Maybe you’re both - anxious and avoidant

Let's speak about love, dating, and…attachment styles today.

I used to believe that people fell neatly into attachment styles: anxious, avoidant, or secure.

But after three years of working with many amazing women on creating healthy love in their lives, I've realized —it's not that simple.

Today, I don't believe you're either anxious or avoidant.

I believe most people either feel securely attached — or they pendulum between anxiety and avoidance, depending on the situation, the partner, and their own inner healing journey.

Attachment Isn't Fixed — It's Dynamic.

Attachment patterns aren't “baggage” we're born with.

They're defense mechanisms — flexible strategies we developed to navigate closeness, safety, and rejection.

And I believe most people aren't just anxious or avoidant.

Have I done a big study on that? No. I'm simply sharing what I pick up in my day-to-day work with clients.

Most of us, unless healed, swing from side to side like a pendulum —
depending on who we are connecting with.

When you're with someone emotionally unavailable, your anxious side may flare up like a painful rash — chasing love, seeking reassurance, fearing abandonment.

But when you're with someone who offers real safety and vulnerability, your avoidant side might come up like a big emotional wall — pulling away, needing space, feeling trapped.

This doesn't mean you're "broken." It just means you've learned that love works in a certain way, but you (like I once did) are free to learn something new. 

It simply means your nervous system is trying to protect you from the raw, vulnerable risks of real intimacy. 

Anxious tendencies and avoidant tendencies are two sides of the same medal.

And at the root of both is the fear of losing love:

➔ Anxious attachment fears love because they fear loosing the other.
➔ Avoidant attachment fears love because they fear losing themselves.

In both cases, it's the same wound — just wearing a different cape.

I often meet women who initially show signs of anxious attachment:

They stare at their phones, refreshing the screen, feeling their chest tighten, wondering if they matter as much to their partner as he does to them.

They replay conversations endlessly, trying to find the moment they "messed up" — because deep down, they fear that love can vanish at any second. 

Together, we work on:

Soothing their nervous system

Defining their core needs

️ Setting healthy boundaries

Healing the parts that fear rejection

Which results in them:

Stopping to chase unavailable men.
Focussing on themselves.
Becoming magnetic to healthy, loving partners.

But often healing the anxious side is only one part of the journey.

Often, once they step into a secure relationship — beautiful but unfamiliar — another layer surfaces:

Suddenly, the same woman starts feeling confined.

She guards her heart.

She craves space.

She even questions the relationship altogether.

Now it's the avoidant wound quietly tugging:

"If I let someone fully in, I might lose myself." 

True Healing Means Integrating Both Sides

The real work isn't just calming anxiety or softening avoidance — It's learning to feel safe in intimacy.

It's healing the fear of love — whether through abandonment or through losing yourself in someone else.

In my experience this has been the best soil to building relationships where love feels both expansive and grounding.

Where you can be loved for all that you are. Unafraid to speak your truth.

You're not "too much."
You're not "too distant."

You're simply a human being learning to feel safe with love —
on both sides of the pendulum. 

And isn't that a beautiful & raw journey?

Sending you love,

Nora