← Healing + Human Potential
Healing + Human Potential
The Attachment Wound Sabotaging Your Relationships (3 Steps To Heal It)
01:12:52
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- [00:00]
A
I don't believe in affirmations. It's your conscious mind speaking to your conscious mind. These wounds, they are subconscious, and so we have to speak to the level at which the wound exists. It's what's underneath that triggering event in relationships. So how do we speak to our subconscious mind? Emotion and imagery come up with 10 memories of times we actually felt good enough. Once you have them, record them, listen back for 21 days. Visualize feeling in your body when you're in this relaxed alpha wave brain state in that first hour of the morning. As we fire and wire them over time, it helps us build these new ideas about ourselves to counteract those old, painful, existing ideas that often came from trauma.
- [00:37]
B
For people that don't know, why do I keep attracting emotionally unavailable partners? What are some of the work that they can do to change that?
- [00:44]
A
When we have a negative or threatening experience, our subconscious mind stores it very deeply, and then we reproject that back out and that becomes a filter we see and interact with world. I go through five big pillars of healing. Number one is welcome back to the
- [00:58]
B
Healing and Human Potential podcast. In this episode, we're exploring why we're attracted to who we're attracted to and what's actually happening beneath anxious and avoidant relationship patterns. We also explore how subconscious conditioning shapes how we love the attachment theory behind love bombing, how to heal from breakup so we can process grief more quickly, and what it takes to actually build secure love from the inside out. Joining us is Tyce Gibson, founder of Personal Development School and expert in attachment theory. This is a good one. Enjoy. I would love for you to support us in just breaking down what the four attachment styles are and how these are typically formed in childhood. So we can start there?
- [01:40]
A
Absolutely. And thank you for having me. So for attachment styles, I think the first thing to note is that every single person has one, so this really affects everybody. And originally this research came out of Cambridge University with John Bowlby and later Mary Ainsworth. But traditional attachment theory just talks about what your attachment style is and not how to change it, which is a really important factor. So for attachment styles, number one is a securely attached style. Research shows that securely attached people make up roughly 50% of the population. And what's really interesting is that the secure attachment rate moves and locks up with the divorce rate. So as we see the secure attachment rate go up, the divorce rate goes down. Right. They move an inverse of one another and vice versa. If the secure attachment goes down, the divorce rate goes up. And so when we actually look at securely attached people, they report not just having the longest lasting relationships, but they actively report being the most fulfilled in those long lasting relationships, which is obviously an important distinction. And how it forms in childhood is securely attached people. They get a lot of what we call approach oriented behaviors. And it sounds like a small thing, but it has such a big impact where in childhood their parents are attuned to them, number one. And when they notice that their child is distressed, they approach them and try to soothe them. And so inevitably this teaches a child that it's safe to express my emotions, it's safe to co regulate with a parent, and they learn and get healthy modeling for how to do so. And the child learns, I can trust that people will be there for me, I'm worthy of love on my good days and in my hard moments. And so essentially what ends up happening is we have a child who grows up feeling this sense of safety and trust and worthiness when it comes to relationships. And throughout their childhood they get healthy modeling for communication and co regulation. So now we have this person who goes into their adult lives so much more equipped to have healthy and fulfilling relationships. So that's our secure. But then we have three insecurely attached styles as well. We can think of these three insecurely attached styles as being existing along a continuum. At one end of the continuum is the anxious preoccupied attachment style and anxious preoccupied attachment styles. They get either real or perceived abandonment in their childhood. And of course childhood isn't the only place that we get conditioned, but it's where a lot of our deepest conditioning exists. So we always sort of refer to that. But what you see by real abandonment is the obvious thing like God forbid a parent passes away when a child is young, or perhaps a child grows up with, you know, in a fatherless home or a motherless home. But then also we can look at perceived abandonment, which can be things like parents are very loving, but they are working all the time and they're constantly traveling for work. So it feels like to a child that love is there and then love is taken away, and then love is there and then love is taken away. And that juxtaposition of love being there and then feeling like it's gone often conditions a child to feel like they're always waiting for that other shoe to drop. They're always waiting for that emotional abandonment to take place. And so what ends up happening because of this stark inconsistency and is a child grows up thinking love is a good thing, but they're always fearing that it's going to be gone at any moment. And how they adapt to this conditioning. And of course, these form a lot of their subconscious patterns in terms of how they relate to other people. How this forms their patterns is that they end up going into their adult relationships chronically fearing being abandoned, being alone. Other big core wounds they develop are the fear of being not good enough, disliked, rejected, unloved. Those are their big, big core wounds from an integrated attachment theory standpoint. And so cope with these core wounds by trying to people please, trying to make sure that they're loved and that nobody's going to abandon them, by being what people need them to be. And they often really adapt themselves into these sort of characters for the person that they're in front of the relationship with. And a lot of times, anxiously attached individuals become very clingy, very needy in relationships. They often hope very deeply that they can just do enough so that they won't get abandoned. And they end up abandoning themselves in that whole experience because they're so external focused. And so this makes up roughly 20% of the population, some somewhere between 20 and 25% of the population. And we see a lot of these individuals choose emotionally unavailable partners, constantly get into dynamics with people where they try so hard, and yet they choose the subconscious comfort zone of this unavailable person because they're so unavailable to themselves. And we often see them struggle in their relationships as a result.
- [06:14]
B
I love how clearly you're articulating it. And I just also, as we're sharing about the insecure attachment styles, it's like, of course these things we did made sense at the time because that was the way we attached. So we had to conform to attach and it was smart to do so. And now we're just upgrading. Is it still working? Because we need our parents to survive. And so we, we do what is going to get us love and protection so that we can survive. So as people are listening just to offer themselves compassion. If you are in any of the insecure attachment styles.
- [06:43]
A
Absolutely. I love that you said that. And I just think it's so powerful. And, and what happens exactly to your point is that our subconscious and unconscious mind collectively obtain this and then it's exactly what worked for us at the time. But once it's our conditioning, we tend to just be on repeat a lot of the time. We're playing with these patterns over and over again until we learn how to actually rewire these patterns at both the subconscious mind and nervous system level. We'll get into some of that. I'm sure, but that's that one sort of polar end. So basically on the very other end of the continuum is our dismissive avoidance. So dismissive avoidant attachment styles grow up with more childhood emotional neglect. And this can exist in a number of ways. It can be very overt, are literally never around, children are left home alone. The sort of latchkey kid you. You hear about at a. At a young age. And that can be a portion of dismissive avoidance. But a lot of times neglect is more overt and can either be that parents are there in the home and children are at school on time and food's on the dinner table on time, and there's a sense of stability, but the parents are completely emotionally unattuned and unavailable to the children. And in that case, we'll often see parents shame or diminish the child's emotions, not really have room or bandwidth for it, not be able to be present or attuned. And if a child is distressed, the parent might say, oh, children should be seen and not heard. Or go to the other room and figure it out. Or at worst, sometimes the child will be punished for the emotional expression. And we can also see a form of neglect existing within enmeshment. Like a lot of times people will say, oh, if somebody's enmeshed, you know, that's still a form of connection. Well, enmeshment between a parent and child is actually that the. The child is attuned to the parent, but the parent is more attuned to themselves than the child and is projecting their needs onto the child. So it actually still constitutes as a form of neglect. So these types of ingredients are likely to cause emotional neglect for a child who then when a child is neglected, because children in their behavioral stages of development, they personalize everything they can't conceive of. Oh, my parents emotionally unavail. They can't understand that about their parents. So instead a child goes, oh, well, there must be something wrong with me that I can't get my needs met. And so dismissive, avoidant attachment styles, they end up going through their childhood being like, well, I just need to suppress my own emotions, my own emotional needs from anybody. I need to stuff them down. I need to do whatever I can to not be vulnerable, because it constantly gets me shamed or punished or deflected, so it's of no use to me. And so it's dismissible. When they grow up and in their adult lives, they have big core wounds around the fear of being seen as defective or broken, really, like a Shame wound. They feel a lot of the emotion of shame when they feel too open or vulnerable or emotional. They're also very afraid of being weak if they open up. So they close down and shut down a lot in the name of not being weak and not being seen as shameful for doing so. And they often feel very afraid of being trapped, helpless, or powerless. So as adults, they are chronically trying to push people away, keep people at arm's length, not really let people in. And in a lot of their adult relationships, they very much struggle with commitment. So they may get into a relationship, they start dating somebody, and in those early stages, everything's fine. But our attachment stuff doesn't show up until we actually attach. So once we develop real feelings, once we let our guard down, that's when all of a sudden you see this person suddenly pull away, run the other direction, closed down very strongly. And often people are left feeling like, wait, what happened? Because this person has learned to source a sense of control in being hyper independent, in not needing anybody and not being vulnerable. And of course, those are things that we absolutely need in order to have a healthy relationship. So this person's been dealt a hand of cards where they're generally really going to struggle to be able to progress relationships because a lot of their own conditioning. So we can get into the fourth one in a moment, but I just want to.
