Words Needed to Know:
- Mental representation
- Object permanence
For the last two weeks we have been identifying our patterns and relations to love. We’ve assessed our levels of anxiety and avoidance and the breakdown of how our predispositions influence our thoughts and actions through whichever of the four attachment/relationship styles we fall into. Today we will take a look at the ones we love. Why are we attracted to them? What is it about them that makes us feel the feelings we do? In some cases, why is it so difficult to “let go” of someone? Let’s start off with an exercise. When you get a chance (preferably prior to reading the rest od this post), ponder on the following questions and reflect on them in your journal. Who have you been the most happiest with? When having a bad day, who would you like to confide in? Who is the person who has made you feel most loved? Safest? Offered the most comfort? What is your current status with this person today? How do you feel about it? Would you like for this status to change in any way, if so, what would you like to be different? Next, after writing responses to these questions, do a free write to this person. Write your thoughts and feelings down addressed to them. In your free write, write three things you love about them and most importantly, express gratitude to God for the gift that they have been in your life. This exercise may be an arduous task—whether this person is active or inactive in our lives, emotions can be aroused from engaging with this. But a universal takeaway from completing this exercise is that whoever this person is, they might just be your attachment figure.
One of the gifts of relationships is that of the attachment system. The attachment system is not only our worldview of how we relate to others, it is also composed of the network of relationships we form throughout our lives. Within these systems we form needed bonds with special people who offer things we need. These people are known as attachment figures. In the 1950s and 60s, psychoanalyst John Bowlby’s theories on attachment systems led him to conclude that babies and younger children relied on reassurance for survival. His theory states that children depend on a “stronger” and “wiser” person to care for them. When a child forms a bond with someone (typically a caregiver and overwhelmingly these attachment figures in early childhood are women), they seek that person’s presence for safety, reassurance, warmth, comfort, and emotional availability. When a child does not receive these things from the person they need them from, they become distressed and they panic. Fear sets in and they cry until they are physically reassured by being picked up or receive some form of physical touch from the person they are looking for. At the time he theorized this, Bowlby was rejected by the psychological community because parenting was taught differently; mothers were taught to be distant, cold, and not to “baby” their children when they cried. For the last 75 years children have been raised in similar ways and Bowlby’s nurturing approach to child rearing—not striking children, consoling children whenever they cry, expressing your own emotions to your children—still seem foreign.
The challenge for children and their attachment figure is separation. In early childhood children are in the object permanence stage—the only things that are real to them are things they can see. If they cannot see it, whatever it is slips from their minds. A perfect example of this is from earlier this week in my class. The morning activity was for my students to draw a picture of a friend they made in the classroom. But I had a new student who was in distress because he was new to school; he cried for roughly 20 minutes because he missed his cousin. Since he was new to class, I told him to draw a picture of his cousin to calm him down. He responded after a few failed attempts, “I can’t. I don’t know what she looks like.” Children have powerful imaginations, but they are also limited to what they can see. When I was around four years old I had a terrible case of separation anxiety with my mom. I didn’t want to be without her and whenever she’d drop me off at daycare I made a scene. I experienced high levels of distress and in the mind of a four-year old, anxiety runs rampant—“she’s leaving me forever,”does she love me anymore? Why is she leaving?” “I won’t ever see her again.” Object permanence is why children act in certain ways when a parent leaves them. The best way to calm these fears and in ways help children overcome their separation anxiety is to give them a physical reminder of you. My mom gave me a wallet sized picture of her I kept with me at daycare and she told me to look at it whenever I missed her. And it helped greatly. The mind of children do not work like the mind of adults at all. Sometimes seeing is believing.
