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You Make Sense
Relationships: The Intersection Between Polyvagal Theory, Attachment Theory, and Parts Work
00:56:30
In this episode of You Make Sense, Sarah explores the science behind relationships using Polyvagal Theory, Attachment Theory, and Parts Work. She explains how these frameworks complement each other and shape our ability to connect, feel safe inside our relational containers, and navigate emotional intimacy. Sarah highlights the importance of understanding how our nervous system and parts inform the people we choose in our lives, emphasizing that much of what we experience in adult connections is rooted in early life experiences. By combining these three approaches, it’s possible to heal the past in the present, navigate challenges with more ease, and attract the kinds of partners we truly desire.
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Sarah
Hi, I'm Sarah, and welcome to youo Makesense. I'm a somatic experiencing practitioner, an expert on trauma resolution, attachment parts work, and nervous system regulation. This podcast is a manual to understanding your human experience so that you can navigate the world with freedom, ease, empowerment, and create the life that you desire. Remember, you make sense all parts always. So this episode is focused on the science behind what's actually happening inside of our relationships and the intersection of polyvagal theory, attachment theory, and parts work. And it's imperative to have an understanding of all three of those particular modalities and the research behind them and neuroscience behind them in order for us to not only understand our relationships, but to thrive inside of them. And so much of the time in the mental health model, I feel like a lot of the different modalities are siloed. And many times it can feel like a specific modality is sending the message that this is the be all, end all for everything. And the truth of the matter is that it's all actually interwoven. And over the course of the last decade, in my own training, it's become very imperative to me that we need these different modalities to come together to create holistic healing and change in our lives. And it's actually quite beautiful to look at the intersection of all of them and how they fit so beautifully and perfectly with one another. And I talk about this a lot inside of the programs that I offer in the work that I do, and I'm just really excited to be bringing it to you here in one episode, because more often than not, going to get this siloed information in different places. So my hope is that it really makes sense of what's happening inside of your relational containers and what we can begin doing to have even fuller fulfillment inside of those experiences. So in this episode, we're going to focus on the intersection of nervous system regulation. So polyvagal theory, parts work, and attachment theory, and how all three are absolutely necessary to not only understand, but to embody in order for us to have the type of relationships in our lives that we're desiring. So there is a ton of information out there now about attachment theory. So the way in which we show up in our relational dynamics and relational containers, there's lots of books written about it, and you can listen to things like podcasts, like you're listening to right now about it. But a lot of the time what's not explained is the vehicle responsible for how we attach. So we might understand cognitively that we have an anxious Attachment or an avoidant attachment or disorganized attachment. And we get the patterns and we're doing what we're doing. But all of that learning doesn't actually change the way we show up in a relational container. I see people get stuck in this trap over and over again and it can actually facilitate a lot more hopelessness when we understand it all, but we can't seem to change it. And that is because the vehicle responsible for how you attach or connect inside of your relationships is your autonomic nervous system. So just to recap on this nervous system, it's your self protective system. It lives inside of your body and its responsibility is to keep you safe at all costs, including keeping you relationally safe. Now I'm going to begin going into an understanding of polyvagal theory and attachment theory and what you're going to start to see is, whoa. They really go hand in hand with one another. So when we're born, we don't have the ability to self regulate. And that means when you are in distress, there is nothing that you can do on your own to remediate that stress response. You are fully at the mercy of the adults around you in order for them to bring you into regulation when you are dysregulated. Now, for many of us, we had caregivers who maybe they loved us a lot and they were doing their very best, but they had a lot of dysregulation in their own nervous system. And so if someone is, let's say they're having a lot of anxiety, so they're in their, what's called their sympathetic nervous system and they're trying to comfort me from that place of dysregulation. They cannot regulate me because a dysregulated nervous system can't regulate a nervous system. So my, I'm in a lot of trouble as an infant if my caregivers are either unavailable, are dangerous, are disconnected, or they're anxious or frustrated, they can't meet that need that I have. So if they are not capable of doing that for whatever reason, and by the way, research shows that our caregivers only needed to do that 30% of the time in order for us to to have imprinted what's called a secure attachment. If our caregivers were not able to do that for us, then our nervous system brilliantly adapts. And it says, well, the options are I am either perpetually in this state of dysregulation, which is not a good idea because to be in a perpetual state of dysregulation would mean I wouldn't be able to continue to grow and to have health in my body and thrive. So what we do is we adapt. So let's say that we have a caregiver whom is on again, off again in their ability to attach to me, to connect with me. So that means to provide me regulation in my own nervous system when I'm distressed, but also to provide me with attunement so they can deeply feel with me, they are present with me, they provide safety and love unconditionally for me. So if they're not able to do that, and they sometimes can, but they sometimes can't, my nervous system quickly says, well, I need to do whatever I can to ensure that you are okay. Because if you're okay and you are regulated, you're gonna come towards me and that means that I will be okay. And then we begin to develop what is called an anxious attachment. Another real life example of how this can begin to really be cemented. And it, and it is cemented in our earliest childhood experiences. And actually, I'm gonna change the word from