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- [00:00]
A
So when I read all the research papers and I didn't just look at what they wrote in the abstract or their commentary, I looked at the data and the data actually says something else from what they're telling you in the end, like from the story that they're making. And it's mind boggling. So, for example, the attachment style that people have as an adult are not the attachment styles they're going to have as kids. Not at all. In fact, less than 10% of your attachment style as an adult can be explained by your attachment styles as a child and also by parenting, by the type of parenting that you got. So we all think, oh my God, the parenting is so crucial. And like everything that we do can potentially scar our kid. But that's not what the research shows. Not at all.
- [00:45]
B
We focus so much on our attachment relationship with our children, making sure it's healthy and secure and all of that is wonderful. And also we under emphasize the importance of having healthy, secure attachment relationships with peers. Friendships matter, especially for developing children. And cultivating healthy relationships is really important and benefits them throughout their lives. Today's episode of Raising Good Humans podcast is with Dr. Amir Levine and we're talking about Secure. I'm Dr. Elisa Pressman, Developmental psychologist, New York Times best selling author, associate clinical professor at Icahn School of of Medicine, and the host of Raising Good Humans podcast. I'm so glad you're here.
- [01:31]
A
For me, there's been in my own career kind of like a trajectory or a transformation I would say that I went through since I first wrote Attached about romantic attachment and how people behave in romantic relationships based on their attachment styles to really, I think in. It took me about 15 years to create a new type of therapy that kind of integrates. It's almost like a unified theory of relationships or more I should say, like secure relationships.
- [02:03]
B
Yeah.
- [02:04]
A
And how you can get along with anyone really in different aspects of your life. And some of it will be between parents and kids. But then very importantly and really if I forget touch upon that, you really have to help me go back to it. Also kids between kids, even toddlers, even when they're very young. Because you'll see it's very, very important to start instilling that security not just between parent and child, but between kids from a very young age.
- [02:35]
B
Okay, so how do you even define security?
- [02:39]
A
So my definition of security is something very, very specific. And it relies on the different attachment styles. The anxious, avoidant, secure and disorganized or fearful, avoidant.
- [02:52]
B
I'm sorry to Interrupt. But I want to make sure for those of you who don't know these different attachment styles, let's go through those briefly so that we can get to what secure is.
- [03:04]
A
Yeah, exactly. So these attachment styles were discovered by Mary Ainsworth in something that's called a strange situation test and you can see it on YouTube. It's actually very informative to watch it in real time, but I'll describe it a little bit. What happens is they bring a caregiver with a toddler to a room full of toys and they're watching them from a one way mirror and you typically see like when they see all these toys it's like pointing at them, really interested in playing and exploring. And then they ask the mother, the caregiver to leave the room. And you see it happens like in real time. The toddler like drops whatever they're doing and rushes over to the door, starts banging on the door, crying for the mother. You can try interesting them with a toy, they'll throw it in your face. They don't care. They just want their mom back, their caregiver back. And then they ask their mother to go back into the room. And it's in that moment of the reunion that Mary Ainsworth noticed the three attachment styles. And then later on Mary Main find the fourth attachment style. But then the three initial ones were anxious, avoidant and secure. And the way that it plays out, it's remarkable. When you see the video, the child can be horribly upset. Even secure kids can be horribly upset, like really out of their mind. But the moment the mother picks them up, just like that, it's just like, it's like magic. They calm down very, very quickly and starts to point at the toys again. Regaining interest in the world. Anxious attachment, bond or kids, not so easy. It takes a long, long time to console them and they don't really regain that interest in the outside world that easily. And avoidant attachment, sometimes they don't even cry, but when the parent holds them, they kind of like stay limp in their hands. But when they looked and measured their blood pressure and heart rate, they saw that it was through the roof. So again, even here, even though they're not crying or protesting too much, they don't know how to use the bond as effectively in regulating their affect. And that's a very, very important distinction. It's about using the external social world in regulating our affect. That's the crux of attachment. So from my point of view, secure is more about to find the social environment where our emotions, where our affect is regulated, basically.
