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 Are you spiraling every time they don't text back? Do you intellectualize your triggers by Googling relationship advice at 2am? Do you pride yourself on never showing weakness even when you're falling apart inside? Girl, you're making classic anxious attachment mistakes—and I'm here to help you break these patterns once and for all! 💕

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The Perfectionistic Path to Relationship Anxiety

Let's start with some real talk: if you're a high-achieving, perfectionist girlie who's killing it in your career but struggling with relationship anxiety, you're probably WAY too hard on yourself. 👑

Before we dive into the specific mistakes, I want you to take a deep breath and remember that healing is about gentleness and acceptance—not perfection. This doesn't mean letting yourself off the hook, but it does mean approaching your patterns with compassion rather than criticism.

As a recovering perfectionist myself, I know how easy it is to hyper-fixate on what isn't working and beat yourself up for "still being triggered." But that approach only reinforces the anxious patterns we're trying to heal! True transformation happens when we can look at our mistakes with curiosity and love instead of judgment.

And trust me, as someone who has made ALL of these mistakes (multiple times, with multiple partners!), I know exactly how these patterns feel from the inside. I've spiraled, intellectualized, avoided, and controlled my way through relationships for years—and I've learned what actually works to break these cycles.

Mistake #1: Thinking You Can't Show Weakness

The first major mistake high-achievers make with anxious attachment is believing we can't show vulnerability or weakness. This runs DEEP for so many of us! 🙈

If you've built your identity around excellence, achievement, and having it all together, the idea of showing your partner that you're anxious, scared, or triggered feels absolutely terrifying. It's like you've been conditioned to believe that showing vulnerability equals losing value.

I see this all the time with my clients—they come to our first call with their buttons so tight, trying to maintain composure while talking about their deepest relationship fears. Inevitably, the dam breaks because we simply can't keep all those emotions locked inside forever.

What ends up happening? When we can't express our vulnerability in healthy ways, it often comes out as:

• Emotional explosions after bottling things up too long
• Word vomit texts or calls that you later regret
• Physical symptoms like anxiety attacks or insomnia
• Passive-aggressive behavior when you can't say what you really feel

The irony is that showing authentic vulnerability is actually the path to deeper connection—not the weakness we fear it to be. When we pretend we're fine when we're not, we're building relationships on a foundation of inauthenticity that can't sustain real intimacy.

Mistake #2: Trying to Control Your Environment

The second major mistake is trying to manage or control your environment to avoid triggers instead of actually healing them. This is SO sneaky because it can look like "self-care" on the surface! ✨

One common version of this is declaring, "I'm taking time for myself and not dating right now" immediately after being triggered or rejected. Now, let me be crystal clear—intentionally choosing singleness for genuine self-discovery is beautiful and necessary! But there's a huge difference between:

• Aligned choice: "I'm choosing to be single because I want to develop a stronger relationship with myself first"
• Avoidance reaction: "I'm not dating because OUCH that rejection hurt and I need to control my environment to avoid feeling that again"

How can you tell the difference? Be radically honest with yourself about your motivation. If you're choosing singleness from a triggered, reactive state rather than a regulated, intentional one, you're probably just avoiding the work.

The tell-tale sign? People who are avoiding rather than healing often jump back into dating within weeks or months—before any real internal transformation has occurred. I know because I've done this myself! The pattern becomes: get triggered → withdraw → feel better → try again → get triggered... and round and round we go.

Mistake #3: Jumping From One Relationship to the Next

Speaking of patterns—the third mistake is what I call "relationship hopping" or, as I like to say about my 20s, "monkey-barring" from one partner to the next. 🐒

This was essentially my entire dating strategy throughout my twenties. I would stay in relationships even as they were disintegrating, only leaving when I had the next relationship lined up. Why? Because being alone felt unbearable. Sitting with myself and my emotions? Absolutely not!

Relationship hopping is a classic anxious attachment strategy because it ensures you never have to face the discomfort of being with yourself or processing the lessons from your previous relationship. You're essentially using new relationships as band-aids for old wounds.