cemented to imprinted, because the beautiful thing is we can actually change this. And we're gonna talk about how we. But let's say you were learning to walk and you had a caregiver who had a lot of sympathetic energy in their own system. So they felt like they weren't okay. So that meant they felt like you weren't okay. And in order for them to feel a sense of safety, they needed to feel a sense of closeness with you. So as you begin to walk, they may feel anxiety in their own system. And they say, be careful, you're not gonna be okay and you need to wait for me and you can't go into the other room without me. And of course, you know, we don't want a child just going into the room without us and opening cupboards, but you get the idea. They're sending the mess consistently and chronically that I am not okay on my own. And as we begin to develop, the thing is, our full vagus nerve begins to come online and we begin to develop our ability for self regulation. So we start to work this muscle early on of wanting to set boundaries, of wanting to take up space, because we have to prepare ourselves to be in the world on our own and also be in connection. But if that becomes inhibited because our caregivers are sending us the message that we aren't okay on our own, this is another reason why this anxious attachment develops. So I Be I get the message that I am not okay on my own and I need you to be okay. All of this is being informed and happening through and in our autonomic nervous system. So our autonomic nervous system is essentially it's our self protective system. I think of it like a vehicle that lives inside of our body. And if we aren't in control of the vehicle, it's like it takes over on cruise control and it's guiding us through our life and navigating situations all from a place of trying to ensure that we are safe. And so it's going to avoid things that it thinks might be dangerous for us based on things that were dangerous in the past. And it's going to go towards things that it thinks are surely safe for us based on things in the past or things it wants to avoid in the past. And that means that a lot of us aren't living our right life or the life we deeply desire because our nervous system is the one maybe up until now guiding us. So in terms of understanding our nervous systems, it is incredibly important to know that this nervous system is creating not only you know, the path you go down, but it creates your entire lived experience. Every thought you have, feeling you have, sensation you have, every behavior you have. I mean, that's pretty wild, right? So everything you do or don't do is informed by what's happening in your nervous system. And therein lies by the way, what shows up with our attachment or how, how we're relating to other people. Because our nervous system is creating the behaviors of the way in which we are attaching, the way in which we are relating. And it's all from this place rooted deeply in what's occurring inside of our nervous system. So again, our nervous system is creating those behaviors. So to go back to the how attachment forms and how our nervous system is the vehicle responsible for that. Again, if I had that caregiver who was on again, off again and they weren't able to consistently meet my needs, my system learns I have to do something in order to maintain connection. And the state that we resource in order to do something in our nervous system is called our sympathetic nervous system. You may have heard that referred to as fight or flight. So this is all about the doing. And when we're here, we're going to have an over focus on our external experience and external environment as a way to maintain safety. So, so how does this all come together? Well, if I have something called an anxious attachment, again that's the result of my caregivers being on again, off again, they weren't always available for me then. My system has the experience of I am not safe on my own. In order to have safety, I need to be in connection with another person. And the way that I'm going to do that is by using my sympathetic nervous system. So that vehicle, remember that's responsible for how you attached your autonomic nervous system says, let's use the sympathetic system. And I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure that you're okay. Because if you're okay, I'm okay. So as a child, we're overly focused on our caregiver and their happiness and making sure they're okay. Because if they are, then I am. And I just want you to see how brilliantly adaptive that is. Before you could even tie your shoes, you were able to adapt to that secure attachment being inhibited for you. And then in my adult relationships, looks like me feeling like, again, I'm not safe on my own. I need this other person to feel safe. And so I'm going to overly focus on you. I might disregard my own truth or my desires or my needs in order to serve you to ensure that you don't leave when an argument happens, I disregard my truth to get the connection back. That's all I'm focused on, is I need to keep that connection. So I want you to see first if you have an anxious attachment, your nervous system is the vehicle that's doing that attaching. And the state that you are predominant using is your sympathetic nervous system. Now let's look at the other attachment styles so you can see how your nervous system is in partnership with the attachment system. So if you came into this world and you had caregivers whom were unavailable for you or they were dangerous, your nervous system says, well, oh my goodness, I definitely cannot rely on that person to help me regulate. So the options are to be perpetually with the dysregulation I'm experiencing that's overwhelming, or it can disconnect me from that dysregulation by bringing me into what's called my dorsal vagal complex. This is our state of shutdown. So the real goal of this system is, or by the way, the reason we go into this system is because our nervous system has decided the danger is life threatening and the only way out is to begin disconnecting or shutting down. So what occurs is we begin to disconnect from our embodied experience as a baby. There's beautiful research done at Harvard years ago, and what they did was they brought in a baby. Babies with their mothers whom were deeply attuned, so they had a secure attachment with their caregiver. And what they had the mother do was first connect to the baby. So attune with the baby. In my somatic experiencing training, I got to. Years ago, I got to watch the videos of what I'm about to share with you, and it was really profound to watch it visually. But the mother was connecting and attuning with the baby. So the baby would make a face, and then, you know, a silly face, and the mother would mirror the face back and the baby would laugh, and then they would continue to do that for a bit. So the mom is deeply connected