Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties,
Speaker 1: the podcast where we talk through some of the big
Speaker 1: life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they
Speaker 1: mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, welcome back to the show.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the podcast. The new listeners or listeners
Speaker 1: wherever you are in the world, it is so great
Speaker 1: to have you here. Back for another episode as we
Speaker 1: break down the psychology of our twenties. A question I
Speaker 1: get a lot on the podcast is how to date
Speaker 1: as someone who is anxiously attached, How to date as
Speaker 1: someone who has a lot of anxiety and kind of
Speaker 1: worry to do with romantic attachment, to do with intimacy,
Speaker 1: to do with connection. Think that it is a lot
Speaker 1: more common in this day and age than we perhaps acknowledge.
Speaker 1: So I thought today, what a great opportunity to break
Speaker 1: down what attachment theory is, some of the misconceptions about it,
Speaker 1: and then focus in on those of us who are
Speaker 1: dating with an anxious attachment style, what that looks like
Speaker 1: in a relationship, and how we can kind of move
Speaker 1: past these tendencies. Of course, we had to bring on
Speaker 1: a guest, Hyae Gibson, who knows so much more about
Speaker 1: this than I do. She is incredible. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: I'm so excited. So for those of you who don't know,
Speaker 1: Tays has this incredible YouTube channel which I'm going to
Speaker 1: refer to first where and a lot of other things
Speaker 1: as well. But the YouTube channel was really how I
Speaker 1: kind of like began to consume your wisdom and your
Speaker 1: work where you break down a lot to do with
Speaker 1: attachment theory and dating not just in our twenties but
Speaker 1: at all ages. But can you give the listeners kind
Speaker 1: of a little bit of a little bit of a
Speaker 1: blurb of who you are.
Speaker 2: Yes. So basically I run a business called the Personal
Speaker 2: Development School. We put all sorts of content on YouTube.
Speaker 2: I am like obsessed with attachment style of people. I
Speaker 2: just love human behavior. I love talking about dating and
Speaker 2: relationships has been a huge passion of mine. And I
Speaker 2: actually ran a client based practice for about ten years
Speaker 2: and just had a very long wait list of like
Speaker 2: two years or so, and so it was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: that's not really the best solution, So how do I
Speaker 2: kind of reach more people in a way that makes sense.
Speaker 2: So we eventually put a whole bunch of different online
Speaker 2: courses together have the Personal Development School. I've written a
Speaker 2: couple books and basically put up free content on YouTube
Speaker 2: all the time, like almost every day, lots of information,
Speaker 2: and there's a big focus specifically around dating, attachment theory,
Speaker 2: the subconscious mind, and like really how to change our
Speaker 2: attachment style.
Speaker 1: Because I think attachment style is this thing that maybe
Speaker 1: you're thinking about it, but it really is kind of
Speaker 1: in the backdrop of a lot of our decisions and
Speaker 1: a lot of our actions, particularly when it comes to love,
Speaker 1: but any kind of relationship. So making people more consciously
Speaker 1: aware of it is so so valuable because I think
Speaker 1: attachment theory is one of those phenomena where, once you
Speaker 1: understand it, so much about your life begins to make
Speaker 1: sense so much about your life. It's like suddenly crystal clear.
Speaker 1: Are you able to like briefly break down what attachment
Speaker 1: theory is for people who might not have an understanding.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, So, first of all, I think what everybody needs
Speaker 2: to know is that every single person has what we
Speaker 2: call an attachment style. So attachment theory is basically the
Speaker 2: work of John Boll. We originally done and he talked
Speaker 2: about how our relationship in terms of how we learn
Speaker 2: love and can action. In other words, how we learn
Speaker 2: to attach to our caregivers in childhood basically become the
Speaker 2: set of rules that we think for our adult lives
Speaker 2: in terms of what love is supposed to look like.