- [10:49]
B
No, that's great that you said that it would make sense that once they attach and they're having feelings, that that's when the patterns come up. Because I don't hear a lot of people speak to that, But I think that's brilliant and very helpful because they might be like, I was in this relationship, and then it just changed. Why? Did. Did I do something wrong?
- [11:08]
A
Yes, exactly. And certain attachment cells are very prone to personalizing things like anxious attachment cells. More than anybody, they let go, it was me, I did something wrong. And blame themselves. And it's usually, you know, a combination of things. Sometimes you choose from your subconscious comfort zone. So, you know, I always talk about how if. If you were treated a certain way in your childhood, often it internalizes the relationship you form with yourself. So you come to treat yourself that way. And then our subconscious mind associates what's familiar with safety and thus survival. So then we choose from that zone of what's familiar. And so then we choose somebody who mirrors back to us how we treat ourselves. And the cycle continues on. So it's not usually the anxious attachment cell's fault if they go through that sort of whiplash of. Of seeing somebody one way, and then it changes. It's usually that they're picking from their conditioning and that the way out of that is to rewire a lot of these. These patterns and themes.
- [12:00]
B
So I think we unconsciously choose so that we can then heal it. I think that's life's way of, like, this bait and switch. Like, I'm gonna have you create cocktail of, like, oxytocin and, like, hormones of connection so that then we're motivated to do the work. But I do think it's life unconsciously recreating the past so that we heal, so that we look at it. And so. And I know we'll go into that, but yes, please.
- [12:23]
A
It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes ever, and it's a Rumi quote. He says, if I'm irritated by every rub, how will I ever be polished? To your point, I very much agree that these things are coming up for us so that we can look at them finally consciously become aware of them and then evolve through them. So I couldn't agree more. I love that you said that. So our last attachment style is the fearful avoidant, often referred to as the disorganized attachment style. So this individual grows up with more big T trauma in the traditional sense. And you can think of, you know, a number of analogies that will paint this picture. So something like a parent who is an alcoholic, a parent who's in some form of active addiction, a parent with narcissistic personality disorder. These types of dynamics where you are going to get polarizing experiences when it comes to love and connection. So, for example, maybe mom's an alcoholic, and one day mom comes home and she's had a few drinks and she's in a really good mood. She's sweet, she's nice, and you're like, oh, love is a good thing. But another day, mom comes home, and she's had many, many drinks, and now she's angry, drunk, and she's being cruel and mean and maybe abusive. And if you look at a narcissistic parent, you know, one day that person love bombs, and you're the golden child and you're loved and deeply cared for. Another day, that person is cruel and harsh and critical and mean or manipulative. And so you never know which version of a person you're going to get. And so while the anxious attachment style learns to attach by maintaining proximity and always trying to get closer, and the dismissive avoidant learns to attach by always creating distance and space, that's how they feel in control and feel like relationships are safe enough. The fearful, avoidant or disorganized attachment style, they end up going, okay, I'm going to learn to attach by being hyper vigilant. I am going to notice every micro expression, every body language shift, every tone of voice shift, every change so I can predict your behavior and then determine which version of somebody I'm going to get. And in doing that, that allows me to figure out how to navigate relationships. Often joke that the fearful avoidant is like the human lie detector. They really notice everything and they are usually hyper attuned to other people. Sometimes it's a gift and superpower. Sometimes they can really see into people and understand things deeply. But until they do the work, they're often very plagued by relationships. Relationships can be very challenging. They're hot and cold and they're back and forth because they want love. They have some good experiences with love, but they're scared of it at the same time. And so they essentially have this anxious side to how they attach, but they also have this avoidant side to how they attach. So they fear abandonment. They have a big core wound of being abandoned. They often have a big core wound of being alone, but not in a sense of lonely, more in a sense of it's always all on me. At the end of the day, I'm always the one to do it all. And then I always have to fix and pick up the pieces for everybody because they take so much over responsibility a lot of the time. And so they'll do a lot of that. On top of that, they're usually the individual who has a bit of a betrayal, core wound or fear. And until they work on their relationship stability and do some inner work, even if they're not scared of somebody, like, even if they relatively trust their partner, they sort of grow up thinking, well, if I couldn't trust my own parents to be stable and normal, how could I possibly trust a stranger that I get into a relationship with? So it's almost like the betrayal wound is that they're always waiting for the other shoe to drop. And you'll hear them say things like, okay, we're great now, but how can I know in 10 years things won't change or be be difficult? And they also have a massive unworthiness wound. They usually feel like they need to achieve over, deliver over, prove their worth just to feel worthy at a baseline of what should be normal. And then on their more avoidant side, they have the fear of being trapped again or engulfed. Right. Because usually they grow up with some degree of enmeshment in the trauma they grow up in. And this fear of being helpless if they rely on somebody and that person becomes very scary or unpredictable. So we now have this person who has a lot of these wounds and in relationships growing up and before doing the work, they're hot and cold, they're back and forth. They usually over give and under receive very repeatedly. They put lots of pressure on themselves to do the most in relationships. But they're not good at being vulnerable back. So they don't share their own needs. And so then they get into these one sided dynamics. They try so hard, but then they don't share what they need. And so then they feel often resentful or frustrated. And we see this cycle that they go through over and over again. But they're very loving and very empathetic people and usually very deep people. But they deeply struggle in relationships before understanding how to rewire a lot of these patterns.
- [17:07]
B
This is such a helpful map to help people see where they may be and why so that they can bring compassion to themselves. And I know in relationship, because you talked about speaking the vulnerability, I know in relationships triggers are just pointing to the wound underneath. And oftentimes when we're triggered, we speak on the surface level of the defense or the protection mechanism versus going to the vulnerability underneath. And that creates more disconnection, which is usually not our intention. So the gift would be to create enough safety, safety inside of ourselves to in the relationships we want to risk being more vulnerable and connected and we feel safe enough to share with the vulnerable. Truth is underneath. So for example, instead of staying at the defense, which could sound like you're always on your phone, right. That that's going to create more defense. It would sound something like when you're on your phone, I make that mean that I'm not important to you and that's going to create more connection and intimacy but through the vulnerability and so helping also people give a map of that. Earlier you mentioned why do I keep attracting emotionally unavailable partners? In terms of your point of view, what are some of the work that they can do, whether with someone or on their own, to start rewiring that to change that. If you want to save years of unnecessarily struggling in relationships, whether you're singled or coupled, I have created a free love quiz for you that just takes 15 minutes. And it's going to help you understand why you're attracted to who you're attracted to, to the hidden ways you might be Pushing love away and what you actually need most in relationships so that you can nurture that. And this is normally a paid offer, but for a limited time, I'm sharing it with you as a gift for being a part of my podcast community. You're also gonna receive a workshop that guides you through the quiz step by step. And I take you through a powerful guided meditation, as well as coach you on how to apply these insights to your life right away. So just click the link in the show notes right now so that you can take the quiz and start applying all of the insights, creating the connection that you deeply desire.