and attuned. And then the mother turned away and she looked back at the child with flat affect, meaning no facial expression. And what the baby first did when it felt the disconnection was it went into its sympathetic system. So it tried that out. So it was trying really hard, this was just a toddler, to get the connection back. So it made the face again, but it made the face even more pronounced, like, aren't you seeing me, mom? And the mom maintained flat affect. And then it did it. The baby did it again. The mom maintained flat affect. The baby tried a few more times, and then the baby went into greater distress because its system is saying, oh, I'm not safe on my own and you're not connecting with me. And then it, you know, the baby started to cry and have a lot of distress in its. And the mother maintained flat affect, which, by the way, was very hard to watch. And I can, I'm sure, as you're hearing, this is hard to. To think about a baby having that experience. But just remember, a baby only needs 30% of the time for our caregivers to be connected and attuned and bringing us regulation. And this. These mothers had a secure attachment with their kids. So anyway, what occurred after that was the baby's system said, whoa, this is really bad. And the options are to be in that heightened distress consistently or to shut down. And so what the baby did was its nervous system brilliantly said, this is too much. And all of the sudden the baby had a flat affect too. And that means that doesn't mean that the baby is calm. That means that the baby is in a heightened state of dysregulation and it's now shut down. Now, if we had a caregiver who had that kind of flat affect all the time, meaning they're emotionally disconnected from us, or they were Dangerous, then our system is going to go into that dorsal state. Long term it's going to disconnect us from our affect. And what I really want you to understand is that doesn't make the affect go away. And when I say affect, that means the sensations in our bodies. So that overwhelm, it's like it covers it up or cloaks it so that affect is still inside of that child. It's just being masked. And if that baby again had consistently had disconnection in its childhood, then its system would stay in that cloaked space. Space. And this creates what is called an avoidant attachment. So my system learns connection is not available or connection is dangerous for me. And by the way, I just want to name the mother quickly turned back to the child, back in regulation and attunement and that baby came right back to life. Back to life. I know that sounds like the baby wasn't living, but you get what I mean. It came out of a deep place of dysregulation and it came back into connection and co regulation and regulation with, with its mother. But again for many of us we didn't have that type of connection. And so instead that's what our nervous system brilliantly did for us. In order for us to continue developing and in order for us to survive, the other option would be to be in chronic distress which wouldn't allow for us to, to thrive in our lives or survive truly if we were in a chronic state of dysregulation like that long term. So then in our adult lives what transpires is my system says connection is not safe or connection is not something that I know. So as people, you know, someone I actually want to come towards me is coming towards me, my nervous system says either that's dangerous for me or that is not something that's known in my system. And our nervous systems like what, what they know. And the experience of connection has a lot of energetic charge to ability and intimacy has a lot of energetic charge. So if it wasn't something that was a part of our experiential vernacular embodied experience as a kid, then we're going to avoid it. And in real life some examples of what that looks like is we get into a relationship and the closer the person gets, the more panic we feel and we find ourselves pulling away or being non committal. We might find that when our partner is having a lot of emotion, we shut down. Feels overwhelming for us, us. It's really challenging for us to ask for our needs to be met or take up Space in the relationship. We might find that when a rupture or disconnection occurs that we reflexively pull away and shut down. So what I want you to see here again is the vehicle that is making all of that happen is your autonomic nervous system. That is the attachment vehicle. And if you're avoidant, the nervous system state of choice is going to be your dorsal vagal complex. Now to go into two more attachment styles and how they relate to the nervous system. So if you have a disorganized attachment, this is a result of having caregivers who were sometimes a source of danger and they were sometimes a source of safety. So think of it kind of like it's a sort of like a combination of that anxious attachment and avoidant attachment. So sometimes my caregivers were the source of safety and sometimes they were the source of danger when I was young. And so, so what happens is my nervous system actually doesn't know what to expect. There's this deep desire for connection and necessity for it met with the fear and terror of it because it might not be safe this time. And so we're going to resource in our nervous system a state called freeze. Think of that deer like deer in headlights or tonic immobility. And it's the two equal and opposite forces of lots of energy met with shut, shut down. So it's your sympathetic system and your dorsal system coming together. And that looks like I have to, but I can't. I have to, but I can't. And in our adult relationships, that's going to look like the deep desire to have people close. But once they get close, I might notice that I feel panic and overwhelm and I push the person away. But once they're far away, I feel panicked because I don't feel okay on my own. And I want them to come close as the source of safety, but when they're close, I push them away way. We'll also notice that our systems, our nervous system is really used to navigating chaos. So that's going to feel comfortable for us. We're going to notice that we feel really disconnected from our truth or what reality is. Because reality was so confusing when we were, we were young, usually growing up in an environment of chaos and where the, the elephant in the room was normalized and not addressed. So we can be very confused about what reality is because that caregiver was sometimes harming me and sometimes loving me. And again, as you can see, the vehicle responsible for the disorganized attachment is your nervous system. And then lastly, if you have a secure attachment, why did this happen? Because you had caregivers who As I named 30% of the time, that's what research shows, were able to consistently meet your needs for connection, regulation, attunement, love and belonging. And the