Secure Attachment on Yom Kippur
You don’t need anyone else to validate you.
You are an adult.
Validate yourself and move on.
An evocative morning jolt scrolling through my Instagram feed. Another tab in my brain filed under ‘awareness.’
Recently, I took an online quiz called What is your relationship attachment style?
The choices are avoidant, anxious, disorganized, or secure.
I thought it was interesting that there are only four choices according to this theory of attachment, and only one is optimal-- secure attachment.
Considering how complicated life is and how varied our experiences are, you would think there would be more categories.
Perhaps this is telling us that less is more.
Or maybe each one is so laden that it’s only deceptively simple.
Yom Kippur is in a few hours, and it is a complex day for Jews. Like adult attachment styles, we display similar patterns in our connection to God.
There is the dismissive-avoidant Jew. I am a self-made human. Religion is a crutch; it’s the opiate of the masses. It’s an ancient construct for feeble minds. Why do we need faith if we have hard-cold facts, like science? My guard is never down, and I avoid God at all costs.
I've also met the anxious-preoccupied Jew. God is awesome. I am worthless. If I could only be more pure, holy, and spiritual, perhaps God would be kinder to me. In the meantime, I carry this burden of my religion like a ball and chain, but I will never give it up. This is what God wills from me.
Then there is the disorganized-unresolved Jew. It just depends on what mood you catch me in, and I am either dismissive or anxious. I am not sure of myself, so I am not sure of God.
If I am paying attention, Yom Kippur, at the very least, is my one day of secure attachment.
Secure attachment means that I feel good about myself and I feel good about God too.
Because of this, I can forgo my day-to-day activities and instead focus on my essence. Thus forming my authentic attachment called D’vykus.
Fasting and praying are the means to align most simply with my spiritual attachment, reaching upward and being infused with the divine.
There is nothing simpler than one’s basic connection to God. So perhaps I am an adult and can validate myself, true. But it sure is more helpful when my attachment up above is secured for myself when I feel connected down below.
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Thank you to Rabbi Shais Taub for connecting adult attachment styles to Jewish ones and allowing me to use the idea and make it my own.