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hey guys heidi preeve here first of all welcome to my channel if you are new on this channel we talk about all things personality types as well as attachment theory and basically any system that helps us understand both ourselves and
Heidi Priebe explains what to do after you mess up during attachment healing: notice the reaction, pause, name the problem, take responsibility, and rebuild trust with action.
Key Takeaways
- Noticing a bad reaction is real progress in attachment healing, not a failure.
- Pause and name the problem before apologizing, and document the situation honestly.
- Effective repair combines genuine remorse, understanding of the root cause, and a realistic action plan agreed upon with the other person.
What the video covers
- Attachment healing inevitably involves making mistakes, and becoming aware of past hurts can be a mixed blessing.
- Step one is stopping and noticing when you are reacting from past emotional wounds rather than the present situation, and congratulating yourself for the awareness.
- Step two is taking a beat: communicate that you need time to calm down rather than rushing into an apology.
- Write down what happened without filtering or self-judgment, treating it as data, and identify resources such as therapy, support groups, or journaling.
- Apologies without a genuine intent to change are at best remorse and at worst manipulation; a good apology includes understanding and an action plan.
- Take a 360-degree view of the situation, including the other person's experience, and work with them to build safety in the relationship.
- Set boundaries with yourself and develop self-regulation skills, identifying triggers and planning alternative behaviors.
- Unpack the root of the reaction, such as childhood environments that taught you explosive conflict was the only way to get needs met.
- Shame and self-berating can block growth; progress is measured by increasing awareness, even if mistakes continue.
- Repair in relationships is ongoing and requires consistent, realistic action rather than idealized promises.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction and Channel Overview
- 01:10Why Mistakes Are Part of Attachment Healing
- 02:22Step 1: Stop and Notice Your Reaction
- 03:35Step 2: Take a Beat and Find Support
- 05:29Step 3: Making a Genuine Apology and Repair
- 07:48Step 4: Setting Boundaries and Self-Regulation
- 08:27Unpacking the Root of the Reaction
- 10:18Closing Thoughts
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
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other people better as well as sorry my light is doing this thing where it's just like strobe lighting on its own i guess it's just going to do that in and out of this video like it just kind of
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it just kind of flashes into like a softer light and then back into an electric one i don't know what it's doing and i'm also too lazy to fix it so the light is gonna be chaotic through this video i apologize anyway what we
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talk about on this channel is not just how to understand ourselves and others but how to bridge those gaps so that we can have healthier and happier relationships and today i want to talk about something really important but
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rarely discussed which is what to do when you have let's say gotten hijacked by an emotional flashback or had a tough moment with your attachment style where you blew up at someone or where you neglected to deal with someone's
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emotions in a way that really hurt the other person i think that so many of us just default to shame and hiding ourselves away and trying to kind of push everything under the rug once we realize that we have done something bad
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or that we have lost control of our emotions in some way and i want to use this video to provide a better alternative to that because it absolutely will happen as you move through the attachment healing process no questions asked not only will you get
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new things wrong as you learn new responses but you will also become much more aware than you ever have been of how many things you have been getting wrong or how many ways in which you have accidentally been hurting people that
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you might not have been aware of until you started the attachment healing process so in that way healing can be a very mixed blessing earlier this year i guess last year i did a video called what to do when you realize that you are
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the toxic person and i do not like the term toxic person i don't think that's a thing but what we talked a lot about in that video was what to do when your own sense of shame gets in the way of you
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behaving kindly and fairly towards other people and so this is kind of what this is going to be about as well what to do in the situations where you realize that your own ego or perhaps your own dysregulated emotional system got in the
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way of you considering other people's needs and feelings so i'm just gonna dive into it so step number one is simply stopping and noticing that you have behaved badly and that you have noticed it now this sounds too simple
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but it's actually a really incredible step when you start to notice and become mindful of the fact that you are not operating from a present state so what i mean by a present state is that it is totally fine to have emotions right i am
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not in any situation trying to kind of convince people to zen themselves out of feeling anything i believe in fully feeling things and i also believe in expressing our emotions but there are times and there are frequent times when
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we are doing attachment healing work where we become aware of the fact that we have reacted to a present situation with emotions from the past so maybe there is a certain need we had neglected very commonly as a child that now we
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just want our partners to read our minds and always know when we need it attended to and we get really mad at them anytime they aren't able to properly mind read we might be really quick to blow up or
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maybe we get upset with our partners for not giving us enough space when we never set explicit boundaries with them so there are situations where we are reacting to things from the past as if they are happening in the present
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without considering the actual context of the present moment and if you are able to recognize that that's what's happening to you in this moment you are already much further along than you used to be because most of us when we're