result of that is your nervous system learned how to not only connect with another mother, but it also learned as your full vagus nerve came into, into its development, how to self regulate. And your caregivers ushered you into that process and supported your system, nourished it to have the experience of when I'm in distress, I can also do things to help me. So my parents can help me, but I can help me. And this is a necessity in order for us to navigate not only our relationships with with ease, but our lives with ease. That we want to have the ability to both self regulate and to co regulate. Co regulate means connecting with another nervous system. Now for us, the result is that in our adult lives relationships are going to be experiences where we are our, you know, our own full being, where we are interconnected, so interdependent. Where I have my life and they have their life and we come together and also have a share, shared life. I am not disregarding my own needs and myself. I know that I am okay to be all of me in the relationship. I can lean into connection and also lean out of connection. And I can navigate the challenges of relationships with, with relative ease now. And, and all of that is because I feel a sense of safety inside and I feel a sense of safety in connecting with you. And again, it's our nervous system that is navigating all of this. And if we, we're, we're securely attached, we're going to be resourcing our state of regulation because we feel safe. And that's called our ventral vagal complex. So my hope is right now that you can see that there is a major overlap between polyvagal theory, so the understanding of the autonomic nervous system and how it functions and attachment theory, the ways in which you connect or relate to other human beings. The system responsible for the attachment system is your autonomic nervous system. So in the work that I do, whenever I'm doing relational work or attachment work, we must be interchangeably and at the same time be doing nervous system regulation work. If we are avoidantly attached, we are going to struggle more with co regulation, meaning connecting with others. So we're going to want to work the muscle of that. If we're anxiously attached, we're going to struggle more with self regulation. So we're going to want to work the muscle of that. Now we've gotten to the two of the three main things that are necessary to have thriving relationships that we deeply desire. The main modalities that are necessary. I want to get into the last one, which is parts work. Now, you may have heard parts work referred to as internal family systems or done internal family systems. And a lot of the ways that I'm going to describe part parts work or from that orientation, but if you've done any inner child work, which might not be, you know, done from the verbiage or the lens of ifs, it's essentially the same thing. It's just different ways of verbalizing or naming the same thing that's occurring. So I just want to give a really succinct understanding of parts work if that's something that's new to you. And again, we have lots of episodes, episodes on parts work. So I invite you to go listen to those, to have a greater in depth understanding of this work. So when we come into the world, we come in as a whole self. Now, a caveat to that is if we've had, you know, pre and perinatal trauma, or if our caregiver mother, while she was carrying us and we were developing, was highly dysregulated or was experiencing a lot of trauma herself, we may already have parts that fragment off. But for many of us, we come into the world as a whole self. And what occurs through life is we have experiences that overwhelm our system. And you may think of those as traumatic experiences. Now, if we have the conditions necessary for us to navigate those traumatic experiences, then they actually don't get imprinted as trauma. They're able to process through our bodies and leave. The two things necessary for that to occur are safety after the event and something called a mutually empathic witness. And that simply, simply means another human being who has general regulation in their own nervous system. And they aren't trying to change us or what's occurring for us. They simply hold space for our system to process that energy out. Now, for many of us, as we went through life, we didn't have that. So as we began to have experiences, our caregivers weren't able to facilitate that process for us. So when that occurs, it's as. As if a part fragments off of the whole self and they get stuck or locked in time in that experience. So let's say that my caregivers fought a lot and they were, you know, had kind of a toxic relationship. And as a, as a young child, a toddler, I had to witness it and the yelling maybe and screaming at one another and they weren't able to help me process that. Let's imagine that a four year old self fragments off and that four year old is experiencing terror. They're so afraid. And usually what children do because they are self focused, as they should be, and we eventually grow out of that. As we develop, if we have the conditions necessary for that to happen, the child will make meaning of that as if something, if they did something wrong. So there must be something wrong with me, I must be bad. And that's why, why this is occurring. So let's say we have a four year part, four year old part that's fragmented off. And they are terrified of confrontation because confrontation meant danger. And they think that they're at fault all the time. So they're connected to us, the whole self. But it's like there's a rope connecting them to us. And as we continue to grow and develop and time moves on, time doesn't move on for them. They're still trapped in that experience. And then let's say we have parts later that develop where we were always criticized, maybe by a sibling, I don't know, and maybe a caregiver. And we never seem to get anything right or no matter what we did, it wasn't good enough. And so that part fragments off, let's call them 12 years old. And they are chronically or constantly in that experience. Even though we keep developing and getting older, they're still stuck there. And then maybe we have an experience where one of our parents betrays the other and, and there's infidelity and then they leave and they're not really involved in our life anymore. Let's say that's a 16 year old self, that part gets fragmented and I keep developing and growing and I'm in my 20s and 30s and 40s and so on, but those parts are still stuck in those experiences. And so what occurs is anytime that my nervous system or my threat detector within my nervous system called neuroception, is reminded of anything like those experiences in the past. It's as if we travel time and we go back to that lived experience. And what occurs is that part of me, that numeric age, is now in my body, I am