Speaker 1: You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2: Mama Maya acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
Speaker 2: that this podcast is recorded on.
Speaker 1: Oh, this could be a whole episode. Let's see. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about sex. A lot of people use sex to
Speaker 1: try to build attachment, and that's actually not a great
Speaker 1: way to use sex. We want to think about can
Speaker 1: I develop a secure attachment first, and then sex is
Speaker 1: a way to deepen a healthy secure attachment.
Speaker 2: From Mom Maya, this is no filter and I'm Maya Friedman.
Speaker 2: I don't want to over promise here, but I think
Speaker 2: this episode is going to help you have better relationships,
Speaker 2: choose better romantic partners, and maybe understand the shitty relationships
Speaker 2: that you've had in the past or might still be having,
Speaker 2: because the origin of every relationship ship that we have
Speaker 2: is our attachment style, and knowing what yours is and
Speaker 2: how it affects the way that you interact with people
Speaker 2: and the romantic partners that you choose can be a
Speaker 2: total game changer. I've heard about attachment theory before, maybe
Speaker 2: you have too, but nobody has ever explained to me
Speaker 2: exactly how it works. So before interviewing my guest today,
Speaker 2: who is an expert on attachment styles. I did a
Speaker 2: quiz to find out what my style is. There are
Speaker 2: four styles, and only one of them is the one
Speaker 2: that you want. And guess what. I do not have
Speaker 2: that style, and seventy five percent of you or more
Speaker 2: probably don't either. So why does it matter? Great question?
Speaker 2: It turns out that it matters rather a lot, because
Speaker 2: our attachment styles dictate the kinds of romantic partners that
Speaker 2: we choose, and also how we show up in almost
Speaker 2: every relationship in our lives, not just the romantic ones,
Speaker 2: but also the relationships that we have with friends and
Speaker 2: coworkers and kids. If you have them, all of it.
Speaker 2: Our attachment style impacts us in really fundamental ways, and
Speaker 2: learning which one you are can unlock a whole room
Speaker 2: of understanding about yourself and make your life easier. And
Speaker 2: who doesn't want that? Me? I want that. I want
Speaker 2: my life to be easier. Doctor Morgan Anderson is a
Speaker 2: clinical psychologist who has a podcast called Let's Get Vulnerable,
Speaker 2: and she's an attachment theory expert whose goal it is
Speaker 2: to help women heal to have better relationships and men.
Speaker 2: I guess but she mostly deals with women, and I
Speaker 2: would also like to have better relationships, please. So my
Speaker 2: first question to Dr Morgan, who I immediately began calling
Speaker 2: Morgues because I don't like calling people by their formal names,
Speaker 2: probably because I have an anxious attachment style. Anyway, my
Speaker 2: first question to Morgues was about what happened in her
Speaker 2: life to make her decide to make attachment theory her specialty.
Speaker 2: So let's get into it.
Speaker 1: Well, we'll be here for three hours now. I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1: So I experienced childhood trauma. I lost my mom at
Speaker 1: a young age. I was six years old, and I
Speaker 1: then went through my dad actually being in some really
Speaker 1: difficult relationships. There was a lot of chaos in my
Speaker 1: family system growing up. So that was the beginning. And then,
Speaker 1: of course when I began to date, I was in
Speaker 1: my teens early twenties. I was very attracted to the
Speaker 1: emotionally unavailable man. And I always tell people it was
Speaker 1: like I was dating the same guy over and over again,
Speaker 1: different haircut, but it was the same emotional dynamic.
Speaker 2: Which was what took me through that guy.
Speaker 1: Yes, he was the quintessential unpredictable, not stable, doesn't do
Speaker 1: what he says he's going to do. I'm walking on eggshells,
Speaker 1: trying to prove my worthiness. Maybe I'm changing things about myself, thinking, oh,
Speaker 1: if I'm different in this way, then I can get
Speaker 1: him to want me. I experienced all kinds of terrible
Speaker 1: things that you do in toxic relationships, cheating, lying, people
Speaker 1: who were married, people who had whole different lives. I
Speaker 1: didn't know about all kinds of relational drama. And then
Speaker 1: it really came to a head when I found myself
Speaker 1: in a relationship with a narcissist. And a narcissist is
Speaker 1: kind of the most emotionally unavailable type of partner you
Speaker 1: can be with. And I was in my second year
Speaker 1: of graduate school and I was dating him for about
Speaker 1: a year and a half. And then at the end
Speaker 1: of that relationship, I just hit absolute rock bottom. I
Speaker 1: had had a near death experience. I had to go
Speaker 1: file a police report.