- [19:01]
A
So one of the first things is I go through five big pillars of healing. So one is rewiring your core wounds. Because these ideas that we've acquired, I often give the analogy that your core wounds, these ideas that you're unworthy or not good enough or unloved, they're sort of like your own personal version of a bear in the woods. Like, if you were to go into the woods tomorrow and see a bear and you run away and you're safe, but if you go back into the woods the next day after being chased by the bear the day before, like, what does your brain do? Well, your brain goes, oh, my God, the bear is coming at any moment. And you're bracing and worrying about the bear. And so what ends up happening is when we have a negative experience or threatening experience, our subconscious mind stores it very deeply. We also hang on to negative things more than positive, because you don't run away from the bear. And then later, go tell your friends that you saw the prettiest flower while you were being chased by the bear. You were like, the bear's teeth were huge. You remember the big scary things. And it imprints our subconscious and even unconscious mind. And then we reproject that back out, and that becomes a filter we see and interact with the world through. So we see through the lens of these tribulations or painful experiences. We're not choosing that consciously. That's a part of our conditioning. And so when we look at our core wounds, these are ideas that we've acquired because of painful things we've been through. If you have an abandonment core wound, you probably felt abandoned growing up, or a betrayal core wound, you probably felt betrayed. So these imprint us, and then we see and interact with all of our relationships through that lens, through that belief system, through that wound. And then what ends up taking place is that causes this offshoot of experiences. When that core wound is very triggered, we have all these Stressful thoughts. Like, if you believe you're not good enough as the core wound, you think, oh, I'm not smart enough or interesting enough or attractive enough. And then you feel all these negative emotions. And then those negative emotions are made up of neurochemical reactions that then cause you to have cortisol and norepinephrine coursing throughout your body, which then signals the rest of your nervous system to move into sympathetic nervous system mode. And now we're outside of our window of tolerance, and now we're in this distress mode. And what's really interesting, too, is neuroscience has proven every action we take is based on our emotional state. So if we're not in charge of these beliefs that we're seeing the world through, then we're not in charge of what's then happening in the right of our physiology. And we're not in charge of how we're acting or behaving, which everybody has seen when they're triggered because they act out of character. And then they come back and they're like, wait, why did I say that? Or why did I send that email? Or I shouldn't have said those things. So our first pillar is really rewiring our core wounds. And we can get into how to do that. But I go through other pillars, which is learning your needs. Because most people, if you don't know your needs, are not equipped in a relationship to even convey them. Learning to then regulate your nervous system and get back into your window of tolerance is a big pillar, which I know you. You know a lot about. And then we dive into learning to communicate more effectively and then having healthy boundaries and really addressing those things at the nervous system level, the rewiring level, so that we have an outcome that becomes our new baseline instead of just intellectualizing information.
- [22:04]
B
I love that you mentioned that and that it's more integrative, because I think the thing that keeps people stuck is staying in the intellect about whatever their pattern is. And 95% of our behavior is from our subconscious that it's driven. So we can't think our way into healing. We gotta really go to the root. And I know that we both speak about this, which I love, and I would love to hear the three steps that you support people in taking to rewire some of these core wounds.
- [22:27]
A
There's a lot of different ways you can rewire, but this is a really easy tool that people can start off with. And I'll go through it in the. We'll use the analogy of somebody feeling not good enough, and you can, people can plug in whatever their core wound is that they heard there according to their attachment style. So it might have been abandoned or unloved or trapped. So our first step is we're going to find that core wound and its opposite. So in this case, we'll just use for simplicity's sake, I'm not good enough. I am good enough. But if it's, I'm abandoned, I'm worthy of connection, I'm trapped, I'm free would be the opposite. So you find that opposite second step is. I don't believe in affirmations. I'm not a big fan of affirmations, because affirmations are your conscious mind speaking to your conscious mind. And these wounds, they are subconscious. So. So these wounds, and, and at times, if we get really early wounding, usually before the age of three, things we can't retrieve, they can even be unconscious wounds.
- [23:22]
B
Yeah, pre verbal.
- [23:24]
A
Exactly. And so, you know, the idea that we're gonna talk ourselves out of it by giving affirmations is very futile. So. So what we can do here is we can recognize that our, our wounds are not things that we wake up and consciously choose our conscious mind. For your listeners or your lot, it's your logical, thinking mind. Nobody wakes up and says, oh, today I'm going to tell myself I'm not good enough 60 times and see how I feel. These are not conscious choices. Right. So these are subconscious pre existing programs, even unconscious at times, preexisting programs that are running these trains of thought on autopilot throughout the day. And so what happens is we have to speak to our subconscious mind or the level at which the wound exists. And our subconscious and unconscious mind speak in emotion and imagery. They don't hear language. So you can see this if I were to say, okay, Alyssa, whatever you do, do not think of the pink elephant. You probably think of a pink elephant right away because your conscious mind hears you not. But your subconscious mind just speaks in emotions and images, so it flashes an image of a pink elephant. So how do we speak to our subconscious mind? Well, in step two here, what we do is we come up with 10 to 15. We can just start with 10 pieces of evidence or memory to support the new idea. So we go from saying, okay, I'm not good enough to I am good enough in step one, Step two, ten memories of times we actually felt good enough. Now it's evidence based, it's believable because there are things in our lives that actually happened. But every memory in our lives is just a container for emotions and imagery. So if you, you know, have a favorite childhood memory and you're playing on the beach, you see the images of the beach and the ocean and we feel the emotions of the old memory, we laugh or smile. So we're going to come up with 10 pieces of memory to support the new idea. Step three, once we have them, we just record ourselves saying it out loud and listen back for 21 days. Research shows it takes 21 days in a suggestible state. Okay, so if our brain's producing more alpha and theta brain waves, which happens in the first hour that we wake up or last hour before we go to, to sleep, and when we're really packing in a lot of emotions and imagery, now it's actually we're in a suggestible state. We're gathering information and retraining our neural networks more effectively and more efficiently. So in summary, what we're doing is get the new idea, I am good enough. 10 pieces of memory of times you actually were good enough. I was a good friend last week. I was a good parent three days ago, whatever it might be for each person, once you have them record them, listen back for 21 days, visualizing about the experience, feeling about it in your body as much as possible. When you're in this relaxed alpha wave brain state in that first hour of the morning and now you're actually feeling it in your body, you're starting to retrain through repetition and emotion, these neural networks. And as we fire and wire them over time, it actually helps us build these new ideas about ourselves to counteract those old painful existing ideas that often came from trauma.
- [26:20]
B
This is brilliant. I know that science backs this because, well, oftentimes people use affirmations as a way to avoid feeling the thing that they're actually still feeling. And yeah, you're just talking from the conscious mind, which isn't going to go very far. And so but science has proven that finding evidence for the opposite makes it stick. And so what I also love that you're doing is you're feeling it and you're seeing it. So you're speaking in the language of the subconscious and you're doing it at the time of the day, that actually helps it re imprint. And so I love this as a hack and a takeaway. I think it's super helpful for people to try on and I wanted to ask you, with anxious attachment styles, for people that don't know how that shows up in relationship, can you give some examples and what is actually the need underneath that behavior?
