Anxiety and Abandonment

Have you ever experienced the "push me-pull you" dance in close relationships? Once "new relationship energy" has dissipated, do you find yourself getting close to someone, only to find them pulling away. Or have you been on the other side of this see saw, finding yourself distancing as a person you care about has come in close, perhaps too close for comfort? Most all of us crave intimacy, but it can also be a scary proposition. Relationship experts Calista Luminaire and Lion Goodman write, "Anxiety is the uncomfortable body sensation associated with fear, uncertainty, instability or feeling unsafe...When infants are uncomfortable or afraid, they cry out, expressing their need to be cared for. If their needs are not attended to, they feel anxious." They note that in adults, the feeling of anxiety has its roots in the same primal part of the brain. They write, "Anxiety is a subconscious rattling of the nervous system signaling, 'I need care now!' If you're not certain whether you'll be care for, you feel upset or nervous.'" If when you are scared, you are responded to with love and care, you will feel safe, and your anxiety will "melt away." If your partner has a negative response, including criticism, judgment, rejection or withdrawal, your anxiety will quickly escalate into the red zone. Your primal fear of abandonment button will be triggered, and you may experience the same kind of fight or flight response that comes when something is a threat to your survival. Your partner, who is having their own parallel red zone response, then distances further, and the two of you descend seemingly separately, but actually together, into a downward spiral. Somehow, instead of being two people dancing on an equal playing field, one person has become the "distanced"and the other person has become the "pursuer." Both roles feel pretty horrible, and relationship breaks down. The distancer feels overwhelmed by the anxiety of the person needing closeness at a very primal level. The pursuer feels unsafe, rejected and abandoned. Becoming aware that this dynamic of anxiety and abandonment is starting to play out in an intimate relationship is the first step in breaking the downward spiral, and helping get your footing back on solid ground. If our primal needs for safety, comfort, reassurance and security had been met when we were small, we would feel safer as we opened our hearts and started to form emotional attachments with other people. But when these primal needs were not met or not met consistency, attachment triggers anxiety and abandonment, with an intensity equivalent to questioning our very survival. Important learnings are: 1. We are all human and many of us have unmet needs around attachment and security. 2. If we can get in touch with our own anxiety around intimacy and attachment, we can start to learn what our own inner child needs to be safe and secure. 3. If we feel frightened of someone else's anxiety or need for closeness, likely our own attachment fractures are coming to the surface to heal and transform. 4. The better able we are to have compassion for the scared, anxious inner part of us, be it the part that is afraid of being abandoned or the part that is afraid of being smothered, the better we can manage our own anxiety, whether we are the pursuer or the distanced. 5. The better we understand ourselves and our reactions, the more compassionate we can be with our partner and their reaction. 6. The better we know what we need, the more able we are to translate it into something doable in the here and now. If you tell someone, "I am feeling anxious and would feel a lot better if you held me for 5 minutes," that is giving them a doable task that can make a difference. It is also a contained task, so the distancer will not feel smothered. Learning the steps of the dance of intimacy takes courage, time and often good coaching. It is well worth the personal growth and relational effort to become skilled at this dance!

Women, Emotions and the Heart

In my work, the relationship of the emotional heart to the physical heart is very clear. When someone is sad, their heart might be heavy. When someone is happy, their heart might feel light. When someone is nervous, their heart might be tense. As someone feels emotional relief, the tension in their heart relaxes.

When a woman experiences stress, her brain speeds up and alot of blood flow goes to the emotional part of her brain. She's designed to be emotionally activated under stress. This leads to feelings and a need to talk about what she is feeling. If a woman does not talk about what she is feeling, her stress level goes up. If she has no one to hear her, is shut off from expressing her feelings by a listener who does not want to or cannot hear her, or she is unable to speak, her stress level continues to rise, and takes a toll on her physical heart, as well as her emotional heart.

One way women relieve emotional stress is by giving. Giving generates the hormone oxytocin, the love and bonding hormone, which reduces her stress level and helps her feel better. However, if a woman just gives and does not get replenished, she will burn out from giving without being nourished in turn.

Concord, MA cardiologist, Malissa Woods, recognizes the mind-body connection in preventing and healing heart disease for women, and has designed a program to help reduce heart disease in women using 'a breakthrough mind-body approach' that combines tradntional medicine with emotional balance.

Featured in the Boston Globe on January 29, Dr Woods has just published a new book, Smart at Heart, which outlines 'a holistic 10-step approach' to help prevent and heal heart disease. She oversees a study at the MGH Revere HealthCare Center whose participants are 'low-income, stress-laden' women. By joining together, and finding a safe place to share their stories and seek support, they also treat the "common risk factors for heart disease," which include depression, obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and sadly, low self-esteem.

Wood notes, "You're not going to exercise and eat right if your life is in shambles." Women need emotional support to sort out the obstacles in their lives so there is space to take care of themselves. Wood found that anxiety "permeated" the lives of most of the women in her study. "Surrounding yourself with people who have good habits" and building a strong social network is important for health and balance.

Mind-body practices like yoga, meditation and even mindful exercise help women listen to their emotional heart as well as care for their physical heart. Making small changes to your physical environment, like clearing a pile of old papers, can decrease emotional stress on your heart.

Women need emotional connection and expression, both with themselves and with others. Feeding emotional, spiritual and physical connection all contribute to a healthier female heart.