Speaker 2: So we sort of take these rules, these ideas, but
Speaker 2: how we're supposed to attach to others, what connections supposed
Speaker 2: to look like, and we essentially start living our adult
Speaker 2: romantic relationships by those rules. But I found when I
Speaker 2: first went back into attachment theory there were a couple
Speaker 2: of things missing. Number one was this idea of, okay, well,
Speaker 2: what if we don't have a healthy set of rules, right,
Speaker 2: what if we have an insecure attachment style? There really
Speaker 2: wasn't much an information on how we can change to
Speaker 2: become securely attached. And the second thing is, you know,
Speaker 2: there's not a ton of information about how each of
Speaker 2: the different attachment styles interact with one another. And that's
Speaker 2: like really mind blowing, Like when you said a moment
Speaker 2: ago that if we have, you know, the awareness of
Speaker 2: what each of the attachment styles are, suddenly everything kind
Speaker 2: of makes sense. You know, before we understand that every
Speaker 2: single person has an attachment style, and this is a
Speaker 2: subconscious set of rules we have for love. Often what
Speaker 2: we don't realize is happening is it's almost like we're
Speaker 2: sitting down, and if you can imagine as an analogy,
Speaker 2: we sit down, we try to play a board game
Speaker 2: with somebody, but they have a different set of rules
Speaker 2: for how the game is supposed to be played, Like
Speaker 2: you have the rules for scrabble. I have the rules
Speaker 2: for monopoly, like it's gonna be k And so when
Speaker 2: we finally can realize, oh, we just have different rule
Speaker 2: books and oh, now I know what your rule book is,
Speaker 2: I can read it. Oh you know my rule book,
Speaker 2: we can find a way to work things out and
Speaker 2: to create something new and something amazing. But without that,
Speaker 2: we usually personalize everything so much and we take on
Speaker 2: all this confusion. So because of that, there's four major
Speaker 2: attachment styles that everybody really needs to know and understand,
Speaker 2: and every single person has one of these four styles.
Speaker 2: So the first style is statistically the style that does
Speaker 2: the best in relationships has the easiest time. They are
Speaker 2: called the secure attachment style. Securely attached people essentially get
Speaker 2: a lot of really healthy parenting in childhood, so they
Speaker 2: get a few key really crucial components number one is
Speaker 2: they learn that if they cry or express emotion, their
Speaker 2: parent uses something called approach oriented behavior basically goes towards them,
Speaker 2: wants to understand what's going on, tries to meet their needs.
Speaker 2: Number two. Because they try to meet their needs, they
Speaker 2: feel the child feels safe relying on other people and
Speaker 2: expressing their feeling and expressing their needs to others, and
Speaker 2: they learn to trust. Number three and number four. Because
Speaker 2: of all of this, they feel this deeper sense of
Speaker 2: self worth, like I'm just loved for who I am.
Speaker 2: My needs are worthy of being met by others, just because,
Speaker 2: you know, not because I earned it, not because I'm
Speaker 2: good enough or did something for it, but just because
Speaker 2: I exist. And so securely attached children grow up to
Speaker 2: be adults with a really healthy rule book. They they think, Hey,
Speaker 2: I can meet other people's needs, I can listen to
Speaker 2: their emotions, I can express my own, I can express
Speaker 2: my own needs. Healthy boundaries are okay, I'm worthy of
Speaker 2: love for who I am. I don't have to earn
Speaker 2: it all the time. And so securely attached individuals. Statistically,
Speaker 2: according to the last like Real big survey of research
Speaker 2: about twenty years ago, was make up about fifty percent
Speaker 2: of people. Research more recently, in smaller sample sizes seems
Speaker 2: to show that number is declining quite rapidly, closer to
Speaker 2: about thirty percent of people are securely attached, and they
Speaker 2: statistically do the best in relationships. But again that's roughly
Speaker 2: maybe thirty percent or thirty percent of people overall that
Speaker 2: are secure attachment styles. So then we have the other three.