- [05:45]
B
So let's say you found that you're secure, you, you're moving through the world, how does it benefit you?
- [05:53]
A
Oh, so then the research about secure attachment and when I wrote my, my old book Attached, it was just about, oh, adults show greater satisfaction in romantic relationships, which is important for the kids too because I think also from your work you stressed out a lot about the importance of the parent interaction on the well being of the child, like in the day to day interaction. So that's one thing. But then, since then, and that's part of the reason why I really wanted to write Secure is that they show that the benefits go way beyond just our romantic relationships. First of all, it's related to all of our relationships at work, with friends, with family, with siblings, the whole myriad of relationships. And also it has really profound effect on our well being and our personal well being. Some of the research really shows that people are more secure, healthier, they live longer. It really affects longevity. In fact, actually when you have these sort of agitators in your life, they actually can take years away from your life. And also they showed even the way that you shop is affected by your attachment style. For example, people who are more secure, they care less about tags and logos. And it just even I think they did one study where they showed that people with secure attachment, let's say they have a debilitating illness like fibromyalgia, they will have better relationships with their health care provider and they will show less symptoms. So the benefits are really enormous. And the surprising twist is that these tenets of secure, what I've come to call in my book, secure mode. Living in secure mode, I believe, can be taught from a very early age.
- [07:58]
B
This show is brought to you in part by BetterHelp. You all know how important it is to support your mental health. The mental health of the parent is so inextricably linked to the mental health of our children. If you have considered therapy but just felt like you didn't have time or you didn't know who to go to, or it just wasn't your moment for it, I really want to encourage you to try it. Better help makes it so easy. They have times that you could schedule around your busy life. You can do it from any location. Summer can be a great time for a reset. They have thousands of providers that they can match you with. They're licensed professionals who can be there for you remotely while you have this conversation in a place that makes you feel private and safe. You don't have to Say yes to everything this summer, but find support and therapy. Sign up and get 10% off. Betterhelp.com humans that's better. H E L p.com humans I often remind parents that taking care of yourself isn't something that you age out of. In fact, as your kids get older, it can be an opportunity to finally address things you may have put on the back burner for a long time. One of those things is bladder leaks. Like those times when you sneeze or when you jump or when you cough and you think I probably should deal with this. Well now there is finally an over the counter solution that isn't just another pad or a pair of leak proof underwear. I'm talking about a vaginally inserted reusable device that supports your bladder from within and stops leaks in their tracks. Think of it as a sports bra for your bladder and take care of yourself. Take this step to finally take care of yourself. Yoresta is like nothing else out there and can finally provide you relief. Learn more about this amazing breakthrough trusted by over 50,000 women@yiresta.com that's u r e s t a dot com. Here's where I struggle with all of this because of course I'm a developmental psychologist and attachment is the foundation of so much of this work and the whole construct. But I do think about like which I know you'll address the two things that I struggle with are the primary adults in your life if they haven't experienced that sense of ease in the world, that secure existence, the secure mode as you call it. So learning how to recognize that that wasn't necessarily your natural state or the state that you were supported and taught when you were young. And so how do you get there now so that you can then help support your kids? And then the other thing that I struggle with is the kids who kind of came out out into this world with a little less ease naturally, like their biological temperament is just like a little bit more anxious. Those kids, when you think about this, is teachable. That to me is so important because there are people who come into this world with a preternatural ease and security and there are people who I think, for whom it's much harder. And so the work of the parent is going to be harder. And I would love all of the tools and strategies that you have. I think about it's not for the people for whom this is easy. It's for the people for whom this is a challenge, which is a lot of us,
- [11:40]
A
right? No, I totally agree with you, I think. But that's why I worked really hard in this book to come up. Because, you know, I'm also a molecular neuroscientist. So part of what you learn to do as a scientist is to really try to have a reductionistic approach. And I translated it into my clinical work to find tools that are easy to use, that are straightforward, that you don't need to dive into a lot of work, but it's something that you can actually practice day to day. I'm glad that you mentioned this whole thing about how kids come into this world with different sensitivities because I actually also have an issue with some of the attachment research because in some ways the anxious attachers and the avoidant also got a little bit of a bad rep. And I think there's a bias in the research.