Speaker 2: Do you mean within your relationship? Yes, So there was
Speaker 2: domestic violence with this guy who was a narcissist.
Speaker 1: Yes, domestic violence, I mean just the most traumatic type
Speaker 1: of experience you can have where you are scared for
Speaker 1: your life essentially. And I went through that and I
Speaker 1: just thought, I don't even recognize myself. Who am I
Speaker 1: and I just had this fork in the road moment
Speaker 1: where I knew I can keep going down this path,
Speaker 1: I can keep repeating these same relationship dynamics. I don't
Speaker 1: know if I'm going to be alive it was that
Speaker 1: toxic or I can decide to heal. I can decide
Speaker 1: to try to figure out how do you have a
Speaker 1: healthy relationship? Something I had never figured out. And I
Speaker 1: chose that path, and I threw myself into researching attachment
Speaker 1: styles and learning everything I could about rewiring your brain
Speaker 1: so that you can have a healthy relationship. And then
Speaker 1: here I am, what is it? A decade later, and
Speaker 1: I've helped thousands of people become securely attached. I'm in
Speaker 1: an incredible relationship with my fiance We're getting married next year.
Speaker 1: He's my best friend, and I'm just I'm very, very
Speaker 1: happy in my life. But that version of you ten
Speaker 1: years ago would be shocked that I was able to
Speaker 1: get to this place.
Speaker 2: Can I ask about your fiancee? Was he different to
Speaker 2: every guy you'd die did before?
Speaker 1: That's a great question. As I was doing my healing work,
Speaker 1: I had started to attract a healthier type of partner,
Speaker 1: So I was starting to date emotionally available people. But
Speaker 1: I will say there's something about my fiance. I think
Speaker 1: he's probably one of the most emotionally available, thoughtful, emotionally
Speaker 1: intelligent men that I've ever met, and I from the
Speaker 1: very beginning I felt emotionally safe with him.
Speaker 2: There's so much talk about attachment theory and attachment styles
Speaker 2: at the moment, and there are four different attachment styles.
Speaker 2: What are they?
Speaker 1: Yes, so we have anxious attachment, avoidant attachment, or organized
Speaker 1: aka fearful avoidant, and secure attachment style. And I always
Speaker 1: like people to know that this is not a way
Speaker 1: to label yourself. It's not a way to judge yourself.
Speaker 1: When we understand our attachment style, it's a way to
Speaker 1: have acceptance and compassion so that we can heal.
Speaker 2: I quite like labeling myself. I find it useful because
Speaker 2: to me it just opens up into some insights and
Speaker 2: to some maybe some tools. And instead of saying, oh,
Speaker 2: I just like bad guys or I just you know,
Speaker 2: choose this type of relationship. I like the idea that
Speaker 2: there's a reason for it. It's not just you know,
Speaker 2: something that comes out of the blue and that you
Speaker 2: have no control over or that's just really random attachment
Speaker 2: theory is grounded in this idea that our attachment styles
Speaker 2: are baked in from childhood, from when we're babies. Is
Speaker 2: that right?
Speaker 1: Absolutely, yes, that it begins Some people would say even
Speaker 1: before birth, but that you were attachedment style is forming
Speaker 1: throughout all of your various relational experiences. Early attachment theory
Speaker 1: research would say, Okay, it's your relationship with your caregivers,
Speaker 1: that's it. But we now know that your early romantic relationships,
Speaker 1: your friendships, all of your relational experiences play a role
Speaker 1: in forming your unique attachment style.
Speaker 2: So it's not just your parents or the people who
Speaker 2: raised you.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Interesting, So when you say there's four secure, anxious, avoidant,
Speaker 2: and disorganized, can we just go through and you can
Speaker 2: explain to me some of the characteristics of each of
Speaker 2: those styles. And let's start with secure.
Speaker 1: Okay, I love secure. Secure is where we all want
Speaker 1: to be.