Speaker 2: On one side, there's the anxious preoccupied, the anxiously attached
Speaker 2: style you can think of it as, and essentially the
Speaker 2: anxious attachment style. What they do is in their childhood
Speaker 2: they have a lot of love and care, but a
Speaker 2: lot of inconsistency around it. So a really common example
Speaker 2: would be that, like, both parents are very loving, but
Speaker 2: they work a lot, and so the child has a
Speaker 2: lot of love, but the parents are constantly coming and going,
Speaker 2: that maybe the child staying with the grandparents who they're
Speaker 2: not as close with, and so the child keeps having
Speaker 2: love that's given and then taken away, love that's given
Speaker 2: and then taken away. And what's really interesting about that
Speaker 2: is how the subconscious mind gets programmed is through repetition
Speaker 2: and emotion. So if you have this repeated experience of
Speaker 2: love being given and then love being taken. It actually
Speaker 2: conditions into the subconscious mind of fear of abandonment, and
Speaker 2: so anxiously attached individuals as adults really fear abandonment, really
Speaker 2: fear being alone, fear being not good enough or excluded
Speaker 2: or disliked, and they really try as a cobe mechanism
Speaker 2: to maintain proximity to the people that they love. They
Speaker 2: try to hold on really tight, and sometimes that can
Speaker 2: make them a little bit clinging in relationships. And then
Speaker 2: on the far other end of the continuum, we have
Speaker 2: dismissive avoidant attachment style, who's pretty much the opposite. They
Speaker 2: grow up with some form of childhood emotional neglect, and
Speaker 2: what that means is that essentially, even if like food
Speaker 2: is on the table, even if it's not like overt neglect,
Speaker 2: it's more like under the radar neglect, we'll see that
Speaker 2: the dismissive avoidance essentially like because children are wired for connection,
Speaker 2: for atonement, if a child growing up who's yearning for
Speaker 2: that connection, that presence from their caregivers doesn't have it,
Speaker 2: they just go, Okay, well, it hurts to be this
Speaker 2: vulnerable and to feel like my needs won't get me,
Speaker 2: So I'm going to adapt to this by just denying
Speaker 2: that I need connection from other people. And so dismissive
Speaker 2: avoidance push all their feelings down. They actually get conditioned
Speaker 2: to think because of their feelings not being made space for,
Speaker 2: they get conditioned to think that feelings are weak, useless,
Speaker 2: negative in some way, so they deny and reject that
Speaker 2: part of themselves. They think that part of themselves is
Speaker 2: almost like defective in a way, and they shove it down.
Speaker 2: And because of that, as adults, they're terrified of getting
Speaker 2: too close to people. They're terrified of like opening up,
Speaker 2: getting too close, feeling like they did as a child,
Speaker 2: feeling weak and vulnerable with our emotional needs couldn't get met,
Speaker 2: And so as adults they often like cut relationships out
Speaker 2: when things get real. They'll tend to be afraid of commitment,
Speaker 2: or just when things are getting too close, they'll run
Speaker 2: the other direction. So that's our dismissive avoidance. And then,
Speaker 2: very last, but not least, this is the least common
Speaker 2: attachment style, but I think it is statistically more common
Speaker 2: than people probably realize, is the fearful avoidant. So the
Speaker 2: fearful avoidant grows up in a household where there's basically
Speaker 2: extreme conditions. So let's say, for example, that there's tons
Speaker 2: of fighting in the house, right, so you never know
Speaker 2: what you're gonna get you come home. Sometimes it's peace,
Speaker 2: sometimes it's chaos. Sometimes Mom is in a good mood.
