THE NEW RULES OF ATTACHMENT BY DR. JUDY HO

RATING: 📚📚📚📚📚

The New Rules of Attachment: How to Heal Your Relationships, Reparent Your Inner Child, and Secure Your Life Vision.

I almost stopped reading this book multiple times. I did not like how it was forcing me to FEEL. I do not do well with emotions of any sort, so when they start to fester, my first instinct isn’t to treat it, it’s to do a quick patch job and forget about it. This was a wonderful and insightful read, but I was struggling.

I have a very traumatic past/childhood. It left me angry and closed off. I don’t want to fix those broken relationships, and I don’t wanna reach my inner child. I am not a forgiving person, and I hold grudges. I know it’s not healthy, but that’s me. I teach my children differently, and they never see the angry, closed off person everyone else gets. They will never know the inner “war” I battle within myself, every day since I was 11 years old.

This book helps you recognize your attachment style. There is a quiz “attachment style” around the start of the book to help you determine what style you are. My style is Avoidant- Fiercely Independent with Disorganized-Surveillance Specialist coming in second. I can agree with those. The other styles are Secure-Connected Explorer and Anxious-Worried Warrior. There are chapters dedicated to each style, and they give more insight into each style. I enjoyed reading about each style I had my kids take it too, just to get an idea of what style they are.

Rules of Attachment is full of exercises to help you, and can be used as journal prompts. That is how I used them. One of my favorite exercises was the empty chair one. The empty chair exercise is basically you working through your issues with a certain person. You are in a chair, and there is another chair across from you, empty. You imagine there is someone sitting in that chair (and it could be yourself like a younger you) and you express your feelings and let it all out. I found this exercise therapeutic. I’ve imagined my mom, my sister, my dad, and myself. I even imagined my stepmom, but in a good way. She is the one who encouraged me to journal as an outlet for my anger. I felt silly at first, because I mean no one is there, but after you warm up to the idea, it’s healing.

I encourage people to read this book or something similar. If you are looking for journaling ideas to help better yourself, get this book. If you went through something traumatic, get this book. If you ever felt like “your people” let you down, get this book. Even if you are a happy go lucky type of person, get this book. It was an awesome read, even if I wanted to quit every other chapter. **** I put the attachment style quiz in my review ****

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