through Coaching

Self-love can become more than an idea when we begin noticing how we treat ourselves in difficult moments.

Coaching can offer a structured space to explore where you may be abandoning your needs, silencing what you feel, or looking to others to confirm your worth. It can help you understand the patterns influencing your choices and relationships, while experimenting with responses that reflect your values and boundaries more honestly.

If you would like to explore this in your own life, learn more about one-to-one coaching for personal and professional challenges.

---

Sources and Background

• Thích Nhất Hạnh, Reconciliation: Healing the Inner Child
• Plum Village, Looking Deeply: Healing the Inner Child
• Thích Nhất Hạnh, True Love and the Four Noble Truths

Stop Blaming Your Parents and Take Responsibility for Your Life

For many years, I blamed my parents for almost everything I disliked about my life.

I blamed them for our poverty, for what we could not afford, for the fact that I had to work full-time to pay for university, and for the ways I struggled emotionally as I grew older.

Some of those feelings had a reason. My parents influenced me deeply. Their choices, limitations, fears, and ways of relating affected how I learned to see myself and the world.

They were responsible for how they raised and treated me.

But that is not the whole truth.

My parents were also shaped by their own parents, their circumstances, their suffering, and the limited choices available to them. They tried to love me with what they had and what they understood. Sometimes that love reached me. Sometimes it did not.

Recognizing this does not require me to pretend that everything they did was right. It does not mean ignoring what hurt or denying how those experiences affected me.

It means seeing them as human beings rather than only as the people I blamed.

Eventually, I had to confront something uncomfortable: blaming my parents was not improving my life. It was not helping them, and it was not helping me. It explained where some of my pain came from, but it did not tell me what I was going to do with it.

My parents helped shape the beginning of my story.

But I am responsible for what I do with my life now.

---

Blame Can Explain the Past, but It Cannot Change Your Life

As a child, I often imagined having different parents.

I pictured another home, fewer arguments, more money, and parents who understood me in ways I did not feel understood. I imagined how differently I might behave and who I might become if they were different people.

Those daydreams followed me into my teenage years. By then, they carried anger and hatred. I avoided contact and cocooned myself inside an alternate version of my life because the one I was living felt too painful to experience fully.

Blame gave that pain somewhere to go.

It allowed me to say, “This is why I am unhappy. This is why I struggle. This is why my life is not what I want it to be.”

Some of those explanations were valid. But over time, blame became more than an explanation. It became a place where I remained stuck.

As long as my unhappiness was entirely their fault, changing my life also seemed to depend on them. I could wait for them to understand me, apologize, change, or somehow become the parents I had imagined.

But they could not rewrite my childhood.

And waiting for them to change the past kept me from asking a more difficult question:

What am I going to do with my life now?

---

Doing Their Best Does Not Make Everything Acceptable

I now believe my parents did the best they could from the place where they stood.

Their way of raising me did not come from nowhere. They were shaped by their own parents, the circumstances they survived, the beliefs they inherited, the opportunities they did not have, and the ways they learned to give and receive love.

With the little they had, they gave me a home and an education through high school. They tried to raise me, protect me, and prepare me for life according to what they understood.

Their best still hurt me sometimes.

Both truths can exist.

I can recognize their effort without pretending every choice was right. I can understand where their behavior came from without denying its impact. Compassion does not require rewriting the past, and accountability does not require reducing my parents to the worst things they did.

They remain responsible for how they treated me.

But my responsibility for my life does not begin because they are innocent. It begins because this is my life.

I am the one living with what happened.

I am also the one who can decide what happens next.

---

Mindfulness Made Blame Insufficient

When I began practicing mindfulness, I did not suddenly stop feeling angry with my parents.

The practice did something more demanding.

It asked me to stop escaping into the childhood I wished I had and look deeply at the life I was actually living.

I began noticing the anger, sadness, anxiety, and longing beneath my blame. I also began recognizing patterns I was repeating in my relationships, my choices, and the way I responded when life felt uncertain or painful.

Some of those patterns had roots in my childhood.

But recognizing where they began was only the beginning.

Mindfulness invited me to return to the child, teenager, and young adult I had been. Instead of asking only what my parents should have done differently, I started asking what those younger parts of me needed from me now.

Could I listen to the pain I had spent years avoiding?

Could I care for the fear beneath my anger?

Could I recognize a familiar pattern before repeating it again?

Mindfulness did not make my parents innocent, and it did not make me responsible for what happened when I was a child.

It made blame insufficient.

Awareness helped me understand how the past continued to live in me. Responsibility asked me what I was willing to do about it now.