Speaker 2: Sometimes that's in a terrible mood. Sometimes it's flipped or
Speaker 2: Another really common example for what creates a fearful avoidant
Speaker 2: attachment style is that we might have a parent, for example,
Speaker 2: who's an alcoholic. So let's just say like one day
Speaker 2: Mom is drinking child, the mom comes home, child teeth. Mom,
Speaker 2: she's in a good mood, she's had a few drinks,
Speaker 2: she's super loving and in a great mood. Then another
Speaker 2: day Mom comes home, she's had a way too many
Speaker 2: drinks and she's an angry drunk. Today. Another day mom's
Speaker 2: so boring up, she feels guilty, she's being kind. Another
Speaker 2: day mom's sobering up, she's going through withdrawal, she's in
Speaker 2: a terrible mood. So fearful avoids grow up in this
Speaker 2: space where number one, they get conflicting ideas about love,
Speaker 2: something that sometimes has really nice experiences sometimes has really
Speaker 2: terrifying experiences. So they want love, but they are afraid
Speaker 2: of it at the same time. And also they feel
Speaker 2: like they never know what they're going to get, so
Speaker 2: they're super hyper vigilant, always walking on eggshells. They kind
Speaker 2: of struggle to trust in relationships, and they're very hot
Speaker 2: and cold. It's like, come get close to me, Come
Speaker 2: get close. You get close, and it's like, no, I
Speaker 2: change my mind, get away. And so they're very hot
Speaker 2: and cold, and they actually share attributes of both the
Speaker 2: anxious and avoidant side, but they go back and forth
Speaker 2: between those sides on a really, really frequent basis.
Speaker 1: That is such a good summary. I'm like listening to that,
Speaker 1: and the point you made about parents who like work
Speaker 1: a lot is so valuable because I think often we
Speaker 1: just tend to imagine that it's extreme trauma that creates
Speaker 1: anything but a secure attachment style, but it really is
Speaker 1: just any kind of inconsistencies, as you said in the
Speaker 1: love and the compassion and the support that we're shown.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you something here that it has
Speaker 1: been on my mind like a lot. Is it just
Speaker 1: childhood experiences that create your attachment style or can of
Speaker 1: equally be molded by early relationship experiences or even free
Speaker 1: like recent relationship.
Speaker 2: Experiences amazing question. So we're not born with an attachment style.
Speaker 2: It forms over time based on the conditions were repeatedly
Speaker 2: exposed to. So because as children we basically like we're
Speaker 2: sort of in what we can call a hyper scartestable state,
Speaker 2: meaning that we are like really sponging up all of
Speaker 2: our programs in childhood, we're very impressionable. A lot of
Speaker 2: our programming runs deep, So our childhood attachment style is
Speaker 2: formed at a very early age and it often sticks
Speaker 2: with us for quite some time. But anything we are
Speaker 2: repeatedly exposed to for long enough that causes a big impact. Again,
Speaker 2: that like repetition and emotion is what program is a
Speaker 2: subconscious mind, then it can absolutely reprogram our attachment style.
Speaker 2: So for example, somebody could be secure see their parents
Speaker 2: go through a really awful divorce at fifteen, and that
Speaker 2: could make them fearful avoidant or anxious. Or another example
Speaker 2: is you could be anxiously attached, get into a relationship
Speaker 2: with a narcissist. At the end of that relationship, you're
Speaker 2: now a fearful avoidant because there's a lot more substantial
Speaker 2: chaos and trauma. So our attachment cell can absolutely change,
Speaker 2: but you can think of the prerequisite as being it's
Speaker 2: less likely to be one experience that changes it, but
Speaker 2: more for your attachment style to change, there has to
Speaker 2: be a lot of repeated exposure to something different.
Speaker 1: That's really important to note. It's the repetition that really counts.
Speaker 1: It's not like you've had you've been ghosted one time
Speaker 1: by someone on a dating app, and suddenly you're like
Speaker 1: an anxious avoidant, like it's a it's a repeat kind
Speaker 1: of experience. So I really want to focus on the
Speaker 1: anxious attachment style here, because, as you said, we have
Speaker 1: secure that's the most common. Anxious is the second most common,
Speaker 1: and it's increasing in prevalence in probably a lot in
Speaker 1: this current generation. I have two questions for you. A
Speaker 1: why do you think that is? And B what does
Speaker 1: that What kind of consequences does that have for how
Speaker 1: we approach dating?