- [27:07]
A
Yeah. So a Lot of anxious attachment styles. What they do in relationships is they will call a lot, they will text a lot. They'll try to move very quickly in relationships, try to get to commitment very fast, often without properly vetting somebody to see if that person can meet their needs or if they're a good match. And they'll often cling. Sometimes they struggle to soothe themselves. They really rely on other people to soothe for them because they struggle to emotionally regulate without somebody else. And so a lot of the needs, and I love that you asked that question because every single action we take all day long is a subconscious strategy to meet a need while avoiding a wound. So for example, if you look at the idea of clinging, well, what is, what need does that mean? Well, usually the need for comfort or safety or for connection. And it may be exactly to what you said a few minutes ago. It may be something that worked for us at one point in time, but may actually be having completely opposing outcomes in our adult lives because we're no longer a child. And where we adopted a lot of these patterns from and what happens is, if you look at arrested development, if you look at times of that, we go through these, these dynamics of arrested development where we develop behaviors in a traumatic event, big T or a small T trauma. Once we develop these behaviors, like clinging, maybe it works for you as a child to get your emotional needs met. But wherever we develop a coping mechanism, you can sort of imagine it as being in a shell. Like we go into a shell, we develop this coping mechanism. It becomes automatic. And we never emotionally grew up because you can't be in a shell and holding on and protecting and growing simultaneously. So when we wired in at one point, let's say, for the anxious attachment cell, the clinging behavior, you know, a lot of people when they actually are in a clinging moment who are anxiously attached, they report feeling childlike. They report saying, I feel like a little kid that's clinging to my parents leg and not letting them go. And it's because when you adapt to that coping mechanism, if you never actually rewired it or grew through, you developed it maybe at the age of five or six, and you haven't emotionally grown through that all this time later, which is why we have these sort of childlike outbursts and things of that nature as adults. And so what we can look for is, well, what is the subconscious need I'm trying to get met when I do this thing? And is there a better way to get that met now as an adult?
- [29:25]
B
Great question.
- [29:28]
A
So it may be clinging or calling or texting a lot to somebody, but we have to come back and say, well, is that actually the best thing to do as an adult? And I've often found and it actually goes into our second pillar of healing. Before we even try to get our needs met from somebody else, we have to first learn to meet them in relation to self. So whenever we are trying to make sure that nobody abandons us and so we cling or we're trying to get connection, we're always going to over attempt to get these needs met outside of us. And we haven't learned to meet our own needs halfway and sort of fill our tank halfway because we're always coming from this emptiness, this empty state. So a lot of needs for anxious attachment styles, to your question, are the need for validation, reassurance, encouragement, certainty, consistency. And when we start meeting these needs, if somebody's anxiously attached in the relationship to self, again through repetition and emotion consistently so we're actually building these habits in and it becomes our new baseline. That's where we learn it's a part of self soothing. And that's where we learn to show up in relationship to self, build a relationship to self. And it's our second pillar of healing. Your attachment style.
- [30:37]
B
Okay, beautiful. Thank you for clarifying that. So then we're still on what's the third. Right, the third step for healing the attachment style.
- [30:45]
A
So the third step is to dive into nervous system regulation. So our third step is that. And, and, and I always get people to work on the first two steps first because I found sometimes that when people are just doing nervous system regulation work alone, they do that, but they keep those core wounds can sometimes still be there.
- [31:04]
B
I've had the same thought. This is why I teach an integrative method. Because if you're just healing it on the nervous system, but the thought is what was also part of the subconscious reprogramming and you don't address it at the mind, you're going to have to always do nervous system regulation work. And sometimes people it's great for but other people, there's too much trauma in the body to even go there. So yes, mindset and nervous system like having an integrative approach which I love that you speak to as well.
- [31:28]
A
I love that you speak to that too. You're the first person other than myself that I've actually found say that. So like thank you because I, I, it's kind of my bone to pick with the world right now. I'm like, because nervous system works so big and so trending and it's for. That's amazing. Right? Thank you. Thank you world.
- [31:46]
B
Yes. And I'm a somatic psychotherapist and you've been doing this work for a while too. And, and we want to have an integrative approach. Some people, it's not accessible to. And we want to also do the unconscious reprogramming and it's trending like, and it's, there's a reason for it and it's great. But we want to hold it in
- [32:01]
A
balance and it goes both ways. Some people too, when we're highly triggered, we can't just get right into the rewiring work because Broca's area of the brain shuts down which is responsible for language and linguistic processing. And sometimes we have to get into the body before doing the rewiring. So they work and it's a two way street. And people have to know both, both well so they can get to where they are, see where they're at. Am I highly, highly triggered? Well, I might have to do some somatic processing first, then feel like I can actually now have my conscious mind turned back on and start to get my conscious mind to get into the subconscious work and guide it to doing the rewiring. But I've seen far too many people who come in and say they've just only done nervous system work and why are they still so triggered all the time? And they just, it's like a band aid. They, they do somatic processing, regulate their nervous system and then they're triggered again three hours later. So I just, I love that you have an integrated approach too, because it's just so important. And so basically what happens is the third pillar is we try to work to improve the window of tolerance. So, you know, we can get into a lot of that, but we can help people understand what's actually happening in their body and start to get in touch with witnessing their emotions and being able to, to notice what's coming up. And then we can get people to do a little bit of processing around it. You know, I could take people through a very long process, but I. We probably don't have time, but basically there's a few major steps that people can do to notice when they're triggered to get back into their body in a titrated way and to do things that are allowing them to discharge excess cortisol when they're really stressed, to practice moving back into their window of tolerance, so moving into a completion cycle. And so, so we'll get people to Go through a few steps of noticing when they're highly triggered, being able to witness the sensations in their body, label the emotions that they're experiencing, and then actually try to complete the cycle of this stressed out energy that they're feeling by discharging it in various ways through little micro mobilizations and things that they're doing to then get back into this window of tolerance so that they're not getting stuck in either sympathetic nervous system mode or sometimes this dorsal vagal shutdown that people move into where they've spent so much time in sympathetic, now they're just completely exhausted. And now they're in this full shutdown mode. And so helping people understand through sort of different theories like polyvagal theory, where they are in that window of tolerance and then if they're outside of it, how to get back into their window of tolerance and work to expand it. And so because each attachment style spends a little bit too much time in often forms of sympathetic nervous system mode because they have more core wounds, which means they're triggered more frequently, and they're used to having more emotional distress in their whole environment growing up. Well, now they're going to carry that stress and that dysregulated nervous system into their adult lives and relationships more frequently. And so we have to do a little bit of work at that level as well to help them stay in a space where they can be functional and where they know how to stay in relationship to self and get back in their body if they're feeling triggered as well.
- [34:54]
B
Yeah, and I love that you said name the emotion because then they're not identified with it. It's like sadness is here. I'm not sad. It's just allowed to be. And you can witness it. But then also I think a misunderstanding with nervousness system regulation work is people think that they should always feel calm. And that's not the goal. The goal is to stretch the capacity to open the window of tolerance, to be able to have more resilience and to be able to contain more without getting so overwhelmed by it. And so I love that that's part of the work that you're doing. And so then on the other side. So instead of anxious attachment, can we talk about avoidant attachment and how those patterns can show up and what that person needs to feel safe?
- [35:32]
A
Absolutely. So. So each attachment cell will follow the same pillars. So the first three pillars are the. The rewire the core wounds. So for dismissive avoidance, it'll be more the fear of being trapped, helpless, powerless, shameful, or Defective, weak, if they're vulnerable. So we'll get them to do auto suggestion work on, on that first core wound or those core wounds in that first pillar. And then we get them to understand what their needs are and start meeting them themselves, which is like kind of this huge breakthrough space for dismissive avoidance. Because most of them have no idea what they're needing, let alone that they even should be expressing them. If you ask the traditional dismissive avoidant what their needs are, they'll say, I don't have needs, I don't have needs. But they do. And their needs with people are usually they really take well to being appreciated, acknowledged, not in grandiose ways. They don't want big compliments, but they want to hear things like, hey, I see you showing up and trying to be more present. Thank you. Like they want their, their efforts to be acknowledged, appreciated, they want to feel understood. It's a really important thing for them. They want to feel supported. It's a big way that they give and receive love in a powerful form and they respond very, very well to being accepted. It is a massive need that they have because of that defective core wound. If they feel judged or criticized, they just shut down so deeply. So it doesn't mean that we don't give feedback to dismissive avoidance, we just do it in an accepting way. We say, hey, I noticed you really showing up here and here. Thank you. And can we practice doing this a little more in our relationship would mean a lot. And when we're communicating in an accepting way, the dismissive wouldn't actually makes a big effort to grow with somebody in a relationship because they feel like there's a sense of safety and harmony, which are also big needs for them. And of course they do need freedom and independence, but those are all their needs in relationships. And so we get them to understand that, start meeting them themselves because that's a big part of healing, and then regulate their nervous system. So those are the first three. We still have two other pillars of healing, which is communication and boundaries, which are very much the interpersonal healing pillars of an attachment style. The first ones are personal, right? Like I heal my core wounds, I learn to meet my own needs and understand what they are. I regulate my nervous system. And once we're equipped there and once we've done that work, now we can go out into relationships and we can can practice communicating better and be more vulnerable because we're regulated and we're less triggered. And so we have a capacity for vulnerability and a capacity for co regulation. And so then we get into those other two pillars of fine tuning our communication and learning to set healthy boundaries. Because a lot of people, they try to communicate and they say things like, you don't spend enough time with me. Or like you said earlier, you're always on your phone. You're this. And behind every criticism is always a need.
