Amir Levine (on attachment theory)

Summary

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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard

Episode: [Amir Levine (on attachment theory)]
Date: March 11, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode centers on Dr. Amir Levine, psychiatrist, neuroscientist, and co-author of the best-selling book Attached and the new book Secure: The Revolutionary Guide to Creating a Secure Life. Dax Shepard and Monica Padman interview Dr. Levine about the science and misconceptions of attachment theory, how attachment styles function in adults and children, and—most critically—whether and how people can actually change their attachment styles to become more secure. The episode covers Levine’s personal and professional journey, neuroscientific insights, the influence of childhood and biology on attachment, and practical advice from his new work.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Attachment Theory: The Basics and Its Evolution

• Origins and Fundamentals:
  • Attachment theory was developed by John Bowlby, who argued that attachment is a basic human need—not just a byproduct of getting food or care, but as essential as water. (16:15–17:21)
  • Mary Ainsworth extended this work through the “Strange Situation” experiment, identifying three main child attachment styles: secure, anxious, and avoidant. (17:36–19:21)

“Attachment is a basic need, just like food and water... It’s not a byproduct, it’s something that we need.”
—Dr. Amir Levine, 16:40

• Misconceptions in the Popular Discourse:
  • Dr. Levine addresses the proliferation of attachment theory on social media, emphasizing that anxious and avoidant styles are not pathologies, but natural variations—each with their own strengths and trade-offs. (24:37–25:17)
  • He notes, “Attachment doesn’t come from the medical model of pathology... it’s more about: is it effective or is it not effective?” (24:37)

2. Attachment Styles in Childhood and Adulthood

• Defining Attachment Styles:

  • Anxious: Crave close intimacy but are hypersensitive to perceived threats of abandonment.
  • Avoidant: Value independence, prefer emotional distance, and can feel overwhelmed by closeness.
  • Secure: Comfortable with closeness and independence, not highly sensitive to relational threat. (73:12–74:14)

• Key Mechanisms:

  • Co-regulation: The ability of close others to regulate our emotions—seen in childhood and adulthood.
  • In adults, attachment is focused on "radars of availability"—how attuned we are to closeness and threat. (19:43–20:58, 23:24–25:15)

• Context Dependency & Fluidity:

  • Attachment styles are relationship and context-dependent—they can shift based on the specific partnership or friendship. (28:01–28:33)

“We are very fluid and context dependent... I'm one way here, I'm one way there.”
—Dax Shepard, 28:01

3. Nature, Nurture, and the Origin of Attachment

• Biology and Upbringing:
  • Dr. Levine shares his upbringing—an intellectually free environment with little emphasis on grades, which shaped his thirst for knowledge but also contrasts between his permissive mother and avoidant, rigid father.
  • He recognizes, in retrospect, how attachment differences played out in his family dynamic. (08:49–14:22)

“I have so much more compassion to him now... understanding how to look at the world more securely... I can feel it inside me.”
—Dr. Amir Levine on his father, 13:19

• Genetic and Social Factors:
  • Attachment style is not simply “set” by childhood; genetics and numerous social factors contribute.
  • The adult attachment interview finds that how people narrate their childhood (coherence, consistency) can predict their children’s attachment—but there is significant variability and nothing is deterministic. (20:03–21:16)

4. Changing Attachment: Can We Become More Secure?

• Changing Attachment Styles:
  • Dr. Levine’s new work focuses on practical strategies and therapeutic approaches to shift toward secure attachment—what he calls "secure priming therapy."
  • Focus is on “priming” the brain with positive, secure experiences: not just endlessly rehashing childhood trauma but leveraging the present and close connections. (36:24–38:33)

“You merge together three different fields... neuroscience, clinical psychology, and attachment... creating secure priming therapy.”
—Dax Shepard, 37:19

• The Five Pillars of a Secure Life (“CARP”):
  • Consistency, Availability, Responsiveness, Predictability/Reliability
  • Relationship security comes when both people reliably demonstrate CARP behaviors. Recognize and invest in ‘CARP’ people; don’t chase drama. (44:09–45:59)

“If you learn to be CARP and you can also teach others to be CARP with you, then you can really create that, hyper included. And it's not that hard.”
—Dr. Amir Levine, 44:12

• Neuroplasticity & Memory:
  • Neural pathways tied to insecurity or security can be strengthened or weakened by experiencing or focusing on everyday positive interactions (“CMEs”: seemingly minor events).
  • Reframing the narrative of one’s past from a secure perspective helps rewire brain pathways—comparable to how muscles strengthen through repeated use. (54:25–56:27)

“The avenue for change in the brain are through those CMEs, because every interaction gives you a moment, a chance to rewrite something...”
—Dr. Amir Levine, 56:07

5. Revisiting the Role of the Past

• Therapeutic Approaches:

  • Dr. Levine pushes back against the Freudian model of obsessing over childhood as destiny, citing data: Children’s attachment predicts less than 10% of adult attachment styles. (54:15–54:25)
  • Instead, secure attachment can be fostered in the present, especially through secure partnerships, friendships, and communities. (64:03–66:19)

• Memory is Mutable:

  • Discussing therapy, they note the value of revisiting childhood memories in a safe, supportive context—this allows for “re-editing” memories to align with current, more secure realities. (66:03–66:19)

6. Attachment, Evolution, and Social Brains

• Evolutionary Insights:
  • Our brains are wired for social connection due to evolutionary survival needs—exclusion is perceived by the brain as painful and threatening (“cyberball effect”).
  • Inclusion and secure relationships create not just emotional safety but facilitate exploration, creativity, and well-being (38:40–42:31).

“It was only when I was on safari in Africa... you realize how fucking vulnerable we are.”
—Dax Shepard, 39:00

• Biological Diversity & Hidden Strengths:
  • Evolution favors diverse attachment styles; anxious and avoidant traits can offer advantages in groups. Each person has unique “hidden sparks of talent” connected to their temperament. (70:32–71:16)

7. Practical Advice for Listeners

• Stop Pathologizing:
  • Avoid labelling yourself or others as broken due to non-secure styles. Take responsibility for creating secure experiences, focus attention on the secure people in your life, and challenge self-defeating narratives. (47:26–48:42)
• Tiny Shifts Matter:
  • Build security through small, repeated positive interactions and intentionally seeking out or cultivating ‘CARP’ relationships.
• You Can Change:
  • Attachment is not destiny—new relationships, self-reflection, and conscious behavior changes can lead to greater security.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Dr. Amir Levine on Social Media Misconceptions:
  “People equate anxious and avoidant with pathology... but attachment doesn’t come from the model of healing and curing. The question is: is the bond effective in regulating emotions?” (24:37)

• Dax on Gratitude and Narrative:
  “You and I could construct any story we want... by focusing on the things that were gnarly, we’re excluding all the other stuff that would confirm: no, we actually had a very blessed, lucky childhood.” (52:30)

• Mind-Blowing Data Point:
  “The attachment styles we have as children predict less than 10% of the attachment styles we have as adults.”
  —Dr. Amir Levine, (54:15)

• Dr. Levine on Changing the Narrative:
  “That shift is huge for our brain and it can really help us. It really changes also who we are in the here and now.” (53:26)

• Neuroscience Reminder:
  “Every interaction gives you a moment, a chance to rewrite something... and that’s basically the synaptic plasticity idea.”
  —Dr. Amir Levine, (56:07)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Intro & Dr. Levine’s Background | [01:01–07:06]

  • Personal and academic history; path to attachment research.

• Attachment Theory Fundamentals | [15:06–19:51]

  • Secure, anxious, avoidant in children; strange situation test.

• Attachment in Adults, Myths & Science | [23:24–29:56]

  • Attachment radar, the impact of relationships and context on style.

• Origins: Nature, Nurture, and Biography | [08:49–14:22]

  • Family stories, childhood experiences, and their influence.

• Changing Attachment, Secure Priming, CARP Pillars | [36:24–45:59]

  • Secure priming therapy; how to identify and foster security.

• Neuroplasticity & the Power of Minor Moments (“CMEs”) | [54:25–56:27]

  • How everyday interactions rewire attachment responses.

• Debunking “Attachment is Destiny” | [54:15–54:25], [63:44–66:09]

  • The limited predictive power of childhood attachment.

• Evolution, Exclusion, and the Social Brain | [38:40–42:31]

  • Why our brains crave secure belonging (Cyberball effect, survival insights).

• Attachment Diversity & Biological Strengths | [70:32–71:24]

  • Each attachment style’s strengths, and valuing secure bonds.

• Rapid Definitions Round: Attachment Styles | [73:12–74:14]

  • Quick descriptions of anxious, avoidant, and secure in action.

• Avoidant Attachment: A Reappraisal | [77:14–78:28]

  • The need for more compassion, less blame for avoidance.

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Quick Reference: The Five Pillars of Secure Relationships (“CARP”)

Consistency
Availability
Responsiveness
Predictability/Reliability

“If you learn to be CARP and you can also teach others to be CARP with you, then you can really create that hyper included [security].”
— Dr. Amir Levine, 44:12

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Tone and Style

The conversation is warm, humorous, and laden with examples from hosts’ and guests’ personal lives. Dax overshares, Monica self-reflects, and Dr. Levine brings a blend of storytelling, clinical insight, and optimism for change. The tone is non-judgmental, curious, and hopeful throughout.

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Takeaways for Listeners

• Attachment theory is not about diagnosing pathologies, but understanding how we give and receive security.
• Your attachment style as a child does not determine your destiny as an adult; substantive change is possible at any age.
• Practical, everyday behaviors—especially in secure relationships—can rewire the brain toward greater security and wellness.
• Focus time and energy on secure (“CARP”) relationships, and don’t chase the drama of unreliable connections.
• The ultimate goal: flourish, not just heal.

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Recommended Reading:

• Secure: The Revolutionary Guide to Creating a Secure Life — Dr. Amir Levine

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Transcript

[Dax Shepard]

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. Experts on expert. I'm Dan Shepard and I'm joined by Lily Padman.

[Monica Padman]

Hi.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Hi.

[Dax Shepard]

We have the author of an incredibly popular book.

[Monica Padman]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

Read by millions.

[Monica Padman]

Millions indeed.

[Dax Shepard]

His first book was Attached, Amir Levine. He is a psychiatrist, a neuroscientist, and of course a best selling author. And he has a new book out kind of answering as he talks about attached outline these different attachment styles. And then people were naturally curious, can I change mine? And so his new book is to address that exact question, the revolutionary guide to creating a secure life. Please enjoy Dr. Amir Levine. This episode of Armchair Expert is Presented by Apple TV, the new US home of Formula 1. Starting March 7, you can watch complete all access live coverage of every Grand Prix, including practice, qualifying and sprints all all in one place. Watch every race live only on Apple tv.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

He's an object.

[Dax Shepard]

Hi, Moni, how are you?

[Monica Padman]

I'm good.

[Dax Shepard]

Did you have a good weekend?

[Monica Padman]

I did have a good weekend.

[Dax Shepard]

Anything spectacular happen?

[Monica Padman]

Nothing spectacular, which is a good weekend.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

You know, relaxing weekend. I'm moving this week.

[Dax Shepard]

Friday.

[Monica Padman]

I'm sleeping there on Friday.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, my God. Monica's been building a house across the street for what, five, six years?

[Monica Padman]

It'll be six years.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Wow. Congratulations.

[Monica Padman]

Thank you.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

That's amazing.

[Monica Padman]

Thank you. It's been a long time coming, so I am very excited. So this week is a big week because there's a lot of like moving parts and getting this stuff over.

[Dax Shepard]

I wonder if any of your attachment theory stuff is coming up.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, I hope, I hope. I'm so obsessed with attachment theory. I'm so glad you're here because I'm obsessed with it and I don't think I really understand it and I think a lot of people feel that way. Like they reference attachment theory a lot, but I don't know if we're all doing it correctly.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Right. There's a lot of myths and misconceptions for sure.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, great. Well, we're going to learn.

[Dax Shepard]

Where are you from, Amir?

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Originally I grew up in Jerusalem.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. Do you find this to be true, that the Israelis, they tick up highest on the disagreeability category. We've had a lot of experts talk about that.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Oh, that Israelis disagree a lot. Oh, yeah. It's part of our culture.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Yeah, I like it.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

It took me time. What Americans would consider being rude? Yeah, it's actually just normal way of speaking. Like they go like that, which is like, no, I don't agree with you. That would be considered so rude. No one would speak like that. Here.

[Dax Shepard]

Do you know Orna?

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Does she work at NYU in some capacity?

[Dr. Amir Levine]

I think she does. I don't know her personally, but I know her work.

[Dax Shepard]

But you're at Columbia as well.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

I am in Colombia, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, we had her on and I was saying to her, she has this wonderful gift of she's endlessly hopeful and empathetic and also. And I asked her, I'm like, is this the Israeli site? You can also, on a dime, be like, okay, disagreeable time. Like you're very comfortable in the disagreeability. I'd say I'm high on the disagreeability.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Not only that, I think that's how I got into Colombia to do my residency there.

[Dax Shepard]

Really?

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yeah. I went to medical school in Jerusalem and they said, don't bother, they don't take foreign medical graduates. And I said, okay, I'll just go and at least I'll get to talk to all these interesting researchers. And I read about the research and some of the people I knew about the research because usually you go and you go to grand rounds, you spend a day on the wards. And I said, no, I want to meet with the researchers.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

So then I met with one guy who seemed kind of like old and very non threatening. And I knew about his work. So I told him how much I liked his work, but I could have been improved. There's all these different shortcomings in his methodology. And it sort of went on and on. I was just like, what do I have to learn?

[Dax Shepard]

You had nothing to lose.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

And at the end of it, he said, okay, I want you to meet with a few more people. He called a few more people around. It was the Department of Epidemiology. And they all got together and wrote a letter on my behalf to the head of the residency program.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, kidding.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

And that's how I got in.

[Monica Padman]

Great.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Oh, I love that.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, am I right, or at least to believe from this book that you were originally definitely aiming at being a therapist of some variety?

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yeah, I still am a therapist.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes, yes. But the original site was set up.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

I was going to be a psychoanalyst. That's how I basically ended up where I am today in a completely unexpected way. Because back then, in order to become a psychoanalyst, you had to do a year of analysis before going into analytics school.

[Monica Padman]

I love this personal analysis, your own analysis.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Like four times a week on the couch, talking or whatever. They sit behind you, you don't see them. Oh, wow.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, we've had numerous. In fact, we just had someone on who they themselves were therapists and they got to a point in their life where they had to return to therapy. And how much there can be a resistan to that, even from therapists.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yeah. Freud said that there's always resistance. It's kind of like built into the treatment. Yeah, always yo that part of the work as a therapist is working through those resistances.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. So during this year of therapy, you came to realize in some free association that you really still yearn for the biological.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

So I was going to do potentially epidemiological research, but then during that time I was looking for the kind of research that I wanted to do and I got some advice. And they said, you know, a researcher's life is a really hard life. A scientist's life is really hard.