- [12:30]
B
Thank you. I'm so glad, like, I'm so glad we're talking about this. Say more because I have this like, tension because I love attachment research. But I'm also like, there's this gnawing sense and I think it's, it's sort of been in the conversation between the temperament and the attachment researchers. But like, I think together there's so much work to be done. Especially I really want to get into all these concrete tools, but I struggle with it because, yes, having that secure attachment relationship and many of them is so important and also, you know, it's easier for some people.
- [13:09]
A
Right. But what I actually, what I say in this book, and it's really revolutionary, I, I say a few things I can, like, I'm trying to sort of bust a few myths right out the door and I'm really talking about. So when I read all the research papers and I didn't just look at what they wrote in the abstract or in their commentary, I looked at the data and the data actually says something else from what they're telling you in the end, like from the story that they're making and it's mind boggling. So, for example, the attachment style that people have as an adult are not the attachment styles they have as kids. Not at all. In fact, less than 10% of your attachment style as an adult can be explained by your attachment styles as a child and also by parenting, by the type of parenting that you got. So we all think, oh my God, the parenting is so crucial. And like, everything that we do can potentially scar our kid. But that's not what the research shows. Not at all. It actually shows that it has a very modest effect on the way that we then behave in the world as adults. And I think for parents that's really good news. And all my, like, all of my patients, when they have new babies and they're still like, oh my God, I did this or I did that, or even later on when they yell at their kids.
- [14:24]
B
Yeah. And panic.
- [14:26]
A
Yeah. No, there's not like that you can do a single thing that's going to scar them for life. That's not how it works. And in fact, I saw even one of the research shows, and that's why I want to get there too, that even like actually friendships are no less important in a tiny bit, a little bit more even important than like the parental experiences. So are we really focused so much about what did I do to my kid? But then maybe there's a way to think about also trying to help kids create a more secure environment for themselves, even in kindergarten. And I can give you an example.
- [15:06]
B
Yeah, please.
- [15:08]
A
Was one of my editors and she was telling me like she has a three year old who's very shy, introverted and very, very sensitive. So she came home and she said, you know, mom, Sophie didn't play with me today. She didn't want to play with me today. And I think the natural inclination for parents is to say, it's okay, she'll play with you tomorrow. Try to dissipate the interaction. But I think they're potentially missing here an opportunity to teach kids about secure attachment and secure relating. That's sort of like living in secure mode. Because one of the most important tools in the book is something that I called carpenter and how important it is for our brain for us to be and for other people to be consistent, available and responsive, like in an ongoing way so we can experience them as reliable and predictable. So that's carp. But if you're telling your three year old, oh, it's okay, she'll play with you tomorrow, you kind of like missing an important lesson to teach her. Well, you know, this might not be a reliable friend. And oftentimes what happens, even at that age, our brain really shifts to, this needs to be fixed, this needs to be fixed. While there might be someone there who, there's always these friends who always show up, who always want to play, who are really there, who are carp, who are consistent, available, responsive, reliable and predictable. So I call these the five pillars of a secure life of living secure mode. So even a child who's three years old, you can teach in different ways. I'm also a child psychiatrist, so I always think about ways to teach in stories, you know, you can say, you can talk about the shifty giraffe and the stable, sort of reliable elephant and how the shifty giraffe is sort of like one on day one, she plays with you. And then on Monday, she plays. On Tuesday, she doesn't play. On Wednesday, she plays half the day. And then, like, and then the elephant, Zara the elephant, is always willing to play with you. And then maybe it's just better just to really focus more on Zara the elephant than on the shifted giraffe. So there's different ways that you can actually convey this to a child that, well, this may not be a reliable friend and kind of like, give them an inclination. Oh, in the world. In my world, it's important to find people who are carp who are consistent, available, and responsive, and that's it. And then they can carry that with them for the rest of their lives
- [17:47]
B
and be that way. Because I was just thinking, what a great framing to teach our kids carp as, like, check in with yourself. Are you being that friend?
