Developing Safe Attachment in Our Relationships: with God and Others
Written by: Brenda Stewart, MA, M.Div, D.Min, LMFT
March 1, 2025
As a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Relational Spirituality Certified Coach, I’ve seen time and again how the quality of our early childhood relationships profoundly shapes our emotional, spiritual, and relational well-being. At the heart of these relationships lies the concept of attachment—a deep, often unconscious pattern of relating that begins in infancy and continues to influence how we connect with others and with God throughout our lives.
What is Safe Attachment?
Safe attachment is our capacity to form strong emotional bonds with others while also maintaining a healthy sense of ourselves. It develops initially through our earliest relationships with our first caregivers who consistently meet our physical and emotional needs. When children experience loving care and emotional attunement, we develop what we counselors call a “secure base” from which we can confidently explore the world.
As we experience safe attachment, we feel confident that others will be there for us in times of need, and we are empowered to offer the same kind of presence to others. This sense of safety allows us to explore the world, take risks, and grow, knowing that we have a “secure base” to return to.
Over time, these experiences form what is referred to as “attachment filters” or implicit relational knowledge—deeply ingrained patterns of expectation about how relationships work. These filters shape how we perceive ourselves, others, and even God.
Some ways safe attachment looks and feels:
Our ability to seek and accept comfort from others
Healthy emotional regulation
Resilience in facing life’s challenges
Our capacity to form and maintain intimate relationships
A balanced sense of independence and interdependence
Feeling safe relating to others without high levels of reactivity
Growing Secure Attachment
The good news is that attachment patterns can be transformed throughout life. While early experiences shape our implicit relational knowledge, they do not determine our future. Healing and growth cannot occur in isolation but requires the context of safe relationships. With guidance from a therapist who understands the importance of attachment and through new corrective relational experiences with God and with trusted friends, we can reshape our attachment filters. As a result, we will develop a stronger, more secure attachment and grow in our ability to love and be loved.
Here are a few practical steps for developing safer attachments:
Safe Therapeutic Relationships: Working with a safe therapist can provide a “secure base” and corrective emotional experiences from which to explore and heal attachment wounds.
Self-Awareness and Reflection: Take time with your therapist to understand your attachment history. Making sense of your own story and how it has affected you is key to understanding your current relationships.
Involvement in Safe Community and Embracing Vulnerability: Find your tribe of people that provide consistent, emotionally attuned relationships where you can practice vulnerable sharing while giving and receiving care.
Spiritual Practices: Certain Spiritual practices can help us internalize God’s love and presence, gradually transforming our implicit relational knowledge.
Examples include:
Reflection on whether you struggle to embrace God’s love. Bringing these implicit patterns into our explicit awareness is the first step toward change.
Contemplative prayer that focuses on experiencing God’s presence.
Meditation on scripture passages about God’s love, care, and safety.
Relational Spirituality
One of the most profound insights from the theory of Relational Spirituality is that our attachment patterns with human caregivers often mirror our attachment to God. For example, if we grew up with caregivers who were emotionally unavailable or inconsistent, we may struggle to trust that God is present and responsive to our needs.
One of my favorite passages to meditate on is Romans 8:38-39. This passage emphasizes God’s unwavering, unbreakable love. Here’s how this passage aligns with secure attachment principles:
“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor rulers, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers...”
This mirrors the core of secure attachment: the assurance that nothing can sever the bond with a loving caregiver (in this case, God).
“Neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord”
Secure attachment involves a sense of felt safety, which is the deep internal sense that I am protected by God and not alone.
Integration into Our Daily Life
Developing secure attachment is a journey and not a destination. No one is perfectly secure. It requires patience, self-awareness, and a willingness to engage in the relational work of healing and growth. It is important to celebrate those small incremental steps and changes as we open ourselves to the transformative power of love and bonding—the love that flows from God, through others, and back to Him.
References:
Hall, T. W. (2021). Relational spirituality: A psychological-theological paradigm for transformation (pp. 138–244). InterVarsity Press.
Holy Bible, New International Version. (2011). Biblica. Retrieved from https://www.biblegateway.com
Brenda Stewart, MA, M.Div, D.Min, LMFT
Brenda Stewart is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who has a passion for adults of all ages, marriage health, blended families, and parenting children and teens.