---

What Taking Responsibility Actually Looks Like

At some point, the question has to change.

It cannot remain only, “Who caused this?”

It must also become, “What am I going to do with it?”

Taking responsibility means no longer waiting for your parents to become different before allowing your own life to change.

It can mean:

• naming honestly how your upbringing affected you
• recognizing the patterns you continue to repeat
• noticing when an old wound is influencing a present decision
• learning to respond differently when you feel hurt, rejected, or afraid
• apologizing when your pain causes you to hurt someone else
• setting boundaries with your parents when boundaries are needed
• asking for support instead of expecting yourself to work through everything alone
• choosing what reflects your values rather than automatically repeating what you learned

Responsibility is not blame turned inward.

It does not mean telling yourself that you should have handled childhood differently. You were a child. The responsibility for how you were treated belonged to the adults around you.

But you are not that powerless child anymore.

Your past can explain some of your behavior. It cannot remain permanent permission to continue behavior that harms you or the people around you.

You may not be responsible for the wound.

You are responsible for how you care for it now.

---

Related Reading

• Healing Starts With Your Inner Child
• Why We Mend Our Emotional Wounds Before We Heal Them
• Why Do You Self-Sabotage When Things Are Going Well?
• Is Awareness the Same as Freedom?

Exploring Family Patterns Through Coaching

Coaching can offer a structured space to examine how experiences within your family continue to influence your relationships, choices, boundaries, and expectations today.

Together, we can identify patterns you may have inherited or adapted to, explore what still serves you, and experiment with choices that reflect how you want to live now.

If you would like to explore a family pattern in your own life, learn more about one-to-one coaching for personal and professional challenges.

---

Sources and Background

• Reconciliation: Healing the Inner Child by Thich Nhat Hanh
• Healing Our Inner Child: Pathways to Embrace Our Suffering
• Caring for Children, Caring for the Child Inside
• Befriending Our Habits

Living in Peace: How to Find Inner Peace in this World

We usually say to people when they die, Rest in Peace but what if we can live in peace too? What if there is another way of how we have been living all our lives chasing success, running after relationships, attachment to what doesn’t serve us, conflicts with those around us and becoming addicted to pain… What if, there is a different way to lead our lives? I struggle to believe that this is the only way and so, I embark on this discovery in this blog post on how can we be living in peace.

From the first instance, what comes to mind is that, to live in peace in my life, I must find that peace within me. But, this is so very abstract. How can I find that peace within me, if everything around me is so triggering? The impulses, the loud people on the streets, the aggression I see in the world… The below average financial class is going further down, while the rich become richer and the middle class shrinking even further… What peace can I achieve in this world within myself!

---

Peace Movement, internal or external? Or Maybe both!

Peace. I miss seeing that Peace Movement from the 1960s that was smeared with Hippie, drugs and sex in a way to diminish its truest need, to find peace externally beyond ourselves. But as I explored further, I came to realize that we must start somewhere else, or even better, the Peace Movement might need to go in conjunction internally and externally to achieve living in peace holistically. 

---

For Peace to be True, Hate has no Home in a Peace Process!

Hate, has no place in a Peace Movement. Surprisingly enough (and maybe not), I read somewhere, that humans are the only living beings who are capable of self-hate and therefore, I say, hate for others. If a peace movement is to be successful, we cannot, have a grain of hate towards the aggressors, otherwise, we would follow the same pattern as politicians, ‘we create wars to establish peace’ which, has never worked – historically.

---

And coming back home, our inner home.

Let’s come back to a smaller scope, ourselves. What if, we could start bringing peace to our inner world? And maybe, there might be a way that has helped me, that might help you, too. The thing with humans, that we think we are so different from one another (in a sense we are from an experience standpoint) that what works for me, might not work for you – without even trying (and the other way around).

How can I be living in peace within my inner world, while advocating for peace in my outer world? The how, seems to be always the problem. How do we do that? Here is what worked for me:

---

Journaling with a goal to understand myself better:

I have journaled since I was twelve years old. I found out lately that journaling helps me identify my struggles, my pains and what keeps my inner world at unrest. It’s a way to self-reflect on my behaviors, my thoughts, my feelings and emotions, and those of others and how they impact me. I question ‘hey, Ashraf, how come this makes you feel this way? Where is it coming from?’ and I allow everything, every thought to come out without judgements or restrain. Things unfold. I learn about what triggers me, what takes and gives me energy and what kind of people I want in my life. I also work, through my journaling on important topics, topics which has caused me great pain in the past, and current ones in the present with a sole goal, to understand myself better – not to blame, shame or judge myself or others. Journaling might help you. It might open doors that you had thought they are not yours to open…