- [17:58]
A
Oh, yeah, that goes without saying.
- [18:01]
B
So let's just go through the developmental trajectory. That's a great story. The elephant and the. And the giraffe for the littles. How, as kids navigate the social world, particularly that sort of the power play during the, you know, middle school years and into to high school. How does that translate? And how can we help support kids so that they're leaning into exercising the muscle of looking for carp friends instead of the ones who make them feel like crap?
- [18:35]
A
No, exactly. It's not that just to make them feel like crap. They activate their attachment system and they create a working model, because these attachment systems are working models. So if you think about it, they create a working model that relationships are unstable, not that lovable. Like, people will want to play with me and sometimes not want to play with me. Parents concentrate so much on their interactions. They're sort of. It's kind of like a bit of a myopic view where we have so many different social interactions around us, in the world around us. So that's why I thought it would be so nice to teach very specific skills that then can be applied to all relationships. So even later, like in grade school, I mean, in other ages, that carp thing, even in adulthood, that carp thinks still holds. And another important aspect to explain to people is that for our brain, you know, when people go to therapy, even kids, like, we focus on big events that happen to them, we look for, like, potentially the trauma or difficult things that have happened or do the work on looking at these big events. But we hardly ever really pay much attention to what I've come to call the seemingly insignificant minor interactions of everyday life, which I call SIMIs, these micro interactions. But from a neuroscience perspective, these micro interactions really have it like each and every one of them can shape the brain and send it on a different trajectory. Each one is an opportunity for different experience for the brain to go through that then can append an existing working model. So if a child has a friend that's constantly hot and cold and then you shift their attention to someone who's actually in the day to day little things, it really shows up for them. That really creates and that really creates structural changes in the brain towards greater security. I even remember it from my own experience when I was in school. I can tell you what happened to me.
- [20:55]
B
I think, let's hear it. Because it really helps to make concrete all these ideas which are so important for our, you know, as you said, we have so many reasons why these are important. But thinking about our kids as they become adults, how empowering is it to think, okay, we've been working on this for so long and you know the
- [21:16]
A
funny thing when you're. And then I'll tell you the story about it. I have to tell you when, as a child psychiatrist, when you sit and you talk to the parents and I explain to them some of these things so they'll know how to teach their kids. And the kids are sitting there, I remember specifically this 8 year old that was standing there and you know, kids sit and like they pretend like they don't listen but they hear everything. But all of a sudden when I was talking about the shifty friend and the stable friend, I could see him like perk up. Like he couldn't really keep that, oh, I'm not really listening. I could see like him becoming really interested because these difficult, painful relationships here, it happens at three year old. It happens to like at any age. I don't think we've done enough and we didn't really have these particular tools to shift and give your child the blueprint of how to navigate this relationship world towards a more secure one. But for my story, what happened to me is I remember once I had three friends, three very good friends, I think 10 years old maybe. And then they came to our house and we played. It was a play date, but they were mean to me. And my sister was there. My sister is my great defender. She's always been. She's two years older than me and she was like you don't talk to him this way. And she like, tell him like she threw them out of the house. And then they said, well, we'll wait for you tomorrow. You'll see what's going to happen. And. And I was afraid to go to school. And then my dad tell me, no, you're going to go and you're going to sort of really keep your head up. And then you just like, ignore them and talk to other people. And I remember it, I can tell you I have goosebumps just describing it like it was yesterday because it was such an emotionally, like, charged moment. I went to school. I remember where it happened. There was like this staircase that led. There was like in the, in the courtyard of the school and the playground and there was like this big tree. I remember. And then I remember them standing there starting to sort of say mean things. And I remember like me shifting my gaze and then looking at Ethan and what was like his name was Ethan and Boaz, I think that was their name. And then like going to them and talking to them and that was it. There was just such a shift. And after that, for years they were really good friends. Like we were really good friends. And none of that whole taunting. It was really completely a very secure relationship.
- [23:58]
B
So when that happened and now with the research that you do, what do you think the mechanism was like? Was it your inherent security, that, that security mode that maybe your sister and your dad sent you off with? Do you think it was their response to you? What do you think that was?