- [38:11]
B
Yeah, there's a desire inside the criticism.
- [38:13]
A
Yeah, exactly. And so we can sit there and say, okay, well, hold on a second. We can practice positive framing. Instead of saying what's not working, we can say, hey. Instead of saying, you're always on your phone, we can say, hey, I really need you to be present with me right now. It's important to me. And we can share because we now have done the core wounds where we know what we're making it mean about ourselves when the person's not. So when we now have capacity to say to somebody, hey, I'd love for you to be present at times when you're not present, I make it mean that I'm unloved or I'm not good enough, and it's a sore spot for me. And so because somebody's working on those core wounds, but they understand that in themselves, they're doing the work to not take those actions as personally, but they're also in a place where they can share and communicate to somebody they love. And so, you know, I always get people to unlock those first three pillars first because it helps us really be successful at the communication and boundary work. Whereas I notice for people sometimes if they're not regulated or they don't know what their core wounds or needs are, they can try to communicate, but it's just one big hot mess. It's really hard. And, you know, I know as somebody who I was a fearful avoidant, attachment style, I was the hot and cold chaotic one, you know, I. Communication was like impossible before I really did those first three pillars of work. So going back to your question for dismissive avoidance, that that's, you know, they follow those five pillars, so they learn to rewire their core wounds. They learn what those needs are, how to meet them themselves. They then start regulating their nervous system, which is massive for them because it helps them get back into their body and into witnessing consciousness of their emotions instead of just going right into shutdown all the time. And then they can go out and they can now they have a capacity for vulnerability, which is something really difficult for them prior to those three steps where now they can actually shut up, show up, they can be present, they can Communicate because they're not in a place of being chronically dysregulated by their core wounds and unmet needs and then dysregulated nervous system.
- [40:05]
B
Yeah. And you said something that just reminded me. A lot of times, people, I think I have an unconscious idea that if I judge or criticize, then they'll change. And we point. We can point out. And I've done this, you know, because. And I will teach that there's a desire within the criticism. My husband will be like, what's the desire here? And so we're going to forget. We're going to get triggered at times. Sometimes it's okay, we can be compassionate with ourselves while we learn or when we're dysregulated and come back to our heart. But it's like, oh, if I actually share the vulnerability and I can share what the desire is, those paired together are going to create more of the connection and intimacy that we really want. But I'm listening to our conversation and I'm hearing people say, well, can my attachment style change, or is this something I'm just born with? Can you speak to that so that they can have some context around that?
- [40:51]
A
Oh, my goodness. 100%. Like, that is the work I'm, like, trying to put out into the world. I'm so passionate about it because I was such a fearful avoidant. And I've been in, like, a truly, sincerely happy marriage for a long time. We put in work. We still do work on an ongoing basis. You know, there's effort there, but it's. It's good work. Like, it's beautiful work, and it's so rewarding. And I grew up being like, I will never get married. I will never have kids. I was so afraid of all of it. And. And so, yeah, it's deeply meaningful for me to share this. But it's not that hard to change your attachments. All. You're not born with one, you know, for people listening, because I know you know this, but we get conditioned with it. It's repetition and emotion over time that builds neural networks in our brain and shapes how the rest of our nervous system then reacts and responds to things. And so, you know, we're just conditioned in a certain way. It's not hard to recondition. We just often aren't given the tools. And I think one of the kinds of. Of devastating things I've seen happen a little bit, I mean, there's. There's good and bad as with most things, but the, the benefits or attachment theory is becoming More mainstream. But one of the drawbacks I've seen is that in that people started just learning about their attachment cell and just intellectualizing it and just identifying with a new label. Like, I am anxious and that's why I do this. And it's like, wait a minute, that's not the point of this. The point is to understand that, but then dig in deeper to be able to do those five pillars of healing, those five pillars of work on yourself so that the needle moves and you and change. And you are not just having your past define your present and future because of whatever condition patterns you adopted. That's right.
- [42:21]
B
That's right. And so powerful for people to hear that that we can rewire and change these and that we weren't born with them either. They were conditioned. And. And so from a attachment style theory, what is the perspective on love bombing?
- [42:34]
A
Ah, interesting question. So, so love bombing, when we look at the traditional original. Original or like, origins of love bombing, it came from the narcissist. So the narcissist, a lot of people say, like, where does the narcissist fit into attachment cells? And a narcissist can have an attachment style, but a narcissist is a personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, the very separate thing. And so, you know, a narcissist often actually is a fearful, avoidant attachment style. But if they're covert, they can be dismissive, avoidant. But you see a lot of the anxiousness in the narcissist. But just because somebody is an attachment cell does not mean that every fearful, avoidant or covert narcissist who might be dismissive when is a narcissist, very separate things, because fearful avoidance, for example, are usually extremely empathetic, whereas narcissists are not. So, so the big differentiators. But love bombing, like other things, exists along a continuum. So the narcissist and the original form, they love bomb like crazy. But it is often premeditated and it is often a strategy to reel somebody in, know that they're, you know, getting to somebody's deep needs and wants and desires. And when they feel like they have that person reeled in, now they have a form of control. So love bombing in that case is often quite insidious, sometimes premeditated to be used as a control or manipulation mechanism. However, love bombing for the different attachment styles exists, you know, less extremely along the continuum. Like, it's not as intense, but anxious. Attachment cells tend to love bomb a lot because they put everybody on a pedestal because they Always feel not good enough. And of course, if you see people on a pedestal, you're going to admire them, you're going to encourage them, you're going to speak to all the positive things you see about them. And anxious attachment cells are often very people pleasing and they come on strong and they come on fast. So the most love bombing of the attachment styles is often the anxious. They do it in their innocence, right from a place of being good natured and sweet and often charismatic and seeing the best in people. But often they're not vetting enough. They're not honoring their own needs or boundaries or authenticity. And so they love bonds, but they do it in the process of forgetting about themselves. Fearful avoidance can do it a little bit too because they also tend to put people on pedestals and they can self abandon a little bit. The difference with fearful avoidance is that they do it until they are frustrated enough and then they do the opposite. So then they're like, never mind. And they can be a little harsh and critical. But dismissive avoidance are the least likely to love bomb. And so sometimes when people think they're dating a dismissive avoidant and they're so sure the person's very avoidant and yet they say this person also love bombs them sometimes I tell them, okay, maybe look into narcissism, you know, just a little bit deeper because you know, those extreme love bombing and then devaluation and discarding phases are more, you know, in alignment with, with narcissistic personality disorder.
- [45:16]
B
I'm also thinking about grief after heartbreak and people wanting to talk about that. I know it's a big pain point, you know, and I'm wondering what are some of the faster ways to consciously heal from a heartbreak that you found?