The problem is, without that crucial space between relationships, you never:

• Process what went wrong in the previous relationship
• Identify your patterns and triggers
• Heal the underlying wounds driving your anxious attachment
• Develop a secure sense of self outside of relationships

When I finally recognized this pattern with Craig (now my husband), I realized I was at a crossroads: either sit with the discomfort of vulnerability and do the deep work, or break up and start the cycle all over again with someone new. I chose the harder but infinitely more rewarding path of growth.

Mistake #4: Intellectualizing Your Emotions

The fourth mistake—and this is a big one for my high-achieving girlies—is intellectualizing your triggers instead of feeling them. 🧠

You know you're intellectualizing when you get triggered and immediately:

• Start Googling "anxious attachment solutions" at 2am
• Listen to 17 relationship podcasts in a row
• Analyze every detail of the interaction looking for "what went wrong"
• Create elaborate theories about your partner's psychology
• Try to "figure it out" with your mind rather than feel it in your body

Here's the hard truth that took me years to learn: you cannot think your way out of an emotional trigger. In fact, all that intellectualizing is like pouring gasoline on the fire of your anxiety. It gives you the illusion of control while actually amplifying your stress response.

This mistake is particularly common for academically successful women because our analytical skills have been rewarded our entire lives. We think, "If I just study hard enough, I can solve this relationship problem too!" But emotions don't work that way—they need to be felt, processed, and moved through the body, not analyzed to death.

The moment you catch yourself falling into this pattern, it's a signal to stop, breathe, and drop into your body instead of staying stuck in your head.

The Real Path Forward: Radical Honesty & Discomfort

So what's the actual solution to these common mistakes? It starts with radical honesty about your patterns and a willingness to sit with discomfort. 💖

The truth is, nobody is coming to save you from this work. Not your partner, not another relationship, not even me! You have to be willing to look at your patterns with clear eyes and ask yourself: "How much longer can I really keep going like this?"

For me, this moment came with Craig. I realized I was either going to figure it out with him by doing the uncomfortable inner work, or we'd break up and I'd attract someone else and start all over again—still avoiding the deeper healing I needed.

The choice to change isn't about your partner—it's about YOU. You have to change for you, period. Because what we don't change, we choose (by default). You can do all the hot girl walks and meditations you want, but if you're not addressing these fundamental patterns, nothing will truly shift.

As Einstein famously said, doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results is the definition of insanity. Real change requires new choices, even when (especially when) they feel uncomfortable.

Next Steps For The Anxious Girly

If you resonated with this episode (and I know you did, boo!), here are your next steps:

1. Practice intentional vulnerability with someone safe—start small by expressing a need or feeling you'd normally hide
2. Notice when you're controlling your environment instead of processing your emotions, and choose to feel instead
3. Give yourself spaciousness between relationships to process, heal, and grow into yourself
4. Join the Healing Girl Gang for our April training all about repairing relationship triggers 🥰

Remember, healing isn't linear. No effort is wasted! You're exactly where you need to be on your journey to becoming secure. And trust me when I say that the peace on the other side is SO worth it.

Key Moments in This Episode

• [0:00] Introduction to common anxious attachment mistakes and the importance of gentleness
• [0:55] Why high-achievers need to approach healing through the lens of love, not criticism
• [2:01] Claire's background working with high-performing, anxious girlies
• [4:00] The revelation about ADHD, masking, and how we all hide our authentic selves
• [6:34] The perfectionistic tendencies of high-achievers and how they impact relationship anxiety
• [9:33] Mistake #1: Believing we can't show weakness or vulnerability
• [10:58] How suppressed emotions eventually explode or manifest in unhealthy ways
• [11:32] Mistake #2: Trying to control your environment instead of facing triggers
• [12:29] The difference between aligned choices and avoidance reactions
• [14:15] Mistake #3: Jumping from one relationship to the next without processing
• [16:00] Mistake #4: Intellectualizing emotions instead of feeling them

Related Posts You'll Love:

• Am I Triggered or Am I Right? And How to Tell the difference!
• The Instant Fix for Anxious Attachment Triggers (That Actually Works)
• From Anxious to Engaged: How My Clients Found Secure Love
• When You Want More Effort From Your Partner (But It's Actually About You)
• How to feel Secure in your Anxious with an Avoidant Relationship Valentine's Edition!

Remember gorgeous, your healing journey is unique. Be gentle with yourself, and know that you're never alone in this process. The Healing Girl Gang has your back! 💫