[Dax Shepard]

So.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

So you better choose something that you're really interested in because it's gonna be a rough ride. And so I looked to see what I really liked. And I've always had an affinity to basic science and to molecular research, But I didn't really pursue molecular. I didn't have a PhD, but I really liked it. And it was the analyst who said, well, maybe you should give it a try. But he didn't really know what it means. I didn't. Barely knew even how to hold it by pet.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

But I found this one paper that I really, really liked about long term memory and how long term memory is conserved and epigenetic changes in those neurons in aplysia, which is a sea slug

[Dax Shepard]

that has enormous neurons.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yes. Huge neurons. And then I went and again, I guess that theme of going and talking. So I went and I talked to the last author on that paper, but he wasn't the one who masterminded it. So he listened to me for two minutes. His name was Erick Kandel. And then he basically said, let's go up a floor. And we went. That's where I met James Schwartz. Jimmy, my first mentor. I basically talked to him a little bit about my thoughts. Again, the same thing about the research and the ideas that I had. Then he said, okay, we'll give you a try for three months and see how you fare. And then we'll see what happens after that. There I was going into the lab, which I've never imagined that I would do behind the bench, studying all these molecular experiments.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Wow.

[Dax Shepard]

Now, do you think you had a primary question about life in humans that. That you thought was going to be answered in psychoanalysis or the pursuit of it and the practice of it and that you saw in this epigenome work. Oh, maybe the answer lies over here. Or had that not even occurred to you yet? Do you think you had, like, a driving curiosity, like a primary question?

[Dr. Amir Levine]

I really did want to understand what makes human tick, and I really wanted to understand the brain better. But I don't think that at the time I had a specific idea. I've always had this thirst for knowledge, which maybe will explain why I did what I did. Because at that time, I was almost done with my residency. It's been many years going through medical school and then coming here and doing another year of internship to. I had to do two years. I had to repeat a year of internship. Then I did adult psychiatry and then child psychiatry altogether another five years. So after doing all that training, you

[Dax Shepard]

were 71 years old.

[Monica Padman]

Seriously, you're aging backwards.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

And one would think, okay, it's time to make money. Right. You have to open up your private practice and start making money. And then, wait a second. I still really want to learn more. And I'm going to take a salary, which maybe is like a tenth of the amount, and just continue with my education and learning. But I didn't even think about it that way at the time. Now, looking back, I can see, whoa, these are important years where you could have saved money for retirement. It didn't occur to me at all. I just really wanted that pursuit of knowledge. That's what I did. I went to the lab, and then for many, many years, I did a lot of molecular biology work.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, so I'll overshare with you. So I ended up doing anthro. And I really think about why I did anthropology. I think I was immediately drawn to the fact that, oh, there's a lot of different ways you can live. And I think that was comforting because I felt like with the single mom and all these other things, that we didn't click so well with the culture I inherited. And then, so I was quite critical of the culture I inherited. And I wanted to know, do we have any basis to think that this is the way we should do things? So I guess I'm wondering for you, can you think of any kind of primary angst?

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Definitely. The pursuit of knowledge is a huge one. And I grew up in that environment. I had a very unusual upbringing. My mom had an even more unusual upbringing. The education that she received, it was very, very progressive. They didn't care about grades at all. They didn't have exams. They just would give them comments about what they did. Yeah. And so she lived in a kibbutz, so it's like a commune. So they had to work a lot. Also agriculturally. They didn't live with their parents, so they wanted everyone to be equal. So they sort of separated. It's kind of crazy.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

So she came from a very, very unusual upbringing. But I grew up in Jerusalem. I grew up with my parents. But she also. She didn't believe in grades and she didn't really care about school so much. So I could actually stay home whenever I wanted from school. And I did. I stayed at home a lot. And we had this huge library and I would read a lot. It was completely uncen. I would read the Kama Sutra. I was trying to make sense of it. Different books that I read at the time that I could barely understand, but I just read them anyway. And especially on days when we had exams, I didn't have to go because she didn't believe in exams.

[Monica Padman]

Oh my God.

[Dax Shepard]

It's crazy you ever went to medical school.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yeah, it was very unusual. And whenever we would come home, so we would read together. It was a very rich intellectual environment. And my mom, she was the editor of the equivalent of Scientific American.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, no kidding.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

So there's also a lot of talk about science and popular. So here's why I ended up also writing Popular Science and Popular Psychology. I really grew up with it.

[Dax Shepard]

And by the way, I would say in probably the best motivated way possible, which is like, intrinsically, it's not about getting the good grade. It's not about getting the test right. Knowledge for knowledge for betterment.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Also to think about something original, something that can make people think differently or look at things differently.

[Dax Shepard]

Were your parents divorced?

[Dr. Amir Levine]

They're not divorced. Very, very long relationship. So you're asking because I didn't mention my dad yet?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Well, yeah, yeah. If you're asking about a motiv to understand human behavior. They were completely opposites, my mom and my dad. My mom was a single child who came from an Ashkenazi European ancestry. Jewish ancestry. My dad was a Sephardic Jew. They had 10 siblings, came from a very poor family. And he never even finished the fifth grade.

[Monica Padman]

Wow.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yeah. He had horrible adhd. He was bouncing whenever the teacher would come into the classroom. It was like, you out, get off

[Dax Shepard]

your desk and leave the classroom.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

By the fifth grade, he was done with the formal education. But he was a very smart person and very, very unusual person. Also exactly the opposite of this. Progressive.

[Dax Shepard]

Even high on the disagreeability scale. Within.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Completely high on the disagreeability scale. Like off the charts. Yeah. Can I tell you what he did once. We were at the hotel. I don't remember who the President was. The President of the United States was visiting. He was there with all of his entourage and everyone surrounding him. They're all wearing the. And I got nervous, so I kind of like clutched onto my dad's hand and he said, you have nothing to be afraid of here. They're all humans, just like you. Let me show you something.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, boy.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

And he took out a quarter and he flipped it in the air and then he fell on the marble floor and he made like this little sound and they were all looking down to see what had fell. It was like an instinct. And you see, you see, we're all the same.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, I love that example.

[Monica Padman]

I thought he was gonna do something

[Dax Shepard]

wild and lunge at the President.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yeah, yeah.

[Monica Padman]

I know this is a we, but were you embarrassed by him because he was so different?

[Dr. Amir Levine]

We were so different. I think it took me many, many years to now really more understand what was going on in that relationship. It was not an easy relationship for many, many years. I saw it from really my point of view of like, he was really difficult, stubborn. Everything had to be done his way. So like the opposite of what my mom was like with him. If I didn't make it to school, that was a big deal. Thankfully, he wasn't around a lot and that's how I was able to get away with it. But if you were around, eventually he let do whatever she wanted to do. But he was very, very difficult later on. And actually that's part of why I even wrote this notebook secure. Because all of my understanding and everything that I understood about our relationship really shifted and I see it now from

[Dax Shepard]

a more secure place because he was more an avoidant.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Oh, gosh. He was definitely somewhat avoidant and I think also somewhat fearful avoidant. Sort of like a mixture of it.

[Dax Shepard]

Now that we know a lot more about adhd, the rigidity in the game plan, how much different that is for his experience in your mom's or other people's. Definitely maybe a little compassion.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

I have so much more compassion to him now and then because of this whole process that I went through in understanding how to look at the world more securely. And that has helped me so much because, yes, it was difficult, but I was not easy either. And I was this smart ass kid who was really highly educated, was reading all these books.

[Dax Shepard]

Belittled him. Yes, yeah.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

And corrected his language and would like, do all these things.

[Dax Shepard]

Triggered his insecurities.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yes, constantly.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah. Isn't it so Sad that we realize this all. Is your dad gone? Mine is.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

He's gone. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, mine too. And I'm like, I just hate that I now have all this compassion for him. Cause I was the great challenger of him as well as the household.

[Monica Padman]

Just like me, kids, that's almost part of their role.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

They are there. It's normal, but it can get vicious.

[Monica Padman]

I know it can. Trust me, I know.

[Dax Shepard]

For me, it's just sad. It's like, here's this man on earth that had this boy he clearly loved, and I could have adored him more, and that would have filled him up more, was on the table for me to do, and I didn't for all my many reasons. That's a bummer.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

It's kind of like karma gets you eventually. So now I have this little dog who's really, really cute, but he likes me, but he always growls at me. He has a contentious relationship with me. He's you. Yes, basically. And I see how much I love this dog. And that also helped me. And again, it's those secure shifts that I've had in my understanding of myself and my life that really helped change how I see things. And so now I understand, wow. My dad really loved me because I see how much I love this dog, even though he's so mean to me.

[Monica Padman]

Right, right.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

And I'm like, yeah, my dad really loved me. Because even though I was mean to him, I know that he did. But then I had this idea, like, how did he feel about me when I was behaving towards him in that way? And now I know because I can feel it inside me.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Yeah. I don't even think it's ever anger. It's just kind of hurt, which is even sadder. You know, he's just angry about. Okay, so at some point in your 65 years in academia, residency and all this Stu, you yourself come across attachment theory and you're learning about it. So just give us as brief as possible explanation of attachment theory, which started maybe in the 50s or something.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yes, I came across adult attachment theory by chance. When you learn to become a psychiatrist, psychologist, you know about childhood attachment. But I didn't know that adults have attachment styles and that they attach. During that time when we worked in attachment therapy with kids and their mothers, I loved it so much. So I read everything that there was about it. That's where I came across adult attachment. There's the anxious avoidant, insecure and fearful avoidant. And at the time, I was going through a breakup, and it explained so much it felt like a light bulb went in my head and like, wow, now I understand what went down in this relationship, why it didn't work out and what also happened in other relationships. And so basically, do we really need to understand about these attachment styles?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, let's start with the children.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

So with children, the way that it works. Bowlby is the founder of attachment theory and he had this idea that wasn't prevalent at the time because Freud always thought that we attach to our mothers and fathers. Freud blames their mother a lot. We attach to the mother because she gives us sustenance and food and it's a byproduct of that. But then Bowlby, who actually worked with children, because Freud didn't really work with children.

[Dax Shepard]

No, he did coke and sat in

[Dr. Amir Levine]

his room and thought pretty much. He actually said, no, I beg to differ. Because he saw what happens when children get all of their material needs method, but they were not giving the attachment that they needed. And so he said, no, attachment is a basic need, just like food and water. It's not a byproduct, it's something that we need. And then there's the Harlow experiments that show even in monkeys how much they

[Dax Shepard]

really need these poor little monkeys clinging to a claw.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Instead of the wired mother versus the cloth mother. The wired mother gave food and the cloth mother, it was just a piece of cloth, gave intimacy, basically. Yeah, but it was cold and metal, but it was just cloth. And the monkeys went to the cloth

[Dax Shepard]

at the expense of food.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

They would eat a little bit and then sort of go to the cloth. But remember what he said, because we don't really understand it so much in adulthood. And Bobby did say that attachment starts in birth, actually starts before and then goes on until we die. And I would argue even after. Here we were talking about our fathers.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, wow, great point.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Basically he said that, but then came Mary Ainsworth, who was more of an experimental psychologist. So brilliant. She discovered these attachments style anxious, avoidant and secure in children in something that's called a strange situation test.

[Monica Padman]

Ooh, tell us, tell us.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

So the strange situation test, it's basically you bring a toddler and their caregiver into a room full of toys and you watch them through a one way mirror. You can see it on YouTube. It's really remarkable. You bring them in, the child sees the toys immediately, I want to play, I want to play. Starts pointing at things, they rush over, start playing and then they ask the caregiver to leave the room immediately. They drop what they're Doing? They sort of run to the door, they start banging on the door, crying, and then they. The caregiver to come back to the room. And it's in that reunion, that moment where Mary Ainsworth identified the three attachments fell. The anxious, avoided, insecure. And it's remarkable to see. It's basically, how effective is that bond in regulating the child's emotion?

[Monica Padman]

Oh, interesting.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yeah. And it's very important actually, that co regulation is so important and also translates to adulthood. So now I'm sort of stressing it, I'm like really making a point of it. So basically the secure bond, the mother picks them up and immediately it's just like magic. They just calm down right away and then start pointing at the toys, wanting to engage again. Anxious, not so much.

[Monica Padman]

What happens? What do they do?

[Dr. Amir Levine]

It just takes a long time to calm them down. Sometimes they calm down and then start crying again. It's called the calm, un. Calm paradigm. So the bond is not as effective in regulating their emotions. And the avoidant, sometimes they don't even cry or even they do a little bit. They stay limp in their mother's hands.

[Dax Shepard]

Is it fair to say they're. They're pissed at the caregiver?

[Dr. Amir Levine]

So you think, oh, sometimes they look like, I don't care, whatever. But when you look at their blood pressure, their pulse, it's through the roof. So they're blocking their attachment needs. But at the same time they're alone in trying to regulate their emotions. They don't know how to utilize the bond to regulate their emotions.

[Dax Shepard]

Right.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, interesting.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

So it all has to do with how good are people, children and then adults in using others to regulate their feelings and emotions.

[Dax Shepard]

Do we know what the contributing factors are that end up in an anxious attachment versus the avoidant attachment? Are there patterns within that parenting style that produce that outcome?

[Dr. Amir Levine]

That's a very good question. And we do know a little bit. It's kind of like a wild field because apparently there's something that's called the adult Attachment interview. The same attachment styles in adulthood, but they have nothing to do with the other attachment styles, the more romantic ones or other relationships. It has more to do with how we remember our childhood. Not so much the memories themselves, but how we narrate our childhood. There's the adult attachment interview. It gets scored by psychologists and that can predict to some degree the attachment style of the child. So how? Well, if you're very structured in your narration of your past, then the child will be more secure. In the strange situation test, if the parent Is.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, wild.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yes, it's pretty wild.

[Dax Shepard]

So if they have a pretty coherent chronological story of their own.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

That makes sense.

[Dax Shepard]

That's coherent. Makes sense. Odds are they're going to have a more secure.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yeah, there's better chances. Again, nothing in this is like one to one ever. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But does predict to some degree the child attachment style. And then if you're avoidant, then if you're like, oh, my God, I had the most amazing childhood. But then actually when you talk about the memories, there's sort of like a discrepancy.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Then the childhood's more avoidant. And the anxious jump around from one topic to another. But I still don't really know what to make of it.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, right. This is very hard. So now tell me how you. You're going through a breakup, you're learning about this.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Lo and behold, adults also have these attachment styles. Anxious, avoidant, and secure. Only we don't play with toys like that anymore. But it has to do with our attitudes towards closeness and intimacy on the one hand. And then on the other hand, how sensitive of a radar do we have for infractions in the relationship? And what I mean from an attachment perspective is when all of a sudden we feel that the other person is not available to us. Because attachment is really a radar of availability of other people. It's a safety system. People think it's such a deep thing about bonding. It really is a very rudimentary safety system. It's how we feel safe in the world. And so we survey the environment and we kind of have an idea in our mind. And you, you two probably also have an idea in your mind where your loved ones are and that they're okay. But if I were to tell you that God forbid, and I even hate saying that there's something bad happened somewhere, you won't be able to continue to have this conversation. You'd have to stop and immediately check to see that they're okay. So we have this surveillance system going in the back of our head all the time. People with an anxious attachment style, their surveillance system can pick up on very subtle changes of that availability and potential threat. But the research also shows that it's not the only thing they're very good at picking up. They're picking up and picking a. Of different social cues. There is a downside to it, but it also comes with a huge upside. Let's say if you're. And I've seen it so many times with patients and just in people in the world, like if you're better at day trading, you can sort of really see subtle changes that other people won't be able to detect. They're just very, very good at detecting. And then also one then questions, and that's what I really try to do in this book is turn around that whole causality thing because oftentimes people blame their parents for their adult attachment style and it's completely wrong. But think about how hard it is to raise a child that has that level of ability, really superpowers, to pick up cues from the environment.