- [24:20]
A
I think what it was is that like a shift in perspective that all of a sudden someone told me, no, this is not okay. Like saying to like, no, it's not okay that Sophie, Sophie plays with you on one day and then another day she doesn't play with you. It's just like, it's not even that. It's not okay. She's not a reliable friend. So you sort of like give her a tag, something that the kid can then remember. Oh, that's not a reliable friend. He gives a language, it's very specific language to something. And even if they're three year olds, you can teach them. Not reliable. Like you can sort of. You find the words, but sometimes actually like the big words. Yeah, the big words. Because it then it becomes. They learn it.
- [25:00]
B
Yeah.
- [25:00]
A
And because it's so emotionally latent, they will remember it. So for me, my sister all of a sudden set the bar in a different place and she said, no, that's not an okay behavior. And then I was Given the opportunity to shift my gaze and to find someone else. And that's one of the biggest lessons that I'm trying to teach Insecure is to shift the gaze. Because we all have these secure people in our lives, but our brains tends to kind of navigate towards where there's drama. And also because we don't know about security and how important it is for the brain, because, remember, I told you, it's about the health. It's about how our longevity, like, forget about the supplements and everything that people are taking. This is really the crux of it. It's so important. So knowing that really, like, shift towards the secure people in your life. And that's what I really try to teach people. Insecure, how to build their secure village. Basically, I call it a secure village.
- [26:02]
B
And so I almost feel like, you know, what you were saying was, it's not okay if Sophie wants to play one day and doesn't want to play the next day. And then you adjusted what you said to say, well, it's okay, but it's not reliable. And to have language to even be able to say, look, I'm going to like this person, but at a distance, because they're not going to be the reliable friend. And so I. I love that so much. It's like a name for something that otherwise doesn't feel good. But once you know, okay, this is what I can expect here. And that's not going to be my secure village. I can get other things out of it, but it's not going to be my secure village. It, like, orients you to a healthier situation.
- [26:44]
A
Exactly. And I have also in the book, I came up with a name, another tool name for that, and I call it, like, Wall Tennis with Love. That's the name of the tool. And I don't know if you've ever played tennis against the wall.
- [26:59]
B
Not very well, but I have.
- [27:02]
A
Right, right. I think we're all. Except me, too. Also not very well. But that's the beauty about the wall tennis with love. Whatever you dish, the wall is what you're going to get back in. A slightly less of intensity. So in wall tennis with Love, you are the wall. And then when you have a shifty giraffe interacting with your new life, you don't cut off stuff with them if you don't have to. Right. What you do is you lower the volume in the relationship by being the wall. So you don't go and say, hey, you want to play or you want to do all these things. No, you let them come to you and you do it with love. And so you can play with them a little bit, but you don't prioritize the relationship. And that's a very important attachment lesson to learn. Because sometimes when we actually cut off relationships, what happens is that we get an attachment backlash. And then there's, I call it in the book the Protest Regret cycle, where we start missing them. Our brain doesn't let go of people that easily, including friends. It can be very painful. So in order to circumvent that pain of cutting someone off, that's how I came up with the Wall Tennis with love. And I even have. I have a friend that I'm doing Walt Tennis with love with. And you can see our text. He would text me, hi, and because it's Walt Tennis with love, you have to respond in a carp way. So I say hi, but he doesn't say anything else. And I don't say anything else because it's the wall, I don't really initiate to myself. So then a week later, hi again, hi. And you can see in our text there's a string of highs. And then every once in a while, he calls and I answer and we talk and I'm very warm. It's with love, but I don't initiate. I initiate with my secure village, but I know I don't initiate here because when I initiated here, it was rebuffed and it wasn't a secure experience. So why should I have to go back and bang my head against the wall if we have an insecure experience trying to get water out of a stone? Instead, I do wall tennis with love and then I go to my secure village.