literally reliving it. And the wild thing is we experience the vagal tone or shape of that part's nervous system in the here and now, meaning you are experiencing exactly the same nervous system response that you had at that numeric age, your nervous system, system literally adjusts quickly back to that shaping and you have the same feelings and the same, same sensations and the same thoughts in your body. For all intents and purposes, you have traveled back to that time. So what I want you to see here, it's, it's, you can see in my hearing my voice is kind of some excitement for me. He I hope you can see here that in order to do parts work effectively, we have to really understand the nervous system. Because your nervous system is the vehicle that is bringing to life the part inside of you. It's not just like, oh, there's a 12 year old part here and I cognitively understand that. No, there's a whole lived experience that's being informed by your nervous system. So in order to effectively do parts work, we have to in tandem be working with our nervous system too. Now let's bring attachment into this as well. So remember we talked about attachment, how that forms in our earliest childhood experiences, Right. And that's really, really the blueprint for it. Now when it comes to our adult relationships, specifically our romantic relationships, our nervous system is going to be most reminded of our earliest childhood experiences when we are in those romantic relationships. The reason being is because our nervous system has this threat detector neuroception. Its job, as I said, is to make sure we're safe at all costs. It has a database or a receptacle of all the past lived experiences we've ever had to decide if we're safe. And what it does is it looks to past similarities. Meaning it doesn't look for things to be an identical match of the past. They just have to have a flavoring of the past. So it's when it looks to our romantic relationships, it says, okay, what is this thing? Well, it's my most important person. They're supposed to be my, my home, my place that I come to for connection. The mo highest levels of connection, vulnerability, attunement, belonging and so on and so forth. Okay, what, what information do we have on all of those things? And it's going to look to your childhood. So what's going to occur is it's going to take the blueprint from childhood and say, well, I guess this must be how I need to navigate this adult relationship now. Because that's how I needed to navigate relationships in the past. So if in the past in order to be in relationship, it meant that I had an anxious, I have an anxious attachment and I need to, to resource my sympathetic nervous system and make sure that you Stay close to me in order for me to be safe. That's exactly what's going to happen now. So it gets superimposed onto the present. Now the thing that happens with our parts is when we have experiences that happen in adult relationships, it's going to trigger those younger parts who were the first ones who had the relational experiences in our relationship lives. So let's say in my romantic relationship, my partner says something to me like, you know, when you show up late, it, you know, consistently show up late. It makes me feel like you don't care. And that really doesn't feel good. And so my partner says that my threat detector says, whoa, what does this remind me of? And it looks to the database and maybe it looks to that 12 year old self and how much I was criticized, I was told I was stupid. I'll never amount to anything. You keep getting it wrong. No matter how much I tried, I couldn't get it right. And now, although what's happening with my partner is wildly different, it has enough flavorings of what seems like criticism to remind my system of being 12. And so all of the sudden is as if my nervous system thinks that that experience when I was 12 is happening again. And it's like we travel time back to being that 12 year old self. And that means that all of the sudden no longer do I feel like adult me. I feel like I'm 12 years old and I'm having the same affect and lived experience that 12 year old me had in the present moment. So what I want you to see here is how, first of all, how fascinating are we, right, that all of this is occurring? And also how exquisitely beautiful is it that all of these different theories and modalities and all this research really comes together and, and, and, and is completely interwoven. So what I'm hoping that you can see is that in our adult relationships, this is where our parts show up the most. And the reason that they show up the most is because they're most reminded of their past in our romantic relationships because there's enough flavorings or the most rather flavorings of those types of experiences. And when those parts show up, up, they have the same autonomic tone they had in the past. So again, our parts are experienced through our nervous systems, just as our attachment is experienced through our nervous systems. And the parts that are experiencing the attachment, these insecure attachments aren't adult us, it's the younger self. So I'm really hoping that, that this is making sense of why these things are happening in your life. And the beautiful thing thing is when we can understand what's happening, we can then actually facilitate the change that we want. I also just want to name that. As I said, if you struggle to shift your attachment because you've only learned about attachment but haven't had the tools necessary to change it, then that makes so much sense. The same goes with parts work because the vehicle responsible for our parts showing up is our autonomic nervous system, just as the vehicle responsible for how we attach is our autonomic nervous system system. And the thing about this nervous system is it doesn't understand a verbal language, which is why you can't talk yourself into safety or talk yourself into a secure attachment. You have to embody it or feel your way into it, which is exactly what somatic work is all about. And so, you know, I was going to say for me, but really this is what research shows, is that in order for parts work to be effective, it has to be done from a somatic lens. And the same goes with, with attachment work too. So the last thing I want to say about our parts is they're going to do a lot of things to try to keep us safe inside of our relationships. And we all develop these protector parts. There's a specific type of protector part called self like parts. And those are protective parts that really mimic adult us. And it's very easy to get confused and think it is adult us showing up in the relationship because they sound like us us in many ways. They can feel like us. They're not, they don't feel exactly like I'm, you know, six years old and terrified. They can feel very, very similar to adult you. And I'm going to give some examples