[Dax Shepard]

It can be a little stressful for all parties involved. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

I gave an example in the chapter because I really was trying to look for an example that people don't understand. No, it's not only about danger. It's not only about sort of like bad things. True, they can also identify danger. But in the book, I give an example about a woman who has an adopted daughter. And she takes her to the first day of school, she starts playing with another girl there that she also finds out is adopted. And then all of a sudden she stops. And like, I can't believe I'm seeing this. These girls are sisters. And she saw like in their facial expression, they weren't exactly the same, but she could sort of detect the similarities in their sort of facial structure, in the way that they smile, the way that they moved. And she started talking to other people and said, no way. No one believed her.

[Dax Shepard]

The odds are staggering, right?

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Exactly. But she kept at it and. And lo and behold, they actually are sisters.

[Monica Padman]

Wow.

[Dax Shepard]

And what did she do with that information?

[Dr. Amir Levine]

These two sisters are bonded. She found her daughter, her sister, I think it's years later and they're as close as ever. So it's a really good story.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, you're right though. We tend to pathologize every single thing that we know about. And it's like all these things are trade offs. They all come with some benefit or you wouldn't have gotten to this point.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

I'm glad that you said that because I would say that my biggest mission in this book for people to realize that attachment, and that's one of the biggest misconceptions and when you look on social media that people equate anxious and avoidant with pathology. That's why I'm so drawn to this science, because attachment, it doesn't come from the medical model of pathology and healing and curing pathology. It actually comes from social psychology and the neurodevelopmental model. So the question is not about what's wrong and how we can cure it or heal it. It's more about is it effective or is it not effective? Is the bond effective in regulating the emotions? Is it working for you? Is it not working for you?

[Dax Shepard]

Is it servicing your goals or not?

[Dr. Amir Levine]

And from an attachment perspective, it's specifically, are you able to use this? It's something that's called a secure base. Is it giving you a secure base? Because the point of view of relationships from an attachment perspective, remember, it's like a safety mechanism is for you actually to fit into the background. So, you know, in the strange situation when the child wants to play with all these toys, and every once in a while it looks back to see if the mother is there. That's the point of a relationship. So we can kind of like check to see if they're there, but not to think about you that much, so you to be in the background. So we don't play with toys, but we have hobbies, we have careers, we parent, we have all these different things. So attachment is really linked to our exploratory drive. When we feel safe, we can explore. So it's more related to that.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, so, but to bring everyone up to speed, so you wrote With Helen Attached, which was applying this attachment theory to adults and specifically romantic parents.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Right? Cause that's what he was initially about. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And so this book is enormously successful. And it also has a very peculiar trajectory as a book in that it's kind of hockey shaped in its distribution. Didn't it just continue to swell over time? And there were some interesting catalysts, like Covid and TikTok.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Initially, when we wrote the book, we had this running joke between us that it's only gonna sell one copy to the Library of Congress.

[Dax Shepard]

They have the ma.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

I went through this breakup, and she's my childhood friend. And so instead of just, you know how you talk about breakups incessantly? So I said, you know what? Instead of sort of wasting all that energy about talking about the breakup, let's make something good about it.

[Dax Shepard]

Can I ask what your style was? Was it anxious with this person?

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yes, it wasn't so much anxious. I didn't understand what was going on. And then that goes to this idea, like all these myths that we have. If you don't know about attachment theory. We have this idea that everybody loves the same. But science doesn't show that everybody loves the same. We love very differently. If we're anxious, avoidant, insecure, we haven't even gotten to it yet, which we'll get to it in a moment. But we love very, very differently. So for me, I was more like the anxious, secure part. And then it was certainly driven more towards anxious when the other person stopped responding, they said, you know, when I really like someone, I actually think about getting on a plane and moving away to the West Coast. And for me, it didn't make any sense, because why would you want to do that? If you really like someone, don't you want to see a future together? Don't you want to think about being together? But avoidance. They don't like too much closeness. And oftentimes when they feel too much closeness, they want to balk, they want to run away. But I didn't know that that that's 25% of the population, that it's scary for them, that it means that they feel a loss of independence.

[Dax Shepard]

I'll add a layer because I think when I was younger, I probably you'll be the first to acknowledge it, but, like, these are all spectrums.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

That's what this new book is really emphasizing.

[Dax Shepard]

And also, we are very fluid and context dependent.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

So I'm relationship dependent.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, I'm one way here, I'm one way there. But if I had to say what I lean more towards is actually zero fear of intimacy, being close, that felt wonderful. But I would be immediately overwhelmed with the responsibility of that. And then this fear, almost in an OCD way, of, well, if I have to break up with this person, this is going to be so painful. And I'm now so afraid of this responsibility of potentially hurting this person that now I'm starting to feel a little trapped by it.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

So, yeah, it's a version of avoidance.

[Dax Shepard]

There's all these hues of it.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

It is. Yeah, exactly. You weren't afraid by the physical closeness

[Dax Shepard]

or even the emotional.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yeah, you weren't afraid by that.

[Dax Shepard]

None of it scared me.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

But somehow it felt like, whoa, this is a big responsibility. Definitely a tinge of avoidance there. And also I listened to some of your podcasts. I saw also there were moments of change. And I really put a lot of emphasis in this book of those small moments of change. I think, Monica, you brought it up in one of the podcasts about sort of the glass of water story that you used to have. Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, with Christmas.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yes. That is like, why should I get a. Like, no, she should get a sitting here. Yes, exactly. No, why should I do that? And then I was like, potentially, what does it mean?

[Dax Shepard]

What pattern am I setting up? So for the rest of my life, I'LL be waiting on this person.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Right? Exactly.

[Monica Padman]

Or I'm getting taken advantage of, that type of thing.

[Dax Shepard]

And then the leap of faith. No, actually, hold on. Do I think this person is someone who will exploit and take advantage of me because I am nice this one time? And then that was the kind of. The breakthrough was like, no, I don't think this person is that way. I don't need to have this fear in that moment.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

That shift. That's exactly how our brain changes towards greater security. I love that example. That's what I thought I would bring it up because it's such an important. It seems like, oh, yeah. But it's really, it's a major shift for our brain. So you're able to use what we call metacognition, which is like thinking about our thoughts. And hopefully you got up and got the glass of water.

[Dax Shepard]

I did, yeah. I didn't know what happened and I haven't minded. But then it starts all over again. When you have kids, am I setting that up for a pattern that I think is untenable for their life?

[Dr. Amir Levine]

I heard that maybe you mentioned something about when they call from the kitchen.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Like they fall or something happens in the kitchen, like, oh, I don't want to get up. And then eventually, no, but maybe I should. And sometimes you do and sometimes you don't. But you've evolved.

[Dax Shepard]

Stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare. Thank you to our presenting sponsor, Apple TV, the new U.S. home of Formula One. You can now watch complete all access live coverage of every Grand Prix, including practice, qualifying and sprints, all in one place. I will be consuming all of those things, Monica.

[Monica Padman]

I know you will.

[Dax Shepard]

I kill for Friday to start watching practice one following and then on a sprint weekend. Oh, my gosh, two races. And this season brings a ton of new energy to the sport. New teams like Cadillac and Audi just joining the grid. New drivers stepping into major seats. Lando Norris defending his first World Drivers Championship. And all eyes on Lewis Hamilton in his second season with Ferrari. And a brand new circuit in Madrid, plus a new US home for Formula One. You can watch every race live only on Apple TV. Watch on Apple devices, Android devices, smart TV streaming devices, gaming consoles or on the web at tv.apple.com all part of one Apple TV subscription alongside hundreds of exclusive shows and movies. Watch the Formula One Chinese Grand Prix live on Sunday, March 15 at 3am Eastern or watch race replays on demand anytime Only on Apple TV, the new US home of F1. We are supported by Allstate checking Allstate first could save you hundreds on car insurance. That's smart. Not checking which platform you watch that new show on. So frustrating. 15 minutes later you've logged into seven apps, reset two passwords and still haven't found it. Yeah, checking first is smart. So check Allstate first for a quote that could save you hundreds. You're in good hands with Allstate. Potential savings vary, subject to terms, conditions and availability. Allstate North American insurance company and affiliates, Northbrook, Illinois we are supported by Intuit Turbo Tax April 15th is coming up fast and if you're like most people, you're probably dreading the whole tax thing. You know, the old way, sitting in some waiting room for hours or sending over your tax docs and waiting and waiting for any kind of update. You want something modern and tech forward, but you also want that human connection. And this year brings a major upgrade. Intuit TurboTax now has in person locations nationwide. You can walk into a tech enabled Turbo tax location near you and meet face to face with a real tax expert. Drop off your documents in the store and see them uploaded to your TurboTax app instantly. Just like this. That you're done. Your new turbo tax expert stays back and works tirelessly to get you every dollar you deserve while you get real time notifications as you go about your day. Honestly, it feels like someone finally figured out what we've all been wanting. It's not some sterile tax office from 1987, and it's not just an app where you're on your own, it's both. The human expertise was smart, modern tech. You drop off your stuff, go about your day and get real time updates as your expert works through everything. That's the Upgrade. Head to TurboTax.com to find a store location near you and get matched with a TurboTax expert with real time updates in iOS app. As I always say, it's like my life now is stepping over the many bad thoughts I have en route to who I want to be. But they're going to come up every time. It's like, oh, that's that thing. That's that.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

The thing is what I'm trying to sort of really show in this book is that it's not necessarily a bad thought. It's more like this belief that every person should take care of themselves. And it's not a bad belief, it's just a belief. We then assign it blame or bad or sort of even give it a potential causal mechanism. But if we just examine it, phenomenologically for what it is, it's a belief. And then you say, but is it working for me or is it not working for me?

[Monica Padman]

But some people could be in that exact same situation and probably have an anxious attachment. Oh, yeah, of course, you know, so it's like, it's not like one equals this. A different person in that exact same environment.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, you're Jew. Genetics are hugely in the mix too,

[Dr. Amir Levine]

of course, because there's so many different parameters that go into this mix. So you're right. Some people will actually say, well, because I didn't have a mother that doted on me, now I have all these issues and now I can detect threat when someone tries to pull away because I can identify.

[Monica Padman]

Right.

[Dax Shepard]

It looks so familiar. I know what this looks like.

[Monica Padman]

I think I have anxious.

[Dax Shepard]

I wasn't gonna self diagnose you, but yeah, I mean, look, the way you would pray for your family members, a lot of fear, superstition. If I miss this prayer, they're gonna die.

[Monica Padman]

But that's not really attachment. Or is it?

[Dr. Amir Levine]

I think it's more about how effective is the bond between you two. Like if you reach out to them, how quickly can you calm down? Anxious attachment is not necessarily just having separation attachment. It's more about being afraid that the bond that you're not gonna be loved as much as you want to be loved, that other people will leave you, that other people will fail you.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, you're.

[Monica Padman]

You do have that.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

You do.

[Dax Shepard]

But I bet it's more peer derived than parental.

[Monica Padman]

Unfortunately. Yeah. It's weird because I don't have that at all with my parents, but her

[Dax Shepard]

otherness in her peer group, so that's the beauty.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

And that's why I really wanted to. I mean, look, 15 years has passed through my last book and a lot of new information was discovered about attachment. And I really found that there's a potential here to help people flourish. And actually, after I finished writing the book, then all these people started coming to me asking, okay, help me become more secure. But I didn't have an immediate answer for that because we never really learned about it in the clinical world. Basically, Rachel and I took it from papers and tried to breathe clinical life into it, but I didn't have an immediate answer to how you become more secure. And then the answer came over time from the lab, actually, not from my work, from understanding the brain, not from

[Dax Shepard]

cocaine use in your study,

[Dr. Amir Levine]

But really from understanding the brain. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

So the first book helped you understand your attachment style. And then people want to know, well, how do I change it?

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Right, Right.

[Dax Shepard]

And now this book, Secure, is going to help us change into a secure attachment.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

As a neuroscientist, it's the kind of therapy I wish I could go into with people know more about the brain, because most therapies, they haven't been updated. Some of it is not the blame of the therapies, because the NIH doesn't really sponsor dharma studies about new therapies. But there's so much more that we know about the brain. It's kind of like the kind of therapy that me as a neuroscientist would want to have, but it didn't exist. And so over time, I didn't have this grandiose idea. I'm going to create it, but it just, over time, just happened on its own. And I created these tools. And the whole idea is, if you know that a part of your life is much more secure than others, that certain relationships are much more secure, then why not then really increase the volume on that part of your life and just like, shift the attention and the focus to sort of create a more secure life? And that really changes the brain on such a fundamental level.

[Dax Shepard]

What you do is you merge together three different fields. You kind of Yuval Harari this. You're like, you're doing the neuroscience, you're doing the clinical psychology. You're doing the attachment. The attachment. And you're creating what you would call

[Dr. Amir Levine]

now the secure priming therapy. But it's not only therapy and coaching, but it's also the way I started creating it, actually. I started creating a course for high school. Anybody could learn. I had a student, and she wanted to do some sort of a science exhibit on the social brain. And she asked me what would be the most important lessons. And I came up with five. And then actually, like, three of them made it into the book. And it was the things that I thought would be the most beneficial for people to know. And then I thought, oh, I can actually make a course out of this where people can actually learn. If you really believe that you should only count on yourself, that's not a bad thought necessarily, or it's not a pathology, but it's really more to explain about how the brain responds to exclusion. Our brain hates exclusion, and I call it the cyberball effect. And then I developed an antidote to it. How do we sort of then create the opposite? Because our brains loves hyper inclusion or hyperconnectedness. How do we then orchestrate that in our everyday life? So these are the three lessons that I started the book with.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, so you talk about the science of the brain in part one. So what do we need to understand about how the brain works?

[Dr. Amir Levine]

So our brain loads. Exclusion. That was like the most important thing that I would start with. I called it the cyberball effect. The biggest thing is safety, because we're not descendants of eagles or elephants, leopards or lions. Yeah, we're not. We have these like primates who lived for a long time in the middle of the food chain. And it was only when I was on a safari in Africa you realize

[Dax Shepard]

how fucking vulnerable we are.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Because we went, they took us. Most of the time we're in those like vehicles. And if you. It's okay. Even though one time an elephant started charging at us, it was pretty scary. But at one time walked outside in the wild. But they had a guy with a rifle behind us and a guy with a rifle in front of us. And we had to keep a single file. And at no point could we have actually opened the gap. And if we did, they would tell us immediately, close the gap. And then I realized, whoa, when we were there, there's no people with rifles in the front. And then it's not about just like, oh, I like being hyper included. It's so nice. I love it. It's so comfy and warm and cozy. It's more about if you're excluded, then you can fall prey at any second. You're dead.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, you're dead.

[Dax Shepard]

It's life or death.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

And the fact that we're all close to each other here, for example, now. So if a predator came, I have 66% of survival better than if I were by myself. Cause they're gonna go after you.

