You Are Worth Staying With

This time of year is always reflective for me. Something about the quality of the light and the chill in the air moves me to sit in my favorite coffee shop and journal about my year and everything that I’ve learned. And this year was another doozy, wasn’t it? We have been through it collectively and individually.

I’ve spent quite a bit of my relational life working to earn love from others. I didn’t know it for a long time, but I became really good at figuring out what people were looking for in a partner, in a friend—in whatever role I was playing, really—and I learned how to meet those needs REALLY well and without them even asking. It allowed me to feel important, special, and most importantly, loved (hello, fellow Enneagram 2s! I see you!).

The Joys of Secure Attachment

If you’ve been doing attachment work in any capacity, you already know that our collective goal is to work toward a greater sense of security. Even those of us with secure attachment have the opportunity to bring more awareness to our interactions and be the safe, secure base for many people in our families and communities.

Taking Care of Your Attachment System

In my last blog post of the year, I want to explore how we can care for our attachment systems. We have collectively been thrown into phases of avoidant, anxious, and disorganized attachment this year—we’ve locked down, craved connection and community, as well as become fearful (rightfully so) of potential exposure to illness.

How to Tell an Avoidant Person That They're Avoidant

This blog post has been highly requested and I’m happy to share some insight into this tricky dynamic and shed some light on why it can be challenging to have conversations about our attachment styles in the beginning stages of learning about attachment theory—especially if we have an attachment style that is designed to protect us and reduce the impact of interactions that cause us to feel out of control or overwhelmed. Of course, this doesn’t mean the conversation won’t be uncomfortable (it probably will be to some degree), but remember that the emotional response from the person is more about their own experiences and less about you.

A Conversation with The Breakup Therapist

Y’all, I am so excited about the blog this week. As a proponent of healthy relationships, I am also a proponent of healthy breakups—because breakups are part of the relationship continuum. Sometimes after digging in to the personal and relationship work, we might realize that we have come to the end of a partnership (note: this comes back to the idea that the work in relationships may not have the outcome we were hoping for). This realization can be painful or liberating or unimaginable (or any combination of those emotions) and to me, it’s really important that we navigate this part of the relationship in a way that allows for dignity for ourselves and our partner.

Are you a good partner?

We are usually not taught how to be in relationship with other people, at least not explicitly. Our learning comes from our experiences—and until we are actually in a romantic partnership, we don’t know how to do it. We learn as we go.

Many of us have a tendency to focus on what our partner isn’t doing rather than what we could be doing better or differently to improve our relationship(s). When we focus on what isn’t happening, we aren’t bringing our best selves to the partnership.

Relationships Are Everything

The title of this blog comes from adrienne maree brown, the author of Emergent Strategy. Her words are like a hug from someone who tells it to you so directly that there is no way to misinterpret their words. You trust their opinion and value their experience and know you are in the presence of someone powerful. That’s how I feel about adrienne.

As I stepped back this weekend and took inventory of my life and relationships (to my favorite beings, projects, spaces, and communities), I realized that in sharing my belief that we are here to take care of each other, I want to be incredibly specific about what that means.

What Do You Appreciate About Your Partner?

This time of year, there is a lot of talk about gratitude. I love that we are having this conversation and it makes me sad that we don’t extend our appreciation of this practice to other times of the year. Gratitude has also become a buzz word and when that happens, we hear it but it doesn’t really land anymore. It becomes part of the noise in social media that we scroll through without much thought.

Elizabeth GilletteNovember 19, 2018relationships, partnerships, attachment styles, heirloom counseling, growth, connectionComment

Nonmonogamy and Attachment

Relationship structures continue to evolve. As people become more conscious and aware of how they show up in relationships and the work good relationships require, I see folks becoming more creative in the ways they get their needs met and how they meet their partners needs. The concept of nonmonogamy is not new by any means, but the words “open relationship” and “polyamory” are making their way into mainstream conversations about love, attachment, and partnership more and more often.

The Anxious-Avoidant Dynamic in Sexual Relationships with Jamie Brazell (Part 3)

We are back this week with the final piece of the Sex & Attachment Interview Series with Jamie Brazell! We are continuing our conversation about the anxious-avoidant relationship pattern, and Jamie is providing some tools and resources she offers to her clients when they are coping with this dynamic.

The Anxious-Avoidant Dynamic in Sexual Relationships with Jamie Brazell (Part 2)

This week, we are diving right into the anxious-avoidant relationship pattern--one of the most common challenges partners face--and how it shows up in sexual and intimate relationships. Even the mild form of this dynamic can be incredibly frustrating and upsetting in relationships, and I believe it's important for us to look out for how it shows up in our own relationships (and how we engage in it personally)…

Sex and Attachment Interview Series with Jamie Brazell: Part 1

I feel so lucky to have had the opportunity to talk with Jamie Brazell, M. Ed., LMFT, CST in this first interview about Sex & Attachment. During this first piece, we are talking about the work Jamie does, the different variables that can impact intimacy, and the importance of flexibility in relationships…

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