Secure Attachment
What Secure Attachment Looks Like
by Piper Jones
As I write this today, the toddler in the photo is now a strong, capable, and kind young man, yet I can recall the moment, caught here on camera, quite viscerally. When I step into this picture my eyes soften and I can feel my face smiling. My heart is calm and steady in my chest. It is a mama-tender moment that still lives on, deep within my body. I can even recall us breathing, slowly, together. Ahhhhhhh.
If we were lucky growing up, perhaps we too experienced moments of secure attachment that we can harvest from and bring in to the present moment.
Those of us not as fortunate may instead have different imprints within our nervous system. When we are small, we make decisions about how the world is, and these beliefs from long ago may still be alive and manifesting in our present day.
Fortunately, attachment work allows us to go back and heal the somatic patterns from the past that still direct our present.
One of my teachers, Alaya Chikly, said “First the story is the trap, then the story is the map”.
And the “map” is in the body.
My attachment work is primarily informed by:
Dr Diane Poole-Heller’s DARe Dynamic Attachment Re-patterning experience www.dianepooleheller.com
Dr Peter Levine’s Somatic Experiencing www.traumahealing.org
Alaya Chikly’s Heart Centered Therapy (HCT) www.chiklyinstitute.com
Dr John Upledger’s Somatic Emotional Release (SER) www.upledger.com
Compassion in Action www.theTwilightBrigade.com