[Dax Shepard]

No, Rob's fucked. He's gonna get picked off back there behind that wall.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Not if they come in this way. Then he'll run out that door and he'll be saved.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

But that doesn't take into account the fact that we can warn each other. We can try to fight them off together.

[Dax Shepard]

We have a 360 degree view right now between our com.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yeah. So we can alert each other. We can use all of our senses to help each other. All of which happens. And you see it in so many different social animals. Even you see it in social birds. Peck, peck, peck all the time. And every once in a while they swoop up, they look for food and then to look to see if are they going to be prey. But then if they have more birds around, they will swoop up, they will look up a lot less Their brain computes it into the mix. And our brains also compute it into the mix. You're not in New York, but like walking into an empty subway car in the middle of the night, I don't know if I will do that. I would go to the subway car. If there's more people or like an empty alley, we instinctively feel it. It's a safety thing.

[Dax Shepard]

You intuitively do that math. The birds know like, oh, there's three of us. I should be looking up a third of the time. Even though they don't know that.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yeah, exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

And there's a hundred. So it's like, oh, I only got to look up 1% of the time

[Dr. Amir Levine]

because it was hugely advantageous to do that. And then those who didn't get that social monitoring sort of upgrade, they couldn't really compete. There was such a huge advantage.

[Dax Shepard]

They got picked off because they were

[Dr. Amir Levine]

constantly looking up and they were all eating while they were looking up.

[Dax Shepard]

And then we get into so much fun stuff. It's like the birth of lying comes from this. There are calls for chimpanzees to say leopard and this and that.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And they would make a fake call so they could go, fuck the high status female while the alpha was pretty.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yeah. It becomes very intricate in humans and also in other social. And also even in some birds we have an upgrade to that system because we compare ourselves to others and there's a whole chapter involved to why we compare and why we can't help it. But part of our ability to compare, it's really about assessing the other. Either stronger than you or they're not stronger than me. But also we have this upgrade that we can determine are they going to work well with me or not.

[Monica Padman]

Right.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

And that ability to compare, to evaluate, it's key for us as humans.

[Dax Shepard]

This is theory of mind stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can think about how you're thinking. I can assess your thoughts.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yeah. And are you going to be there for me? Yeah. I can get her a cup of water because she probably has my back and she'll also get me a cup of water later.

[Dax Shepard]

It'll be reciprocal.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

So we have that ability to assess and that's a key part in becoming more secure. And I even have a questionnaire. There's like, oh, assess how good is your collaboration and then also rate how close you are to different people and then see are those really good collaborations also the people that are closest to you? Because if not, maybe you want to think about changing your priorities, your relationship priorities in the Process of becoming more secure.

[Monica Padman]

Interesting.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Cyberball effect, right?

[Dr. Amir Levine]

So the cyberball effect is based on the cyberball experiment. And basically what happens, you're playing a game of catch with two other people on a video game, a very rudimentary video game, two dimensional, and all of a sudden they stop throwing the ball in your direction and the brain hates it. And psychologically we hate it. You see areas of pain, distress, self scrutiny in the brain. They all sort of like light, light

[Dax Shepard]

up, the amygdala's on fire. Is that what's happening?

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Parts of the amygdala, other areas of self scrutiny. It's all like threat. And what's happening and why is it happening? Potentially also pain, not too different from physical pain. It's very, very distressing. And psychologically they looked and they found that certain domains are being affected that I personally was very surprised by it. Like we feel that life is less meaningful, less in control of our life. And less self esteem.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh yeah, and less self esteem.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yes. So things that I always thought my self esteem is not related to or how much control I have over my life, or that life is meaningful. Why does it matter to who is interacting with me? It's things that come from within, they don't come from within. And they found the opposite of the cyberball effect. When you actually put the person in the middle. And now I'm in the middle and I'm throwing the ball to you, you'll throw it back to me. I'm throwing it to you, you're throwing it to me. I'm hyper included now. So basically you see the opposite. You feel that life is more meaningful, you feel more self esteem and you feel greater control in your life. So these are amazing things that we can create by hyper inclusion. But then the question is, how do you create that?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, how do you create?

[Monica Padman]

Teach us.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

So that's when I came up with these five pillars.

[Dax Shepard]

Carp.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yes, the carp, the five pillars of secure life, which consists of consistency, availability, responsiveness. And then you also have to make sure it's not enough. It's like, oh, I'm consistent, available and responsive. You have to make sure that the other person experiences you as reliable and predictable and that creates carp. So it's like a two factor authentication. It's something that happens in a relationship. So if you learn to be carp and you can also teach others to be carp with you, then you can really create that, hyper included. And it's not that hard. It's actually pretty easy. That's what I try to explain. To people, attachment is not a very sophisticated system. It's a monitoring system. Like, if you give it what it needs, remember I told you you are supposed to disappear into the background. You just have to learn how to strategically give that. So you don't wait until a child is super hungry to feed them or super tired to put them to sleep. You kind of like, try to anticipate what they need and sort of give it to them, and then you can sort of coast.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. It is funny because I'm sure all the listeners can think about people in their lives who. They don't have to think about the fact that they're there. They're not worried about that relationship. It's just there. It's constant. You and Aaron, there's people like that. And then you have people that you're like, do I need to check in on them? Or maybe that's just me because I'm anxious. But people who are more on the fence of. Are they there?

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yeah, they're not carp. So what happens is they push your button, they activate the radar. But I like how you said we always have these people that we know that they're there. But what I find is that oftentimes people tend to ignore those people because there's no drama. We tend to shift more to where the alarm goes off. So let's see where it goes off.

[Dax Shepard]

You're like, inversely rewarded for being carp sometimes in some relationships.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yeah. And then what happened in the course of writing this book and the course of this work? I really learned to fall in love with the secures of this world because there's just so good at relationships. And so what I really try to teach my patients and my students and when I supervise is to really shift the focus and find those people because we really ignore them. Instead of, like, why is this person not texting me? Oh, but this person texts me all the time. Why shouldn't I text them?

[Monica Padman]

More energy there.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yes, exactly. And so you create that shift. Shift. And then what happens is we come to the final tool, which is when you start to pay attention. And it's not in the big things. It's in what I come to call the seemingly insignificant minor interactions, which is also short for simis of everyday life. It's in these little moments, like that glass of water moment, that a lot of major change can happen because it re challenges your brain if you have this belief. Yes, I really have to work hard for people to interact with me. I need to get their attention. Otherwise you wouldn't want to be with me, they wouldn't want to necessarily reach out out to me. That's more of the anxious thing. Instead you get all these experiences, all these seemees that are counteracting that world belief. Because really, attachment styles are basically kind of a world belief which is set in some ways. And then our brain sifts information based on that word belief. What I'm asking you to do is don't sift information based on your world belief. Look here to your right or to your left, and there's additional information that can change your brain with those little.

[Dax Shepard]

So one of my issues with like all this stuff again is trade offs. There's positives, there's negatives. But in the mass pop psychology genre of social media, what I seem to see the most of is identifying somebody. You know, everything's about another person's problem. You know, if you're with a narcissist

[Dr. Amir Levine]

and then also from childhood.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. So either childhood's to blame or these other people are to blame, or they have terrible pathology. I don't find a ton of it about. How about you make yourself the thing that you think you deserve and then just kind of see what happens downriver from that. For this is priority number one to make sure you're Carp.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

I'm so glad you asked that. One of the reasons it was so important for me to write this book, because it's just like I don't see things that way anymore. Instead of going back to this idea as a child, just so like. No, but you can see things differently. So here maybe try to look at it from a different angle. These are little tricks, tricks to fool your biology that wants to go in a certain way and make it see things a little bit differently so the brain can see. Wow. Oh, things can look different. So I'm not even saying, like, you have to take accountability. I'm not even going there. I'm just saying look. But the thing is, anxious and avoidant have to use those tools very differently. That's where it gets a little bit more tricky.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, this is where we get into one of my favorite AA scenes, which is like, it's easier to act your way into thinking different than think your way into acting different. So maybe explain a little bit what's happening biochemically and with neurons. And then why does this work with neuroplasticity and neural pathways? What's happening?

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yeah, exactly. Because we have this surveillance system that was in some way maybe very sensitive and maybe the opposite. I'm constantly suppressing it and Then it starts ruling our life. If we get triggered, then two different things happen. For anxious and avoidant. For secure. The thing is they don't really get triggered that often. They just don't see a lot of threat. So even maybe, I think they would be the last people to know if someone cheated on them. See the signs.

[Dax Shepard]

Interesting.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

It's just like not something that they'll see. Or even at work they can give you so many different scenarios. The other day someone emailed me and they said, hey, when do you have a time to talk? And then my sister said, oh my God, she probably got fired. And I said like, why would you say that? She just wanted to say when we can talk. Sure enough, she got fired. And then more research recently have shown that it also affects how we interact with our healthcare providers. And even if we have a chronic illness like farmer mouth, how much pain we're gonna be in and then it affects how we shop. Secure people don't care so much about. They don't care so much about logos. Why are you laughing?

[Monica Padman]

I just love shopping so much.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

But you can love fashion, but it's maybe less about status and more about. Or maybe it's also about status.

[Monica Padman]

I have to be honest.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Good for you.

[Monica Padman]

I don't want it to be, but it is in the mix.

[Dax Shepard]

You're such a good girl.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

But it's fine. I think I said it from the beginning. About 25% of population are avoidant, about 20% are anx and about 50 something percent are secure. And a very small percentage are fearful avoidant. These are just like variations on the norm. There's different studies that show the amazing advantage to have that variability within the population. They had one study where they had like a little smoke come out of a computer in a group of people and the anxious ones were the first to notice it and the avoidants were the first out the door and even a lot of other people followed. But you can see there can be an advantage. Just like, you know what, fuck you all, I'm out of here. But I want to go back to what you said about this whole thing on social media. We're pointing at others. I just think that it's the wrong conversation or the wrong way of looking at it because there's this whole potential and that's the beauty of the science, that we all have these secure people in our lives and secure experiences from our own childhood that we can tap into and become more secure in the opportunity and the advantages for being more secure in that way. You can really Flourish. I want my patients to flourish. I do want them to heal from trauma. And I'm not saying that's wrong, but I want to take it a step further. I think that this science, through really understanding and combining neuroscience with the attachment, really can give people the opportunity to flourish.

[Dax Shepard]

I just stumbled upon this chatting with my brother in New York. We took a trip for three days before Christmas and we were discussing. There's a lot of good social science behind. Although I don't believe in the scene secret the book, I do believe in an aspect of it. Right. Which is your focus and attention can create a bit of confirmation bias. So if you're looking towards the future and you're thinking of only the ways you're going to fail, those are the ones you're going to focus on and you're going to see proof of that more often. Then you'll see proof of a different theory that you're trying to service. So I was talking to my brother. I was just telling him, honestly, I'm like, you know, I'm writing this memoir and I feel a bit guilty because it's really the highlights reel of the. The bad stuff, because that's drama, that's everything. That's a good book. And I said, but when I'm being honest, that probably and all your and eyes combined, stuff that might have maybe been 0.2% of our overall waking experience.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

That's amazing, actually.

[Dax Shepard]

And you know, why wouldn't the same premise apply to looking backwards as it does forward? Like you and I could construct any story we want. We have enough info back there to come up with any story. And perhaps by us focusing on these things that were no doubt gnarly, we're kind of excluding all the other stuff that would confirm. No, we actually had a very blessed, lucky childhood.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

The way that you described it here is a big part of the essence of this secure primary therapy is really recasting your past from a more secure place and really looking at the other influences and the other people that were in your life, even the people where things were difficult. That's how we started the conversation. I was able to see my part in it also and really also see other times when actually my father really loved me and gave me attention. And that moment when we were in the hotel lobby when he threw the coin.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

And actually that shift is huge for our brain and it can really help us. It really changes also who we are in the here and now. Remember that narrative and how we create the narrative. It's richer and it's more true. True.

[Dax Shepard]

It's more true. Yeah. And weirdly, I'm dealing with it now. It's really crazy that I can intellectually understand that, and yet I do have this fear of letting that go.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

I know.

[Dax Shepard]

I think it's so interwoven in my, quote, identity that to let go of it would be threatening to my identity.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

And we live in a world that's really ruled by Freudian psychology that everything is because of these things happened to us in childhood. But actually, the science shows that the attachment styles that we have as children predicts less than 10% of the attachment styles that we have in adults.

[Dax Shepard]

Whoa.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Whoa.

[Dax Shepard]

That's a huge.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

And a lot of what really changes our attachment style happen later.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, that's mind blowing. It's counterintuitive, and it's encouraging.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Completely encouraging. Because you can change your attachment style and you can evolve. And that's why, actually, I thought that it was fair to write this book because the science shows that you can change it.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. I want to know a little bit about neural pathways. What happens when you dwell on those five? You know, for me, I had two terrible stepdads. I had four great teachers. Why aren't I looking at four great teachers?

[Dr. Amir Levine]

I was actually going to agree with that example because I listened. I did my homework.

[Monica Padman]

Such a good student.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm telling you. I feel like he used AI Though, to scan all of them.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Oh, no, I listened.

[Monica Padman]

He went back to school 80 million times.

[Dax Shepard]

He listened to 2000 Hours.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

No, no, Actually, it was fascinating, I have to say. And I love that story of the math teacher who recognized it was geometry.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We had the little blocks and we were like.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

And then he asked you to sort of teach the other students.

[Dax Shepard]

Changed my life.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Something that happened in a moment. Someone did something really good by my brain. He changed my brain to a different trajectory and made me really see myself differently and think about things differently.

[Dax Shepard]

Is the muscle analogy not good, or is it good when we use certain thoughts that embolden certain pathways?

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Oh, definitely. It describes it really, really well. Because what happens. Our current belief is that our memories lie in our synapses, in the structure of the synapse, usually ltp. Long term potentiation is like electrophysiology, that we strengthen memories. The synapses get tighter and there's more even there's actin growing in the synapses to kind of like build the structure. So that's why the analogy of the muscles, the actual molecules, some of them are the same molecules. And then when memories weaken, which is very important part, because we also have to forget. And forgetting is an active process in the brain and active molecular process, synapses actually weaken. They get further apart. That's why I brought up the whole CMES thing, because people, when they go to therapy and think I have to talk about my childhood, really difficult events that happened to me. But really the avenue for change in the brain are through those CMEs, because every interaction gives you a moment, a chance to rewrite something to strengthen those synapses or weaken those synapses. And that's basically the synaptic plasticity idea.

[Dax Shepard]

It's such an empowering way to look at it all, because you have absolutely no sway over what happened to you 30 years ago. That's done.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

But also, I mean, if you think about it, we're social species. We're not particularly strong animals. We're actually pretty weak. We live in every niche on this planet just because our ability to sort of collaborate and cooperate so well. So it doesn't really make sense that we'll stay, like, stuck in something that happened to us really early on. What advantage is there in that at all? It's just like, it doesn't make sense to me. We need to be socially versus and we are extremely socially versatile, much, much more than we give ourselves credit for because of that Freudian biology.

[Dax Shepard]

You're so right. When it hits me the most is I'll be watching some documentary on chimpanzees. And, you know, they're probably our closest thing to look at.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Oh, yeah, they are.

