In today's blog I want to talk to you about the fearful avoidant and going no contact with them.
I want to share an email that relates to this topic from one of my previous coaching clients. It says, “hey coach, I know it's been a while and I just wanted to reach out and say thank you for our calls. I am a lot less anxious and have decided to move on from my ex. I dove deep into the resources that you provided which helped a lot. Please share this story with the community. I didn't get my ex back, but I feel it was a success because I have my life back again. Cheers!”
Here is a little background on that story. He was dating somebody that he saw to be a fearful avoidant because of some of the things that she was doing. We came up with a plan for re-engagement and how he would try to reconnect with her. But by the looks of it, he decided to move on. Usually what happens when I don't hear from my clients again is they either chose to move on or they're living “happily ever after.”
I like when I get success stories like this and when people reach out and let me know where they're at in their journey. It helps me get a bit of insight on my coaching and also insight on some of the value that you'll take away from having sessions.
So he didn't get his girlfriend back, but he also got his life back. That's what happens when you're in your activated state. You really lose yourself and you forget who you are.
So we are going to talk about going no contact with a fearful avoidant. During no contact, or I like to call it self-discovery, the fearful avoidant will feel a bunch of different emotions. They have the activating and deactivating so doing no contact is kind of a flip a coin whether or not they're going to reach out to you. From the fearful avoidants that I've worked with, they want to reach out and they have really intense deep emotions a lot of times, but they're too fearful to reach out.
If you know that they're a fearful avoidant they'll need consistency from you. You have to continue to keep doing the same things and keep showing up the same exact way or else they'll get spooked off. They'll get a little fearful of trying to build something further with you, especially if you're feeling like you're just as emotionally in turmoil as they are.
What I've seen in the past is the fearful avoidant most likely will reach out to you first and before the month mark. If they don't then you can reach out to them around three to four weeks and just kind of see where they're at. You can see how they're doing and just care for them. Really show up in a safe and nurturing way. You’re just inquiring about their life and wondering how they are.
We are supposed to go into relationships to bring something to that person's life. To give to them and to know when it's time to let go. If you feel as if a person isn't in love with you anymore, or doesn't want you anymore, you should love them enough to be able to let them go and to allow for them to go out and find somebody who aligns better with them. Someone who aligns with their energy, their ways of thinking, their belief systems, and with their level of intimacy. And you can find that too. You can find somebody that mirrors your same energy.
What I've seen from people in the past is when that person does reach out they will tell them something like, “you have no clue that I was actually thinking about you the whole time and I was actually wanting to reach out to you, but I didn't know whether or not you still wanted me. I didn’t know if you were upset with me or if you were holding some type of grudge with me. I noticed that you stopped liking my posts. You stopped showing up the same safe and comfortable way that you were in the beginning.”
Many times the fearful avoidant won't reach out because they feel as if they're making a fool out of themselves. If they said something in the past that was really hurtful and damaging they won't reach out because they feel like the damage has been done. They really get triggered into their fearfulness and they start to deactivate themselves from the relationship in general. They may go out and participate in escapism by maybe going out and drinking and burying themselves in xbox or ps4.
I had another client reach out to me that went on a sabbatical. She went away for two weeks after her DA deactivated from her. What she was doing was she started to chase after him and she started to really outpour all these loving feelings and emotions. Writing really long text messages to him because she just wanted to connect with him so desperately. Then when she realized that this was all fruitless she started to pull herself away and started to heal herself. She got back into what she liked to do and got back to her hobbies and some of her passions. She was able to detach herself by temporarily deactivating and coming back and revisiting some of the text messages and messages that she sent out to him and realized that the person that was sending these messages was a totally different person. She realized she made a lot of mistakes when she was in her activated state.
In closing, I just want to say going no contact works with pretty much every attachment style, but it's different for the fearful avoidant. You have to give it that time of three to four weeks in order for them to start to feel those emotions for you again and actually get back into their activated state.