Adult Child 203: The Nervous System Side of Attachment - Understanding Anxiety, Avoidance & Safety Through the Body w/ Heidi Priebe
You’re not needy. You’re not detached. You’re just wired for survival. This episode reveals how your nervous system learned to love — and what it takes to rewire safety.
Heidi Priebe is a YouTuber, writer, and educator with a master’s degree in attachment theory who’s built a massive following for her honest, body-based approach to healing. She grew up being labeled the “difficult child,” internalizing the belief that something was wrong with her long before anyone recognized the impact of emotional neglect. Her lifelong effort to make sense of that pain led her to study how attachment and the nervous system shape the way we connect, cope, and seek safety.
✨ What this episode explores:
▪️How Attachment Lives in the Body — Why anxious and avoidant patterns aren’t personality flaws but survival strategies wired through early experiences of distress and safety.
▪️Emotional Neglect as Conditioning — How inconsistent or rejecting caregiving trains the body to either amplify emotion to be seen or shut it down to stay safe.
▪️Anxious vs. Avoidant Regulation — Why one nervous system ramps up while the other goes numb and how both are rooted in the same need for connection.
▪️Perfectionism as Avoidant Attachment in Disguise — How chronic self-criticism and the drive to “get it right” are often nervous system attempts to earn belonging.
▪️The Window of Tolerance — How to recognize when you’re inside or outside of regulation, and design your environment to stay within it more often.
▪️Healing Attachment Through the Body — Why real recovery requires nervous system work and learning to feel safe in connection, not just think differently about it.
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