[Dax Shepard]

And these little babies, they get fucked up. These alpha males will come through and they'll be thrashing the jungle and they'll throw one 30ft now, everything. And I just am watching that and I'm like, it's curious to me that they're so resilient. They go through what we would call capital T trauma almost daily.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Oh, yeah, their lives are vicious.

[Dax Shepard]

They still persevere. Right? And I look at that and I'll go, as much as I do like honoring what has happened to us, we also have forgotten how fucking resilient we are. You can't live with this many members of a group and not be traumatized many times.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

So that brings me to that chapter 10 about causality.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes, I've circled that one. I want to. Wanted to talk about that. Ann. You want to tell the story of

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Ann, a woman who as a child had terrible separation anxiety. But unfortunately for her, her dad had to travel a lot for business. And so whenever he Would travel. She would sort of cry and really sort of hold onto his leg and, like, really don't go, don't go. And then she would have a hard time falling asleep. They would try to reassure her, but he had to go for work. But they didn't know she had suppression anxiety. There's actually good treatment for suppression anxiety

[Dax Shepard]

in children, he says, like, 4 to 6% maybe have that.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yeah, it's very prevalent. Eventually she learned it's not, and I'm just going to bottle it up. They thought it was over, that she was fine. In many cases, it does go away. So it wasn't unreasonable to think that. But she really kept that fear inside for many, many years. And she couldn't fall asleep. She just kept a brave face. And then when she was an adult, she had a really hard time in relationships. She would be in a relationship, but she would always want to leave. Every day we're like, should I stay or should I leave? Should I stay? And she would keep even boxes packed because, no, no, no, I shouldn't unpack them because I'm going to leave. And that happened in several relationships.

[Monica Padman]

She was afraid they were gonna leave. Like she was trying to get out

[Dr. Amir Levine]

of it, feel any safe. And like, she's just like, no, this doesn't feel right to me. I don't know what's gonna happen here. This doesn't feel right to me. I don't know if I belong here. Is this the right thing for me or is it not the right thing for me? And so as someone who learned psychology and learned to do therapy, then you said, well, because as a child, even though your parents were loving and cared about you, still, there was that basic experience that relationships are dangerous. Relationships are a source of pain and anger. So I'm going to be very careful how I'm going to approach this relationship. And the truth is, I would have given this explanation and I would have stood by that explanation until I became a scientist. And once I became a scientist, I said, wait a second. When you're a scientist, finding causality, that's the holy grail of scientific discovery. That's so hard to do.

[Dax Shepard]

Dan, you want to explain the difference between correlation and causality? I think people think they're experiencing causality.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

We think in causality. But oftentimes people find things actually correlate or confound the best example, Because I love that example when you talked about how you came from a family of little means, so you have to sort of fend for yourself, and you have to sort of make sure that you're taking what you need. And so the best example is that marshmallow test that has been disproven. Oh, yeah, it's been disproven.

[Dax Shepard]

Who did marshmallow?

[Monica Padman]

Oh, no, I don't remember.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

They tried to replicate it and was completely disproved. Come on, this is an exclusive. What?

[Monica Padman]

Tell everyone.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yeah, so the marshmallow test, they took children and they put a marshmallow in front of them, and they told them, if you wait for a certain time, then when we get back, you'll get two. And so they waited a certain time, and some kids were able to wait, and they got two. And some weren't able to wait. You can see them, like, sitting on their hands, singing, trying to sort of distract themselves. And then they found that those kids who didn't have that impulse control, then, they didn't. They didn't fare as well later in life as the kids who had better impulse control. And there was a whole theory about impulse control and how delayed gravity is and how important it is and all of that. Lo and behold, they did a larger study with a larger cohort, and they didn't find any of that effect interesting. And not only that, they found that the original studies were confounded by socioeconomic status. Oh. So of course it would make sense if you come from a lower socioeconomic status status to jump at that marshmallow.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. There ain't no two coming back.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yes, exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

That's what.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

And everybody knows that socioeconomic status is the biggest predictor. Yes.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my God. They've been lying to us this whole time.

[Dax Shepard]

There have been thousands of books written on the shoulders of the marshmallows.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

But that's the beauty of science. When I work with single molecules, I can give you astounding examples. I worked with mice and aplysia, Much simpler animals immunity, those. When we think we found causality at some point, they thought pkm zeta. It's like a molecule. That's the reason why we have long term memory. It's responsible for long term memory. There's a big splash in science paper, and everybody believed that. And they gave this medication that inhibited PKM zeta. They could erase memories, prevent them from happening. Amazing. And it's all done in mice. Very simple fear memory stuff. Several years later, another study came out in nature sort of science survival. It's like, no, sorry. We actually were able to not knock out pkmzeta from mice. They remember perfectly well. And not only that, we gave them the medication that you thought and they don't have PKMzeta, which they thought was specific. It did disrupt their memory. And that medication is not specific. It actually completely. I'll just say it in a way that will make it more simple. It completely fucks up the brain. So that's why they didn't have. It was not specific. Collapse of brain. Exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

Of which memory is a part of.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yes, exactly. Something like that. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Like we hit him in the head with a club. That connects us to memory.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Exactly. Something of that, yes, basically. So even a single molecule in simple animals is so hard to establish causality. How can I really stand behind such causal inferences? Like in mice, even if you take them, if you expose them to a bully, I don't know how long they put them there and they beat them up. And then some, sometimes some of them, I think maybe 50% will really suffer and develop symptoms of depression, anxiety. Another 50% will completely like nothing happen.

[Dax Shepard]

Right.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

So we don't know.

[Dax Shepard]

That's a simpler animal in a much more controlled environment.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

You still don't know.

[Monica Padman]

My therapist actively does not like talking

[Dr. Amir Levine]

about the past because a lot of the evidence based therapies really focus on the here and now. They really evidence based therapies for depression or anxiety. And I really try to create something that will help people become more secure while focusing on the here and now. While creating these small interactions that gives your brain another chance.

[Monica Padman]

Exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

Stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare. Okay, so let's talk about secure mode and what life actually looks like daily. Oh, we didn't finish Anne. What did we figure out?

[Dr. Amir Levine]

So basically with Anne, when I became a scientist, like, yeah, I mean I can give that story and it's good, but it's not fact. I mean you can think about it as a narrative that can potentially help people. And I can say, you know, maybe there are echoes from the past, which is fine. But the truth is we can work in the here and now to really instill meaningful changes that will really help you. And that's what we did. Luckily she had a very secure partner. That's always good because that's sort of like the big change. Because they're like I told you I fell in love with. Because they're like having a built in relationship coach in the relationship. It can be in friendships, in romantic relationships, it can be at work, can be in so many different areas of our life. So those relationships are really, really important. And then he didn't take it personally. And it's easier for secures not to take things personally because they don't sense danger. So it's like, okay, it's easier. And so, yeah, I understand this is something that comes up. And so she was able to learn to open up to him and talk to him about her fears and then slowly to unpack the boxes. All the angst that prevented her started to sort of melt away. And it worked really well, but it worked in the here and now. And it really didn't depend so much on understanding the past. But there is something to be said about recalling past events in therapy or in general, even with friends. What actually does happen is an opportunity to rewrite your memories. You're recalling something. And what we now know is that from a neuroscience perspective, when we recall a memory, we to some degree disrupt it. We know it in like in animal models when they recall memory, you can prevent new protein synthesis and maybe getting too technical, but new protein synthesis, in order for long term memory to re solidify, you need new protein synthesis. You completely erase their memories. So basically by recalling something, you disrupt the memory and you have a chance to not just create a causal connection. I think it's actually more powerful to change the actual memory, to edit it to suit you more now to where you are now.

[Monica Padman]

That's why everyone's memories of the same experience are very different, very different. Because over time they're thinking about it

[Dr. Amir Levine]

and they're changing constantly, editing it constantly, and can be affected by how other people talk to you about it, how you recall it. Memory is very vulnerable in a good way. I think.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm with you and I am concerned about modern pop psychology for all the reasons we're listing. One thing I found about going through my past when I actually did real therapy, starting five years ago, I guess I was telling these stories that I had told a million times, but in this context with this man, I do believe I was feeling the emotions attached to those feelings that I had never let myself feel. And I feel like I got to actually cry when I was telling the story for the first time. And I felt like I was allowing myself to experience and grieve for something I just never made space for. Cause I thought it might have killed me. So for me, I felt like there was utility in it. And then I had delayed the emotional response to some of these things for so long. And that once I had the emotional response, they got smaller. I knew somehow on the other side of that door was crying and I was just not gonna go there. And then once I did that part, I did feel like it liberated Me

[Dr. Amir Levine]

to go there forward completely. So that's the second. The first part is the sort of re Editing those memories. And the second part is that when you sit together with someone that you trust, and how often do we get to talk about those really difficult moments or intimate moments and recall them with someone that you fully trust, that you have a very unique therapeutic relationship, is unlike any other relationship in the world that you can open up, and they're there just to listen and to help you and to understand. And if you feel that connection, they give you the secure base to be able to process some of the information and really change it in a way that now actually feels more secure. So that's the thing. And actually a lot of studies show that it doesn't really matter so much the modality of the treatment. You know, there's cbt, there's ipt, there's all these different types of treatments. But actually it's more about the fit with the therapist. Yeah. So again, we come back to the attachment here.

[Monica Padman]

Exactly.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Of how well do you feel that you connect with someone and how much attachment is powerful. I like to say that attachment is both at the base of suffering and healing from suffering. Because remember the strange situation, how effective it can be in regulating our emotions. So we have an attachment hierarchy in our head. We all have it. And I know that if something bad happens to me, I know exactly who's number one. I'm gonna go to who's number two. You see, you're all nodding. Cause you know too. Yeah, I know exactly who to go to. And that's very important for our brain. And then if I'm securely attached to them, most of the time, a single word from them or a sentence or even a hug will calm me down immediately. There's just no Xanax or Klonopin in this world that can be as powerful. And no wonder, because it works on so many different neurotransmitters altogether, like opiates, oxytocin, dopamine, you name it. It works on those and other things that we haven't discovered yet. It's so powerful. But the opposite is also true. Insecure attachments can be the most powerful inst. Instigator of emotional distress. So attachment is the basis of both suffering and healing from suffering. And part of the reason why I wrote this book is kind of like to really try to shift people towards getting better and making things work for you better than being stuck in that place where your brain constantly is surveying and feels that danger.

[Monica Padman]

So interesting.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Another Part of the book talks about biological diversity and hidden sparks of talent.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, please tell us about that.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

When you become a molecular neuroscientist, you see the enormity of molecular diversity that we all possess and how different it is. And we know it because we all look a little bit different and we all have these different abilities, even just in the way that we can flip our tongue or like even with our finger, all these different things. But also, it goes way, way further than that. Evolution loves diversity. It's really one of the best survival mechanisms. But we don't really fully appreciate how diverse we are in also in our talents. And not only that, oftentimes, especially people with insecure attachment, sometimes their biggest talents they perceive as impediment. But here, like a hidden spark of talent that someone actually identified was your math ability. And so when you lean into that ability, how it can really profoundly change your world.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, it was dominoes. If I'm actually good at math, maybe I can be good at other things.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Right. And so I find that when people can learn to identify both theirs and other people's hidden sparks of talent, it really changes the way that they look at others and themselves. So, for example, if someone is actually very, very generous, but they give to everyone, but his wife doesn't like that he gives to everyone, but he also gives to you also a lot too. You can't just decide, oh, I want him to be generous to me and sort of mean to everybody else. It doesn't work that way. It's almost like a hidden spark of talent. So when you learn to look at things that way, you say, oh, wow, actually I see that I don't have to respect that. He gives and he gives and he gives. I'm also the recipient of that giving. So I can see that as a hidden spark of biological talent.

[Dax Shepard]

As you said, it's a system that's scanning how available someone is. So you could misread that as a lack of availability because they're available for other people.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yes, exactly. Now you're like talking from the attachment logic because that, oh, am I being left out?

[Dax Shepard]

Scarcity.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

But that's where we can really learn to transcend our biology using metacognition, basically. So metacognition, how we think about our thoughts. So he's like, wait a second. Yeah, I mean, I have that cyberable effect. Am I feeling. But hey, look at. And that's where also it's good to have. I call that secure people in your life, a secure buddy. Where, like, if you get Upset. And that's what I do. Like in the secure therapy, I do sort of real time. Sometimes with text, you're also the recipient of it and it actually doesn't take away from you. And you teach them a secure way of looking at thinks that secure love is actually bountiful and not scarce. Remember, secure relationships are not about being attached at the hip. All it needs is like a little bit more acknowledgement. So a little bit more texting. The other thing is it's actually say, well, I wish you were here. Or actually also remember that hyper connectedness to always give an opportunity, if possible, to include, oh, it's too bad you can't come. Everybody talked about you, everybody mentioned you. So there's a psychological way of including people even if they're not there. Yeah, Everybody talks about you. Oh my God. Everybody Miss, like, how come? And then even in the middle of a dinner, hey, this food, you would have loved it. So, like, you include it even if you're not there. It's easy to do it.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. I feel like just telling people you miss them is so huge because, like, I'm thinking about you. I know you're not here. I'm thinking about you.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Exactly.

[Monica Padman]

A lovely way to include.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Was there anything I've left out that you would want to cover?

[Dr. Amir Levine]

I don't know if I actually really defined. I should have done it. I always tell, like, put myself over the head. Like, I should define those attachment styles early on. Should I define it just in case? If you wanted to.

[Dax Shepard]

Let's do it. Yeah, let's do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

So it all has to do with how comfortable we feel with intimacy and closeness, but also how sensitive radar we have to potential danger in the relationship. So if we have an anxious attachment style, we love closeness and intimacy, but we also have a very sensitive radar to a potential danger. If someone doesn't become available, we notice it right away. And that can lead to thoughts of like, being rejected, take things personally. So that's the anxious attachment then. Secure attachments are people who are warm and loving and they love a lot of closeness as much as you can give them. But they're also not sensitive to danger in their relationship. So if you don't give them that much closeness, they're fine with it too. They just don't see, oh my God, something is wrong. They don't like me anymore. No, it just goes over their head. So that's a cure. Attachment and people who have an avoidant attachment style, they also want relationships because we're Social species, but they just don't feel too comfortable with too much closeness. They want you, but they want you from a little bit of a distance. And so they find ways of creating that distance so they can feel more comfortable.

[Dax Shepard]

What might that look like? Because when you say the anxious attachment, I immediately, I think we all can. You can think of like your big friendship group and you can think, think of the ones that are like really upset monitoring when they've been invited when they've not. And I mean this is a brag, but it's like I don't notice that, right? Like I don't notice on Instagram, it's not a bag. It's just this group was at dinner. It doesn't even cross my mind. So to me, that's a very obvious example. So what does the avoidant one look like?

