Centering Yourself: What Black Women Can Learn About Growth Through Attachment Styles — With a Little Help From Girlfriends
This page contains affiliate links. Meaning, I get commission if you purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Read the full disclosure here. This blog post is for entertainment and educational purposes only.
Fair use disclosure
Hey y'all! — I hope this message finds you well.
There's a lot of buzz on the internet surrounding 'decentering men' and 'decentering the patriarchy' and while YES ABSOLUTELY to all of the above, I try my best to reframe things in a more aligned way for myself. There comes a pivotal point in many Black women’s lives when we get tired of surviving on autopilot. Tired of performing strength, tired of always being “the dependable one,” tired of shrinking our needs in relationships, friendships, careers, and even in private moments with ourselves.
And when we finally choose to center ourselves — not in a selfish way, but in a sovereign, spiritually aligned way — we often discover something deeper: the way we attach, love, respond, protect ourselves, and show up was shaped long before we ever had the language to name it.
If you were a 90's kid like myself, you were a pre-teen/teen when Mara Brock Akil's critically acclaimed hit series, Girlfriends, debuted on UPN September 2000. It was an instant hit amongst Black women who at the time were not accustomed to easy-going relatable shows of its caliber. I remember watching with my soft, jelly frontal lobe thinking how cool the characters were and pictured how my life would be once I had reached their ages. I also always felt more akin to Tracee Ellis Ross' character, Joan Clayton, because I saw myself as an unconditional giver/lover and often went above and beyond for others, who didn't always reciprocate. Oh, how green was I —lol. I say all this not to take away from the powerhouse the show is, was and will forever be, but to offer a new perspective. Looking back now as a nearly 37 year old woman, I can see how these characters' lives were far more complex than I once thought.
This is where attachment styles come into play.
Attachment styles are not just psychological terms; they're emotional blueprints. And for Black women—raised in communities built on resilience, survival, mutual caretaking, and generational shifts—they often reveal how we learned to love and be loved in a world that hasn’t always loved us back.
To make this conversation more grounded and culturally familiar, I thought it'd be fun to deep dive into the Girlfriends' tea/attachment styles so that we can have a more relatable example and curate the life we desire for ourselves. Their storylines reflect the emotional patterns many of us wrestle with — even today.
Attachment Styles Through the Women of Girlfriends
Joan Carol Clayton —
Anxious Attachment (Healing Toward Secure)
Image: Charactour
Joan is accomplished, smart, generous, and deeply loving — but beneath all that excellence is a quiet fear of being abandoned or never being “chosen.” Her patterns show up when she:
• Overinvests in relationships
• Tries to fix or manage everything
• Overthinks conflict
• Questions her worth when love feels uncertain
• Builds her identity around being “good enough”
Joan represents the woman who has worked for everything — and subconsciously believes she must work for love too. Her journey reflects so many Black women who’ve been conditioned to perform perfection in order to be loved, valued, or respected.
Centering for the 'Joan' woman:
Centering yourself means learning that love is not earned through effort — it’s received through being.
It means softening into self-trust, learning emotional regulation, and releasing the belief that you must constantly prove your worth.
Antoinette 'Toni' Childs-Garrett —
Avoidant Attachment
(Emotional Distance Behind the Glamour)
Toni is flawless on the outside — immaculate hair, couture fits, ambition, taste. But her emotional world is guarded, controlled, and tightly curated. Avoidant attachment often looks like:
• Difficulty with vulnerability
• Emotional walls disguised as independence
• Leaving relationships instead of working through conflict
• Using success as a shield from intimacy
• Running when things feel threateningly close
Toni isn’t cold — she’s self-protective. And that layer of armor is something many Black women develop as a response to chaos, instability, or inconsistent care growing up.
Centering for the 'Toni' woman:
Centering yourself means dismantling the idea that needing people is weakness. It's choosing vulnerability in small, intentional doses and letting emotional closeness be a source of support, not danger.