of what that can look like. So a lot of us have self like parts, protective parts that their job is to keep us out of relationships. And if we're more avoidantly attached, we're going to be or disorganized. We're going to be someone who has a self like part that does that. So we're going to have a self like part that is really focused on ensuring that we stay out of relationships or that we don't fully step in. And they're going to say things that seem rational to us, like, you know, I don't know, maybe this person isn't for me because they're doing, you know, X, Y and Z and maybe it's not the right time for me to step into a relationship. And you know, and they're just going to have so Many reasons, reasons, seemingly rational reasons why I shouldn't step into this thing. And I'm not saying that, you know, you sh. This thing is right for you. But what I will say is if that person is safe, you don't know if they're right for you unless you actually step into the relationship. But these parts are going to try to keep you from fully stepping in. And that is a sure fire way for it not to work. But again, that's the goal of the part, not to. Because they want you to suffer because they don't think connection is safe. Now for others of us, if we are more anxiously attached, we're going to have a part that is going to, a self like part that is really going to try to prevent us from leaving a relationship. And they're going to, you know, to justify a lot of, you know, not okay behavior that's happening or things that aren't good for us. And they're going to tell us like, you know, it wasn't that bad what they said to me or the way that they spoke to me or yeah, I know I'm not getting my needs met chronically and I've asked for them but you know, it could be worse and maybe I'm asking for too much and you get the idea they're going to try to convince you of why you can't leave. Now again, what I want to say is our work is to ensure that the relational dynamic is safe. And then our work is to, if we're more anxiously attached, to really work on creating internal safety. Because once I'm actually safe with me, then I can be discerning in the relationship and I can can choose love from choice versus love from survival. And if I don't feel okay on my own, I'm going to justify a lot of things because I feel like if I leave I won't be okay. The more I feel safe inside, the more I will be able to. So my hope is that you can see now that all three of these different parts of mental health and the healing process, the different modalities, theories, neuroscience, they are, are all so interconnected and in order for us to have the relationships we're desiring and actually create the changes we're wanting, we have to understand all of them, understand the interconnectivity of all of them and then embody the work that is necessary to make these changes. So I just want to get into a few things that you can begin focusing on right away to begin making some of these changes. So if you have an anxious attachment. That means you're going to struggle with self regulation. So and you're gonna be predominantly anchored in your sympathetic nervous system. So your job is number one, to consistently be reshaping your nervous system, so focusing on consistent neural exercises or moments of regulation. And then secondly to really be focusing on your ability to self regulate. So I have to begin showing myself I am safe with me. That is not something you can talk your way into. You have to embody that. Now if I'm more avoidantly attached, I'm gonna be more dorsal dominant as I named and I usher my system into co regulation, meaning connecting with another person, showing my system that not only is that safe, but it brings greater regulation. So I have to really work on flexing that muscle. If I'm disorganized, I'm actually going to want to work on both my ability to self regulate and my ability to co regulate. So that is absolutely imperative, not only to regulate our nervous systems, but to come towards a secure attachment. Another thing that's really necessary is we have to begin distinguishing what it feels like to be adult me versus a part of me. Because a lot of us have these young parts that are running the show in our adult lives and they're making choices and decisions for us based on what they had to do to maintain safety in the past. So we want to really get clear on when I am in my adult self, what does that feel like? So whenever you feel present here in good, you really feel like you you. I want you to clock what is that like in my body? And then the next time you're triggered in your relationship, I want you to ask yourself, do I feel like adult me or not? And if not, we have to begin inquiring about these parts. Who is this part that's present? And we all have like a few main players that show up in our relationship. So we want to get to know who those parts are, especially those self like parts, and then begin coming to the aid of those parts and giving them the things they never got in the past. In the here and now with us again, we have lots of episodes on parts that will support you to do that. Each of the things I just named is really going to support you to not only heal attachment, but regulate your nervous system and address the parts that never got the things in the past that they needed and can get them now with you and through the relationships that you have too. So my hope is that all of this is really showing you how much you make sense and giving you some Practical application on how you can begin making these changes in your life. Not sure where to start with Somatic Healing. My free quiz, what's keeping you stuck? Will equip you with a personalized guide and tangible trauma informed tools to help you regulate your nervous system. Check out the link in the show notes to get started. Okay, so now we're going to get into the Q and A portion of this episode. We have a bunch of really fantastic audio quality questions that I think a lot of you are going to relate to. So let's get to the first one.
- [39:24]
Listener
Hi Sarah, I have a lot of difficulty detaching from relationships when people decide to leave. Even knowing full well that that's a thing that happens, that's normal, that adults sometimes leave friendships, they leave romantic relationships. And I tend to internalize all these ideas of I did something wrong or I'm not enough or I'm too much. And it's just something that it's really hard for me to be alone. So it always activates a sense of being abandoned. And right now I'm going through that again. It's like I don't want to make other people responsible for my feelings. And yet I still have these feelings of how could they do this to me? And it's so hard to get out of bed and go to work and go to the gym and take care of myself and eat and all those things when there isn't somebody to share my life with.