---

Spending time alone

Realizing that aloneness is not loneliness was key for me and it’s still sometimes a challenge. In aloneness, I’ve found togetherness. Togetherness with the most beautiful parts of my life, my experiences, and the painful parts too. And this was confronting. But, I got the space, the time, to look at the painful parts and embrace them. Through the pain, I’ve become the person I am today. Without this pain, I could be someone completely different. Through this, I found some liberation, and learned how I can be kinder to myself, kinder to those around and how to set boundaries, without building up walls – with love, kindness and care. Try spending time alone, your mind might go in all directions at first, mine did, but you learn to listen with love, not panic.

---

Healing my Inner Child

We’ve all gone through childhood. Some of us have had brilliant childhoods and some have not. Looking at my inner child, the pain that has been lingering there waiting for someone to acknowledge it, embrace it, love it, and bring peace to it… I couldn’t but look at my inner child in the eye and cry for weeks, months… With a phrase or two which resonate with my experience. Find that for yourself and embrace that helpless child who life happened to. Cry. Scream. Let it out.

---

Connect with People

Throughout my life, I have walked on the street with a ‘long face’, thinking that people are horrible beings filled with judgements and opinions… Well, I came to realize I am a person. I make a portion of these people, so why not change someone else’s experience. Connecting isn’t necessarily with words. A smile to a stranger on the street makes my day. It makes it even better if I get a smile back but that’s unnecessary. A gesture or a question if the old lady at the supermarket needs help carrying her groceries… With the intention to help, to show love, to connect with kindness – not a hook up 🙂 ! And also, connect with friends and people that you can have meaningful deep connection with. And learn to listen carefully.

---

Practicing Mindfulness

For me, practicing mindfulness has been the main tool in discovering my inner world. Some people think mindfulness is sitting and kicking out all the thoughts from the mind. On the contrary, mindfulness is always mindfulness of something. I focus on my breath, my feelings, emotions, lingering thoughts, body and I investigate during my mindfulness sessions the essence and the source of whatever comes up. Sometimes, things unfold during or after several sessions focusing on one thing, and that’s when I also use my journal. I use the Plum Village Free App for mindfulness most of the time. And sometimes, I sit in silence applying my learnings.

---

What does living in peace look like?

When we discover the source of our unrest, we can change the unrest to rest. It’s as simple as that. The source is never external, then it becomes blame. But, sometimes, external factors can be your source of unrest if you have truly and genuinely untangled your knots… Applying these tools, I learned how to discover the source of my unrest, and you can do that too, if you try and give it your 100%.

Once we discover the source of unrest, we can then start to untangle the inner knots. When the inner knots are smoothened, the outer knots seem almost obsolete. Obsolete in the sense of, they will cause much pain to detach from them, but, you know deeply that it is essential. That knowing, is unquestionable and you feel it in every cell in your body.

Sometimes, you have to let people go from your life, work, or even relationships. It is painful, it cuts too deep, yet, essential for yours and others wellbeing and growth.

Living in peace might look like you’ve grown through your pain, your experiences and sprout out a little green stem with some leaves. You’re aware of your shortcomings, your pain, trauma and embrace them and bring love to them, and you bring a smile of kindness to it. You’ve made peace with the world around you, with those who hurt you, because that hurt, is mended, and you find understanding of the hurt, and the actions from others while keeping your boundaries with kindness and love. And in time, that sprout, grows to a small tree and roots in the ground magnificently.

---

Living in Peace

After great contemplation, I have found that the only way to achieve real peace the kind of peace that humanity has not achieved yet, is by finding peace within ourselves and this might be the main reason why we haven’t achieved it yet. How could have we achieved it while we struggle daily with our unconscious traumas, triggers and inflict harm and create suffering to one another physically, mentally and emotionally?

From here, finding this peaceful island within ourselves might be the first step in the direction of finding external peace in the world. Going to that island and visiting often to dwell in peace can help us in our journey to better our human connections, bring kindness and love to it and create circles of kind human connections among ourselves and the rest, it will follow.

I wish you peace I wish you love I wish you kindness

---

Check out my other blogs and external links:

How to Transform Self-Sabotage with Mindfulness and Love? On this link.

Why We Mend Our Wounds, Not Heal Them (Yet)? On this link.

Is Awareness the Same as Freedom? On this link.

Feeling Overwhelmed by Personal Growth? On this link.

Learn more about healing your inner child On this link.

External Resources:

Zen & Engaged Buddhism:

Plum Village 

EIAB