Speaker 2: Really read question? So I think there's two. There's a
Speaker 2: couple of reasons, right. I think one of the biggest ones,
Speaker 2: just quite honestly, is like kind of cultural at this point,
Speaker 2: and a lot of the Western world at least, but
Speaker 2: you know, really the vast majority of the world as
Speaker 2: a whole Unfortunately, there's a lot of pressure, right, so
Speaker 2: we don't have what we had twenty years ago, thirty
Speaker 2: years ago, forty years ago, where we had one parent
Speaker 2: able to stay home. And one of the biggest impactors
Speaker 2: for what creates somebody's attachment style is the amount of
Speaker 2: presence they have. And I don't mean like gifts. I
Speaker 2: mean like the amount of attunement the person, the parent
Speaker 2: being physically present. And you know, because we have usually
Speaker 2: both parents working in a household nowadays, a lot of
Speaker 2: that kind of you know, even if the parents and
Speaker 2: caregivers are loving, often children have to go to daycare
Speaker 2: young and you know that's not me saying anything towards parents,
Speaker 2: like usually because of societal pressures, like literally there's no choice.
Speaker 2: But you can see how that context is sort of
Speaker 2: being set. The stage is being set to create more
Speaker 2: anxiously attached children because they don't have as much connection
Speaker 2: and care coming from their parents in the same way,
Speaker 2: because it's literally not possible for the vast majority of people.
Speaker 2: And I think what happens is because of that, what
Speaker 2: you'll see is anxiously attached individual. It's like they really
Speaker 2: one of their biggest challenges that they'll have with dating
Speaker 2: is that they don't properly vet what they want because
Speaker 2: they get too busy people pleasing. So when I would
Speaker 2: have clients who would come to me from different attachment
Speaker 2: styles back when I was running my practice, I would
Speaker 2: often have dismissive avoidance. They would sit down and they
Speaker 2: would be like, too picky, you know, as soon as
Speaker 2: they saw one flaw, they'd run in the other direction
Speaker 2: and dating. And then we'd have anxiously attached individuals who
Speaker 2: are not picky enough. They're not like getting clear on
Speaker 2: what they're looking for, what they really want in a relationship,
Speaker 2: what their standards are. So rather than properly vetting somebody
Speaker 2: when they were dating, they would find somebody who's interested
Speaker 2: in them as long as I thought that person was
Speaker 2: moderately attractive and they moderately got along with them. They
Speaker 2: would then spend that whole first dating stage of the
Speaker 2: relationship trying to win the person over through people pleasing,
Speaker 2: through you know, sort of putting on their best behavior
Speaker 2: all the time, rather than by being like, is this
Speaker 2: person actually a good fit for me? And rather than
Speaker 2: expressing their needs and talking about their boundaries and seeing
Speaker 2: if that someone's a good fit into their lives as well,
Speaker 2: and there's a huge impact in dating that way, because
Speaker 2: then we're not picking the right potential partners. And also,
Speaker 2: people statistically are less attracted to people pleasers than they
Speaker 2: are to people who have a strong sense of self,
Speaker 2: and so we may not realize that. I think anxious,
Speaker 2: preoccupied individuals kind of think that like if I'm people
Speaker 2: pleasing and I'm more agreeable and I say yes to
Speaker 2: everything that they oh, then we get along and then
Speaker 2: everything's easy and then I'll be liked and accepted and
Speaker 2: I'll win them over. But actually it usually works against
Speaker 2: them if they don't have this appropriate set of standards
Speaker 2: for themselves. They say what's okay with them and what's
Speaker 2: not okay with them, and if they're not backing themselves, statistically,
Speaker 2: people are actually less attracted to that.