- [40:20]
Sarah
I just so appreciate this question. And so much of the time when we're feeling these kinds of woundings or these deep internal experiences that feel so overwhelming to us, there can be a lot of shame over. Coupled with. With it and, and we can feel like there's something wrong with us or that we're different. And I just so appreciate this person for submitting this question because this is so common. And the thing is we just don't talk about it and so then we can be made to feel like we're the only ones. So I just really appreciate you giving us this generous gift. Certainly something, by the way, that I can relate to deeply at different portions of my life. And I know that a lot of listeners can relate to this too. So there are three main things that I heard in this that all relate back to our parts. And I'm. We're not going to go through each of them. But the first thing that I, that I really heard here is that when a dis. There's a disconnection or an ending in a relationship, it sounds like a this was a romantic relationship, but when there's an ending, it's really challenging for me to disconnect or for me to let go of that attachment. So that's number one. The second is I make it all about me, meaning I'm the proper, like predominantly it's me. If I just had done something differently, if I, if I was just able to be a little bit more like this, then maybe they would have stayed. So I have trouble disconnecting or letting go of the attachment. I make myself responsible for it, why the relationship didn't work. And then three, I have a really hard time then navigating the day to day life things on my own. And so all of those are indicators that our young parts are showing up in our lives and in our relationship and certainly in the aftermath of the relationship. And that these young parts are oriented towards having an anxious attachment. And this is again the result of having caregivers in our childhood who weren't able to consistently provide us the connection, attunement and regulation and safety that we desperately needed. Even though they may have been really low loving for us and towards us, they weren't able to do that. And they gave us the message that on my own I am not okay or I'm not enough. And so then what happens inside of that relational container dynamic is that young part is really predominant and really present. And in a lot of ways it's our young part saying like, well, if I can just make this person stay, then maybe I'll be okay. They are trying to rescue themselves from that past experience so they don't have to perpetually be in it. And if we are not the primary parent to our younger selves, this is really what somatic parts work is all about. Becoming that primary parent that our caregivers couldn't be. If we aren't that primary parent, then our younger self is going to look for our partner to be the primary parent and specifically to be, by the way, the perfect parent. I had a part that did that, that wanted, you know, any partner that I had to be the perfect parent. And that means that they couldn't get anything wrong. And when I had that part show up in my life, it really made it impossible for my partner to ever be enough because they could never be perfect. And there is no perfect parent. So all of this is an indicator that that's what's occurring. And for the young part, you know, when they have attached to that romantic partner as a caregiver, meaning like, I want you to be the primary Par it is gonna be really challenging for that part of ourselves to disconnect or to let go of that attachment because we've now projected onto that person in many ways our primary attachment figure. So our work is to begin embodying our adult self. And what I want you to do is think about any area of your life where this part of you can more readily be present. A lot of times in our work that can be a place where our adult self can show up more. And when you feel connected, capable and able, present here like you are able to support another person, you really feel like your true self anchored. And all of those things that, that, that qualify us as being our true self or adult self. And what we want to do is marinate in that experience so you can think in your mind's eye of moments where you've had adult you present and then bring them back to life. Like, keep practicing bringing my adult self here, bringing my adult self here. And the more that we do this and we are really able to, to be that version of ourselves, then we can go comfort the younger parts. And what we want to do is, what I invite you to do is get conf. You can start asking who are they? Who is that younger part that's showing up? And you can get curious about how old they are, what are they feeling or experiencing, when is the first time they remember feeling this so that you can differentiate from them. If we are over identified with, with our younger parts, we can't actually give them the support they need because I am identified with them. So the more that I can differentiate from them, like literally get a visual on who are they, what do they look like, how old are they, what do they say? And literally see them, the more that we are able to then come to their aid. So first we want to do that differentiation process or actually that second, first we want to get adult us present, then we want to differentiate. And then I want you to use an as if tool. So think about if I was with a child this age and they were feeling these kind of things, what would I do for them? And what we want to do is begin attuning to their experience. So we don't want to minimize it, we don't want to talk them out of it. We want to feel into it with them. And attunement isn't about what we say, it's about what we feel. So really feeling that with them and then creating the safety they never got. So we have to literally fall in love with these parts of ourselves and See them for who they are. Special and perfect and magical and amazing and worthy of love. And the more we do that, the more they actually get to have the childhood experience they never got. Now for me, I spent so much of my life looking for home outside of myself. I never had an embodied experience of feeling home anywhere in the world. And I'm using words to describe this, but this is an embodied experience. And it was so painful and overwhelming. And I remember, I think it was a, it might have been, I don't know, Mother's Day, Father's Day or some kind of holiday. And one of my best friends was saying to me like, oh, you know, it's probably hard. And I sat with it and I said, you know, I'm home with me now. And these holidays actually don't feel the way they used to. They used to be excruciating because home is inside of me and I love these parts of me so much the way that they were never loved. And if I'm home with me, that really means that I can also be home anywhere else in the world. And it also means once we, once we create that internal home for our parts, it means that we can actually choose partners from a place of choice and discernment instead of a place of survival. And without doing that work, our younger parts are going to choose similar experiences they had in the past because that's all they know at love as, as what love can be. And so we're kind of recapitulating those past patterns over and over again. So the more that we can do this, we actually change our baseline for what love is. And guess what that means? It means you pick partners differently. And it also means that when I'm in a relational container, I know that even if this doesn't work out, I'm going to be okay. Doesn't mean that it's going to be easy to process that, but I'm going to be okay. And that allows us to show up fully as ourselves in a relationship that allows us, allows us to take risks and certainly know that it is never just a one sided thing. It's a 50, 50 dynamic. Here we are both participating in this dynamic. So, and I want to say that for the part of you that's saying, oh, maybe it's all my fault, maybe I did all these things wrong. And really see if you can think about a child saying that to you, what does it make you want to do? Probably scoop them up and, and hold them and give them protection. The other thing, lastly, I just want to name is that it's really important if we, when we're just getting our adult self online that we can also bring in other competent protectors or people who have historically been safe in their, in our lives. So for me I can, I used to bring in a lot and still do my grandmother. Uh, I know these two are really weird if you've never heard me say this before. But Mr. Rogers and Bob Ross know, it's super weird. But I grew up with one channel. I grew up in poverty. It was pbs. And they were two people that whenever I heard them I just felt safe. And then a couple teachers and for me, God. So when I bring those things in or brought those, those people in early on in my work I had to bring them in a lot because I didn't have adult me around very much. It really gave a sense of safety for those younger parts. So the more that we do this, the more those young parts have an internal safety and we become the primary parent. And then when we enter future relationships, our partner can be the secondary parent. So let's go to the next question that we have today.
