EP 246: Break Through Intimacy Blocks with Jasmine

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">This call is about overcoming a desire for control to feel safe. Today’s caller, Jasmine, is wondering why she has a strange relationship with her boyfriend and her sister and why she sabotages her work experience. What it comes down to is an issue with control and fear of intimacy created to protect herself due to her early experiences with an emotionally unavailable parent.</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">[For show notes go here:</span> <a href="http://christinehassler.com/episode-246"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Christinehassler.com/episode246</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">]</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">During a time when we feel out of control or too controlled we develop a compensatory strategy of ‘I have to be in control of everything to protect myself to avoid intimacy.’</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Attachment styles are developed based on our early experiences in relationships. In the avoidant attachment style, we avoid or fear emotional intimacy because usually had a parent who was aloof, emotionally removed, unaffectionate, rejecting, or not attuned to our childhood emotional needs.</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Maybe the parent provided food and shelter but children need affection and nurturing as well. When a child doesn’t have emotional availability or affection they can develop an avoidant attachment style. In adulthood, this can show up as being extremely independent and self-directed, controlling, and often uncomfortable with intimacy.</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Those with an avoidant attachment style often get the rap of being commitment-phobes but it’s more that they have difficulty with commitment. They either rationalize themselves out of deep intimacy or they have certain complaints when in a relationship.</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Grounding ourselves in the present moment and breathwork