4 Life Path | What’s Your Attachment Style?
December 29, 2023
6 Life Path | What’s Your Attachment Style?
January 4, 20245 Life Path | What’s Your Attachment Style?
There’s a lot of conversation about Attachment Styles or Attachment Theory as we collectively evaluate our personal relationships.
Attachment styles are psychological frameworks that describe how individuals relate to others in close relationships, particularly in the context of emotional bonds.
The premise here is that we’re “hard-wired” or programmed in our earliest years as to how to engage in relationships.
Ultimately, each of us desires to love and be loved, to have our needs met, to trust our care providers, and to feel a stable and consistent sense of love and caring.
The early bonds between children and their caregivers sets the groundwork (like it or not!) for the way in which each and every one of us seek out romantic partnerships and it also shows up with friendships, family of origin dynamics, and work colleagues.
These styles are characterized by patterns of emotional and behavioral responses to attachment-related situations.
Psychologist Mary Ainsworth (and others) have conducted extensive research on attachment theory, leading to the identification of four main attachment styles.
Most of us fall more distinctly into one category and yet many can have more of a “hybrid” attachment style. Yet the four “official” attachment styles are a great place to start.
The 4 Attachment Styles
Anxious-Preoccupied Attachment
Dismissive-Avoidant Attachment
Fearful-Avoidant (Disorganized/Chaotic) Attachment
Secure Attachment
Attachment styles can develop early in life based on interactions with caregivers and later influence how individuals engage in adult relationships.
However, they are not fixed and can be modified or change over time through therapy, self-awareness, and new relationship experiences.
Understanding your attachment style and that of your partner can be valuable in improving communication and relationship dynamics.
Let’s break down how the 5 Life Path might engage or present with each Attachment Style.
**I’m not a licensed therapist and this article is meant to offer a numerological perspective that might shed light on the core issue each Life Path might have that within each described Attachment Style. It is not meant to diagnose or be prescriptive.
5 Life Path
Code Word: EXCESSIVE
5 Life Path | Anxious-Preoccupied Attachment: People with anxious-preoccupied attachment styles often have a high need for emotional closeness and fear abandonment. They are inclined to worry about their relationships and may be excessively preoccupied with their partners. This attachment style can lead to clinginess, a fear of rejection, and a tendency to seek constant reassurance and validation.
This attachment style may present as someone who “comes in hot” with relationships in an impulsive way. The 5 Life Path with an Anxious-Preoccupied attachment style gets fully enmeshed in a partner and loves the trauma/drama. The more intense and/or outlandish the relationship, the more the better for those with this attachment style. The 5 Life Path is the sensuous freedom seeker in numerology and this is the number of excessive behaviors. “Excess” can mean excessive drama or “excess” can mean excessive in terms of being restricted and fearful.
5 Life Path | Dismissive-Avoidant Attachment: Individuals with dismissive-avoidant attachment styles often value their independence and self-sufficiency. They may downplay the importance of close relationships and may be uncomfortable with emotional intimacy. These individuals tend to be emotionally distant, self-reliant, and may have difficulty expressing their own feelings or empathizing with the emotions of others.
For the 5 Life Path, this attachment style may be somewhat of a “default” for the 5 Life Path (albeit if I had to choose a dominant style for the 5, it would be Disorganized/Chaotic). The Dismissive-Avoidant attachment style pushes the 5 Life Path to truly be the rolling stone who gathers no moss. Close relationships may elude them or simply aren’t a priority. I met a 5 Life Path woman who, when I asked if she’d ever been married, rolled her eyes and said something rather profound. She said: “When I was a kid, I looked around me and I couldn’t see that anyone who was married was happy. No one! And I knew then and there that I never wanted to get married — why would I do that?” The 5 Life Path needs their space and freedom and this attachment style allows that for them.
5 Life Path | Fearful-Avoidant (Disorganized/Chaotic) Attachment: This attachment style is characterized by a combination of anxious and avoidant traits. Individuals with a fearful-avoidant style want close relationships but also have a fear of being hurt or rejected. They may struggle with inconsistent behavior, vacillating between the desire for closeness and the need for distance. This attachment style can be rooted in past traumas or unresolved issues.
This attachment style fits the 5 Life Path to a tee. Oftentimes, the 5 Life Path will do anything to avoid being alone (unless it’s totally on their own terms), so they’ll create the revolving-door of sexual partners in their lives. This can show up in an interesting and incongruent way, with the 5 Life Path diving into relationships and either abandoning them quickly (while simultaneously bringing in another) or by diving into relationships and then feeling trapped, smothered, and dissatisfied, yet will continue to linger within the relationship for fear of hurting their partner (which they’re already doing, ultimately) or for fear of being by themselves. A dear friend of mine (5 Life Path) jokingly (not jokingly) says that every time he gets into a relationship (and he is never not in a relationship!), as soon as he does, he starts to “gnaw his arm off so he can escape the trap” that he’s in.
5 Life Path | Secure Attachment: Individuals with secure attachment styles tend to have a positive view of themselves and others. They are comfortable with intimacy, trust their partners, and believe that they can depend on others as well as be depended upon. They are able to express their emotions and needs openly and deal with conflict in a healthy manner. These individuals are generally more self-assured and less anxious or avoidant in their relationships.
This attachment looks like the healthiest and most dynamic version of the 5 Life Path! With a Secure attachment style, the 5 Life Path is fun, dynamic, and adventurous. Often the 5 Life Path requires that they burn off some of that energy productively so that they can finally feel that they’ve “been there, done that” and have no wistful regrets when they choose to stabilize their relationship life. When the 5 finally decides they’re not missing out on anything AND that they have developed a healthy level of self-esteem so that they can be with themselves without having to fill every moment with “noise,” that is when the Secure attachment style can show up.