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insecurely attached go our entire lives reacting to things from the past and the present and thinking that they are accurate representations of the present the fact that you are aware of the fact that that is what you're doing means you
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are now aware of where you have a blind spot so you're now able to kind of trace the situation back and look at which things might lead you to a place where you are not tuned into the present
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moment and where your ability to reason and make rational decisions is being impacted so it's kind of ironic because before we're able to do this we might live in a state of blissful ignorance where we get to blame all of our
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problems on other people where we get to make these projections and live in the righteous anger of them and it feels on some level pretty good to do that right feeling righteously angry is this terrible feeling it's terrible for the
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soul but it's great for the ego but once you are able to put that righteous anger down and recognize i'm not reacting appropriately to this situation the first thing that might come to your mind is like oh i'm such a piece of crap oh
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i'm doing my thing again oh i'm never going to get this right so self-berating thoughts are likely to follow that awareness but ironically you are actually taking the first step out of your old reaction patterns and that is a
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wonderful thing right so actually i want to as much as possible encourage you to actually congratulate yourself in those moments if you have caught yourself in a bad reaction it means that you have necessarily made progress because you
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have a new level of awareness developing right you used to be acting badly and not know that you're acting badly now you're acting badly and knowing you're acting badly the next step of course is acting in a way that is situation
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appropriate and being aware that you're acting in a way that's situation appropriate but you can't get there without being where you currently are right it's a rung on the ladder so don't beat yourself up for being here you are
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taking a necessary step towards the next step now step two take a beat and find the help you need you might not always be able to source the help that you need right away so i don't know if you're
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watching this video five minutes after blowing up at someone let's say or two weeks after having a reaction to something that you're only now realizing hmm maybe that wasn't about the thing that i thought it was about at the time
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but what i want to encourage you to do actually is do not move directly to apologies move directly to communicating what you need so if you're in a conflict situation with someone and you start to realize ooh i'm having a really strong
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fight or flight response that i don't think it's going to be helpful if i continue this interaction in that state you can tell the other person i need a beat i need an hour or 24 hours or whatever it is that you truly need to
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calm back down and return to yourself but in that time rather than rushing into a fond response as soon as you realize that you've done something wrong name the problem and try to be as accurate as possible write down
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everything that happened with absolutely no filtering lying or omitting what happened and look at it as data do not judge yourself do not try to pick yourself apart just figure out exactly what you're working with get it all
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recorded somewhere and then figure out what resource you're going to need to access in order to help you make sense of it you could bring the experience into a 12-step group you could bring it into the therapy room you could journal
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about it you could find books or resources for helping you navigate the difficult emotions that you were going through but until you can name it and you can name it as accurately as possible it's going to be very difficult
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for you to understand what needs to happen differently in order for you to not react in that same way and before you know what has to happen differently in order for the behavior to stop you should not be offering apologies because
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apologies without a genuine intent to change and do things differently in the future are at best simply an expression of remorse but at worst manipulations because you're kind of going to someone and saying hey i realize that i did
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something badly i'm going to behave differently in the future but if you know in your gut that you are kind of out of control of that response it's probably a lie for you to tell someone that you're going to do things
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differently in the future so this leads me to point number three which is that absolutely it is great to apologize when we have done something wrong but make sure your apologies are measured and honest so do not over promise
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particularly when we have attachment wounding we are dealing with very deeply ingrained patterns that we've probably been operating out of from the time we were a newborn infant it takes more time than one bad fight and a 10 minute
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period of reflection for us to be able to go back and rewire that way of operating often it takes years but what people tend to think is if i behave badly i absolutely have to promise to do something drastically different in order
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to save the relationship but what you're going to end up doing if you do not have a truly holistic solution to that problem in a given moment is lead someone on into thinking that it's not going to happen again if it is a
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behavior that comes from a place of deep wounding is likely to happen again so the way to make an apology and i might make a whole video just on this is by taking a 360 degree view of the
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situation and being able to show it to the other person so that they understand which boundaries they might need to draw in order to keep your relationship healthy now this might be difficult to do it might feel like you are losing out
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on a part of a relationship that feels really important to you but the thing to keep in mind is that boundaries both that we place with other people and that other people place with us actually allow our relationship to flourish right