Speaker 2: I was going to say, I like a leaderboard, Morgan,
Speaker 2: and I like to understand what is the best one
Speaker 2: to be so that I can strive for it. Who's
Speaker 2: on the top of the leader board? Secure?
Speaker 1: Yeah, So with secure attachment, you are emotionally safe, you
Speaker 1: have interdependence with your partner. So you know, I can
Speaker 1: depend on me and I can depend on you. I'm
Speaker 1: able to self soothe, and I can also ask you
Speaker 1: to help regulate my emotions. I have both available to me.
Speaker 2: Interdependence as opposed to codependence.
Speaker 1: Yes, as opposed to codependence and hyper independence.
Speaker 2: Codependence means that you can't live without the other person, right.
Speaker 1: Right, That's where we see a lot of folks with
Speaker 1: anxious attachment are susceptible to codependence. You're too needy, Yes,
Speaker 1: you are prioritizing not being abandoned over your own needs.
Speaker 2: Is this just about romantic relationships or it's about all
Speaker 2: your relationships with friends, with family?
Speaker 1: It can be about all all your relationships, all of
Speaker 1: your relationships. Absolutely, Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2: So whatever style you have, it usually applies to how
Speaker 2: you interrel with everybody in your life. Is that right?
Speaker 1: Absolutely? I will say this though, It's very common for
Speaker 1: people to have secure attachment with their friends and even
Speaker 1: their family, and not in their romantic relationships. So it's
Speaker 1: normal that you would have different attachment styles based on
Speaker 1: the type of relationship.
Speaker 2: It is so anxious attachment, let's talk about that, and
Speaker 2: let's keep to romantic relationships because I think for the
Speaker 2: purposes of this conversation, let's try and understand out patterns
Speaker 2: in romantic relationships. What's anxious attachment.
Speaker 1: Anxious attachment at the core is where you are devaluing
Speaker 1: yourself and you are overvaluing the other person, so you
Speaker 1: are disconnected from self and you are very aware of
Speaker 1: the other person's needs. And with anxious attachment, I like
Speaker 1: to tell people it's like your reassurance bucket has holes
Speaker 1: in it. So what I mean by that is we
Speaker 1: all need reassurance to feel secure in a relationship. But
Speaker 1: if you have anxious attachment, no matter how much reassurance
Speaker 1: you're given, it's really hard for you to internalize it.
Speaker 1: You could have a partner say I love you, You're
Speaker 1: my everything. I'm never going to leave you, and then
Speaker 1: you still might want to ask, are you sure you
Speaker 1: love me? The reassurance is.
Speaker 2: Not landing avoidant attachment.
Speaker 1: This is where you're actually overvaluing yourself and you might
Speaker 1: find yourself devaluing others and there's a lot of unconscious
Speaker 1: distancing that's happening where you're pulling away, and this can
Speaker 1: look like not responding to text messages, avoiding conflict. Even
Speaker 1: those people who are very sarcastic, and they might be
Speaker 1: putting you down in kind of a sarcastic way. That
Speaker 1: can be an avoidant attachment strategy as a way to
Speaker 1: distance themselves from you. With avoidant attachment, you have to
Speaker 1: realize that there's a real difficulty with connecting to their emotions.
Speaker 1: So then of course they struggle with connecting to the
Speaker 1: emotions of others because they're disconnected from their own emotions.
Speaker 2: The fourth attachment style is interesting disorganized. What does that mean?
Speaker 1: Disorganized attachment is the combination of anxious and avoidant happening
Speaker 1: at the same time.
Speaker 2: Oh, how does that manifest?
Speaker 1: So this is that push pull dynamic. Never leave me, now,
Speaker 1: get away from me.
Speaker 2: That sounds familiar in a moment. Now that we know
Speaker 2: what the four attachment styles are, what do we do
Speaker 2: with that information? And how do we figure out which
Speaker 2: one we are? We'll be right back. Can you be
Speaker 2: a combination of more than one attachment style? Or do
Speaker 2: we tend to fall mostly in one of those four buckets?