Attachment figures for adults, thankfully, do not operate in the same way. Our imaginations are not like children’s—they are not as vivid and as liberating as they used to be, but they also are not limited. Typically, in childhood mothers are every human’s primary attachment figure, but over time that can change. As we grow and form new relationships, we can find things that even our parents cannot offer. In adulthood most attachment figures are romantic, but they do not always have to be. Attachment figures can be anyone— a sibling, your best l friend, your therapist, and God. (He’s the ultimate attachment figure.) We meet someone and fall in love because there is something we find in that person—reassurance, attentiveness. mindfulness, support, and we depend on that person. No matter what it is we seek, all viable and sure attachment figures will offer three things:
- Proximity— all attachment figures have to be close. For children their attachment figure has to be someone they are constantly around physically. It is almost impossible for a child to form an attachment figure with someone they cannot see because their minds do not operate in that way. Their needs for survival are at this stage solely physical. In adults, this is not so. Adults have a “superpower” that children do not yet possess—mental representation. Mental representation is the ability to picture someone even when they are not physically present. It is the ability to see what is not there and when we are distressed, this has been proven to help soothe adults. This is the equivalent of the wallet sized picture I used to carry as a child. When you miss someone who is not physically present, it helps to create a mental representation of this person and remember why you love them and what they mean to you. Attachment figures for adults do not have to be physically close, this comes from shared experiences that have made a lasting impression on us. The impact a person has can be strong, and in ways soothing, even when they are not around. Most importantly, we strive to keep these people close. That is why we cannot seem to let go of them.
- Safe Haven— attachment figures are protective. They make you feel safe. You can tell them about your bad day at work and you can rely on them being attentive to detail, caring, and interested in what goes on in your life. When in trouble, they are the first human you want to go to. They offer safety in other ways—you can confess to them, they pray for you, they seek the good for you, they support and, encourage you. When life is threatening, you have usually been able to depend on them for comfort and security that everything will turn out fine.
- Secure Base— When we feel support and safety, when we trust that this person loves us, we become more secure in what we do and who we are. This gives you the inspiration and motivation to pursue things outside of the relationship like career development, exploration, and even self discovery. Once we feel safe that the attaxhment figure we formed will be there for us, we live a little bit differently. We begin to fulfill dreams and desires we have been wanting. Sometimes the boost we need to become who we truly are is to hear, “I support you, so go for it.”
Chances are the person from the opening exercise has offered all three to you in some way. No, their love has not been perfect and sure, better chocoes could have been made, but we love as best we can with where we are. In the same token we receive and accept love as best we can with where we are. Upon doing research for this post, I’ve come to realize that there is a crucial difference between an attachment figure and a soul tie. There are many complicated explanations for what a soul tie is, but what I am most comfortable with is that a soul tie is a relationship to someone or something that replaces your relationship with God. The two signs of a soul tie are: you confess and believe in your heart that something other than Jesus is the primary object of your devotion, and secondly, there is a sense of hopelessness that you cannot live without this connection. Everything else, is too much in my opinion. A relationships with any god is built on confession and trust and ultimately, hope. Where is your hope placed? That hints at who your God is. If you would like a deeper look at what a soul tie is read Numbers 25 at some point. It’s a rather disturbing story, just to forewarn you. The lesson I’ve come to realize is that relationships require discipline and discernment to truly know what season you are in and what you are supposed to be faithful over. My therapist is not too fond of the term “soul tie” because the term has been over saturated and used when relationships go south. In addition to that the term is used prominently amongst Christians in a negative sense, when in actuality what is being seen between two people is their playing out their attachment styles and patterns. It is too easy to be mishandled and misdiagnosed spiritually. My therapist also told me they suggest to their clients to be careful allowing everyone to label your life:
“Attachment figures get mistaken for soul ties because overly spiritualized people see the world through a lens where they want to seem knowledgeable and faithful. There is a fine and dangerous line between faithfulness and conceitedness. Tread lightly. Sometimes the wisest thing to say is, ‘I don’t know.’ They end up going down a road they weren’t supposed to—the hard road but God promised never to leave nor forsake, so He is willing to travel down the wrong road with us to get us back on the narrow way. Attachment figures aren’t people you let go of; sure, you can always afford to loosen your grip. But people wonder why they are in constant states of fear and anxiety, they adopt what labels people place on them and live a “faithful” life to those labels. Tra, don’t let anyone label your life or tell you what’s in your heart.”
I will leave us with an informal exercise. Practice gratitude for the people in your life. Tell someone you love them, and why you do. They deserve it. And you deserve to know that God is not calling you to misery. We tend to move around way too much and listen to too many “sages” and “wise people” in our fears when the ultimate measure of faith is our stillness in the storm. Allow God to work all things for your good and trust the story. Trust God’s sovereignty and goodness and do not mistake His voice for the voice of fear that tells us to run. Isn’t that the story of Adam and Eve? The people in our lives are literally once in a lifetime. Cherish them.
Until next time, continue to stay guided by grace,
Tra
Guided by Grace 