- [29:11]
B
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- [32:42]
A
Exactly. And I think I'm glad that you've mentioned that because here you see even you have a reference point for different people in your life. Secure experiences even those are like secure simis, like little occurrences but some of what the research actually shows is that those secure inferences, secure experiences, leave a secure kernel within us, secure representation within us that we can tap into and actually cultivate to create even more security. Basically, this whole approach that I write about in the book, secure is an approach that I developed over the past 15 years. It's called secure priming therapy. And so secure priming therapy really emphasizes these secure kernels or also I like to call them the angels in the nursery, because, you know, there's that famous ghost in the nursery.
- [33:37]
B
I like that.
- [33:38]
A
I think there's a paper from 2005 when they actually, they wrote like, they wrote about the importance of also the angels in the nursery, because they leave that secure kernel representation within us. And what secure priming therapy does, it works on unearthing them and bringing them to the fore. So, yeah, I mean, we do talk about difficult childhood experiences in therapy and people, and it's the sharing oftentimes that really actually helps, even more so than creating a cause and effect. But we definitely also talk about, and actually started the book, I think, in the preface, about the story that I had. Yes. With Ruth, my sister, like my sister's friend's mother, who is such an incredible. And even now when I talk about it, I can somatically feel it, that feeling of safety. There's so much talk about how we also experience trauma in our body. But I also think, I believe that we also can, when we call those experiences and probably you can think about something similar and we can feel. I can feel it in my body.
- [34:49]
B
Yeah. Who are the people that have. Where you've just been around them and you have this sense of. I do think there are just people who move through the world with an ease that helps everybody around them feel so good and to want to be like that instead of wanting to make people feel on edge and, you know, that's where your power comes. Is such a beautiful contribution to just making the world a better place. But I have one question about this that is a little bit of a sidetrack, but I'm so curious what you think.
- [35:22]
A
No, no, thought tracks are good.
- [35:24]
B
If we're thinking about a neurodivergent kid, is there who. Who may pick up cues differently? How can you help orient them towards secure?
- [35:36]
A
So that's why I love. I love that so much. So I'll. I'll synthesize both of these things together because you just said we all know these people who go through life without simplicity. But part of what I found is that because they're secure. Oftentimes we ignore them. And we tend to put a lot more emphasis and a lot more attention to the people who are insecure. And the whole idea, insecure primary therapy is like, no, use wall tennis with love. Use all those other tools to deprioritize this relationship. And just, like, what happened to me, like, in when I was 10 years old, shift your attention. So instead of texting this person, blah, blah, blah, why did you do this? Like, no, you just. I don't have to. I don't have to solve this. In fact, engaging in it is actually perpetuating the insecurity. What I need to do is shift my gaze over here and those people that are dependable, that we ignore, like, give them a lot of room in my life to create that secure village. The book is divided to three parts. The Secure Brain, where I talk about those carp and simis, and how to really change the brain epigenetically on a molecular level. But then there's a secure living life in secure mode, like teaching the different attachment styles the specific tools they need to shift more to secure mode. And the last part of the book, which I think is probably my favorite part, is the securing the mind, because that's another level of work that we can do to secure our mind with different secure ideas. So one of them is about. And that's a big part also of secure primary therapy is unearthing hidden sparks of talent. Because when you work in the lab and you run molecular experiments, you do sequencing, you look at different proteins and lipids, and you really see it on paper, how diverse we are, it's incredible to see we're so diverse molecularly. So that gives rise to a lot of unique little talents because we're all a little bit different. So even though how, like, people can do different things with their fingers or they can twist their tongue in a certain way and other people can't. So the same kind of genetic heterogeneity also exists in our psychological, cognitive, and different abilities and talents that we have. And part of. And part of secure PRIC therapy is to teach parents, to teach people like adults how to unearth and recognize those hidden sparks of talent, which actually oftentimes can be seen as impediments for people who are insecure because they're not in. They don't happen in the right environment.
- [38:31]
B
So how are we setting up the right environment for them? Just continuing sort of with the process of orienting them toward the carp.
- [38:40]
A
So the hidden spark of talent, first of all, is that secure village. But then the secure village is also at home. It's like really understanding and really looking, trying to see what's my child's biology, what is their hidden spark of talent. And sometimes it may go against what you want for them.