[Dr. Amir Levine]

I'm glad that you said that. You don't notice that because secures don't notice it oftentimes. But if they're asked to do it, they will do it.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, right.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Avoid. They have a harder time with it because they have this worldview that you have to be independent, you have to be self reliant. And they are to themselves. But they don't understand. We said they're about 25% of the population. They don't understand that they're the minority. They're not the majority. Most people need other people to help when they're in time of need, when they come to you. So when you come to them in time of need, it's like, what do you want from me? Take care of it. But then it actually triggers your attack even more like, no, no, now you've become the center of their problem. I'm coming for help and you're not helping me. They forget about the bad thing that happened to them and now you're the bad thing that's happened to them. So they fall into these constant traps unknowingly, often not knowing how to manage. Like, no, you're the minority report. You need to understand that when people come to you, they can't deal with it on their own. So that's one thing. The other thing, sometimes they create a lot of closeness. Well, they spend a really amazing weekend together. Everything is very intense. And then comes Monday. And they need their time. Okay, we've had enough, right? They have this idea that they can carry it forward, like credit, but attachment doesn't work that way. It's radar. And so they actually disappear. They do the opposite of what they intended to do. They actually increase the change, the delta. And now you actually even more. What's happening? Why are you not answering?

[Monica Padman]

It feels like love bombing.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yeah. They don't understand what's happening. Like, why are you disappearing all of a sudden? So remember the consistency available, responsive. They don't even understand what's happening.

[Dax Shepard]

They're like, yeah, don't you feel filled up?

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yeah. And then the last thing that happens is that sometimes when they get too close too quickly, they don't pace themselves because they kind of like, no, I want this to happen. I want it to work. Now I've looked for all these people and it doesn't work. And now I want it so they get very close real fast. Because I think all the other people that I met, they weren't the one. This person gonna be one. I may just swoop in and go in like full force to make it work. But that's exactly what they don't need to do. Because the problem is not that they weren't into that person, they were into all these other people. People. The problem is that there's too much closeness for comfort. And then they have these deactivating strategies like, oh, I don't know if I like this person. I don't like how they chew. And like they start all these little things that just start toenails. Yeah. There's these deactivating strategies. They have to learn to pace themselves and they have to learn not to get. I call it the closeness overdose. Because then they're going to turn like, no, this is suffocating. I don't want you anymore. And then again they create this sort of push pull. So you can teach them how to sort of engage in more carp scenes?

[Dax Shepard]

Basically, yeah. Did you once say that one of your criticisms of your own book attach would be that you didn't necessarily give the avoidant.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Oh, I'm glad you brought that up.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. The avoidant group. As much compassion as maybe they deserve it.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

I feel this is my like amends, but it's not entirely my fault. This book is definitely my amends to the avoidance. And not just mine, I have to say, also just the research in general, because research is also biased and the questions that people ask are biased. And I feel that in this book I really present a much more biological explanation of. Of avoidance. Not necessarily, you know, again, blaming the mothers like that your parents were not responsive to you. I don't think that's the case and I really make a strong case of it. But I really think that we presented the data, the science, and they show they have a wandering eye. They don't take care of you so well if you're sick. And so we just wrote it out there. But then over the years, working with avoidance.

[Dax Shepard]

Are you laughing at me?

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

She's laughing at me. When someone gets sick, I'm like, just go deal with it, man. I do.

[Monica Padman]

He's like, we all get sick.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, we all get sick.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

You see, right?

[Dax Shepard]

I was sick too, but I didn't bother you with it.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yeah, right, exactly. Because they don't. They don't bother other people. Exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm so guilty of it. What's happening biological with me.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

So biologically, I give an example in the book of C. Elegans, which is like a tiny worm that neuroscientists, because they have again, huge neurons and they can be manipulated and experimented on. So in C. Elegans they found that they have two types of feeding behavior, solitary feeding behavior and social feeding behavior. And so they eat E. Coli.

[Dax Shepard]

Thank God. We don't want it.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

I know. So when the social ones, they detect E. Coli, you see like a whole pile of worms, voracious eaters. No, thank you. And then.

[Monica Padman]

I hate that image.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

I know, I'm sorry. But it's important because the solitary one, everyone swims in that direction. They swim the other way. They're chemotactically repelled by the other worms. And it's a change in a single amino acid in a single protein. They can switch solitary to social and vice versa.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, it's very.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

So the case that I'm trying to make is that this preference for closeness and distance, a lot of it is also biologically driven. And we can see it everywhere around us. Like even you can see in pets. Some people say, some dogs are like cats. They don't like to be that close. They actually will stay away, like, okay, I like you, from a distance. Some cats will stick to you. And they actually are not that separate as you would think. You can see it in birds and you can see it in people. Some people feel more comfortable with more closeness. And there's a big, big, big spectrum. But if we can also focus on the here and now and make these changes, that can really lead us to be in secure mode. It's a way to flourish in the world, to feel safe, to not worry all the time. It's so much. So that's kind of like chapter four in the book I write about energy in the brain, because you really have to understand that the brain is a huge energy guzzler. It can't really get reinforcements. It can only deal with the amount of energy that it gets. It can't increase the blood flow all of a sudden, like our muscle scan or when you we eat. That's not possible for the brain because it's encased in the skull and the pressure will mount and we'll have a bleed. So you get the amount of energy that you get, which is 20%, which is a huge amount. The brain is 2%, but it's taking 20% in children even more like 5 year olds, it's like 50%. It's kind of crazy. And then all that you can do is you can divert energy from one area to the brain to the other. So if you feel safer, and especially those prefrontal areas that are where we think and obstruction and create, these are the ones that are most energy heavy. So when you create a safer, like a secure mode environment for yourself, you can free up that energy to sort of be diverted more to thinking like the child in this strange situation. Like playing, doing things. It's not just about, oh, this is nice to me. I don't really have to worry about what the other person is doing. It's really more about this frees up energy to actually achieve more.

[Dax Shepard]

And then the last thing. And this is now stemming from immediate defense, defensiveness, obviously. It's also, I think, tempting for us to label ourselves one thing across all domains. Right. So it's like I could be avoidant in caregiving of an illness. And then if you call me for aa, I've got unlimited time for you.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

I think that's the promising part of this whole book. Our versatility and our ability to sort of like to change, to understand, to accept certain things and also knowing. So if you're not such a great person when you get sick, then why shouldn't I call someone else?

[Monica Padman]

Right?

[Dr. Amir Levine]

No, I'm serious. One person have to do everything. Right?

[Dax Shepard]

Right.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

It doesn't make any sense. Yeah, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, Great. Amir, this is awesome. Please everyone check out Secure the revolutionary guide to creating a secure life. This is just so encouraging and hopeful and I really appreciate it. Thanks so much for coming.

[Monica Padman]

Thanks.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yeah, it was fun. Actually I was a little bit nervous about it, but I enjoyed it.

[Dax Shepard]

Claim to be fun. All right, be well. We hope you enjoyed this episode. Unfortunately, they made some mistakes. When's mom and dad arrive?

[Monica Padman]

They land at like 3:40.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

Like 5, 5:30 lax.

[Dax Shepard]

There's no good Burbank, which is sad. We gotta expand Burbank. I know, but only to the destinations we want.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. Because then it's gonna become the same situation, which we don't.

[Dax Shepard]

I will support an Atlanta route if you support a Nashville route.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, there is an Nashville. They had one flight one time to Atlanta out of Burbank.

[Dax Shepard]

Was single flight in the history.

[Monica Padman]

Yes. Cie and I took it home for Christmas.

[Dax Shepard]

Was it Air Kmart?

[Monica Padman]

No, it was Delta.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, it was Delta.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. And it was like a lot of years ago. They tried it. I guess they decided it.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm not going to call them out, but I am going to say what is really weird is how much these airlines jock you for quality. Like, if I go back 15 years ago, what I would have listed is like the best quality airline, like the cleanest, most up to date. Everything that has shuffled dramatically. And I don't really understand that. I want to know what forces make these ones that were kind of good. Just bad tumble. Yeah, I guess it's management. Like, I'll just say someone at Delta has turned that thing into a real wonderful airline.

[Monica Padman]

It's a great airline, but I used

[Dax Shepard]

to have to fly it non stop. They absorb Northwest.

[Monica Padman]

Right.

[Dax Shepard]

And I always had to fly Northwest because that was. Detroit was a hub for Northwest. Basically the Northwest. Love to fly anywhere where you might get snowed in and have to get a hotel room.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

But you know, it was just. It wasn't, you know, whatever.

[Monica Padman]

Well, it was Delta probably is. They took in there like, we're making it good.

[Dax Shepard]

I just want to tip my hat to them. They're not a sponsor. I want to tip my hat. They've really upped their game, I think.

[Monica Padman]

They're not a sponsor, but they are my preferred airline. Except we did fly Emirates to India and that.

[Dax Shepard]

That was nice.

[Monica Padman]

Was really nice.

[Dax Shepard]

That was nice. That was nice.

[Monica Padman]

Really, really, really nice.

[Dax Shepard]

Are you excited about anything? It's a very exciting time for me.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, go ahead.

[Dax Shepard]

MotoGP returned last weekend, so we had our first race of the year after four months layoff and Formula One's been gone for three and a half months. They've been in their winter break.

[Monica Padman]

Right.

[Dax Shepard]

And that returns this weekend. So I have. I'm coming out of my three or four month fast of racing and I'm pretty excited about it. That's fun knowing that you don't have something like this. Right. Where it's multiple events over the course of a weekend. And I may or may not partake in all them. But just knowing if I wanted, there's a lot of stuff on Friday I could check in with Saturday's a big day. And then, of course, the race on Sunday.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

That is. The power of having something to look forward to is gigantic.

[Monica Padman]

Yes. That's huge. Speaking of that, we really dropped the ball on the Olympics this year. We didn't watch it, we didn't talk about it, we didn't do anything. That's upsetting.

[Dax Shepard]

And, you know, it was. I read a thing that it was the most viewed olympics in like 16 years or something. What? I was a little shocked to see that. No, it was a hugely successful and watched Olympics.

[Monica Padman]

I'm surprised by that too, because I don't. Not because I wasn't interested, but because no one I knew was talking about it at all. And even on podcasts and stuff, I wasn't hearing about it.

[Dax Shepard]

I tried. Right. I was in Miami when they kicked off. Aaron and I were excited to consume some Olympics and do some napping while. While we did that because it's good napping material because there's a lot of downtime. It's like someone does a run and you hear a lot of waiting for scores, whatever. And so when I. This is terrible to admit, but when I checked in, I was having this feeling of like. Because I was watching on YouTube TV. Right. So I can see every single thing that's happening. It's all there. And I'm like, did they take some events out of the Winter Olympics? Like, what is it? I love, like, I liked snowboarding, AKA Shaun White. I loved watching him perform every year. That was an exciting thing. But I'm watching, like, the first thing I watched was people cross country skiing for like three hours. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

I saw my face.

[Dax Shepard]

I was like, I don't know. And then another one was like, they were kind of cross country skiing, but there was a little bit of downhill. I was like, still not very hair raising. And I was like, what is my. I don't know. I got confused. And then I just never went back.

[Monica Padman]

Sure. I like ice skating.

[Dax Shepard]

Right.

[Monica Padman]

A lot.

[Dax Shepard]

But I kind of even forgot about ice skating.

[Monica Padman]

Ice skating is the main one for me. Yeah, I did watch a couple clips and there was a whole story about this. This Olympian who was in the Olympics maybe a couple Olympics ago, and then she was really, really young and was mistreated and was like, you know what? I'm like, not doing this anymore. Shook life back into her own hands.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Good personal story.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. And then she's back on her own, like, you know, two feet on the ice. Yes. And she won.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, great.

[Monica Padman]

And it's like, great. And Normally I'd be so into all of that, but. Yeah, I don't know what happened.

[Dax Shepard]

I don't either. But I was. I was. I was saddened that I wasn't interested in it.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Hockey was fun. This. This year.

[Dax Shepard]

There we go, Rob. Thanks. Yeah, that's what I should have been watching.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Hockey was men and women, US one.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, that's right. I did hear about that.

[Dax Shepard]

Boys and girls in over.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Over time. It was the first time U.S. beat Canada since.

[Monica Padman]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

Cool.

[Monica Padman]

And like. And I didn't.

[Dax Shepard]

I take away everything I just said,

[Monica Padman]

well, no, you can't. You can't take away that. You didn't care. I'm like, either did I? And I don't know why.

[Dax Shepard]

My critique would have been to start day one with some more exciting stuff than the cross country thing for three hours maybe. But I bet there are people riveted by cross country ski.

[Monica Padman]

Of course there. There are.

[Dax Shepard]

And there's people that watch the walk, the competitive walking.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, there's people. There's. There's a lid for every pot.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

I forgot to tell you the other day that something weird happened. I almost got in another person's car.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, tell me.

[Monica Padman]

It was strange. I was leaving a place with Jess. It was at night, and I Bad eyes. And I was a little sick. I don't know if that has anything to do with it. But we were walking and I start to get in his car, and he was like, that's not mine. And I was like, oh, silly me. S. Yeah, silly me. And then I'm walking up further and, you know, there. There's his car with the light. Like he had un.

[Dax Shepard]

It's flashing. The light.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, he had unlocked it. So the. The lights come on. And so I go to get in the car. Car. And then there's a man standing there, and he says, that's my car. And I was like, oh.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Oh.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my God, I'm so sorry.

[Dax Shepard]

And I tried to get two wrong cars.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. I look over and Jess is across the street.

[Dax Shepard]

You're on the wrong side of the street, Monica.

[Monica Padman]

Well, we were both on the wrong side. And then in that interim time when I saw the flashing lights and thought that was his. He had crossed.

[Dax Shepard]

Were you tipsy? I.

[Monica Padman]

It was not that. It was really not that. I. I was so. And I was like, what's going on?

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Cause I. The. You lost me at wrong side of the street. Well, I think, like, you should have your bearings of which side of the street you guys parked on.

[Monica Padman]

Mm. I get. I mean, I'M not very good at that. I don't know. We were both walking on that side.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

For a while, like down the sidewalk and then he just crossed in the middle.

[Dax Shepard]

Uh huh.

[Monica Padman]

Where the car. Car was, I guess. Nope, nope. This. He dropped me off to get in line.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. See, I knew there was an explanation if you didn't remember what side of the street you parked on. That's. That's alarming.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. That is something that might happen to me. Just FYI, I'm not good at directions. I'm not paying that much attention if I'm not driving.

[Dax Shepard]

Right, Right.

[Monica Padman]

But he did drop me off to get in line, so I did not. Muscle memory. Know where the car was parked, that type of thing.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, that explains that.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, but it was.

[Dax Shepard]

Otherwise, you're in Strain Brookville.

[Monica Padman]

Right, right, right, right. Well, anyway, the man, it's just, he was right there and he was like, that's my car. I was like, oh my God, I'm so sorry.

[Dax Shepard]

Next year's at your car at the SAG night. Oh, SAG awards.

[Monica Padman]

Nice.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Monica Padman]

It needs a wash. Is that what you were thinking?

[Dax Shepard]

Nope.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. It really needs a wash.

[Dax Shepard]

I just thought, look at these two handsome cars.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. Great. Very beautiful car.

[Dax Shepard]

What are your plans with mom and dad?

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, my parents are coming today. I'm. Rape treatment center. It's not funny.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, well, you're laughing pretty hard.

[Monica Padman]

It's not.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm not.

[Monica Padman]

Just for the record, is not funny at all.

[Dax Shepard]

Right.