Speaker 1: Overall, that makes a lot of sense. I think it's
Speaker 1: it makes sense, but it's also so unfair because if
Speaker 1: you think about the people who people please like, often
Speaker 1: it does come from a very deep like childhood abandonment
Speaker 1: wound or a guilt wound, where yeah, well you feel
Speaker 1: like I need to make everybody else happy because otherwise
Speaker 1: I am unsafe and because otherwise I do not get
Speaker 1: the connection and the attachment that I crave. So when
Speaker 1: it comes to these kind of like people pleasing tendencies,
Speaker 1: you firstly mentioned that sometimes it results in us choosing
Speaker 1: partners who might actually in the long term not be
Speaker 1: right for us, might not actually be a good match.
Speaker 1: What does it then look like when we get into
Speaker 1: the relationship past the first you know, honeymoon period where
Speaker 1: everyone's on their best behavior, everyone's trying to win the
Speaker 1: other person over. When you get deeper into the relationship,
Speaker 1: assuming this person is actually right for you, what kind
Speaker 1: of starts to show up in our behavior?
Speaker 2: Amazing questions. These are fantastic questions. So before I dive
Speaker 2: into that was just for a moment, I want to
Speaker 2: say one other thing, because you've said something really powerful,
Speaker 2: which is that when you know it's sort of unfair,
Speaker 2: because when somebody is like trying to people please, it's
Speaker 2: coming from this deep childhood trauma. Is actually what it
Speaker 2: is like, this abandonment wound of feeling afraid of being
Speaker 2: out on their own and then being unsafe or being
Speaker 2: disliked or rejected, And when anxious individuals are actually feeling
Speaker 2: anxiously attached, like when that anxious attachment and they're needing
Speaker 2: to call or text or maintain proximity when they're feeling
Speaker 2: like that. I think something that's understated is that that's
Speaker 2: actually a trauma response for somebody that's actually them when
Speaker 2: you feel that panic in your body and your conscious
Speaker 2: mind knows better like don't call them again, or give
Speaker 2: them space, or or you have to put your phone
Speaker 2: in the other room and shut it off, or you
Speaker 2: know these kinds of things, and yet you can't help
Speaker 2: it and eventually do make that phone call again or
Speaker 2: eventually do reach back out. That's actually trauma response, And
Speaker 2: so there is something disheartening about that. And at the
Speaker 2: same time, I think it's really important to look at
Speaker 2: the sort of silver lining of it too, which is
Speaker 2: that exactly what you need to do to be successful
Speaker 2: in dating is also exactly what you need to do
Speaker 2: to heal yourself and to feel better actually heal from
Speaker 2: those childhood wounds. So with the acknowledgment of that stuff,
Speaker 2: and I'm sure we can get into all that stuff
Speaker 2: in a little bit like what that looks like, but
Speaker 2: just with the acknowledgment of, like, this really sucks that
Speaker 2: I have these wounds and they're painful at the same time,
Speaker 2: noticing them and acknowledging them and being able to work
Speaker 2: through them in your dating life will also help you
Speaker 2: feel so much more secure and confident and at peace
Speaker 2: within yourself. So it's very healing. So there's it's like
Speaker 2: a crisis and an opportunity, if that makes sense. So
Speaker 2: so going back to what you were talking about, basically,
Speaker 2: an anxious attachment style and a relationship has a few
Speaker 2: core things, so they will tend to in that dating
Speaker 2: stage specifically start you know, people pleasing, trying to win
Speaker 2: the person over, and if anybody who's listening is not familiar,
Speaker 2: we actually have six stages of a relationship, so we
Speaker 2: start off with a dating stage, which is actually meant
Speaker 2: to be the vetting stage. Then we go into the
Speaker 2: honeymoon stage of a relationship and that's that like honeymoon period,
Speaker 2: but the mask is usually still on during that period.
Speaker 2: After that, when people start getting more comfortable, they start
Speaker 2: dropping the mask and that becomes the power struggle stage.