- [45:31]
A
I love this topic so much. So grief. When we look at grief, we have to ask ourselves, what are we actually grieving? And people, it's so interesting and I'm sure you find this too. It's such a big thing that affects people so deeply and yet it's often left so unquestioned. People are like, oh, grief, it's just grief. And they surrender and they're in pain. And I really like to dissect. Like, let's look at the mechanics of grief. And so when we look at grief, grief is happening in a few forms. So number one, we are grieving. Once we've attached to somebody, our subconscious mind gets used to relying on the needs that they meet for us. So let's say for example, that somebody's in a relationship and that person Even if it wasn't working so well, we get used to a certain degree of maybe comfort that that person's bringing into our lives, maybe a sense of security or support, even if it's low level, because the relationship on the rocks, we get these different needs met. Sometimes it's a sense of humor, sometimes it's a sense of somebody protecting you and having your back or validating you or making you feel wanted. So what happens is our subconscious mind attaches to a person, but in doing so, attaches to the needs that they meet. And all of a sudden, when we break up with somebody or we lose somebody, well, there's now a void left behind, or these needs we were used to having met by one person. Now those sources of needs being met are gone. And that void is a big part of what we experience as grief. Now, there's two other parts here of grief that are really important. The second one, and this is, I think, the sacred part of grief. I used to do this work with people who lost people and like, to the person dying or passing away. And I remember working with this woman, and she came in and she was grieving for eight years and she had lost her daughter. And her daughter was young, and it was a very, very hard thing for her. You know, her daughter had a lot of health issues and unfortunately passed away. And she was just. She was like, I feel like there's just this massive hole in my heart. I've never been able to really function since. And we started with, okay, what needs did your daughter meet? Things like this. And helping, of course. And what we try to do is get needs met in new ways. But grief in our deepest parts are the sacred parts of ourselves that we grieve. We lose parts of ourselves that we get to express when in relationship to other people. And this is why you see, it hit so deeply with people who lose children. And in her case, it was, what did you lose? What parts of yourself did you lose when you lost your daughter? And she said, I lost the part of me that was taking care of somebody. I lost the part of me that got to express. Being the protector, being the teacher, being somebody who always contributed to somebody's life, being somebody who got to express and feel my own unique, unconditional love on a daily basis. And so what happens is when we attach to somebody, it feels like it's this expression of something, right? We get to be this person. We become something because of that person, subconsciously or even unconsciously giving us permission. And so when we look at grief, grief is not just the needs that somebody met. It's the traits in ourselves that we got to express. It's the identity that we got to have around that person. And when we lose that person, whether after loss or after heartbreak from a relationship ending, we feel like we lose access to these parts of ourselves. And so healing from grief much more consciously and much more efficiently on those first two parts is going in and finding the unmet needs and the traits that you feel like you are not getting to express, and then finding ways to become those parts of ourselves again and to get those needs met in new, updated forms in our lives. Just because that person from a relationship, you know, isn't there anymore doesn't mean that we have have to throw away those parts of ourselves in the process. And the third piece is just diving into the stories we make breakups mean painful things about ourselves according to our core wounds. Like, I'm not good enough and that's why it happened. And we go in and we do that work on our stories, and it just speeds up that process of grief so much more quickly, and we get deeper into the relationship to ourselves through grief as a result.
- [49:31]
B
It's such a beautiful map. I've never heard anyone break down grief in that way from breakup and loss. And I also think we're grieving the. The ideas of the future that we had with that person. So. But that. That can be maybe fitting in the stories avenue where it's like, oh, I had this idea that we were going to get married or this is how life was going to be, or. And. And really starting to unravel that helps us fill the needs so that we realize that we can honor the grief. And. And sometimes, you know, people will grieve or feel like they should be grieving, and they don't. And I think that's also an important piece to name that if. If you lost someone and it doesn't feel like you have an open heart, I think that's also reflective of the stories of how our culture or how we're holding the experience. It doesn't mean you love them less if you grieve less. So also want to give people permission to have whatever experience that they have. And I'm curious, just because we both kind of dissect this work, what are some big misconceptions you see around emotional regulation and healing work?
- [50:32]
A
Oh my gosh. Such a good question. And I just want to touch on one thing you said really briefly because it was so good with the needs, the future. Right. We. So the Subconscious mind, when it can't get its needs met in the present, gets its needs met indirectly through simulations of fantasies in the future or memories in the past. And so people will do that. They will attach to a future thinking or what the future would have been thinking. It's indirectly meeting a need or exactly like you said, they have a story. Their story is I am bad or I'm not. I don't love the person if I, I, if I don't grieve them. And so like it's so important to go into those parts because it's like, well, what were the needs in the future that you were hoping to get met and meet them now? And it falls in that needs pillar. Or what are the stories that you have about if you do allow yourself to heal and move on?
- [51:14]
B
Because I didn't love them or I wasn't loyal or my life can't be great without them. Yeah, all of that. So important to look at. Yeah.
- [51:21]
A
Yeah. So I just, I love that because it's such a, the way you sort of built on that. It was so beautiful. So some misconceptions. So big misconception number one we covered already, which is the idea that you just are an attachment style pet peeve for sure. It's not the way of things. Misconception number two is I think a lot of people believe that you have to either do the work alone only or in a relationship only. And it's neither or it's not one or the other. Both are possible. They're going to be slightly, slightly different routes to the same thing, but they are, it's not. One is better than the other. So alone will be a little more controlled. You get to do the work by yourself first and you have more structure and control and there's less triggers. But alone is beautiful and it primes you to go into a relationship. And there will still be work, of course, but you're more equipped. Right. So there's a beautiful aspect to that. A lot of people also do the work in a relationship. It's usually a little messier at first because everything's thrown at you at once. But you can move through things very quickly that way as well and efficiently and do the work in a really deep way also. So there's no right or wrong, there's no good or bad. It's whatever situation you're in, it's your level of commitment to the work that will matter more than anything else. And then I would say misconception number three, which is my big one for People right now is that. And we covered this too, a little bit. But is that people think it's just the core wound work or it's just the nervous system work. And they get so reliant on one pillar. And it's not all of them together. And without those things together, we get pieces of the puzzle. But we'll kind of still feel like we're putting the gas and the brakes on at the same time, because they all really blend together in order to experience true healing. It's not just at the mind level. It's mind, body, and that sort of deeper integrative approach.
- [53:06]
B
Like you were saying, we align on so many things. And I've not. And I've shared, like, there's this school of thought of, like, if it happened in a relationship, it needs to be. Be healed in a relationship. And then there's like, I'm an island on my own. I have the tools to heal. It's like, yes. And yes, we want to be able to have the tools and we want to be able to bring it into connection. We are relational beings. So there's so much alignment you've brought up a few times core wounds. But we didn't really cover what the core wounds are. Can you share what you see as those core wounds?
- [53:34]
A
Yes, absolutely. So they tend to. We can think of them as being broken down by attachment style. So these are the top happens for anxious. The fear of being abandoned alone, excluded is a big pain point for them. Core wound for them. Disliked, rejected, not good enough. Unloved and unsafe if somebody pulls away from them. And core wounds are just like the big triggers in relationships. It's what's underneath that triggering event. It's the.
- [53:57]
B
It's that, you know, my whole life to do the dishes for you with kids. Yeah, exactly.