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because if you're constantly in conflict in a way that is not getting you anywhere it's not pushing your relationship forward it is pushing you further away from where you want to be so what you want to do if you're ready
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to apologize and take ownership over behaviors you've done that have affected someone else is be completely and totally honest when you give that apology so you can express remorse tell them that you see how your behavior affected them or hurt them and that you
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feel very deep pain over it that in retrospect you wish you had acted differently but also you are dealing with an attachment wound or with unresolved trauma or with some aspect of your psychology that you do not yet have
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resolved and you can work with the other person to talk about which types of situations tend to trigger you in that way how you might be able to put some kind of safety cones in your relationship so that you know if there's
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a difficult conversation you need to have you're going to be able to have it without certain triggers definitely going off for you and what you really have to be willing to do at this step is acknowledge what you have not yet healed
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from and that does not mean that you have to feel shame over it if anything it is an incredibly adult and responsible thing to be aware of which wounds are still active in you and set interpersonal boundaries that keep your
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relationship safe from the fallout of those wounds so as strong as the temptation might be to go to someone and say this is never going to happen again if you do that enough times in a row and it keeps happening again and again what
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you're going to do is lose that person's trust if you go to someone and say i don't want this to ever happen again which is probably 100 true but it might here's why can we talk about how to set some boundaries in our
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relationships and in the way that we respond to conflict that decrease the likelihood of this happening again or happening consistently and i guarantee you that type of apology particularly if this is a pattern of behavior is probably going to be a lot more soothing
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to the other person than an apology with no action plan behind it or with an idealized or unrealistic action plan behind it what people want is to know that they will be emotionally safe in their relationships right so if you can
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provide them with an opportunity to interact with the truth and people know when they're interacting with the truth they can feel it you know that is showing them a great deal of respect it is offering them the opportunity to set
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boundaries for themselves that will allow your relationship to stay intact and that is a process of both honoring yourself and the other person and that's a really special thing to do in relationships it's a building block for trust so as intimidating as it might
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feel and as much as you might want to go directly into fawn response after you've done something that you perceive to be wrong try not to if you can help it because the fawn response is just another part of the fight or flight
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system that's activated and usually our fighter flight or fauna freeze responses are only helpful for getting us out of short-term high-intensity situations they're not as helpful when it comes to long-term relationship building that's when we really need to use our critical
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thinking skills our self-awareness skills and being able to communicate to someone what we're dealing with and how we plan to go about it in a way that does not harm our relationship again is the epitome of using those higher level
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thinking skills that ultimately help us quite a bit more in the long run so step number four is something that actually you could do before step three maybe this should have been step three but it's set boundaries with yourself and be
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as realistic about those boundaries as you were with the other person so if you tell yourself i'm never going to behave like this again i'm never going to get angry like that again i am never going to reject or be cruel towards my partner
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like that again it's possible you're idealizing the situation right you are thinking about how you will behave in a high pressure intense situation at a time when you are in a low pressure situation and you are feeling regulated
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you have to be aware that there is a difference between your triggered activated self and your untriggered regulated self and you have to find ways to set boundaries around your own behavior accounting for the fact that you probably will get that triggered
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again it is highly likely i would say almost guaranteed that if you have consistently dealt with triggers over the course of your life recognizing that you're triggered one time does not mean that you will never have a trigger again
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it probably means you're developing great self-awareness and that you're going to be able to start working with those triggers more consistently but it definitely does not mean that you will never have that happen again so if you choose to you can use this experience as
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data to help you unpack what brought that trigger on how you can avoid that trigger in the future or if it goes off what you will do instead of the behavior that you want to avoid so i have certain
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triggers where i know that if they get to a certain threshold and i'm interacting with someone and i'm trying to solve the problem interpersonally rather than attending to the trigger itself first and foremost i will almost definitely get very angry in a very
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unproductive way i think anger can be a great tool for resolving situations but often when we're triggered and we're reacting to a past situation in the present that is not the time to express our anger because we'll be expressing a
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type of unresolvable anger and that's often at least for me a sign that you are dealing with a trauma trigger rather than having a true genuine anger response to the situation that you're in so for myself i know that when i get