Speaker 2: Every relationship has one, and the more you are people
Speaker 2: pleasing and not being yourself in the dating and honeymoon stage,
Speaker 2: the harder the power struggle stage will be and then
Speaker 2: after the power struggle stage, if we make it through
Speaker 2: the rights of passage, which are really about being vulnerable
Speaker 2: and learning to show ourselves and share ourselves with our partners,
Speaker 2: then we get into the stability stage. Then that's followed
Speaker 2: by the commitment stage, where we start talking about really
Speaker 2: long term commitments marriage, children, living together, et cetera. And
Speaker 2: then we get to the bliss stage, which is like
Speaker 2: the honeymoon stage, but where you actually deeply know each other.
Speaker 2: So what happens for a lot of anxious attachments to
Speaker 2: your earlier point is that we can get into a
Speaker 2: place where it's like you're so busy trying to win
Speaker 2: the person over and be on your best behavior that
Speaker 2: you don't ever share who you really are, what your
Speaker 2: real needs are in a relationship. And if you do
Speaker 2: share them, you share them retroactively. So rather than saying like, hey,
Speaker 2: I could use some support, can you do the dishes,
Speaker 2: it's like, hey, I hold that in I don't ever
Speaker 2: ask for the support, And then finally one day I'm like,
Speaker 2: you never do the dishes, And then you know it's
Speaker 2: that doesn't land with somebody that we care about because
Speaker 2: they just feel criticized because anxiously attach people even though
Speaker 2: we think that they're so emotionally available. People pleasing is
Speaker 2: not an emotionally available thing. People pleasing is I'm hiding right,
Speaker 2: I'm not truly being myself. I'm not sharing myself with
Speaker 2: you out of a fear of rejection. And so that's
Speaker 2: gonna cost me something in the power struggle stage. And
Speaker 2: so what ends up taking place is is an anxious
Speaker 2: attachment style. They usually, you know, sort of date, so
Speaker 2: they they're so good at trying to win people over
Speaker 2: in the dating and honeymoon stage, and then when the
Speaker 2: power struggle comes on, they really see a lot of
Speaker 2: turbulence in their relationships at that point. And what they'll
Speaker 2: start to see is that they feel really unseen by
Speaker 2: their partners, unheard, like their needs don't matter. Sometimes they
Speaker 2: can feel resentful because they're usually like pouring into the
Speaker 2: relationship with somebody and then feeling like they're not getting
Speaker 2: their needs met back. Then that can cause them to
Speaker 2: be slightly critical in their communication, which then often causes
Speaker 2: the other person to just shut down and meet their
Speaker 2: needs even less than they already are. And then we'll
Speaker 2: often see anxious, preoccupied attachment styles have a lot of
Speaker 2: fears come up when they see their partner pull back
Speaker 2: and then try to sort of maintain that proximity, try
Speaker 2: to get closer, and often we can get stuck in
Speaker 2: these cycles where we keep trying to get closer, the
Speaker 2: person poles away, keep trying to get closer, the person
Speaker 2: poles away, and it can be really painful for the
Speaker 2: anxiously attached style, especially in the power struggle stage of relationships.
Speaker 1: So in the power struggle stage, what are we like
Speaker 1: most likely to see because I've not heard about this before.
Speaker 1: I knew about obviously the honeymoon stage in the bliss stage,
Speaker 1: but I never I've never heard about this power struggle moment.
