JOIN THE HEALING GIRL GANG

Are you secretly terrified he's going to meet someone better? Do you panic when he takes too long to text back? Does Valentine's Day send you into a spiral of "What if he doesn't get me anything?" anxiety? Girl, I see you with that anxious-avoidant relationship struggle—and I'm here to help you feel secure in yourself no matter what happens with your partner! 💕

Ready to Ditch the Relationship Anxiety For Good?

Honey, if you're DONE with the constant overthinking and ready to feel secure AF in your relationships, I've got you covered! Check out these game-changing resources:

💖 Healing Girl Gang: Your new sisterhood of support - JOIN NOW

💥 The Confidence Code: My signature program to heal anxious attachment from the inside out - TRANSFORM YOUR LOVE LIFE

🚀 Self-Sabotage Slay-Over: Stop getting in your own way - CLAIM YOUR POWER

💎 VIP 1:1 Coaching: Personalized support just for you - BOOK YOUR SESSION

Let's Keep This Healing Party Going! 🎉

• 📺 YouTube: Subscribe for Weekly Inspo
• 📸 Instagram: Join the Healing Fam
• 🎥 TikTok: More Healing Goodness

Your most secure, confident self is waiting. Let's make it happen, boo! 💜

The Uncomfortable Truth About Relationship Insecurity

Let's start with a little confession: if someone had approached the early-relationship-Claire and called me "insecure," I would have instantly gotten defensive (while trying to play it cool, of course). "Me? Insecure? Absolutely not!" 👑

But here's our little secret between you and me—it's completely normal to feel insecure in relationships, especially if you're anxiously attached and dating someone with avoidant tendencies. That push-pull dynamic can be absolutely maddening!

The irony? Many of us high-achieving women crush it in our careers—climbing corporate ladders, building businesses, collecting degrees and certifications—while secretly feeling like we're not enough in our relationships. We're terrified our partners will find someone better, younger, cuter, or somehow more worthy of their love and attention.

If you're nodding your head right now, know that you're not alone. And more importantly, you don't have to stay stuck in this painful cycle forever. There's a path to feeling genuinely secure, even with an avoidant partner—and it doesn't require changing them at all. (Plot twist!) 🙈

The Valentine's Day Litmus Test

With Valentine's Day just around the corner, I thought this would be the perfect time to talk about relationship security, because few holidays trigger relationship anxiety quite like this one!

What's fascinating is how my own approach to Valentine's Day has evolved over the years. In the early days with Craig (my husband), I would have been absolutely devastated if he didn't plan something special or get me the perfect gift. The holiday felt like a test of his love and commitment.

Fast forward to now—I'm literally going to BEG Craig not to get me anything for Valentine's Day! Maybe a 100 Grand candy bar (the one with the crispy rice outside and caramel inside, which I eat in a very specific weird way, by the way—tell me if you do this too!). But that's it. Seriously. ✨

This dramatic shift didn't happen because we got married or because the relationship changed on its own. It happened because I changed on the inside. I healed the root of my insecurities and anxious attachment, which completely transformed how I experience love and connection.

What I've come to realize is that I don't need one hyped-up, commercialized day to feel loved and appreciated. Instead, I notice and treasure all the small, everyday moments—like how Craig automatically opens the car door for me about 60% of the time, even at the grocery store. Those ordinary gestures mean so much more than any overpriced Valentine's Day dinner ever could.

When you're secure in yourself, every day can be Valentine's Day, because you're no longer desperately seeking validation through grand gestures and expensive gifts.

Self-Trust: The Foundation of Security

So how do you actually start feeling more secure when you're anxiously attached and with an avoidant partner? It begins with self-trust. 🤍

When I talk about self-trust, I'm not just talking about keeping promises to yourself or hitting arbitrary metrics (like getting 10,000 steps a day). I'm talking about something much deeper and more meaningful—how you hold a vision of your highest, most authentic self with love, grace, and compassion.

Do your actions support that vision? Are you showing up for yourself in nourishing, supportive ways that align with who you truly are?

This isn't about restriction or punishment. In fact, let me be super clear about something: I used to use tools like yoga and Pilates to make myself feel like s***. I wasn't approaching self-care from a place of love—I was using it as another way to prove my unworthiness. That's not self-trust; that's self-sabotage.

True self-trust is about lovingly supporting yourself, showing up for yourself consistently, and honoring your needs and boundaries. It's about treating yourself with the same care and compassion you'd offer your best friend or favorite client.

I recently challenged myself to go 30 days without caffeine—not because there was anything "wrong" with drinking coffee, but because I wanted to prove to myself that I could follow through on a commitment that mattered to me. This kind of healthy self-challenge builds the muscle of self-trust, which becomes the foundation for feeling secure in relationships.

Emotional Intimacy: With Yourself First, Then Your Partner

The second crucial element for feeling secure in an anxious-avoidant relationship is emotional intimacy—and it starts with yourself first. 💫

When I talk about emotional intimacy, I don't mean word-vomiting all your feelings onto your partner or using them as an emotional dumping ground. That's not vulnerability; that's overwhelming them with unprocessed emotions.