- [54:04]
A
And you said it. And it's actually exact wording I use, which is so funny. But it's what you make it mean about you. It's the objective event. And it's never the objective. It's a subjective interpretation based on our own conditioning. So it's. And this is actually the way to get there. And you, you actually said this yourself, so you obviously know this. But. But is if it's the dishes or the laundry, okay, well, what am I. What am I making this mean about me or what am I afraid will happen? And that's a good way of pulling up from your subconscious mind what the trigger is and raising it to the level of your conscious mind. And so it's a good exercise. People can Just do at home for more awareness. The dismissive avoidance big core wounds are. They still have a core wound being unsafe in a conflict. That's why they shut down. But their big ones are trapped, helpless, powerless, also not good enough. They share. But big big ones are the fear of being defective or shameful and the fear of being weak if they're vulnerable. And so you'll see a lot of these core ones and you can see these expressed right? You can see it dismissal void. Becomes afraid of being trapped, so they push people away. They become afraid of being weak so they don't open up, they stay shut down. And so you'll see how these things really determine a lot of our attachment behaviors and relationships. But also as individuals because ultimately your attachment cells your relationship to self before anything else. And then fearful avoidance. They share in both the anxious and avoidance side, but they have some of their own. So they have the core wound of being abandoned alone, but more like left holding the bag. Like I'm the one picking up the pieces all the time, always on me. So abandoned, alone, trapped, helpless, powerless, all big ones often very afraid to get engulfed or to rely too much on other people who are unpredictable is a big one. And then they also have a big core wound of being unworthy and betrayed. And so and, and both the one other big core wounds I didn't mention, there's a couple other ones. Disrespected, unimportant, bad is a big core wound which will manifest a lot as people over explaining themselves themselves and try to prove their innocence all the time. And so those are the major core wounds. But that's how it's broken down in terms of our work and integrated attachment theory which is by attachment style which ones are most common. And then you can see and sort of map out how those are going to develop into behavioral patterns over time
- [56:14]
B
and how they play out as puzzle pieces in the relationship. And so I just want to speak to Sometimes when people aren't a match for you, like maybe you feel like like some somebody doesn't like you. It's oftentimes because your core wound doesn't is not a puzzle piece for their core wound. It's not even about you personally. So you don't have to take it personal. It's just like is there healing work to do here? Because most relationships are in. We're in connection so we can help each other heal. And as we've done some of the foundational healing, we can evolve into higher expressions of creativity and love. But we all have to Go through that healing phase. So it's not personal to you, but who do you want to do the work with? With really is the question.
- [56:52]
A
Absolutely.
- [56:53]
B
And I'm thinking of somebody that's secure, and if they. They have somebody that's starting to breadcrumb them and I'm. While they're dating, I'm curious how you might approach that conversation.
- [57:03]
A
Yeah, absolutely. So. So I want to just mention one other thing that you said because it was so good. Okay. So. So in relationships, too. Exactly. Like you said, puzzle pieces. We all do this thing. And every relationship has one. Securely attached people have them too. Too secure people, just less intense and less frequent. But they're called trigger patterns. I call it trigger patterns. And it's a cycle. So what happens is exactly your biggest core wound, how you behave to cope with your wound being triggered, just so happens to re trigger the other person's biggest core wound. And how they behave re triggers the other person. And it goes in a loop. And so you can see like a typical anxious and avoidant. Avoidant needs lots of space because they often feel trapped. Anxious attachment style. They're like, wait, you're abandoning me? So wound is abandonment behavior. I say wound behavior. Wound behavior to map it out. So wound of abandonment. Their behavior is to cling, to hold on when they feel scared of being abandoned, which in turn triggers the avoidance person fear of being trapped. Which when they feel trapped, they're like, I need to create space. That's how they behave when they're triggered, which when they create more space, then re triggers the anxious attachment cells fear of being abandoned again. And it goes in a loop. Every relationship goes through this. It's actually the biggest reason relationships end at the end. They just. You can't get out of the loop, and it's just too painful at the end. But by rewiring your core wounds and learning to communicate your needs, you step out of that trigger cycle that we often see so much in relationships.
- [58:23]
B
And it's so helpful to know about your own core wound, but it's also helpful to know about your partner so that when that trigger happens, you're like, oh, this is triggering. Say, for like my husband's little boy, when he didn't feel important. It's just. It's like, yes, I'm working right now a lot. And that's triggering him feeling not important. I can hold more compassionate space when I don't feel blamed, and I can't can be there with him as he tends to his little one. And I can create safety so it's oftentimes going to be the hardest thing to ask our partner to show up for us in the ways that we need to support our healing. Because sometimes we are in conscious couplehood and we can do that for each other. It's going to help us develop the undeveloped parts of ourselves, but we're going to have to do our own work to get there and it'll support us, it'll support our partners healing and you can do it together. But I also love that we have tools and communities like we're offering that you can do it in, in on your own too. If your partner's not, you don't have a partner, they're not emotionally available. But it will require you to do some really deep work. And it's worth it.
- [59:19]
A
Yes, so worth it. And, and it's always more work not to do the work. Always. I agree.
- [59:24]
B
And I, I, I would often think, how do people do it without the tools? And then I look at society and I'm looking at, you know, addiction and other ways that we try to get our needs met. It's innocent. But there are, and this is the whole intention of the podcast is to get, give people tools and perspectives to do it more efficiently instead of, you know, when we, when we postpone something, it just prolongs it. And so how do we proactively do it without needing suffering to be the motivation?
- [59:49]
A
I love that. I like, I feel like I know
- [59:52]
B
there's so much synergy.
- [59:57]
A
So, so I'm sorry I backtrack this, but you said bragging. So, so, so brag with me. So how does the securely attached person and deal with breadcrumbing? Well, if somebody's putting up with breadcrumbing, it's always because you are running on empty. There's a beautiful book and I wonder if you've read this. It's called the Mastery of Love by Don Miguel Ruiz and it's a beautiful book and it's kind of about self love. And I might butcher this story because I read this book like 16 years ago. So it's been a while. But there's a beautiful story in it and the author talks about the magical kitchen and he gives this analogy that imagine you have a magical kitchen and you can snap your fingers and any food you want immediately is there. And somebody comes one day and they knock on your door and they say, oh, I have this pizza. You can have a piece of my pizza, but you have to do all the things I tell you. Well, you're going to be like, why would I take your piece of pizza with all the stipulations attached? I can snap my fingers and make a pizza like I have no need. And then the author goes on to say, okay, well imagine your magical kitchen then breaks down and now you've been not eating for three days, you're starving, and this person comes back and they knock on your door and they say, hey, I have this pizza for you, but you have to do all the things I tell you to. Well, that time you're going to be like, I'm so hungry. I will take your piece of pizza with all of your stipulations attached because I'm starving. I need whatever you're giving. And the author uses this as an analogy, which I love, which is about self love. And a big part of how we self love is we learn ourselves, we figure out how to meet our needs and we show up for them. It's a big foundational piece of self love. And so in relationships what happens is whenever you're putting up with breadcrumbs from people, it's because you're already starving first. It's because whatever needs they're meeting, maybe somebody's meeting your need to feel wanted or important. Four out of 10, which we would objectively say that's not healthy in a relationship for it if 10 is too low. But if you're meeting your needs to feel that way, a zero or a one, then you're going to starve for that four and you're going to put up with all the red flags and all the stipulations attached to it. And so whenever people are putting up with breadcrumbing in any kind of capacity, it's actually an exercise I get people to do is, well, what needs do they breadcrumb you with? And score that how high they rank there from 1 to 10, but then score how high you rank from 1 to 10 and start meeting them. And that's our way to break free from breadcrumbing. And that's what securely attached people do. So naturally is if they don't see healthy, you know, effort in a relationship, they'll call it out, they'll communicate about it, they'll vet how somebody responds when they say, hey, this is my need, I need more consistency or I need to be a priority. It's important for me in a relationship. And if the needle moves, they're like, great, this works. We communicated, we worked through it. If the needle doesn't move, they're out of there. They're like, no, thank you, this is not working. And they're willing to honor their boundaries and move in another direction.
- [62:38]
B
And it doesn't feel like a risk. When you've done the self care and that you understand your needs, you're offering yourself your own love, because then you're not tolerating or putting up with anything less than you can give yourself. It's not even from a positioning. It's just a natural. This doesn't serve me because I, I have this kitchen, I can, I can take care of myself. And so having, doing the work, I think is one of the greatest gifts we could give ourselves. And it doesn't end. And that's the beautiful part. We can do this work from lack thinking I'm not good enough, or we can do this work from love, which is like, wow, my life keeps getting bigger, my heart's bigger, my mind's more expanded, and I want to continue growing and evolving. And so I want to also ask you about, like an avoidant partner. If in relationship they realize that they've hurt their partner, what are three things that they may be feeling but not saying, so that we can help somebody that may not have the way of communicating or the person that is they're in relationship with, help understand what may be going on for that avoidant partner?
