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not just understand why.
This is anxious attachment—and it started long before him.
A younger part of you learned to respond this way to protect you.
So when love matters now, those same fears can rise again—even when you consciously know better.
You are not broken. You are not too much.
What protected you then doesn’t have to shape how you experience love today.
Waiting for his text, unable to think about anything else
One day feeling connected, the next day distant
Always trying to be perfect—thinner, more successful, or less emotional—hoping that he will finally choose you
You know the pattern.
It goes like this...
You analyze the texts, the response times, the conversations, the subtle changes in his tone—trying to figure out what they mean and whether something has changed.
You can be completely yourself until you really care about someone. Then suddenly, so much of your attention is on him—when he'll text, when you'll see him, whether he feels the same way you do.
You find yourself trying to be perfect—prettier, thinner, more successful, less emotional—hoping that somehow you'll finally feel like enough to be chosen.
You know you want consistency and emotional availability, yet you keep feeling intensely drawn to people who leave you wondering where you stand.
You've done the therapy, the personal growth, the journaling, the understanding.
You've become incredibly self-aware—and still, when your attachment gets activated, knowing better doesn't always help you feel differently.
More than anything, you want to be able to love deeply without losing yourself in it—to feel secure, chosen, and fully yourself in love
For the first time, I wasn't constantly managing myself, trying to calm myself down, or waiting for anxiety to take over when I cared about someone.
I could finally feel safe in love.
It felt like I had been given my life back.
And eventually, I found something I had spent most of my life longing for—a healthy relationship where I could feel loved, secure, and still be myself.
And underneath all of that anxiety, I found something I had almost forgotten was there.
Me.
It changed my life so profoundly that I became a hypnotherapist because I wanted other women to know this kind of change may be possible for them too.
You don't need someone to tell you what's wrong with you.
You need a way to reach the emotional learning that has been shaping how you feel and respond—and help it finally change.
The best part is, now I know how to help you.
I'm Emily Sarah, a Certified Hypnotherapist.
For most of my life, anxiety showed up most painfully in my relationships.
I could be capable and confident in so many areas of my life—and then completely lose myself in love.
My desire to feel loved and deeply connected was so strong that I spent more than two decades searching for answers. I tried every therapy modality I could find—CBT, DBT, EMDR—as well as yoga, meditation, energy work, personal development, and almost anything I thought might help.
I gained insight. I became incredibly self-aware.
And I was still anxious in love.
I could explain why I felt the way I did—and then find myself having the same emotional response anyway.
Hypnotherapy was different for me.
I know what it’s like to understand everything—and still lose yourself in love.
i can help because i've been there
ENNEAGRAM 8, CREATIVE TO MY CORE, ARTIST, ROMANTIC, JANE AUSTIN STAN
With gentle encouragement and an art director's eye, I collaborate with my couples to create effortlessly editorial images full of pure love, stunning backdrops, and natural moments (with just enough guidance!)
Light is my biggest inspiration, and I find weddings to be complex, joyous, fashion-filled, emotional, utterly beautiful celebrations that I can't get enough of.
BEHIND
the COURSE
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Harpers Bazaar / Vogue
Marie Claire / Weddings Magazine
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Harpers Bazaar / Vogue
Marie Claire / Weddings Magazine
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About
Author
by abigail fitzgerald
As a globally celebrated wedding photographer with nearly two decade’s experience, Tec Petaja brings an innate knowledge of composition, mood, and light to every moment he captures.
This is where hypnotherapy is different.
Hypnosis isn't mysterious.
If you have ever followed a guided meditation, become completely absorbed in a film, or found yourself lost in a daydream, you already know something about the experience of focused attention.
You are awake. You are aware. You can speak. You can think. And you remain in control.
Many people experience hypnosis as deeply relaxing—but there is a purpose to the focus.
Rather than simply talking about the pattern from the outside, we can work with the feelings, memories, and earlier experiences connected to the response itself.
You may begin to understand not only what you do, but why some part of you learned to respond that way in the first place.
Sometimes that means meeting a younger part of you who learned long ago what she needed to do to feel safe, loved, comforted, or protected.