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that feeling of insatiable anger where the problem that's in the present getting solved would not stop the anger i need to leave the situation i need to go be on my own i need to be in a different room i need to read or run or
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do something that is going to help me calm my physiological state down and that is a boundary i have with myself i will not continue to interact with someone once i'm triggered do i always follow that boundary perfectly no but am
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i capable of following it enough of the time that it has made a significant positive improvement in my close relationships absolutely so step four of this process is unpacking what happened in a situation where you behaved in a
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way you're not proud of in order to figure out what triggers might have been present and how you can set a boundary around that trigger for yourself in the future step number five and this might not be what you're expecting but it is
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probably the most important part of the process figure out which ways this behavior has been or currently is adaptive for you figure out what need it is meeting in your life and then figure out a way to get that need met elsewhere
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so people's first response to this one is usually this is not serving any purpose it's not meeting any need it is purely destructive behavior that could be true it could be the case that this was once adaptive for you and it is
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no longer adaptive however normally when we have behaviors that are adaptive in our childhood we tend to at least in some small way recreate the conditions of our childhood inner adulthood so that our behavior is appropriate to the
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situation and this is done largely unconsciously and accidentally but it's highly likely that if you are continuously behaving in a certain way that you feel like it's not getting you anywhere it might actually be getting you somewhere that you're not
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consciously aware of so let's say you grew up in a very chaotic home environment there is always shouting and yelling and screaming matches and now as an adult you are constantly in relationships where you are yelling and shouting and having screaming matches
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with your partner you might feel like this is maladaptive it's not getting me anywhere and i don't want this behavior but if you have chosen a partner who has that same model of relationships that you have it's highly possible even
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likely that the fighting and screaming and raging is actually in some respects keeping you together because you are matching each other's model of what a relationship looks like that person might not know how to be in a relationship where there is not constant
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conflict and maybe you don't know either so the fact that you are in conflict all the time might actually be something that is holding you guys together without you realizing it this is not to say continue to stay adapted to an
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unhealthy situation but it is to say that if there is an adaptive nature to the behavior that you want to get rid of you are likely to encounter extreme unconscious resistance to changing the behavior because it's actually getting
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you somewhere if you unconsciously feel like dropping this behavior is going to lose my romantic relationship you are probably going to experience a lot of anxiety around any attempt to drop that behavior or maybe you're someone who bottles up all of your needs hell they
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come out screaming all at once and so actually having big explosive fights is your only means of getting your needs seen and met in that case there's going to be a part of you that actually kind of needs to start fights sometimes
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because you have no alternate way of getting your needs seen and met so what you need to do is sit down and really hypothesize throw out as many possible things as you can think of until one feels true in your bones about how this
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behavior that you really want to get rid of on a conscious level might actually be serving you on an unconscious level and once you do that you can figure out how to get that unconscious need met in another more productive way so that you
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can cease the behavior in this area and that is a long process i do highly recommend the book how we change in 10 reasons why we don't by ross allen horn it is one of my all-time favorite books
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and it talks very specifically about this why when there are behaviors that we want so badly to get rid of we often can't because unconsciously we're benefiting from that behavior so that book will help you kind of pick it apart
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in a lot more detail if this is a step that you find particularly difficult to navigate but the first thing to be aware of is simply that you might not be self-sabotaging you might actually be doing a behavior that is adaptive that
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has severe consequences on a conscious level and that's a problem that needs to be solved in a very specific way all right that is kind of all i have to say about this process i could go on forever
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but what i want you to really keep in mind is that if you are at the point where you are starting to really notice on a conscious level what you are doing that is hurting other people that is
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getting in the way of your healing that is preventing you from having the healthy and happy relationships that you want to have and you can actually recognize which of those responses are yours alone to own you're already probably in a much better place than you
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think you are we heal from a place of self-responsibility where we can go even if the other person is truly behaving badly it is my responsibility to set boundaries around myself and protect myself from that type of behavior so if
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you are in that place of self-responsibility you are already probably a lot further along than you think you are okay as always let me know if you guys have any questions in the comments i love you i hope you are taking care of
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yourselves and each other and i will see you back here again really soon
Topics:attachment healingattachment theoryemotional flashbackrepair in relationshipsapologyself-regulationboundariesshameHeidi Priebeinner child