Speaker 1: Most people will have a style that they find themselves
Speaker 1: being in the majority of the time. I think it's
Speaker 1: important to ask yourself that of Okay, where am I
Speaker 1: most of the time. The important thing to realize about
Speaker 1: disorganized attachment is once again that anxious and avoidant are
Speaker 1: happening simultaneously. So it's not that you just have both
Speaker 1: anxious and avoidant strategies, is that they're actually happening at
Speaker 1: the same time.
Speaker 2: That must feel very confusing and uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: It's very chaotic. It's about five to seven percent of
Speaker 1: the population highly correlated with childhood trauma, oftentimes misdiagnosed as
Speaker 1: borderline personality disorder. I think people with disorganized attachment they
Speaker 1: often feel a lot of pain in their relationships.
Speaker 2: Is your attachment style fixed for life or can you change?
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you asked yes, you can always become
Speaker 1: securely attached. Really yes, The old research said no, which
Speaker 1: was actually what motivated me to write a book because
Speaker 1: I was very annoyed about that. We have tons of
Speaker 1: data now that you can rewire your brain and change
Speaker 1: your nervous system and learn how to embody secure attachment.
Speaker 2: So no matter how tumultuous or even traumatic your childhood was,
Speaker 2: no matter what the patterns were that was set early
Speaker 2: on in your life, you can change that.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. I'm living proof of that.
Speaker 2: I want to ask a little bit about your story,
Speaker 2: if that's okay. Losing your mum at six. I can't
Speaker 2: imagine how that felt. I genuinely can't imagine how that felt.
Speaker 2: Looking back now as the woman you are to that
Speaker 2: little girl, how did it play out for her? Because
Speaker 2: I mean, abandoned doesn't even begin to cover how you
Speaker 2: must have felt.
Speaker 1: I've done a lot of deep work, and I really
Speaker 1: wasn't able to talk about losing my mom until my
Speaker 1: mid thirties. It's just one of those things. I really
Speaker 1: had to process a lot before I could even talk
Speaker 1: about it, and so I've thought a lot about it.
Speaker 1: And one of the things I've done is I realized
Speaker 1: I had a lot of abandonment beliefs that I was
Speaker 1: abandoned by her. Even though this was it was an accident,
Speaker 1: it was a totally random thing. I had internalized that
Speaker 1: there was something wrong with me and that I was
Speaker 1: abandoned because there was something wrong with me. So it
Speaker 1: took me years of processing and deep work to even
Speaker 1: get to that level of realization. But once I did,
Speaker 1: I let go of so much and I do a
Speaker 1: lot of spiritual work. I don't know where you are
Speaker 1: on the wo woo oh.
Speaker 2: I like, I'm a combo of science and woo woo.
Speaker 1: The same same. So I do a lot of breath
Speaker 1: work and I've had some breathwork experiences where i feel
Speaker 1: that I've connected with my mom's energy. And one of
Speaker 1: the messages that she had and I'm going to get
Speaker 1: emotional talking about this, but the message that she had
Speaker 1: for me was I never left you. I've always been there.
Speaker 2: Yeah. That's incredibly beautiful and important because the feeling of
Speaker 2: abandonment can exist whether someone actually abandoned you or not.
Speaker 2: Like she didn't abandon you, clearly, it's not like she
Speaker 2: left you. It's not like she wanted to be apart
Speaker 2: from you. It was an accident, it was random, it
Speaker 2: was out of her control. She never would have chosen that.
Speaker 2: But the fact that you felt abandoned isn't any less
Speaker 2: real just because she didn't want it right right exactly.
Speaker 2: So how do you feel that, because that must have
Speaker 2: even though I'm sure you couldn't have articulated at at
Speaker 2: age six, how did that impact on the people that
Speaker 2: you chose and your relationships, even with your dad at
Speaker 2: that time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and my dad. You know, I've worked a lot
Speaker 1: on my relationship with him. He didn't really have a
Speaker 1: great childhood, he didn't have models for emotional availability. My
Speaker 1: dad really threw himself into work, so he was working NonStop.
