In this deeply grounding episode, I sit down with marriage and family therapist-in-training Danielle Zilg to explore the hidden somatic roots of anxious attachment — the ones that begin long before your first relationship, and in Danielle’s case, long before she ever had words.
We dive into the preverbal and adoption wounds that shaped her earliest sense of safety, belonging, and self, and how those imprints created an anxious attachment style that didn’t make sense logically… but made perfect sense through the lens of her nervous system.
Together, we unpack:
What happens inside an anxiously attached body when someone pulls away
How culture and environment decide whether your body lives in survival mode
Why preverbal trauma + adoption can wire “I’m not enough” into the nervous system
Inner child wounds that shape your relationship triggers today
Why affirmations don’t work when your body is the one holding the fear
How talk therapy can unintentionally retraumatize people with anxious attachment/CPTSD
Why “feel it to heal it” isn’t enough — and what actually helps emotions process
Adult self-anchoring and how to create internal safety from the inside out
My own experience using Brainspotting to release ancestral trauma from my body
This conversation is for anyone who has ever wondered:
“Why does my body panic, spiral, or shut down even when nothing is ‘wrong’?”
“Why do I feel rejected so quickly?”
“Why can’t I think my way out of this pattern?”
You’re not broken — you’re carrying imprints from a time before you had language.
And those imprints can be healed.
This episode will help you understand your attachment triggers on a body level, reconnect with the younger parts of you who never got the safety they needed, and begin rewriting the nervous system patterns that have kept you in survival mode.
Connect with Valerie on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/healwithval/
Connect with Danielle on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danielle.z.mft/