[Monica Padman]

But I am. I had planned to do that for a while.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

And I was like, oh, I can't cancel it. Like that's for one, bad.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

And two, I want to do it and. But it's like I don't know that my parents. Parents.

[Dax Shepard]

That might not be for them.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

I don't know.

[Dax Shepard]

It's not like a fun. You're on vacation. Let's go to the.

[Monica Padman]

Let's go tour the rape treatment center.

[Dax Shepard]

Right.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. I don't.

[Dax Shepard]

And is it psychological treatment? That's what they're offering or.

[Monica Padman]

No, they offer physic. Like it's like rape kits. Yeah. Like it's kind of like instead of going to a hospital, you can go to the Rate treatment center.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, great. Yeah. Yeah. And get your examiner. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

And. And there is like psychological resources and legal resources and. And it's a really cool thing. So I am going to do that. But I think I'll probably leave them at home for that.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Let them lounge around the house a little bit. Maybe that's When I'll take your dad out for a beer and ask him about his previous girlfriends. I almost forgot my objective for this trip. Find out about past lovers for your parents. Remember I said I was going to ask them their dating history?

[Monica Padman]

I'm not sure we're going to have time for that. Yeah. So I think that's really. We're just gonna, like, be. There's. They're very, very excited to see the house and stay in the house because normally my apartment was so small. You know, they. They stayed in a hotel when they

[Dax Shepard]

came to visit, and they would just come in. You get ready, and y' all leave to go somewhere.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

Now your mom can watch her YouTube.

[Monica Padman]

She will.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

She won't watch.

[Dax Shepard]

I wonder what she's. What. What she's got her fangs into right now.

[Monica Padman]

I want.

[Dax Shepard]

Is there any trials going on or.

[Monica Padman]

I mean, I'm sure she is very knowledgeable on everything that's going on with Epstein.

[Dax Shepard]

Sure, sure, sure, sure.

[Monica Padman]

So that's probably the main. The main thing she's consuming right now would be my guess, but I don't really know. I will find out and. Yeah. And they'll get to, like, go make their coffees and stuff, and it'll be really nice. It'll be really nice to have them. I did my final walkthrough of the apartment today to turn it back over. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

What's that experience like?

[Monica Padman]

It was good. I mean, it was good. It was sad. It's sad to say bye to something. And the chapter.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

It was also weird because it's empty and I haven't seen it like that since I got it. And I was like. Oh, yeah. Like, it was. I remembered going to see it, and Lincoln came with me. I remember.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh. For the first walkthrough.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. To go check it out. And that was a long time ago.

[Dax Shepard]

I thought, I know you already know this, but I was sad to leave our old house, and I thought I was gonna be really sad. And then we left, and I've never thought about it again. I've been shocked with the fact that I don't think about it at all.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Because it held a very. It's like the epicenter of some of my favorite memories and experiences.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

I have such warm feelings. Feelings about it, but I don't at all miss it. And I thought I was going to,

[Monica Padman]

but don't you think that's kind of

[Dax Shepard]

in keeping with my personality? Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Because, like, same thing with relationships. Like, you still have an affinity. You, like, love the time and the people. But you're not like an at. You're not like, missing them. I mean, you've told me that. Maybe that's incorrect, but elaborate.

[Dax Shepard]

Give me an example.

[Monica Padman]

I guess that's just something you've told me. That, like, you don't yearn for any past relationship. That it's.

[Dax Shepard]

I don't yearn to be romantic, to be with them. Romantically involved with any of my exes, but I still love being friends with them.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. That's what I just said. You still love the people.

[Dax Shepard]

I thought you were saying that when I walk away, that they're dead to me and I don't ever think about it.

[Monica Padman]

No, but that you. You still have an affinity and a fondness and there's, like, all these positive associations and you. You love them as people, but. Yeah. You're not like, oh, you don't miss.

[Dax Shepard]

I don't want to kiss. Well, no, I miss them as friends, but I don't want to kiss them. I was always saying this in reference to. A lot of people have a pattern of hooking up with exes.

[Monica Padman]

Right.

[Dax Shepard]

Which is great. I don't. I don't care about. I'm not suggesting I have a moral position on it.

[Monica Padman]

No, no.

[Dax Shepard]

I just have not had that. I've not had a pattern of hooking up with my ex girlfriends.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

That part, to me, when we sever has.

[Monica Padman]

It's over.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

The romantic part, but the friendship part and the missing them and wanting to connect with them. For sure. I still have that. I'll randomly carry my girlfriend in high school I was with for, like, five years. She will. She knows she and I love the same kind of music. She'll find a new album and she'll send it to me.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And I love it. And then we'll have, like, seven exchanges about it. And I go, oh, Carrie's still so fun and so engaged in devouring life and finding new things. And I'm proud of her. She's maintained the essence of who she was when I met her that I found so appealing about her.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And then I'll talk to Bri, and she's on fire for innumerable things. Second time I've said innumerable, which is questionable.

[Monica Padman]

Maybe it's your new word.

[Dax Shepard]

I hope not. And I get this swell of excitement that she is still held on to that sparkly curiosity. Yeah. And.

[Monica Padman]

But that's different. You like, that's different than what I'm. Than what a lot of people feel like, that there's.

[Dax Shepard]

But I do have what you're saying about objects, which kind of shocks me because I have coveted objects so much my whole life. And then when I don't have them, I don't think about them anymore, which is a little shocking to me because I wanted them so bad or I coveted them so bad. And then when they're gone, I'm like, I don't even really remember that I cared about objects.

[Monica Padman]

Mana house is a big, big object.

[Dax Shepard]

It is. And it's like, it's, it's, it's symbolic. It, it. It's a, A marker of your life and, and your accomplishments. And it can represent so much.

[Monica Padman]

It does.

[Dax Shepard]

And then I see videos of the kids playing in that little area we had between the kitchen and the living room. That was like their zone.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And I go, oh, yeah. I love sitting on the couch and watching them be little babies.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

But I don't need to walk back in there. That's the weird part.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. It wasn't like, I wasn't like. I wasn't like, devastated, but I was like, yeah, this is like the end of a era and that's a chapter's close. Happy and sad.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Just when new things start, it's like, yeah, there's no going back. Like, there's no, it's just, it's just a reminder that, like, time keeps moving and you can't pause it, you can't go back. And that's. You know.

[Dax Shepard]

We have a guest today after this fact check whose book is about consciousness.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And so I'm really locked into this book and thinking about life and consciousness. Righteousness. And. Yeah. Many of the experts that he interviewed for this book try to explain that, like, thought is. There was a traditional way of thinking which is like Renee Descartes, which is like, I think therefore I am. And thoughts are one thought built to top another. And it's kind of one thing leads to another. And there's other people who think more like it's a stream. There's no marker of this thought led to this thought. There's just this. And you'll never have the same thought or consciousness ever again. Is a fascinating thing. And it's what you're saying. It's like life's moving forward and it's taking with it everything that preceded it. And so it can't ever be the same because more things are preceding it. And the way we rewrite memories every time we think of them, like, your brain's evolving now nonstop. Your experience on earth is, is evolving non stop and that can feel scary and. And maybe untethered, but it is the nature and facts of life. And I think the discomforts when you're fighting that.

[Monica Padman]

Right. I think it's. It's. You can feel untethered, but you're also just reminded of mortality. It's like, oh, yeah, like, that phase is over. Now I'm in this phase. There'll be another. And how many more do I have? Not very. Who knows?

[Dax Shepard]

We know. The ultimate phase.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. Ex. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So. But. And then sort of ding, ding, ding with relationships probably, like people who do hook up with their exes and stuff. Like, it's probably more about that, like, wanting to go back in time as opposed to, like, I miss this person. I mean, maybe. Obviously it's a million reasons why, but I bet a lot of it is like. Like, I. I miss me, then I miss that time of my life. And that person is connected to that time. So I want to, like, click into that.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. And I think, yes. That's the Esther thing, which I love, is like, people are cheating on you with themselves. They want to visit a version of themselves from the past.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

But I think the easy cycle to get into with going back to exes is with some time away, when you come back, you can revisit the init. Uncomplicated phase of it. And that is very pleasurable, but the complications arise immediately after. But I think you succumb to the joy of getting to relive the part that was easy, the falling in love part. And then I just think quickly, it ends up exactly what it always is. And I think that's the cycle that's appealing. It's like, oh, I wanna go back to the original moment. We fell in love and it was so easy and.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Complicated.

[Dax Shepard]

Complicated.

[Monica Padman]

Should we do some fast?

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. A mirror attachment.

[Dax Shepard]

Had you read this book? I mean, this book was wildly popular.

[Monica Padman]

So popular. The original book, I had not read it. I just heard so much about it.

[Dax Shepard]

You had.

[Monica Padman]

And I looked into the theories and stuff.

[Dax Shepard]

I wasn't aware of the book. I know. I was aware that people were talking about attachment theory a lot, but I just assume that's in the same way people are talking about ADHD or whatever.

[Monica Padman]

That.

[Dax Shepard]

That was just the thing. We were obsessed with Zeitgeist E. But I didn't realize there was such a specific origin for it all. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

I find it very intriguing.

[Dax Shepard]

You do?

[Monica Padman]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, I talked about it.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

I found myself talking about it a bit.

[Monica Padman]

It's just interesting that we all do have ways of relating to others that are kind of predictable. Well worn.

[Dax Shepard]

I thought the thing that I was most interested in is I love anything that's counterintuitive, which is your attachment style as a child has nothing to do with your attachment style as an.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

At all.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, he would. I would have thought it just led into your permanent. They set this attachment style.

[Monica Padman]

Totally. Yes. Yeah, I thought that too. It made me think about a couple people in my life that have very secure attachments.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Uhhuh.

[Monica Padman]

And I was like, huh. Yeah. They don't. They're not threatened.

[Dax Shepard]

They're totally not taking stuff personal.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

It's pretty admirable.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. Now, he told the story of his dad, like, you know, throwing the penny or the coin when the president was in town.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh. Huh.

[Monica Padman]

And I was trying to figure out which president it was. And I can't figure out Amir's age.

[Dax Shepard]

That's not known on the Internet.

[Monica Padman]

I didn't. I couldn't. I didn't see it on the Internet. Maybe, rob. Maybe you'll see it, but I didn't see it. So my guess is going to be it was in the 90s.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

No public information.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, how on earth could you be alive in the era of the Internet and your age not be known?

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Is he 50 around there, you think? Because there's an Amir Levine, born on April 22, 1975.

[Dax Shepard]

So he. He would have probably been talking about Reagan or Carter if it was in

[Monica Padman]

the 80s, but if it was in the 90s, could have been Clinton.

[Dax Shepard]

But he would have been more a teenager.

[Monica Padman]

Right.

[Dax Shepard]

Versus a little boy.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. I couldn't tell exactly his age. I mean, I guess he was small enough that he was a little Angry, anxious.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Huh.

[Monica Padman]

Harder. Visited in 79.

[Dax Shepard]

So four years old. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Four years old. If he was born in 75, maybe. Maybe Clinton started his visits in 94.

[Dax Shepard]

Where was he visiting?

[Monica Padman]

Israel.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, Israel.

[Monica Padman]

The 1980s saw high level diplomatic tension, Particularly under reagan, with key meetings occurring in D.C. rather than Israel.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh.

[Monica Padman]

So maybe he didn't really go there there.

[Dax Shepard]

Right. I'm sure Carter went there. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

He was the great in 79.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. He went to a bunch of places presidents hadn't gone in a long time. He was known for that.

[Monica Padman]

From Georgia.

[Dax Shepard]

Peanut farmer.

[Monica Padman]

Yep. This says no u. S. President made an official state visit to Israel during the 1980s. It said Carter, 79, and then Clinton in 94.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, boy. Big Gap. 14 years.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. We're gonna go With Carter.

[Dax Shepard]

We're sticking with Carter. That's our final guess.

[Monica Padman]

Yep. Primates, middle of the food chain. Primates generally occupy the middle of the food chain, acting as both consumers of plants, insects, and as prey for larger predators. I wanted to figure out top of the food chain.

[Dax Shepard]

If it goes by continent, I'd like to guess.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. We can do environment.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. You could also do apex predators and other research.

[Monica Padman]

Apex predators are the. Are at the top of the food chain is the first thing it says.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, yeah, yeah. So in Africa, that continent, I think it's the lion. And then in the subcontinent, India, I think it's the tiger. In fact, I think it's the tiger. Through all of Asia.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

And into Russia, except for the polar bear. In the Arctic, I think is the apartment Apex predator. And then I think in the Americas, it's the grizzly bear.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, okay.

[Dax Shepard]

Although we also have polar bears in the Americas, but so this. And then in South America, I would say it's the jaguar.

[Monica Padman]

All right, well, this says apex predators are at the top of the food chain, acting as the highest tropic level, trophic level. With no natural predators in various ecosystems. These include lions, tigers, polar bears, orcas, and great wild white sharks. Humans are also considered top predators, capable of affecting or being the absolute peak of many food chains. Now, this also breaks it down by environment. Land lions, tigers, wolves, polar bears and grizzly bears. Grizzlies, Ocean orcas, great white sharks and leopard seals. Air, bald eagles, golden eagles and other large raptors.

[Dax Shepard]

Raptors. I love raptors.

[Monica Padman]

Reptiles, Saltwater crocodiles and Komodo dragons. Oh, my gosh.

[Dax Shepard]

Tell me about him. I guess you were the saliva. It's a nasty Komodo. Oh, come on.

[Monica Padman]

He loves their stinky mouths.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, I guess you can smell them from a quite a distance. Those Komodo dragons foul bacteria laden jaws because become poison.

[Monica Padman]

Speaking of that, have you noticed like that there's like somebody in your life who has not good breath?

[Dax Shepard]

As we've discussed, I'm very sensitive, hypersensitive, same bad breath.

[Monica Padman]

But it's like it's bad, but it's

[Dax Shepard]

not like it's not objectively offensive.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. And so it's like I kind of think I'm the only one who knows notices this. And it's an unexpected person. I'm not gonna say who.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, great.

[Monica Padman]

I don't think anyone else thinks this. I've never been. No one's ever gossiped about it. Exactly. No one's ever said anything to me alluding to the fact that that's the case.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

And, but yet it is repetitive for me.

[Dax Shepard]

It's rough. I mean, I had a friend who I could stop going to the movies with. I couldn't. Just sitting next to them at the movies, all I could smell was, was their breath. And I just was like, I can't do it. I blame me, but I couldn't do it.

[Monica Padman]

I know. And I just wonder though, is it pheromones? Because why can't you guys smell what I'm smelling?

[Dax Shepard]

I think obviously we all smell different things and we're sensitive to different odors. I mean, again, I see people who are in relationships with people who I think have wretched breath and I think, well, they can't smell it.

[Monica Padman]

Right.

[Dax Shepard]

There's no way.

[Monica Padman]

I know.

[Dax Shepard]

Because they're kissing and loving and. Right.

[Monica Padman]

Know.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. I don't think. Or they're just not sensitive to smell, period.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Because I just think like I just, I can't. A deal breaker for you.