We don't need to erase what happened.
We don't need to fight that part of you.
Instead, you have the opportunity to experience that earlier moment with the perspective, strength, emotional support, and choices you have as an adult now.
The past doesn't change. But your experience of it—and the meaning you carry forward from it—can.
And as that meaning begins to change, how you feel and respond can begin to change too.
That's the work.
Not simply understanding yourself better.
Actually experiencing yourself differently.
There is a reason knowing isn't always enough.
Your brain has been learning from your experiences your entire life.
Some of that learning is explicit—the things you consciously remember, understand, and can put into words.
Other learning becomes implicit. Earlier experiences can teach you what to expect, what feels safe, and how you need to respond or protect yourself. That learning can influence how you automatically feel and respond today—sometimes before you have consciously made sense of what is happening.
That is why you can know you are safe and still feel anxious.
Know you are loved and still fear losing the relationship.
Know a delayed text doesn't mean you're being abandoned and still feel your whole emotional world shift.
Your conscious understanding isn't wrong.
There is simply another layer of learning involved.
And that learning can change.
You are not becoming someone new. You are becoming more fully yourself.
We close by strengthening the way you want to feel and respond now—secure in yourself, confident in what you deserve, and able to experience love without losing yourself in it.
The parts of you that once responded from fear no longer have to lead. You have more freedom to choose how you show up in love from who you are today, rather than what you learned long ago.
Step 5—Step Into Her
The parts of you that once worked so hard to protect you no longer have to respond in the same way. You can begin to experience closeness without the same fear, uncertainty, or need to protect yourself.
The past does not change. But the meaning you carry forward from it can. Forgiveness becomes possible—not for anyone else's sake, but for yours.
Step 4—Integrate the Shift
We go deeper, supporting the younger parts of you that learned how they needed to respond to feel safe, loved, chosen, or connected. When appropriate, we return to earlier experiences connected to these patterns—carefully, with preparation, support, and choice.
This time, you bring the perspective, understanding, and strength you have now. You can experience what happened with the support that younger part of you may not have had then—allowing new meaning and a different emotional experience to emerge.
Step 3—Feel It Differently
We explore the parts of you that have been working so hard to protect you—the ones behind the anxiety, the overanalyzing, the need for reassurance, and the pressure to be perfect so you won't be left.
You begin to understand why you respond the way you do, especially when love feels uncertain. And with that understanding comes something many women have not felt in a long time—compassion for themselves.
Step 2—Understand Yourself
The Secure Within Journey
Before anything else, you understand exactly what to expect. A gentle introduction to the process so you feel completely at ease before we begin.
Many women describe the work as similar to a deeply focused meditation—a state you've probably already experienced, even if you haven't called it that. The difference is simply that there's a specific purpose guiding the session, so every moment is moving you toward feeling more secure in yourself and in love.
Step 1—Create Safety
A PERSONALIZED PROCESS, BUILT AROUND YOU
When he takes longer to reply, your whole evening doesn’t disappear into wondering what it means. You don’t have to check your phone again and again or search for signs that something is wrong.
If you’re in a relationship, you can stay connected to yourself when things feel uncertain instead of immediately wondering what you need to do to keep him. You can receive love without constantly waiting for it to disappear.
And sometimes, becoming more secure means seeing your relationship more clearly. Not every relationship is meant to be saved. If someone cannot offer the honesty, consistency, or connection you need, you can recognize that without automatically turning it inward or fighting harder to be chosen. You can have the strength to let go of what isn’t healthy for you.
If you’re dating or single, you can begin to recognize the difference between genuine connection and the intense pull of someone who leaves you wondering where you stand. The relationship dynamics that once felt familiar don’t have to keep feeling like chemistry. As the pattern shifts, what you’re drawn to can begin to shift too. A healthy, emotionally available partner can begin to feel not only safe—but genuinely attractive.
You still get dressed up—but now it’s because you want to, not because being prettier, thinner, or more perfect might finally make you enough to be chosen.
You can love deeply without abandoning yourself to hold onto someone. Whether that means creating a more secure connection in the relationship you have or having the clarity to choose something different, you get to remain yourself.