Speaker 1: And I think what I learned during that time of
Speaker 1: my life, which is I honestly dissociated a lot. So
Speaker 1: I have very few memories from age six to fifteen,
Speaker 1: but during that time, I just remember trying to make
Speaker 1: myself as small as possible, and not wanting to take
Speaker 1: up space, and not wanting to be a burden, and
Speaker 1: just trying to be a good kid and be a
Speaker 1: good student. And I really felt that if I had
Speaker 1: emotions that it would be an inconvenience. I really disconnected
Speaker 1: from my inner experience. I think it was just so
Speaker 1: hard for me to process what had happened that I
Speaker 1: just cut off from my emotions and I decided to achieve,
Speaker 1: which so many of us do. And it wasn't intel
Speaker 1: doing this work after getting out of the relationship with
Speaker 1: the narcissists that I realized, Oh, I've been completely disconnected
Speaker 1: from my internal experience. I've lost all of my self trust.
Speaker 1: I don't even know what I'm feeling. I can't express
Speaker 1: what I'm feeling, and I just keep attracting people that
Speaker 1: take up all the space and people that I have
Speaker 1: to care for. I was always much more comfortable care
Speaker 1: taking for others than taking up space. Even my journey
Speaker 1: of realizing why did I choose clinical psychology, it was
Speaker 1: a natural thing for me to do, was just to
Speaker 1: let other people take up space and caretake. So I've
Speaker 1: had this whole realization of really healing myself and my
Speaker 1: beliefs about my emotions and my worthiness of expressing what
Speaker 1: I feel and I can say. In my thirties. This
Speaker 1: has been such a great decade because I know that
Speaker 1: I'm taking up space, I'm connected to my emotions, I'm
Speaker 1: setting boundaries all those things that that little girl, How
Speaker 1: do I say this? I was in survival mode. I
Speaker 1: was in fight or flight mode, so I wasn't even
Speaker 1: aware of what I was feeling or needing.
Speaker 2: You must have been terrified that your dad was going
Speaker 2: to die?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I was. I also have aunts. I
Speaker 1: have amazing aunts, my mom's sisters, and I know there
Speaker 1: was some of that in my relationship with them as well.
Speaker 2: Being very fearful, I guess, and not trusting that people
Speaker 2: would stick around.
Speaker 1: Yes, we had dogs. We had three dogs, and there
Speaker 1: was a lot of chaos. As I said, in my
Speaker 1: family were moving around a lot, and these were dogs
Speaker 1: that my mom had picked out. They'd been part of
Speaker 1: our family, and when we moved at one point my
Speaker 1: dad gave away the dogs, one of the only constants
Speaker 1: in my life. And not only did he give them away,
Speaker 1: he had us go to the families and give the
Speaker 1: dogs to the families. And as you can imagine, that
Speaker 1: was incredibly painful for me.
Speaker 2: Do you have siblings. I have a twin sister, okay,
Speaker 2: which brings me to my next question. Can you have
Speaker 2: children who grow up in the same facts, so the
Speaker 2: same nurture, but have different attachment styles.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, my sister and I are a wonderful case study
Speaker 1: of this. Yes, you can have similar experiences in childhood
Speaker 1: and develop completely different attachment styles based on how you're
Speaker 1: coping with the attachment wounds.
Speaker 2: Speak more about that.
Speaker 1: So, if you have a child where the parent is
Speaker 1: emotionally unavailable, maybe one of the children learns, okay, I
Speaker 1: need to be hyper independent. So they're developing the avoidant
Speaker 1: attachment style where they're disconnected and they want to achieve
Speaker 1: and be independent, whereas the other child may develop anxious attachment.
Speaker 1: I need reassurance. I'm asking for a lot. I come
Speaker 1: across as needy, and it's same experience, two different ways
Speaker 1: of responding and coping.
Speaker 2: Did your twin and you share an attachment style?
Speaker 1: I would say she was definitely way more of attached
Speaker 1: then me.
Speaker 2: I would have thought that it's funny with twins because
Speaker 2: you would always be there for each other, right, So
Speaker 2: I would have assumed that twins have a secure attachment style,
Speaker 2: I guess, because there's always someone there that you can
Speaker 2: rely on. But one of my closest friends is a
Speaker 2: twin and she has an anxious attachment style as well.