Lavender Heart Tea: A Collection of Love Notes, Monologues, Short Stories & Poems Dedicated to Reconnecting with the Authentic Self
by LaKeshia T. Williams is now available in paperback, ebook & audiobook
Lynn Searcy —
Disorganized Attachment (Intuitive but Unanchored)
Lynn is the free spirit: talented, compassionate, deeply intuitive — but emotionally inconsistent and frequently ungrounded. Disorganized attachment often expresses as:
• A push-pull dynamic in relationships
• Craving closeness but fearing responsibility
• Floating between identities, communities, or passions
• Emotional overwhelm
• Difficulty forming stable routines or structures
Lynn’s background — adoption, instability, lack of consistent guidance — mirrors the emotional chaos that shaped her attachment patterns. Many Black women with expansive creativity and deep sensitivity relate to Lynn. They feel everything intensely, but lack internal safety and structure.
Centering for the 'Lynn' woman:
Centering yourself means creating rituals, grounding practices, and stable environments that support your gifts. It means finding safety inside your own body, not in constant reinvention or external validation.
Maya Denise Wilkes —
Secure Attachment (Rooted, Grounded, and Self-Aware)
Maya is confident, intuitive, outspoken, and grounded in who she is. She knows her value. She defends her boundaries. She communicates directly. She loves deeply without losing herself.
Does she make mistakes? Absolutely. But her emotional foundation is stable.
Secure women honor connection and autonomy. They don’t collapse under pressure, nor do they avoid intimacy. They move through conflict with intention — even if imperfectly.
This is the woman many of us are becoming. The woman healing her patterns, honoring her truth, and creating relationships rooted in balance, not survival.
Centering for the 'Maya' woman:
Centering yourself means continuing to nurture your secure habits, refusing to shrink in relationships, and building systems that support your growth long-term.
Why This Matters for Black Women’s Personal Growth
Understanding attachment styles gives us language for experiences many of us were never taught to name. It helps us:
• Stop repeating cycles we inherited
• Build healthier relationships romantically and platonically
• Understand our emotional triggers
• Reclaim self-worth without performance
• Identify when we’re reacting from survival mode rather than our centered selves
When you center yourself, you stop living for approval, survival, or image. You start living from a place of clarity, softness, and emotional alignment.
The Shift: From Reacting to Re-Centering
Moving forward, before you respond to conflict, ask yourself:
“Is this my true self speaking… or my attachment pattern reacting?”
This one question can shift everything. When you can recognize your emotional imprint, you can interrupt the old patterns and choose differently — with grace, honesty, and intention.
Self-Reflection Exercise:
Re-Centering Through Your Attachment Style
Find a quiet moment and journal on these prompts:
1. Which Girlfriend do I emotionally resonate with the most, and why?
Think about the traits, struggles, or storylines that feel familiar.
2. How do I tend to react when relationships feel uncertain or overwhelming?
Do you cling? Pull back? Shut down? Overfunction? Detach?
3. When was the last time I abandoned myself to keep a relationship or situation stable?
What would centering yourself have looked like in that moment?
4. What emotional habits do I want to carry into my future, and which ones am I ready to retire?
5. What does emotional safety feel like in my body — not in theory, but physically?
Warmth? Softness? Stillness? Groundedness?
6. What is one daily practice I can use to return to myself?
Breathing, affirmations, journaling, saying “no,” accountability, prayer, or honest conversations.
Want to reflect on this exercise later?
FREE DOWNLOAD: Centering Yourself: Attachment Style Reflection
Closing Invitation
Whether you see yourself in Joan’s anxious heart, Toni’s guarded walls, Lynn’s free-spirited chaos, or Maya’s groundedness, your attachment style is not your destiny.
It's simply your emotional starting point. Centering yourself is the journey of returning to who you’ve always been beneath the fear, the conditioning, and the performance.
You deserve fulfilling relationships — including the one with yourself — that feel like home, not survival.
Until next time.
💌Other love notes from keesh you might love