And it’s not only romantic love that can feel different. Your friendships can feel safer. You can show up more fully in your life. The anxiety that once seemed to follow you everywhere can begin to soften.
This is the direction Secure Within is designed to support.
Keep telling yourself you won’t get so attached this time. That you won’t analyze every text, need so much reassurance, or lose yourself trying to make the relationship work.
You can keep becoming more self-aware, understanding exactly why you do it—and still feel everything come rushing back the moment love feels uncertain.
And you can keep finding yourself drawn to the same kind of relationship—not because it’s what you consciously want, but because something about it feels deeply familiar.
But you already know how exhausting that is.
How much of your attention goes to him. How much energy goes into wondering where you stand. How quickly you can start questioning yourself when someone pulls away.
And sometimes, the cost is even greater—staying too long in a relationship that isn’t giving you what you need because losing him feels more frightening than losing yourself.
You don’t need to become better at managing the pattern.
You deserve the chance to experience love without abandoning yourself inside it.
FREE 60-MINUTE SESSION
Your First Session Is On Me
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COME EXPERIENCE THE WORK FOR YOURSELF
No pressure to sign up for anything. This hour is simply a chance to be heard, experience the work, and begin to see what could feel different for you.
You don't have to know exactly what you need or whether hypnotherapy is right for you before we meet.
During our time together, we'll talk about what's been happening in your relationships, what keeps getting activated for you, what you would most like to change, and what you've already tried.
I'll help you begin to understand what may be underneath the anxiety and relationship patterns you're experiencing and answer any questions you have about hypnotherapy.
Then, if it feels appropriate, I'll guide you through a gentle hypnosis experience so you can experience the work for yourself.
You'll remain aware and in control throughout the entire experience. There is nothing you need to know how to do.
Afterward, we'll talk about what you experienced and whether continuing this work together feels like the right next step.
Yes. Hypnosis has been studied for decades, and neuroscience research has found measurable differences in attention, brain activity, and communication between brain networks during hypnosis.
One reason hypnosis may be particularly useful for this work is that it changes how we focus our attention. Research has found changes in how brain networks involved in attention, self-reflection, and processing what feels important communicate during hypnosis.
In everyday life, it can be easy to immediately analyze, explain, question, or second-guess what you're feeling. Hypnosis can help quiet some of that mental commentary so you can stay more focused on the experience itself.
That gives us an opportunity to work with the memories and emotional learning connected to the pattern while they are active—not simply talk about them afterward.
One scientific model that may help explain how this kind of emotional learning can change is called memory reconsolidation.
When an old emotional learning is activated and, at the same time, you experience meaningful new information that doesn't match what you originally learned to expect, that learning may become open to updating.
In Secure Within, that new experience may include something you didn't have access to in the same way when the original learning took place: your adult perspective, emotional support, understanding, resources, and choice.
The memory itself isn't erased or rewritten. What happened remains what happened.
But what you learned from that experience—and the meaning you continue to carry from it—can begin to change. And when the learning changes, how you automatically feel and respond in your life today can begin to change too.
That's what makes hypnosis so relevant to this work: it gives us a focused way to work with the emotional learning itself, rather than only understanding it intellectually.
Your brain is constantly learning from experience. When something happens—especially something emotionally significant—you don't just remember the experience. You can also learn what to expect from relationships, what feels safe or unsafe, and what you need to do to protect yourself.
Some of that learning is explicit: you can consciously remember it, think about it, and put it into words.
Other learning becomes implicit. It can influence how you feel and respond automatically, without you consciously choosing the response.
Years later, something happening in a relationship may feel similar to what you experienced before. Your partner pulls away. A text goes unanswered. You aren't sure where you stand.
Consciously, you may know, He's probably busy.
But an earlier emotional learning may be telling you, Something is wrong. I'm going to lose him.
That's why understanding your anxious attachment doesn't always stop the anxiety. Your conscious understanding may have changed, while an older emotional response is still being activated automatically.
The good news is that emotional learning isn't necessarily permanent. New experiences and new learning can change what your brain expects—and, over time, how you feel and respond.
