Whatever it is that’s brought you to Baggage Reclaim and got you exploring the subject of emotional unavailability and emotional baggage, if you want your circumstances to change and for you to break your pattern, you will need to become more emotionally available..

This post is in response to two of my most frequently asked questions: How do I become more emotionally available? and How do I start to break my pattern?.

I’m going to assume that you have empathy or certainly the ability to develop it —some people don’t and are highly unlikely to be reading this!—and what I have listed below are next step suggestions for what to do now that you are aware of the issue, and all are about taking action. Some will involve you doing some research to find out more or to explore options for professional support.

There is no magic solution, so I can offer you nothing that is going to be the equivalent of being at one of those sermons where the person leaps out of their wheelchair and declares, “I can WALK!” Contrary to popular belief, nobody can make you spontaneously combust into an emotionally available person. You have to do the work.

Oh, and yes, before anyone asks, I have done everything on the list over the last 12 years!

Right, here we go!

1. Which emotions do you try to avoid or shut out? It might surprise you to know that there’s more than fear, anger, hurt and happy. Lots of shutting down causes numbness or even ‘deadness’. In a nutshell, here’s how emotional unavailability versus emotional availability works: When you don’t feel a range of emotions you act as if you have a switchboard where you can turn off the ones you don’t feel like feeling. In actuality, there’s one switch for all emotions, so if you switch off what you think is one or a few, you’re affecting the circuitry to all of them, limiting your ability to feel even the most joyous of emotions. It also confuses your emotions because avoiding some, intensifies others, while some get misinterpreted. It’s this reason why I hear from so many people who don’t know the difference between fear caused by underlying familiarity with a pattern… and attraction. You’ve got to feel to heal.

2. Keep a Feelings Diary. I’ve been teaching people to do this for more than a decade, and it works. Your emotions are there to help you, not hinder you. If you consistently have a sense of how you are feeling, not only do you become more conscious, aware and present, but you are not going to become overwhelmed by suppressed and repressed emotions. Download my free Feelings Diary Guide.

3. Work out your pattern. Write down a list of the positive and negative traits of past partners, and do the same for family members and anyone significant from childhood. Compare simulates and notice the themes. Remember that patterns occur when you’re living unconsciously hence by becoming more conscious, aware and present, including about recognising the things that you have been doing automatically and without questioning the relevance to your current self and life, you are already breaking patterns.

4. Arrange to see a therapist with the aim of helping you to heal from your past. Work with somebody who encourages you to talk and to take action. Or work with a coach (yes, I do offer coaching), or look at alternative therapy options if you’re open to that, or look up personal development workshops. Throw whatever you can at it. What works for you might be different to what works for someone else. If the net result is that you wind up happier and healthier, the method is irrelevant. I didn’t go down the therapy route, but many others have. I opted for the holistic approach because I was seriously unwell at the time and implemented boundaries and committed to healing for the sake of my health. I’ve been doing acupuncture for over 11 years, kinesiology for almost 12, plus I visit an osteopath. In committing to self-care and moving old stress and trauma out of my body, I have been plugged into me for almost 12 years.

5. Identify your Relationship Character. Who do you become when you’re attracted to somebody, or you begin dating or are in a relationship? Make a note of the things that you say, do and think, noting in particular, the things that are a real departure from who you really are and that also cause you to feel anxiety, resentment and even deep pain. Note what you avoid and the boundaries that you suddenly forget — this is your Relationship Character. Any role you play is a block to intimacy so losing the mask makes you emotionally available. Give him/her a name and a backstory. Now you can note where he/she shows up and why, so that you can become more conscious, aware and present, plus you can compassionately but firmly tell them to have a seat.

6. Identify your common frustrations including the things that you consistently complain about —these are all things that you need to be and do for yourself. If it frustrates you that partners, friends etc., are always indecisive, examine your indecision. If you find that you’re consistently invalidated, where are you invalidating you in your attempts to gain their validation? If you feel unheard, where are you not listening to you?

7. Get conscious about your habits. Spend a week or two evaluating your daily routine. How much of your time is spent being truly present and connected to you and your life? How much of your time is spent feeling pissed off but then feeling powerless to do anything about it? How much of your time is spent being and doing things that distance you from your emotions or that help you to avoid getting ‘too close’ to people? Are there any habits that are having a knock-on effect on your wellbeing? For example, I have a client who was anaesthetising with food and drink because she was demoralised by her work. It turned out that it was because she was doing something that was someone else’s responsibility which in turn meant that she was never able to do her job within work hours.

8. Are you overdoing something in your life? For instance, if you’re a workaholic, which feelings/situations does work provide an escape from and why? If you have concerns that you’re exercising as a means of avoiding your feelings or limiting intimacy with others, acknowledge what is behind this so for instance, what are the origins of this habit? Feel that you’re comfort eating too much or that a few glasses of wine have become your go-to every day to cope with, for example, an unresolved work situation? Eating uncomfortable feelings or silencing the words that might slip out with food, drink, drugs etc., or using, for example, alcohol or drugs to get outside of yourself and adopt a persona, are very prevalent ways in which we make ourselves emotionally unavailable. Compassionately exploring these habits, possibly with the help of a professional, will help you to address the baggage behind these habits but also help put you back in touch with yourself.

9. Take a dating hiatus. I typically recommend 3-6 months although I’ve also had quite a few people do a year. If you tend to lose yourself in relationships or you get very triggered by dating, taking a clean break, so no collecting attention online, texting loose connections or exes, or sex, gives you the space to get into a monogamous relationship with you. You will learn a hell of a lot about yourself during this time, including where you might have been using romantic attention as an escape from uncomfortable feelings. Read more about dating hiatuses.