True emotional intimacy is about authentically sharing how you feel from a grounded, centered place. It's about opening yourself up to be seen—first by yourself, then by your partner.

Ask yourself:

• How honest am I being with my own emotions?
• Do I give space to feel and process what's happening inside me?
• Can I see and acknowledge my emotions without judgment or avoidance?
• Am I allowing myself to be transparent and clear with myself first?

Many of us anxiously attached folks struggle with emotional intimacy because we've been conditioned to prioritize our partner's feelings over our own. We become so focused on reading their emotional state that we lose touch with our own inner experience.

Learning to reconnect with your own emotional landscape is a game-changer for relationship security. When you can validate your own feelings first, you're no longer desperately seeking that validation from a partner who may struggle to provide it (especially if they're avoidant).

Challenging Your Negative Self-Talk

The third key element to feeling secure with an avoidant partner is developing the ability to challenge your negative self-talk. This skill is absolutely critical! 👏

When my clients transform from spiraling with anxiety every day to feeling genuinely secure in their relationships, it's because they've learned specific, tangible ways to challenge their internal dialogue. They've gotten better at asking themselves more empowering questions and honed their skills of healthy introspection.

Now, I know many high-achieving women would rate themselves pretty high on self-awareness initially. I certainly did! But then I had what I can only describe as a spiritual breakdown that showed me just how unaware I actually was. It was humbling, to say the least.

Here's how you know your current approach to self-talk isn't working: you're caught in cycles. Maybe you keep having the same fights with your partner. Maybe you keep attracting the same type of unavailable people. Or maybe, like I did, you "monkey bar" from relationship to relationship, thinking the problem is just that you haven't found the right person yet.

Here's the truth bomb: if you keep experiencing the same patterns, YOU are the common denominator. I had to get really clear that I needed to get my s*** together if I wanted things to change.

When I was at a breaking point with Craig (who was my boyfriend at the time, now my husband), I realized I had two choices: I could either leave him and eventually attract another avoidant partner, or I could figure my s*** out with him. Thankfully, I chose the latter path!

Changing your self-talk isn't just about positive affirmations or forcing yourself to "think happy thoughts." It's about developing a deeper awareness of your thought patterns, challenging your limiting beliefs, and learning to respond to your thoughts rather than react to them.

The Truth About Changing Your Partner (Spoiler: You Can't)

Let me share a quick insight from our mailbox question that I think is super relevant here. Samantha wrote in about constantly getting involved with emotionally unavailable men, particularly one who claimed to be secure but was actually "extremely dismissive avoidant." 🙊

She was focused on how her partner needed to change—how he needed to communicate better, how he needed to work on himself, how he needed to prove he could be different. Sound familiar?

Here's the hard truth: you cannot control or change your partner. Full stop. You cannot make an avoidant person secure through the sheer force of your will, love, or anxiety.

What you CAN control is yourself—how you respond to triggers, how you manage your anxiety, how you show up in the relationship, and ultimately, what you're willing to accept.

When I was doing my deepest healing work with Craig, something interesting happened. As I got clearer about who I was and what I needed to do to "get my s*** together," he felt the shift. He could sense that I was genuinely doing my work (not just talking about it), and he rose to meet me there.

But—and this is crucial—I wasn't doing my work to change him. I was doing it for ME. That authentic focus on my own growth created the space for him to choose his own growth, without pressure or manipulation.

Next Steps For The Anxious Girly

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

1. Do a self-trust audit by honestly assessing how well you follow through on commitments to yourself and how lovingly you approach self-care
2. Create a daily emotional check-in practice where you take 5 minutes to connect with and validate your own feelings
3. Start catching negative self-talk in real-time and challenge those thoughts with questions like "Is this actually true?" and "What would I tell my best friend in this situation?"
4. Join the Healing Girl Gang for community support and structured guidance on these practices 💖

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 feeling secure in an anxious-avoidant relationship (Valentine's Day edition)
• [0:53] Why it's hard to admit insecurity, especially for high-achievers
• [1:57] Claire's Valentine's Day perspective and how it's evolved over time
• [4:15] The everyday gestures that matter more than grand Valentine's Day celebrations
• [9:29] The first key to feeling secure: developing genuine self-trust
• [12:44] The second key: cultivating emotional intimacy with yourself first
• [14:29] The third key: learning to challenge negative self-talk
• [16:05] How to know if you're stuck in a cycle that needs breaking
• [18:23] Mailbox Q&A about continuously attracting unavailable partners
• [22:34] Why focusing on changing your partner keeps you stuck

Related Posts You'll Love:

• Spot Hyper Independence Triggers in Your Relationship
• From Anxious to Engaged: How My Clients Found Secure Love
• When You Want More Effort From Your Partner (But It's Actually About You)
• Feeling Like You're Doing All the Work in Your Relationship? Here's Why
• Stopping the Systemic Self Sabotage and Relationship Anxiety

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! 💫