Speaker 1: And one thing to really think about is when we're developing,
Speaker 1: whether it's early on with our parents or in our teens, whenever,
Speaker 1: if we don't have that secure figure, that person that
Speaker 1: is showing up, that's validating our emotions, that's really making
Speaker 1: us feel seen and heard and validated. If we don't
Speaker 1: have that, then we're not learning how to do that
Speaker 1: for ourselves, and we're not learning how to do that
Speaker 1: for others. So my sister and I didn't really have
Speaker 1: adults that were modeling that for us, So we didn't
Speaker 1: learn how to do it for ourselves, and we certainly
Speaker 1: we actually fought. We actually had a horrible relationship all
Speaker 1: through out my childhood and into high school. And now
Speaker 1: we're best friends. That's wonderful how that's worked out. But
Speaker 1: we had experienced so much trauma that we really couldn't
Speaker 1: be there for each other.
Speaker 2: Okay, So then why if we have abandonment issues would
Speaker 2: we find avoidant partners? How does that whole attraction thing
Speaker 2: work depending on our attachment style? More with doctor Morgan
Speaker 2: Andison after this short break. People who don't kind of
Speaker 2: understand how this works. And I suppose logically you would think, well,
Speaker 2: if you'd have had issues around abandonment, surely you would
Speaker 2: look for a partner who was very present, who was
Speaker 2: able to meet your needs. But often we repeat whatever
Speaker 2: it is that's traumatized us in our childhood, is that
Speaker 2: because it feels familiar and it's our default.
Speaker 1: I was so glad you were asking me about this. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's because it feels from it's our emotional home. And
Speaker 1: I would add that there's this thing called repetition compulsion.
Speaker 1: Have you heard that term? No?
Speaker 2: Okay, but I think I can relate to it already,
Speaker 2: even without having heard it before.
Speaker 1: With repetition compulsion, we're repeating our same relational dynamics unconsciously.
Speaker 1: It's not as if you're intentionally saying, oh, let me
Speaker 1: find this emotionally unavailable person again. You're repeating it unconsciously.
Speaker 1: But there's the unconscious wish that this time you would
Speaker 1: have a different result, And your brain goes, if I
Speaker 1: can get this person to love me this time, it's
Speaker 1: going to make up for everything I experienced in the past.
Speaker 2: I bet it never happens.
Speaker 1: No, And it ends the same way insanity is, you know,
Speaker 1: doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a
Speaker 1: different result. So we have these re woundings and then
Speaker 1: we're just absolutely devastated each time.
Speaker 2: So each time you were rejected in a romantic relationship
Speaker 2: or abandoned, even if it was emotionally abandoned, it harked
Speaker 2: back to that original abandonment. Yes, and so it amplified it.
Speaker 2: Do we then overreact to something that seems quite small
Speaker 2: but that triggers all of those memories of being abandoned
Speaker 2: in the past.
Speaker 1: Yes. I always know my clients who have insecure styles,
Speaker 1: because you know, we can talk about a breakup can
Speaker 1: really feel like dying because of how painful it is,
Speaker 1: And you're going, man, my friends still seem to have
Speaker 1: this difficult of a time when they're experiencing breakups. What's
Speaker 1: wrong with me? And I can tell you it's because
Speaker 1: of your unresolved trauma from the past and repetition compulsion.
Speaker 2: How do you resolve that trauma like you can't unloose
Speaker 2: your mother? How is that not an absolute permanent scar
Speaker 2: in your psyche?
Speaker 1: That's such a good question. One of the things I
Speaker 1: find is that when we become aware of this and
Speaker 1: we know that it's happening, and when we go back
Speaker 1: to the original wounding and we process it from our
Speaker 1: healthy adult, securely attached selves, that we're able to release
Speaker 1: a lot of that unfinished business. And then in our
Speaker 1: present day we're no longer attracted to those same types
Speaker 1: of people, We're no longer seeking to recreate the wounds.
Speaker 1: That's really the focus is going back to that core wounding,
Speaker 1: processing it from that emotionally healthy adult.
Speaker 2: So you can go back and go I know it
Speaker 2: felt like she left because I was unlovable, but actually
Speaker 2: it was just a random accident and that's not what
Speaker 2: she wanted, and I wasn't unlovable, And so even by
Speaker 2: taking that adult perspective and overlaying it on that childhood experience,
Speaker 2: you can heal it. Is that how you heal it?