[Monica Padman]

The same.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

But I just wonder also if it's actually more is breath actually. I mean maybe there's, there's obviously halitosis, there's some objective stuff, but maybe the rest of it is just pheromones.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, I also think there's certain medical conditions that give you kind of a predictable outcome and I'm going to leave it at that.

[Monica Padman]

Well, yeah, I just, I, I just, I was, I was somewhere and I had already thought it and then it was happening again.

[Dax Shepard]

What kind of activities you do with the person? Because there's certain things where it's not an issue.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And there are others where like again, the movies, you're sitting like your, your mouths and noses are, are what, 18 inches apart?

[Monica Padman]

Right.

[Dax Shepard]

And so that might be a non starter. Like I love this person, but I'm just not going to go to the movies with them. That's, that was my decision.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. That's interesting.

[Dax Shepard]

I, I, and then there's also, there's the case too where someone's, they have that and then they also tend to talk close and you're constantly trying to keep your distance and then you wonder if it's obvious. I think the only one I'm unsympathetic to or unforgiving of is I think when you're a dentist, you've got to be on it. Like no one's ever been on their breath.

[Monica Padman]

Yes, we've talked about this.

[Dax Shepard]

Because they're in your nose. They work in your nose, but they don't normally.

[Monica Padman]

They often the Hygienist doesn't do a goddamn thing.

[Dax Shepard]

If you have shit breath and you got a little paper between there, forget it. That's not. Have your friend wear a mask. Just make up a reason why it's cute if they wore a mask. And see, you're still gonna smell it.

[Monica Padman]

It's not that strong. That's the thing. It's not like you're making a mountain

[Dax Shepard]

out of a molehill.

[Monica Padman]

I mean. No, I just. I've just noticed it many times and I just wonder. Wonder if anyone else has noticed it and I don't think they have, which has just led me to believe. Oh, this is something like pheromonal.

[Dax Shepard]

It's me. You're like, it's me.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, it's, it's. It's.

[Dax Shepard]

Which again is possible.

[Monica Padman]

Well, it's not me. It's the way I. It's the way. Yeah, my nose perceives.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. I'm smelling an odor here that other people don't smell. In which case I'm saying it's you.

[Monica Padman]

Well, right.

[Dax Shepard]

I mean, like you're the. The anomaly.

[Monica Padman]

I'm the anomaly. Yeah. I think. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

But I don't actually know. Maybe I'm not.

[Dax Shepard]

Maybe you could ask around.

[Monica Padman]

I could ask around. It feels really mean to do that.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh man, I. I couldn't feel worse for someone who just can't help it. I mean, my God, I. I really feel terrible.

[Monica Padman]

It's also because it's a specific. It is a specific smell.

[Dax Shepard]

A note.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, it's a note. So I know in that case it is. It is a little pheromonal because it's not like this person ate something a second ago or something like they don't

[Dax Shepard]

smell like a hot dog. They smell like their body.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

It's interesting. It's very interesting.

[Dax Shepard]

You should ask if you can smell their armpits and their groin to see if it's consistent everywhere.

[Monica Padman]

I mean, it's. This is a very. This.

[Dax Shepard]

Do you think people with better, more secure attachment styles don't smell as much?

[Monica Padman]

Maybe.

[Dax Shepard]

Probably.

[Monica Padman]

Maybe.

[Dax Shepard]

I think everything just ticks up.

[Monica Padman]

Sure.

[Dax Shepard]

When you were listening to all this stuff, did you self assess as being any part of this spectrum?

[Monica Padman]

Oh yeah, we talked about it in the. In the episode. I definitely feel like I have an anxious attachment.

[Dax Shepard]

Anxious attachment.

[Monica Padman]

And you were saying you felt like you did lean a little avoidant when

[Dax Shepard]

I was young, but the more I read about it, I was like, I think I'm secure attachment. I think that's what I felt in general. After learning all about the thing.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

But. And I thought, oh, no, I. I used to be avoidant. And then I think you can. Yeah, you can change.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Just like the stuff I don't take personal. Like again, back to like the Instagram. So all this kind of stuff that drives people nuts that I know that just I don't even think about.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Or getting invited to things or all that kind of stuff. I don't.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, we can find out.

[Dax Shepard]

Is there a test?

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yes.

[Monica Padman]

I know I can count on my friends to be there for me. If I'm going through a rough time, then we got our normals. Agree. Strongly agree. Neutral. Disagree. Strongly disagree.

[Dax Shepard]

Strongly agree.

[Monica Padman]

I sometimes feel like I'm not good enough for my loved ones.

[Dax Shepard]

Strongly disagree.

[Monica Padman]

I feel uncomfortable when my friends or family act like they rely on me.

[Dax Shepard]

What's the middle?

[Monica Padman]

Neutral.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

And then there's disagree and agree. And then strongly.

[Dax Shepard]

I would say neutral.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

Again, that has evolved.

[Monica Padman]

Right.

[Dax Shepard]

I used to felt feel burdened by that.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And now I feel lucky. As much as I feel burdened, that puts me at neutral.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. I always make the first move, but usually become disinterested after I get what I want.

[Dax Shepard]

I disagree.

[Monica Padman]

Disagree. Yeah, I know I can be my true self in relationships once I have enough time to get comfortable.

[Dax Shepard]

100%.

[Monica Padman]

I sometimes hold back on relationships because I feel that if I share too much about myself, I might get hurt.

[Dax Shepard]

I wish. Strongly, strongly disagree.

[Monica Padman]

I tend to worry that my loved ones don't love me as much as I love them.

[Dax Shepard]

Strongly disagree.

[Monica Padman]

I consider myself a good friend and a good, good partner.

[Dax Shepard]

Strongly agree.

[Monica Padman]

I stay away from long term relationships.

[Dax Shepard]

No, I've had nothing but long term relationships, so.

[Monica Padman]

Strongly disagree. Okay. Being alone sometimes scares me.

[Dax Shepard]

I strongly disagree. Although, you know, I did. I. I experienced great boredom last week. Being alone on a Saturday night.

[Monica Padman]

Oh.

[Dax Shepard]

Cuz I had to. Kristen was doing a play and Lincoln had a play date. So at first I was like, cool, I have my home night to myself. And then I watched like three episodes of Fallout in a row and I was like, I want to be with somebody.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Oh.

[Dax Shepard]

I was like, I'm bored with just myself watching this show.

[Monica Padman]

Interesting.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. I was like, I am. I am tragically social.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

It hit me.

[Monica Padman]

I like going out with friends and family, but I still value my personal time and space.

[Dax Shepard]

I mean, I prefer being out with people than I do by myself, but I'm not afraid to be myself. I don't know. What does that make me?

[Monica Padman]

You do value your Personal time and space. You're always like, why are there so many people here? Why?

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, space. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Monica Padman]

So.

[Dax Shepard]

So what does that mean? I agree.

[Monica Padman]

I think you agree.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, I'll agree.

[Monica Padman]

I don't like relying on others and that way I avoid getting disappointed.

[Dax Shepard]

Agree.

[Monica Padman]

I find it.

[Dax Shepard]

You know what? Strongly agree.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

I got to be honest.

[Monica Padman]

I think it's too late.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, okay. That's fine.

[Monica Padman]

I find it difficult to express love even when I feel it.

[Dax Shepard]

Strongly disagree.

[Monica Padman]

I prefer casual flings and serious relationships.

[Dax Shepard]

Disagree.

[Monica Padman]

I avoid arguments with my partners, friends or family to avoid the chance of losing them.

[Dax Shepard]

Strongly disagree.

[Monica Padman]

Sometimes I want to be completely alone and then suddenly change to feeling like I need around people to be.

[Dax Shepard]

Boom, that just happened Saturday night. Agree.

[Monica Padman]

Agree. I never make the first move in a potential relationship for fear of being rejected.

[Dax Shepard]

Strongly disagree.

[Monica Padman]

My friends and family often tell me that they feel like they don't really know me.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, never. Strongly disagree.

[Monica Padman]

If my partner went on a trip without me, I'd miss them but would ultimately be happy that they're having fun.

[Dax Shepard]

Strongly agree.

[Monica Padman]

A big portion of my self esteem and self worth comes from my relationships with other people.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh. Strongly agree.

[Monica Padman]

Sometimes when I feel like I'm getting too close to someone, I get scared and start to push them. Pushing them away.

[Dax Shepard]

Strongly disagree.

[Monica Padman]

I feel bad when my loved ones do things without inviting me.

[Dax Shepard]

Disagree.

[Monica Padman]

I trust that the people I love want what's best for me.

[Dax Shepard]

The people that love me.

[Monica Padman]

I trust that the people I love want what's best for me.

[Dax Shepard]

Agree.

[Monica Padman]

I much prefer being alone, but I'll attend social engagements if I'm required to.

[Dax Shepard]

Disagree.

[Monica Padman]

Even when things get tough, I feel confident that my partner will support me and we'll work through challenges together.

[Dax Shepard]

Strongly agree.

[Monica Padman]

I often find myself overanalyzing interactions with my partner, wondering if they truly understand my feelings and intentions.

[Dax Shepard]

Disagree.

[Monica Padman]

Sometimes I push people away when they get too close, even though deep down I crave connection and intimacy.

[Dax Shepard]

Strongly disagree.

[Monica Padman]

It's hard for me to relax acts in relationships because I'm always worrying about whether my loved ones truly care about me.

[Dax Shepard]

Strongly disagree.

[Monica Padman]

I prefer to keep my emotions to myself, believing that vulnerability only leads to unnecessary complications and potential disappointment.

[Dax Shepard]

Can I go neutral on that one?

[Monica Padman]

I enjoy spending time with my friends and family, knowing that we can share both good times and bad times with each other.

[Dax Shepard]

Strongly agree. It's really funny to answer these questions in my mind because I have like two different families. Which one are we talking about? Are we talking about the family I created or the one I was born in.

[Monica Padman]

Right. I feel uncomfortable when people get too emotionally close to me. I value my independence and personal space.

[Dax Shepard]

Emotionally dependent on me. That was part of the question.

[Monica Padman]

I feel uncomfortable when people get too emotionally close to me. I value my independence.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. I. I disagree.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. Knowing that I have a strong support system of friends and family gives me the confidence to tackle life's challenges with optimism and resilience.

[Dax Shepard]

I disagree.

[Monica Padman]

I worry that if I show vulnerability or express my needs in relationships, I'll end up being rejected or or abandoned.

[Dax Shepard]

I go. Neutral.

[Monica Padman]

I appreciate the balance between independence and closeness in my relationships, allowing me to pursue my own interests while still feeling connected to others.

[Dax Shepard]

Strongly Agree.

[Monica Padman]

I often find myself feeling anxious about the state of my relationships, constantly seeking reassurance from my partner or friends to alleviate my doubts.

[Dax Shepard]

Strongly disagree.

[Monica Padman]

I prefer to handle my problems on my own rather than relying on others for support or advice.

[Dax Shepard]

Agree. Maybe. Size? Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

My mind often races with thoughts about potential conflicts or misunderstandings in my relationships, making it difficult to fully enjoy moments of connection without worrying about the future.

[Dax Shepard]

Strongly Disagree.

[Monica Padman]

When I face challenges, I feel reassured knowing that my friends will offer their support and encouragement without judgment.

[Dax Shepard]

Neutral.

[Monica Padman]

I tend to seek constant validation from my friends and romantic partners to reassure myself of their love and commitment.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, that's a tricky one, because I definitely like endless validation, but it's not to reassure myself that they like me. So I'm gonna go neutral. I just enjoy validation.

[Monica Padman]

I tend to downplay the importance of romantic relationships in my life. Vote Focusing instead of my individual goals and interests.

[Dax Shepard]

Disagree.

[Monica Padman]

Despite craving intimacy and connection, I struggle to fully trust others and often find myself holding back out of fear of being hurt or abandoned.

[Dax Shepard]

Strongly disagree.

[Monica Padman]

I value the mutual trust and respect in my relationships, which allows me to be my authentic self without fear of rejection.

[Dax Shepard]

Strongly Agree.

[Monica Padman]

Spending quality time with loved ones fills me with a sense of warmth and security, knowing that we have each other's backs no matter what.

[Dax Shepard]

Strongly Agree.

[Monica Padman]

I have a tendency to push people away when they try to get close to me, fearing that allowing them in will only lead to disappointment or betrayal.

[Dax Shepard]

Strongly disagree.

[Monica Padman]

Despite my efforts, I struggle to shake off the feeling of insecurity that lingers in my mind, questioning whether I'm truly valued and loved by those closest to me.

[Dax Shepard]

Disagree.

[Monica Padman]

I find it challenging to open up to others about my innermost thoughts and feelings, preferring to maintain a sense of distance to protect myself from potential rejection.

[Dax Shepard]

Disagree.

[Monica Padman]

The fear of rejection or betrayal sometimes prevents me from fully investing in relationships, leaving Me feeling stuck in a cycle of longing for connection with. While Simon simultaneously fearing it.

[Dax Shepard]

Strongly disagree.

[Monica Padman]

Independence is important to me. And I prioritize maintaining autonomy in my relationships, often avoiding becoming too reliant on others for emotional support or validation.

[Dax Shepard]

Agree.

[Monica Padman]

I have to pay. I'm going to do it.

[Dax Shepard]

Don't do it.

[Monica Padman]

It's 195.

[Dax Shepard]

Just a one off. They're tricky. That was smart. They let you do the whole.

[Monica Padman]

I know.

[Dax Shepard]

That's a feel. Betrayed. Is it his website?

[Monica Padman]

I don't think so. Oh, no. American Express is not supported.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, I bet. People.

[Monica Padman]

I have to get another. My other card. Wow. Yeah. We have to know.

[Dax Shepard]

I think we know. You don't think we know. Okay.

[Monica Padman]

Oh. Secure. Your attachment style is secure. Secondary, fearful.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Oh.

[Monica Padman]

The secure attachment style serves as the bedrock for healthy and fulfilling relationships characterized by a strong sense of trust, emotional security and a balanced approach to both intimacy and independence. And individuals with a secure attachment style have typically experienced consistent and responsive caregiving during their early years, fostering a foundational belief in the availability and reliability of others in times of need.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. My guess. Myself. This time my self assessment was right. Bore out.

[Monica Padman]

That's right. Yours goes 57.5% secure. 18.2% fearful. 16.7% dismissive. 7.6% preoccupied.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, okay.

[Monica Padman]

Interesting.

[Dax Shepard]

Interesting.

[Monica Padman]

Well, that was fun. Who did the marshmallow test? Walter? Michelle.

[Dax Shepard]

This is another one I've been repeating. Finding out that the marshmallow test isn't real. Yeah, I mean, it's a real test, but it. The conclusions aren't.

[Monica Padman]

That's right.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Boy, it's. It's incredible to think how much work has been built on the shoulders of that.

[Monica Padman]

I know that's not right. Scary. A little bit. The human brain consumes roughly 20% of the body's total resting energy. About 260 to 300 calories per day despite representing only 2% of body weight. That's it.

[Dax Shepard]

That's it.

[Dr. Amir Levine]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, I enjoyed Amir.

[Monica Padman]

Me too.

[Dax Shepard]

We'll die with the great mystery of how old he is.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Anyway.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, Amir was great.

[Dax Shepard]

Love you.

[Monica Padman]

Love you.

[Dax Shepard]

Sa.