Is hypnotherapy actually backed by science?
What does neuroscience tell us about anxious attachment?
Most women who come to Secure Within have never experienced hypnotherapy before. You don't need any prior experience or know how to do anything before we begin.
Hypnosis is a natural state of consciousness. It may feel more familiar than you expect. If you've ever become deeply absorbed in a guided meditation, a movie, a book, or your own imagination, you've experienced something very similar.
Hypnosis itself doesn't have one particular feeling. You may feel deeply relaxed, focused, absorbed, or simply aware of what you're experiencing. There is no one way hypnosis is supposed to feel.
My role is to guide you through the process. You don't have to consciously figure out where to go or what you're supposed to find. We work with your experience as it unfolds, and I'll guide you in what to do along the way.
You remain aware, able to communicate, and involved throughout the process.
What if I've never done hypnotherapy before?
Your Questions, Answered
Both.
If you're single or dating, we can work with why certain relationship dynamics feel so familiar and compelling—even when you consciously know they aren't what you want.
What you've experienced in the past can shape what feels familiar in love. As those patterns begin to change, what you're drawn to can begin to change too. A healthy, emotionally available partner can begin to feel not only safe—but genuinely attractive.
If you're partnered, we can work with the anxiety, fear, overanalyzing, reassurance-seeking, or other patterns showing up within your relationship.
And becoming more secure isn't about making every relationship work. Sometimes it creates space for a deeper connection within the relationship you have. Sometimes it gives you the clarity to recognize that a relationship isn't giving you what you need—and the security within yourself to choose something different.
Wherever you are in your relationship life, the work begins with you.
What if I'm single?
What if I'm already in a relationship?
Yes.
You remain aware, able to communicate, and able to stop the process if you choose.
Hypnosis is something we do together. I guide the process, but you remain involved in what we explore, what you share, and where we go. Nothing needs to be forced.
Your choice and participation remain part of the process from beginning to end.
Will I be in control during hypnosis?
Many women who come to Secure Within have already done meaningful work in therapy, personal development, meditation, or other approaches. They may understand their patterns incredibly well—and still feel the same response when attachment gets activated.
Secure Within isn't about giving you another explanation for why you feel this way.
Hypnosis gives us a way to work with the earlier experiences and emotional learning connected to the pattern—not only your conscious understanding of it.
By emotional learning, I simply mean what your experiences taught you about love, what to expect from it, and how you learned to protect yourself. Some of that learning can continue influencing how you respond today, even when you consciously know something different.
It isn't about therapy having failed. It's about working with the pattern in a different way when understanding it hasn't been enough to change how you feel.
I've already tried therapy and it didn't work—why would this be different?
Yes, working with earlier memories is part of this process. But we don't search for specific memories or decide in advance what you need to revisit.
In hypnosis, we work with the feelings and experiences connected to the pattern. When an earlier memory becomes relevant, you remain aware and in control of what you choose to share and explore.
Rather than simply talking about what happened, you are given the opportunity to experience it with the wisdom, perspective, strength, and resources you have as an adult now.
You can see the experience differently, understand what that younger part of you needed at the time, and offer her the emotional support she may not have had then.
And what's remarkable is how experiencing the past differently can begin to change how you feel and respond in your life and relationships now.
The memory itself doesn't change. But your experience of it can—and so can the meaning you carry forward from it.
Will I have to revisit earlier memories?
Ready to Feel Different in Love?
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You don't have to understand everything before you begin.
Your first 60-minute session is complimentary, so you can experience the work for yourself and decide whether Secure Within feels right for you.
Scope of practice: Secure Within is a hypnotherapy program focused on anxious attachment and emotional patterns in relationships. Emily Sarah is a certified hypnotherapist, not a licensed mental health professional or medical provider. Secure Within does not provide mental health diagnoses, psychiatric care, medical care, or emergency support, and is not a substitute for care from an appropriately licensed professional. If you need diagnosis, medication, crisis support, or treatment for a mental health condition, please contact an appropriately licensed professional or emergency service. If you are experiencing a mental health emergency or are in immediate danger, please call 911 or contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.