- [49:35]
Listener
Hi there. I would like to know the connection.
- [49:37]
Sarah
Between avoidant attachment and shame.
- [49:40]
Listener
Because I've been reading about it and it's always mentioned that avoidance carry a.
- [49:44]
Sarah
High level of shame towards themselves. But I'd like to understand it more in depth.
- [49:50]
Listener
Thank you.
- [49:51]
Sarah
Yeah. So there's a few reasons why when we have an avoidant attachment we might be oriented towards having higher levels of shame. Now remember, an avoidant attachment is the result of having caregivers who consistently were either unavailable for us or they were dangerous and harmed us either physically or emotionally or both. So if we had a caregiver who was neglectful. The truth is that all children are in many ways self focused. And this is actually really important because in order for us them to survive and thrive, they really need to be because they need others around them in order to regulate their nervous systems and develop and so on and so forth. So that means that early on children are going to make meaning of everything as if it has something to do with them and humans are meaning making creatures. We make meaning of everything. So if my caregiver is neglectful, instead of me saying oh, there must be something wrong with my caregiver for them being unable to choose me or to connect with me or meet my needs, we say there must be something wrong with me. I must be innately unworthy or unlovable or unvaluable. That's why they abandoned me or that's why they're not choosing me. And that is the internalized experience of our trauma. Essentially, that's what shame is, the internalization of what happened to us. So instead of saying that thing wasn't okay, it's I'm not okay, I am inherently bad. Now, if we had caregivers who were abusive either physically or emotionally, my system says instead of that thing that happened to me was horrific or not okay, I'm bad, I'm disgusting, not that thing that happened to me. And that was my experience with the. I had experienced a lot of sexual abuse throughout my childhood and there was no amount of talking talk therapy that changed that for me. I just felt like I was inherently disgusting and broken and like something was so wrong and it was only somatic work that changed that for me. So I just want to name, those are some of the predominant reasons why we, we have this embodied experience of shame. And it's the internalization of what happened to us. What we must do is access something called healthy aggression. That's our life force, energy and our ability in many ways to protect ourselves. And when we are able to access that, our system is able to do what it wasn't able to do back then, by the way. Our systems are always waiting to do that to complete the incomplete experience. It's never too late. And your body and your psyche and your soul are desiring that deeply and they don't give up on it. So when I am able to actually take that thing that I've internalized and have the appropriate anger or rage around and put it back towards the person or the experience where it belonged, it's like I take off this layering of skin that's not mine and it actually goes away. I can tell you, as someone who tried for a decade to resolve my shame by talking my, my way out of it, it didn't work. And when I finally found somatic work and was able to do this and access that healthy aggression, it changed everything and it truly was just gone. And I don't feel that way anymore. And I'm sharing that because I want you to know that's what's possible for all of us. So let's get to the last question that we have here today. Due to my history, I am literally terrified of being misunderstood. And so I have developed a huge tendency of over explaining which I can seem to let go of even when I'm more regulated and even if I hate it. Do you have any advice on how to work on this? Yeah, the first thing Is I want you to see if you can have compassion for this part. Part, figure out who the part is. So when is the first time you remember feeling that way or noticing that you are that over explaining and get to know who that part is. You know, imagine this if you heard an 8 year old doing that and they were just really trying to over explain why, you know, why, why they accidentally took an extra snack out of the pantry and maybe it's like a foster kid, it's not your kid and they feel so panicked and they have it going on and on and on and on. You wouldn't be like oh my God, shut up, you're so annoying. Right. Which is what we do to ourselves. We would have compassion and say oh my God, this poor kid. What the hell happened to them? Who the hell did this to them that is causing this child to feel that way. I'm feeling that right now and I just made up this kid. It makes me want to find the adult that did that to them. And what I'm trying to show you is this is, this is what it means to be a competent protector or the adult for our parents parts. So being that parent is not just being loving and kind, it's being ferociously protective. And I obviously wouldn't show that to the an 8 year old I was fostering. Right. But that's what I would feel. I would want to go find that person and give them a piece of my mind like how dare you do this to a kid. And it's really important that our parts can feel how protective we are that we don't put that energy towards them like what's wrong with you? But instead we are actually able to get into contact with that, that appropriate anger to what happen happened as a protective force. And the other thing is being kind and understanding to them. They aren't trying to cause you problems or embarrass you. They're so scared. The more that you can hear that part and listen to them and have compassion for them and then get into that, that position of like who the fuck did this to this kid? I'm sorry to swear but you know, sometimes it's really appropriate and important and that's what it makes me feel like who did that? And I feel a lot of strong feelings about that and wanting to protect that part. And so we want to be able to access both things for our parts. And then when we notice we're in social situations and we notice that parts present, that's a moment to say oh, they're here. Okay, let me try to see if I can get adult me here so that I can navigate this situation. Because for adult us, if our young parts don't have us, they're going to resource the protective tools that they used in the past. And the more that we can get adult us present, the more those parts feel safe, and they no longer have to do that. And adult us gets to show up more in our lives. So thank you for joining me during this episode. I hope you found it supportive and. And it really made clear to you the interconnectivity of all of these different modalities, how each one needs each other in order for us to really have the type of relationships we want in our lives. And I hope hearing these questions really showed you how much more similar we are than we are different, and that we're all doing this together, one tolerable step at a time.