Understanding attachment styles after a break-up: how to heal from within
- Jens Kemna
- 4 days ago
- 3 min read
My second break-up hit me harder than my first, and I didn’t understand why.
My first relationship lasted 14 years. You’d expect that to be the hardest one to let go of. But it was my second relationship, just 1.5 years long, that completely broke me open.
It was intense from the start. We fell in love fast, moved in together after six months, and built a deep emotional bond in a short time.
But when we decided to break up, I fell into one of the darkest emotional holes I had ever experienced.
I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I felt abandoned. I wrote letters, tried to win her back, and made painful compromises just to be close again even though I had initiated the separation.
Looking back, I see I was stuck in a trauma response.
Then I learned about attachment styles, and suddenly, everything made sense.
What are attachment styles?
Your attachment style is your emotional blueprint in relationships. It determines how you handle closeness, conflict, and yes, break-up recovery. Formed in early childhood, these patterns live in your nervous system and affect every intimate connection you have as an adult.
The four main styles:
Secure attachment: you feel comfortable with both intimacy and independence. Break-ups are painful, but not destabilizing. You reach out for support and move forward with grace.
Anxious attachment: you crave closeness and fear abandonment. After a break-up, you might become obsessive, replay conversations, and struggle to let go, just like I did.
Avoidant attachment: you value independence and often shut down emotionally. After a break-up, you might appear "fine" on the outside, but disconnect from your own feelings to cope.
Disorganized attachment: a mix of anxious and avoidant tendencies. You fear closeness and also fear being alone. Break-ups may trigger chaos, confusion, or emotional numbness.
How attachment styles affect break-up healing
Break-up healing isn’t one-size-fits-all. How you process a break-up has a lot to do with your attachment style:
Anxiously attached people often spiral in self-doubt, reach out compulsively, or even feel physical panic when disconnected.
Avoidantly attached individuals might withdraw, suppress feelings, or move on quickly—without actually processing the loss.
Securely attached people feel the pain but trust they can hold themselves through it.
If you've ever thought, "Why am I reacting like this?", your attachment style might hold the answer.
Why talking isn't always enough
You can’t fully heal attachment wounds through talking alone.
That’s because attachment trauma lives in the body, in your breath, posture, muscle tension, and nervous system.
That tight chest?
That shallow breath?
That urge to chase or shut down?
They’re not just emotional responses. They're somatic imprints, and they need more than words to shift.
How breathwork and sound healing help break-up recovery
To truly heal, we need to go deeper than the mind. That’s where somatic healing comes in.
Coaching helps you uncover the beliefs you’ve built around love, abandonment, and self-worth. Breathwork for heartbreak supports nervous system regulation and emotional release.
Sound healing uses vibration to calm anxiety, restore balance, and reconnect you with your body’s natural rhythm.
When we combine mind, body, and energy in healing, we don’t just "move on": we transform.
Ready to break free from old patterns?
You don’t have to stay stuck in anxiety or avoidance. You can feel safe in connection again.
If you're in the middle of a painful break-up, or keep repeating relationship patterns, I’m here to guide you, through coaching, breathwork, and sound healing.
