In today’s Ask Steph episode, I’m answering the listener question: If you were only going to focus on one thing to start healing anxious attachment, what would it be?

While there are many layers to this work, the single place I’d start is building self-worth outside of a relationship.

For many anxiously attached people, relationships become the primary place where we seek security, validation, and a sense of worth. But when our wellbeing is tied so tightly to another person, it can leave us feeling anxious, reactive, and out of control.

In this episode, I talk about why shifting your focus back onto yourself — your growth, your agency, and your sense of self — can be one of the most powerful first steps in healing anxious attachment.

Join the waitlist for the Healing Anxious Attachment Birthday Sale here: https://stephanierigg.com/haa-anniversary-sale-waitlist

If you've been putting in the work to heal your anxious attachment but still feel like you're treading water, this episode is for you. In today's episode, I'm sharing what I believe are the three core pillars of healing anxious attachment — and why the sequencing of that work matters just as much as the work itself.

Whether you're just starting out or have been on this journey for a while, having a clear roadmap can be genuinely grounding. Lack of effort is rarely the problem for anxiously attached people — it's about making sure that energy is directed where it will have the greatest impact.

In this episode, I cover:

• Why the mindset you bring to this work is the real foundation — and how approaching healing from a place of shame will undermine everything else
• Understanding your nervous system and building the capacity to self-regulate (hint: it's about much more than crisis management)
• Identifying and shifting the negative core beliefs and core wounds that shape your relationships — and why real self-worth is built through doing, not just affirmations
• Communication skills, boundary-setting, and voicing your needs — and why starting here without the previous two pillars often falls flat
• The common pitfall that keeps so many people stuck, and what to focus on instead

🎉 Join the waitlist for the Healing Anxious Attachment 4-Year Anniversary Sale

On March 16, I’ll be celebrating four years since I first launched Healing Anxious Attachment. To mark the occasion, I’m bringing the course back to its original launch price of US$222 for 24 hours only.

If you’re curious, add yourself to the waitlist below — the anniversary offer will only be available for 24 hours and only for those on the list.

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In this Ask Steph episode, I respond to a listener question I hear often: If I work on my anxious attachment, but my partner doesn’t work on their avoidant patterns, can the relationship still work?

I unpack why focusing on your side of the street is never a waste of time — even when your partner isn’t meeting you there yet. We talk about how healing anxious attachment isn’t about fixing the relationship or managing your partner’s behaviour, but about building self-regulation, self-trust, and clarity.

I also explore the two most common outcomes of doing this work: either your internal shifts create healthier dynamics and positive ripple effects in the relationship, or you reach a grounded place of clarity about what you need and whether this relationship can meet you there. Either way, you don’t lose — you gain resources, confidence, and choice.

This episode is for anyone who feels stuck waiting for their partner to change and is wondering whether it’s worth continuing to do the work alone.

In this episode, we explore one of the most painful dynamics after a breakup: watching your ex seem “fine” while you feel completely unravelled — and the stories that comparison creates. We unpack why anxious and avoidant attachment patterns tend to process breakups so differently, and why those differences don’t mean what you think they mean.

We look at how anxious attachment often shows up as hyperactivation — intense grief, rumination, urgency, and the need to understand what happened — and how avoidant attachment tends to deactivate under stress, sometimes resulting in relief, distraction, or moving on quickly. We also talk about the timing mismatch that can occur, where one person feels everything immediately and the other processes more slowly (or more superficially).

The core takeaway: different coping strategies are not a measure of love, worth, or who cared more. And comparing your internal experience to their outward presentation will only keep you stuck.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why comparison after a breakup fuels suffering for anxious attachers
• How hyperactivation and deactivation shape the breakup experience
• Why relief doesn’t mean they didn’t care
• The common “timing mismatch” in anxious–avoidant breakups
• How to shift your focus back to yourself instead of analysing them

If you’re going through a breakup, you can register for my free breakup training here.

In this Ask Steph episode, I respond to a listener who says they generally feel secure in their relationship — except when their partner travels and is physically away. During those periods, they experience intense separation anxiety, spiralling thoughts, and a sudden sense of insecurity that feels confusing and disproportionate.

I talk about why distance and absence can be uniquely activating for anxiously attached nervous systems, even when a relationship is otherwise healthy and secure.

We explore how separation can trigger old attachment wounds around abandonment, uncertainty, and loss of felt safety, and ways that you can support yourself both individually and relationally to better handle these challenges.

Attachment theory has become a widely used framework for understanding relationship patterns — but it’s often misunderstood, overextended, or treated as a complete explanation for human behaviour.

In this episode, I revisit the foundations of attachment theory to clarify what attachment is actually designed to explain, what attachment styles describe, and where the limits of the framework are. This is a back-to-basics conversation intended to bring nuance and accuracy to how we use attachment language — especially in romantic relationships.

In this episode, I cover:

• What attachment styles are really describing: relational stress and our habitual responses to it
• Why attachment styles are not fixed, mutually exclusive categories — and how spectrums work in practice
• How attachment patterns are contextually responsive and can shift across different relationships
• What attachment theory explains — and what it was never meant to explain
• How our attachment blueprint shapes our internal working model, even beyond close relationships
• Why attachment is best used as a tool, not a totalising explanation for yourself or others

If you’ve ever felt confused, boxed in by attachment labels, or frustrated by how attachment theory is used online, this episode offers a clearer and more grounded way of thinking about it.

Take my free attachment quiz

In this Ask Steph episode, we explore one of the most common (and understandable) questions in anxious–avoidant dynamics: what actually helps an avoidant partner feel safe enough to open up emotionally?

If you tend toward anxious attachment, it can feel deeply unsettling to sense that parts of your partner’s inner world are closed off to you. That can create a strong pull to try harder, ask more questions, or push for emotional access — often with the hope that if they open up, it will mean you’re finally “enough.”

In this episode, we unpack why that instinct can backfire, and what genuinely supports emotional safety instead.

Situationships can feel exciting and full of potential, but over time they often become a source of anxiety, confusion, and self-doubt. In this episode, I explore why situationships are so hard to walk away from — particularly for people with anxious attachment — and why clarity can feel more threatening than staying in something uncertain.

We look at how hope, ambiguity, and emotional breadcrumbs keep people invested in connections that aren’t actually meeting their needs, and why “waiting to see what happens” is often a form of self-abandonment rather than patience. I also talk about the nervous-system dynamics at play, and how these situations can keep you stuck in a cycle of overthinking, longing, and self-doubt.

This episode isn’t about forcing commitment or issuing ultimatums. It’s about building the self-trust and self-respect required to stop participating in dynamics that keep you in limbo, and learning how to choose relationships that offer consistency, clarity, and emotional safety.

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