Speaker 1: Yes, And of course there's always loss and grief, and
Speaker 1: it's not to say that we don't experience grief. I
Speaker 1: think it's really important anybody listening who's lost a parent,
Speaker 1: you know that it's simply part of you. And I
Speaker 1: would say the powerful thing though, is examining what's the
Speaker 1: narrative that we have, what's the story that we're telling
Speaker 1: about it, And a lot of my spiritual work of
Speaker 1: doing my breath work and connecting with the energy spirit
Speaker 1: of my mom and I can just feel the love
Speaker 1: from her and her telling me, oh, you were the
Speaker 1: best part of my life. You know, were my twin girls.
Speaker 1: I loved you, I adored you. And I think that
Speaker 1: that spiritual work has also really helped me have a
Speaker 1: deeper level of heeling.
Speaker 2: What happened to you and your sister obviously was one
Speaker 2: of the most extreme forms of trauma, but you don't
Speaker 2: have to have experienced something that life changing or that
Speaker 2: extreme to still have experienced trauma or abandonment in your childhood. Right,
Speaker 2: it might be a grandparent dying, it might be pet dying,
Speaker 2: it might be your parents getting divorced. Is that right?
Speaker 1: Absolutely. I think sometimes we get into this place of, well,
Speaker 1: my trauma wasn't as bad as this person, or it
Speaker 1: really wasn't that bad, and we almost invalidate ourselves, but
Speaker 1: realizing that anytime there's a rupture or a wounding in
Speaker 1: the secure attachment in your life, that that does have
Speaker 1: an impact on you.
Speaker 2: I was one of those people who went to therapy
Speaker 2: when I was much younger, feeling a little bit sheepish
Speaker 2: about going to therapy even though I was going for
Speaker 2: I think I went for the first time because I
Speaker 2: had an eating disorder. But I was like, yeah, no,
Speaker 2: my childhood was fine, Like my parents are still married,
Speaker 2: No one died, you know, there wasn't any particular trauma.
Speaker 2: But then when we sort of unpacked things, and it's
Speaker 2: only decades later that I've understood. You know, my brother
Speaker 2: who I dored, who was seven years older, moved overseas
Speaker 2: for a couple of years, and my uncle who I worship,
Speaker 2: were traveling for a year or two, and my aunt's partner.
Speaker 2: He left and I adored him as well. So interestingly,
Speaker 2: all these men in my life who I loved, although
Speaker 2: not romantically, but they were like these really important figures
Speaker 2: in my life, they all left for very good reasons.
Speaker 2: And it's not like they died and I didn't ever
Speaker 2: see them again. But that developed a pattern for me. Right,
Speaker 2: So it's not even something that you would logically say, oh,
Speaker 2: my dad's still around, I shouldn't have any abandonment is
Speaker 2: shoes with men? So sometimes you have to dig a
Speaker 2: little bit deeper. Is that right?
Speaker 1: Absolutely? Absolutely? And then I get really curious about the
Speaker 1: belief systems. Right, what are your beliefs about relationships and
Speaker 1: beliefs about man?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: And it sounds like if I was you, I might
Speaker 1: develop the belief that man will always leave me.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I mostly through my early twenties and late teens,
Speaker 2: just chose guys who were permanently stoned.
Speaker 1: That's a form of emotional and availability.
Speaker 2: That's interesting, Yeah, it is. And then I got you know,
Speaker 2: the definitive relationship of my life was an emotionally abusive
Speaker 2: one with a narcissist and a drug addict, And so
Speaker 2: that was the ultimate that's when I hit my rock bottom,
Speaker 2: and the partner that I chose after that was a
Speaker 2: very deliberate It's almost like you have to things have
Speaker 2: to get so bad that you have to go right, Well,
Speaker 2: I'm not doing that again.
Speaker 1: Yes, and hopefully not everyone has to go through that,
Speaker 1: But it sounds like you and I did, yeah, of
Speaker 1: just really getting to that place of I cannot do
Speaker 1: this again. But I think what you pointed out about
Speaker 1: the addiction piece is actually really important. People don't always
Speaker 1: associate someone who whether it's you know, marijuana, alcohol, whatever,
Speaker 1: if you're in a relationship with a substance that's your
Speaker 1: primary relationship, which that's what happens when you're an addict,
Speaker 1: then you can't be emotionally available to a partner.