- [39:00]
B
Right.
- [39:01]
A
But there's such a powerful thing to actually help someone live in alignment with their biology.
- [39:09]
B
Yeah.
- [39:10]
A
And, you know, there's this book, it's called Convenience Store Woman. It's written by a Japanese author, and she describes an adult woman who's neurodivergent and she works in a convenience store, which is a very. Like, in Japanese culture, women supposed to marry, they're not supposed to work. This is kind of a temporary work that people work out of, like high school and then leave. But she's worked there for like 20 years. It's actually not a long story. It's a short story and I really like it. It's kind of amazing. But at the end, the very last chapter, she sees that because of her neurodivergence sort of abilities, she's actually really good in that environment. And she's able to let go of the society's admonitions. And really, this is where I belong. And I'm really good at it. I'm good at stacking things. And it speaks to me. I hear the convenience store calling and I'm happy there. And so she chucks all of the criticism away and she goes back to work in that place. And you can see the catharsis that happens when we learn to live in alignment with our biology.
- [40:22]
B
Oh, I love that. So if there's something that you. Well, you are right now, could share with parents, just one. One change, one shift to make to support secure mode, what would it be?
- [40:40]
A
So definitely there's so many things, and the book is really. I told you, it's like a unified theory of relationships. So how to get along better with, like across the board. But I would definitely. We talked about the sort of noticing those carp scenes that it's in the little things. Realizing that you're like people, that you're. How much you affect your child is not as much as you think. And that whole cause and effect, we didn't get a chance to talk about that. But it's completely. You can't prove cause and effect in a single human being, like in a single interaction. It just doesn't work that way.
- [41:16]
B
It's never that simple.
- [41:18]
A
Yeah. Yeah. Never that simple. And then I guess we talked about the hidden sparks of talent. So we've covered a few Things. But if I were to say about one thing, can I say two things?
- [41:32]
B
You could say as much as you want. Like, that's really. I don't think I could answer that question. So it was a cruel one to ask.
- [41:40]
A
Yeah, no, no, I'm glad. Because sometimes it really focuses you on thinking. So for the child, there's something different for the parents, but for the child is really teaching them from early on about the importance of having reliable friends. And that car like Secure Village, because our society, it doesn't really adhere to that. We actually accept a lot of rejection and exclusion. But the first chapter of the book really talks about how horrible exclusion is for our brain and how it really hurts the brain in really profound ways. So the whole idea of Carp is to sort of mitigate. It's the antidote to exclusion in our life. Because our brain hates exclusion. It's really, really detrimental for it. And. But exclusion shows up in many ways. Even like. Like young fathers oftentimes get excluded from the. Like, you know, the child comes like, you bring the infant back home and they're like, they were looking forward to it so much and then all of a sudden they're. They're like left there on the outside where there's like the mother and the child bond and that's also an exclusion and the brain hates it. So finding ways, once you realize it and you know about the effect on the brain and how to potentially counteract it, you can do so much to secure proof your environment for your children and for yourself.
- [43:11]
B
I never really thought about like these concrete tools for something that feels like a hard to capture construction.
- [43:20]
A
Right. I know, Yeah. I could spend a long time thinking about how would I make it something that would be simple, that people can use. But also, if you understand attachment, you know that it's a simple neurocircuitry. It's about how we feel safe. It's like in the Strange Situation test, when the child plays, like, they check every once in a while to see the mom here, is the mom there. And if they're there, it's just they do these frequent checks. They don't care about the mom. Like they continue to play. They just like they. They need her there for. It's a safety mechanism. So I'm trying to expand that and create a greater feeling of safety by creating that secure Village.
- [43:59]
B
Thank you. Thank you for this work. It's so wonderful.
- [44:03]
A
Thank you. I appreciate it.
- [44:07]
B
Thank you for joining me for this conversation. If you want more, which I'm sure you do, sign up for for my Substack newsletter at drelizapressman Substack. Com and consider being a paid subscriber for access to my monthly Q and A. Follow me on Instagram at Raising Good humanspodcast.