A New Metric for Emotional Health

Popular culture is fascinated with attachment styles, but attachment experts say it’s less of a style, and more of a location on the attachment continuum. We are all somewhere on the same path, depending on the health of our attachment to ourselves and others. 

I would like to propose a new metric to identify where we fall on this spectrum, because I’ve found an accurate way to assess emotional health: our ability to self-nurture. 

Children who receive consistent nurture from attachment figures will internalize it, learning to self-nurture, such as participating in preparing their food, cleaning their room, and caring for their body. This means when a baby’s bodily needs are met regularly, when they are given consistent comfort, and when a child’s feelings are attuned to, they find themselves becoming mature and responsible young people. For the most part, no one needs to explicitly teach them how to clean their room, want to be on time, or take their hygiene seriously, because there’s a natural inclination to do these things. It’s internal, because they’ve learned they matter, and they flesh this out most of the time. 

Unfortunately, consistent nurture is rare, and many infants' physical and comfort needs are not met regularly, as they’re left to “cry it out,” and many children’s feelings are not attuned to at all. The outcome of such nurture-deficits cause children and adults to become stuck at a young developmental age, not willing to take on the responsibility of nurturing themselves, but expecting others to do this for them. 

They might appear as high functioning, successful adults, but if you look carefully, you will notice there’s a child within who still expects others to nurture them. It’s like this part of them is attempting to finally procure something they never received. So instead of taking responsibility for themselves they outsource their nurture to others in order to feel lovable and important. The problem is, it’s never enough, because fulfillment comes only from becoming that nurturing figure for ourselves. 

I see this unwillingness to self-nurture show up most often related to food, as food is the quintessential symbol of nurture. The words “nourish” and “nurture” are related, both derived from the Latin root “nutri” which literally means to nurse from a breast. This makes sense, given that breastfeeding provides both food and comfort to a baby simultaneously. What nurture truly signifies is love, and love is necessary for healthy human development. 

I remember as a nutrition major in college, learning about a disease called Marasmus, in which an infant who is given sufficient food, but not enough nurturing touch, will die. Today we call this “failure to thrive,” which often confounds doctors, as children will receive feedings well above their necessary caloric needs, but continue to appear emaciated. It’s yet another example of something the medical establishment fails to recognize: the power of love – and the power of its evil counterpart: the absence of love, emotional neglect. 

I view a young person’s restricted eating as a silent plea to their parents for nurture. It’s less risky to starve ourselves than to ask a cold parent for love. When we experience neglect as a child, it feels empty in our gut, and filling ourselves with food isn’t ideal, but it does numb the ache of loneliness. Popping a bottle in the mouth of a baby, who’s crying to be held, is less vulnerable and more convenient for many parents. Food isn’t love, but at least it temporarily fills the void – or gets us the attention we’d never ask for. 

When I first meet someone, and they tell me they enjoy cooking, I suspect them to be an emotionally healthy person, and I’m usually not disappointed. Someone who hates cooking and outsources their nurture to others by eating out frequently, or who skips meals often, is usually someone who isn’t psychologically mature. 

I had a friend who was highly functional in society, well-liked with a good job, who appears to be a happy and outgoing person. Yet as you spend time with her, you’ll hear another story: one where she sees herself as a perpetual victim because she’s not married. Instead of being grateful for all she has, she feels empty without a partner and idealizes marriage, fostering jealousy toward friends who aren’t single. This manifests in her relationship with food, as she refuses to cook for herself, but spends many thousands of dollars going out to eat most nights, as a way to avoid being alone. Ironically, she also laments about her financial stress – but attributes it to being single. 

Another metric for assessing attachment health is the person’s willingness to drive themselves. When we are in the driver’s seat of a car, we are symbolically in touch with our anger and in a position of control over our lives. I find many clients will have panic attacks specifically while they’re driving, and others will feel anger that usually goes suppressed. People who don’t want to feel their feelings or take control over their lives will often avoid driving altogether. Oftentimes they are happy with being driven by someone else, because that gives them a sense of nurture that they refuse to give to themselves. 

I had one friend who was in denial, refusing to take ownership of her life, who had to drive herself on a 4-hour road trip. She made it, but barely, as she managed to sabotage herself by making sure her phone was nearly dead yet needing it for directions. This is a person who is incredibly responsible and detail-oriented, a professional bookkeeper and property manager, yet she suddenly “forgets” to make sure her phone is charged when she has no one else to drive her out of town. The dying phone serves as a needed distraction keeping her from connecting with her power, which has potential to actually change her entire life. Power is threatening for many people, as it might cause them to be alone. 

Self-nurture is also evidenced by our living spaces and how we relate to them. Healthy people will decorate their home in a way that is both attractive and comfortable, and they will exert time and energy maintaining it by participating in house and yard-work. They will often have houseplants and clean, but cozy, homes. They won’t furnish or clean in a way to prove anything, but to satisfy themselves. When you enter their home, you will feel at home yourself, because you are entering an environment that represents how they feel at peace with themselves. 

In contrast, I think of the homes as a child we would deem “haunted.” They were often inhabited by old people who let the home fall apart, and they were spooky. The scariest part was that these people never left their house, so our imaginations would run wild to imagine them. 

Yet I also knew a good share of elderly people, like my grandpa, who took care of their home – or hired people to keep it up. They would leave their home, and there was nothing frightening about them. The difference between the two boils down to their ability to self-nurture. My father is now officially in the category of the spooky old people, as he refuses to care for his home and it’s apparent to all. 

A common way lack of self-nurture manifests is when people always want to be heard, but are unwilling to listen. Their young self wasn’t adequately heard, and now they’re attempting to make up for it – at everyone else’s expense. I spent several hours recently with someone like this. She isn’t a bad person, and I do enjoy listening to much of what she has to say. But when I arrived home, I found myself exhausted as my brain felt understimulated. It’s not engaging to listen but not be heard, and I refuse to be in the same situation again. It’s too draining. 

In contrast, being in the presence of a self-nurturing person is nurturing. They are people who make good eye contact and are prone to listen. They are authentic, without an agenda, and there is no threat. They will speak about their feelings and validate others’. They make others feel seen and heard, versus merely seeking to be seen and heard. 

Some people find this type of person offputting, as it makes them feel too vulnerable. They don’t trust a nurturing presence, and find it evocative. They will project sinister motivations onto them, such as that they’re manipulative or disingenuine. Many of these people will feel ambivalent about such a healthy person — part of them loves the attunement, while another part doesn’t trust it to last. 

When we’re around people who refuse to self-nurture, we can fall into a trap. It can feel good to cook or drive for them, and they may idealize us for it. It feels amazing to feel needed at times, but we have to be savvy, because for someone like this, it’s never enough. Giving them our undivided attention, help or generosity is like feeding a black hole, because the only thing that will ultimately fulfill them, is what they give themselves. 

We all need love at every phase of our development, but most of us didn’t receive adequate nurture during our most vulnerable times. The good news is, we don’t have to stay stuck, but can take the reins of our journey by giving ourselves the love that was withheld from us. This allows us to become emotionally mature, responsible and integrated humans. This frees us from depending upon others to deliver something they can’t give consistently, and instead of needing them, their presence becomes a welcome bonus, nothing more.  

This, friend, is how we participate in our own liberation, rescuing ourselves from emptiness. No matter where we currently stand on the attachment continuum, we can arrive at a place of maturity, and it doesn’t take long. All we need is a commitment to ourselves that we are worth the work, because we ARE. And the work isn’t laborious or draining, but rejuvenating and delightful. Nurturing ourselves is, well… nurturing.