Speaker 2: Interesting. Yeah, the other thing I had to learn in
Speaker 2: therapy was to depend on people and to ask for
Speaker 2: help because I internalized this idea that I think was
Speaker 2: probably quite common of gen X kids, that that was
Speaker 2: the generation where our parents were the opposite of helicopters.
Speaker 2: It was very much about free range, like they just
Speaker 2: got on with their lives and they didn't parent as
Speaker 2: a verb. They were parents, but they didn't parent and
Speaker 2: It's not that we were neglected in a malevolent way.
Speaker 2: It was kind of benevolent neglect. We just kind of
Speaker 2: ran off and did our own thing. And I think
Speaker 2: that what that taught a lot of us was that
Speaker 2: we just had to take care of ourselves and that
Speaker 2: we couldn't depend on anyone else. Do you see that
Speaker 2: in Gen X clients?
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, Actually, it's fascinating when you look at the research,
Speaker 1: avoid an attachment style is the fastest growing attachment style,
Speaker 1: and I do think that there was a lot of
Speaker 1: that cultural and influence of hyper independence being sort of
Speaker 1: the goal of how we're supposed to be. Yeah, Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: social media and just the age that we're in of
Speaker 1: I call it pseudo connection for that term, we're not
Speaker 1: really deeply connecting like we used to do. It's really
Speaker 1: leading to more of that hyper independence. I'm an island,
Speaker 1: I'm you know, my own person, and I can't depend
Speaker 1: on others. There's just such an increase of that really
Speaker 1: in our world.
Speaker 2: Are there patterns for different ages like the gen z's,
Speaker 2: millennials and X's have generally similar attachment styles or is
Speaker 2: it very individual?
Speaker 1: That's a great question. I think the research I looked
Speaker 1: at I can really speak to gen Z and that's
Speaker 1: where they were seeing a lot of an increase in
Speaker 1: avoidant attachment style.
Speaker 2: That's really interesting because parenting now has become so much
Speaker 2: about helicoptering. You know, Glenn Doyle talks about the memo
Speaker 2: that every generation of parents gets given at the hospital
Speaker 2: about you know, gen X's parents were like, you know,
Speaker 2: here's a kid, go off, have your life, you know,
Speaker 2: make sure you feed in water them and love them.
Speaker 2: But the memo that we got as parents is do
Speaker 2: not let this baby ever have a negative experience or
Speaker 2: a negative emotion. You must clear every obstacle in their path.
Speaker 2: It's like the opposite of abandonment, right. It almost breeds
Speaker 2: a codependence. What attachment style is that likely to create?
Speaker 1: So that can lead to both avoidant attachment or anxious attachment,
Speaker 1: And I think we don't always associate it with avoidant attachment,
Speaker 1: but think about it this way. If you have that
Speaker 1: feeling of wow, this person is intrusive, right, being sort
Speaker 1: of almost taken over, then that that teaches you that
Speaker 1: intimacy does not feel good. So avoidant attachment can be
Speaker 1: sort of a rebellion to helicopter parenting of Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: going to go be an island because intimacy does not
Speaker 1: feel seen.
Speaker 2: Are you learning so much? I am learning so much.
Speaker 2: So much is making sense to me about my past,
Speaker 2: about my present, and not just my romantic relationships, but
Speaker 2: friendships and other relationships as well. And I guess I
Speaker 2: never really understood the difference between interdependency and codependency the
Speaker 2: way she explained it so clearly. That was actually amazing,
Speaker 2: particularly for those of us who were consider ourselves really independent.
Speaker 2: Repetition compulsion is another really useful term that I had
Speaker 2: never heard of before. That really helped me understand why
Speaker 2: so many of us seek out relationships that trigger us
Speaker 2: instead of healers and makes a lot of sense. I
Speaker 2: had a ton more questions for Dr Morgan, including the
Speaker 2: science of the ick. I wanted to understand how attachment
Speaker 2: theory plays into the ick and what are five things
Speaker 2: that she would never allow in a relationship again, And
Speaker 2: also I wanted to understand about sex and desire because
Speaker 2: she's got a lot to say about that. That's all
Speaker 2: in Part two. I'll meet you there. There's a link
Speaker 2: in the show notes