- [63:36]
A
Yeah. So you're saying if the avoidant partner hurt their loved one, what the avoidant
- [63:40]
B
is feeling and not saying?
- [63:42]
A
Great question. So a lot of times, avoidance are actually a lot more empathetic than you think think than most people think. So they're often feeling badly about things, but internally their fear of being vulnerable is very big. So they struggle to express their empathy. And they often very quickly shame themselves for their actions and then turn around and say, well, I guess I'm not capable of a healthy relationship, because those are their core wounds. They feel helpless, AKA incapable, and the core wound of feeling shameful or defective. And so when they make a mistake for a lot of other people, when you go to somebody who's a different attachment style and you say, hey, you hurt me, this happened. Sometimes people get a little bit defensive, but they don't make it mean, like, I am defective at my core for making a mistake, they don't take it as such a personal assault. Whereas dismissive avoidance, that's the lens they're taking in their information through. So they hear that, oh, you made a mistake, and right away they go, oh my gosh, I'm shameful and, and I'm obviously broken or defective, and I'm obviously not capable of relationships. And that's part of why we see them shut down so deeply. And so I always say to people on the receiving end, if you are hurt by an avoidance, go to the person and say, hey, you're a wonderful partner. I care about that. You do this and this. And I appreciate these things you do. And this situation hurt me. And what we're doing is we're getting around that core wound in advance so they're less likely to be triggered. And in turn that increases. Increases the bandwidth of their ability to hear you because they're not in the story of taking it so personally. We've prefaced, we've walked around the core trigger in advance and now the person can actually hear you and respond more productively.
- [65:18]
B
Brilliant. Brilliant. It's going to help create connection. Yes. They're not going to be in defense and trigger and then you're actually going to be able to connect and them hear you. That's brilliant. And I, you mentioned this earlier, but I want to just talk. How can somebody tell the difference between it being avoidant attachment and narcissistic behavior in relationship?
- [65:36]
A
Yeah, such a, such an important question. So there's a couple dead giveaways that are so obvious. So the first thing is, if you look at the dsm, one of our big things for the narcissist is, is they are grandiose. They are constantly needing attention and admiration. If you give a dismissive, avoidant too much attention or admiration, they run away. They are, they want the opposite. They do not want. They want like, acknowledgement and sincere ways like, hey, thanks for taking out the garbage. They want to be acknowledged or their efforts seen. But if you're like, you're the center of my universe, I can't live without you. It's the biggest trigger. Yeah, they like run for the hills. And so they're not grandiose at all. Another big theme that we see in narcissistic personality disorder is that they, they constantly care about hanging out. And this is again in the DSM with high power, high status, status people. They believe that they are special and unique and should only be associating with other special and unique people. And they tend to. Another characteristic in the DSM is they seek power and status. Dismissive avoidance. They do not care. Like they don't care what status you have or what power you have. They're going to do their own thing and march the beat of their own drum and they're going to be around people they like and feel understood by, and that's it. And so you won't see this status power seeking dynamic at all in a dismissive avoidant. And then another really dead giveaway is that narcissists, they tend to be very manipulative, very intentionally, and they come on very strong at the beginning. They love bomb and they love bomb, but then they'll actively manipulate, dismissive avoidance. They don't honestly like, you know, for lack of a better word, they don't like care enough to think about manipulating. And it's not that they don't care about a person or a relationship. They just don't want to do this dance. They don't like to play games. They're like, I am who I am. This is how I'm going to show up and behave. Because they resource a lot of their needs more from, from themselves. So they're not going to try to manipulate outcomes from people. Like that's not how they function, that's not how they're used to interpersonally relating. So they're not trying to play games or do a dance. They will be very straightforward, sometimes a little bit blunt. They will be excellent at receiving. So a lot of people are very giving because they're trying to people please the dismissive avoidant. And then they'll receive it and they'll think, oh, you give because you're generous. They won't think, oh, I should give back and pour into you back. They don't operate by covert contracts at all. So they don't think, oh, because you did 10 things, things I owe you 10 things. Yeah, they're, they're not, they're kind of immune to that. So some people are like, oh, look, they're, they're taking advantage of me. But dismissive wings will never intentionally take advantage of somebody they'll receive if given to. But they're not trying to manipulate resources from other people. So again, like really big distinguishing factors because narcissists will do those things.
- [68:10]
B
Yeah, I just, I adore you. I feel like I'm so grateful. We've got to connect and there's so much alignment and how we see things. And it's really refreshing to just hear your thoughts on all of this and thank you for your time. And just in closing, I'm wondering if there's one truth about relationships that you've discovered that you feel like could really help people if they understood. I want to give this space to answer that. If there's something that comes to mind, you're like, wow, this would really serve people that we haven't covered what Would that be?
- [68:41]
A
I would say, well first, I adore you too and I felt so connected to you in place the first, first two minutes of speaking to you. There's so much in resonance. I would say the. One of the big things that I think is just a necessity for healing that I didn't touch on is the ability to have compassion for yourself. And I think that that is in our internal dialogue, that is in our self observation. I think that it's very easy when we start healing to be like oh look, I have all these things. And awareness is such a powerful first step. And of course we have to do the rewiring and the nerve nervous system work, but we want to enter into relationship to ourselves in a compassionate way. Understanding that we did not raise our hand and volunteer for this programming. At least not psychologically, maybe, maybe spiritually, but, but, but we didn't choose to have some of these programs and they came through hard times and unprocessed trauma that we didn't have the capacity to understand at the time that we had these challenges. And so, so I think it's of the utmost importance that we embark in our whole healing journey from a place of self compassion, from a place of patience, from a place of kind of treating ourselves like we would treat a wounded child in pain. Because that's when we developed a lot of these things. And I think being able to do that as you embark on those pillars of healing that we discussed allows it to come full circle and allows it to be such an enjoyable experience, an enriching experience instead of a place of judgment and pushing ourselves and pressuring because then we're just doing more of what we avoided. And one of my favorite quotes ever is he who hates evil only creates more of it. And we have to be careful not to hate on these things that we have and then be in judgment and negativity towards ourselves for having them, that just puts us back to square one. So I think being able to exit out of that and have self compassion is such an important part of the whole process.
- [70:31]
B
It's such an important process and it's like even having compassion or acceptance for our non acceptance, right? It's just for me in the beginning of doing this work I was taking quote unquote personal responsibility, but it just was not a level of maturity because I was blaming myself. And when I understood like oh, that I can, I, you know, even criticism is taught. And so it's not something that we're born with and we can unlearn that we can bring Compassion to the critic and it starts shifting inside and outside in our lives. Lives too. But when we, when we identify with something, we're stuck with it. When we judge it, we're stuck with it. So the opposite is true. When we accept it and we don't identify, we're liberated from it. You are such a breath of fresh air. I'm so grateful that we've connected. I know my audience is also going to want to stay connected to you. Talk to us about what you're doing and where they stay connected.
- [71:15]
A
Yeah. So I basically take people through 90 day journeys to healing their attachment style. That's@personal developmentschool.com and people can take a free assessment for their attachment cell, learn what they are going to show up as in those five pillars and then we really do the work to rewire which is like the main piece. And then I am on YouTube which is thais personal developmentschool and I am on Instagram which is he personal development school. And honestly, this is like one of my favorite conversations I've had in so long and just adored talking to you even before we started and we just have so much in alignment. So, so grateful to connect and and thank you for having me today.
- [71:52]
B
What a gift. And we'll put all the links in the show notes below. Thank you for who you are and just truly just sharing your wisdom with my community. What a gift.
- [72:00]
A
Thank you.
- [72:01]
B
Thank you so much for doing this work that changes the world, starting with yourself. It truly does make a difference. And if this podcast has supported you, one of the most impactful ways to help us reach more people is to simply press the follow button. It really does help us grow and we are so grateful. I just want to say thank you for being a living example of what it means to walk through the world with an open heart and mind.