Speaker 2: So the power struggle stage statistically is the stage where
Speaker 2: most people break up in relationships, and it is one
Speaker 2: of the most challenging stages. But again I really find
Speaker 2: it to be it's like the same thing, right, It's
Speaker 2: like a crisis in an opportunity. It's really hard, and
Speaker 2: it also presents the most opportunity for building really deep
Speaker 2: roots in a relationship. So in the power struggle, one
Speaker 2: of the rights of passage to make it out of
Speaker 2: the power struggle is being vulnerable with our partners, really
Speaker 2: letting somebody see us, like what our real fears are,
Speaker 2: what our concerns are for anxious preoccupies. That involves things like,
Speaker 2: you know, sharing that sometimes they need reassurance or sometimes
Speaker 2: they need certainty, you know, letting their partner know if
Speaker 2: you cancel plans, I'm okay with the plans canceled sometimes,
Speaker 2: but try to rebook them or tell me when we're
Speaker 2: going to meet next, or you know, so them asking
Speaker 2: for Hey, I can be flexible, but I still need
Speaker 2: you to see that these are my needs and these
Speaker 2: are the things that are important to me. So it
Speaker 2: really requires a lot of expression vulnerably about their needs,
Speaker 2: about their fears. And what that opportunity becomes is when
Speaker 2: I lower my mask and I start sharing who I
Speaker 2: am with you without conditions, I now present the opportunity
Speaker 2: to be loved in a more unconditional way. Because when
Speaker 2: I'm only sharing who I am with conditions, you can
Speaker 2: only love me conditionally. That's all I make space for.
Speaker 2: And so what's going to end up happening is I'm
Speaker 2: going to constantly, if I was anxiously attached, feel this
Speaker 2: sense of like you don't see me you don't hear me,
Speaker 2: you don't really care about me, and it'll feel defeating
Speaker 2: and saddening. But if instead we can drop the mask,
Speaker 2: we can share in a healthy way, be more vulnerable,
Speaker 2: gain that acceptance from our partner, and also have our
Speaker 2: partner do the same thing. That's where we now build
Speaker 2: real roots in a relationship where we can really deep
Speaker 2: in love and what it means to be loved, and
Speaker 2: that sets us up for success in the future stages.
Speaker 2: So it's tricky, and we'll generally see the most fighting
Speaker 2: in the power struggle stage, the most bickering arguments, push
Speaker 2: pull kind of behaviors, but if we can do it properly,
Speaker 2: we also see tremendous success coming out on the other side.
Speaker 1: It's so fascinating to hear you say that, because I
Speaker 1: think I'm applying that to my own relationship. And we
Speaker 1: were speaking about this before we started recording, about how
Speaker 1: I think he used to be someone who is very
Speaker 1: anxiously attached, and then I met someone who really challenged
Speaker 1: me and in the best ways possible, and like challenged
Speaker 1: me with healthy love such that the little tendencies that
Speaker 1: I'd built up, the defensive mechanisms like they just didn't
Speaker 1: work anymore. I used to always have this sense of
Speaker 1: like it was almost like a game, right. I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't want you to leave me. Oh, I don't
Speaker 1: want you to not reply to my messages, so I'm
Speaker 1: not going to reply to yours. And he was like, no,
Speaker 1: we're not playing those games anymore. Why are you feeling
Speaker 1: so anxious about this? Like, let's have a discussion. And
Speaker 1: it was so hard, Like it was actually really difficult
Speaker 1: in that stage to force myself to be vulnerable and
Speaker 1: to be like, I'm experiencing a lot of anxiety right
Speaker 1: now that you're going to walk away, that you're going
Speaker 1: to leave me. That small thing where you didn't hug
Speaker 1: me when you first walked through the door, that was
Speaker 1: really it was a really huge alarm bell for me.
Speaker 1: And it was so like they said, difficult, But I
Speaker 1: always think that vulnerability is met with huge emotional personal
Speaker 1: social relationship reward, because you showing up as yourself and
Speaker 1: you're being like, I'm going to do the hard thing here.
Speaker 1: I'm going to be incredibly open with this person, knowing
Speaker 1: that they could say the wrong thing, but taking that
Speaker 1: risk anyways. And I do always think that you come
Speaker 1: out the other side with a lot a better understanding
Speaker 1: at least of who that person is.
Speaker 2: And you know it's real, Like the fear is real
Speaker 2: when you have those conversations, like I can remember the
Speaker 2: first time I was a fearful avoidant attachment, so that
Speaker 2: I can remember the first time I shared about having
Speaker 2: a fear in a relationship about But it was with
Speaker 2: my now husband, but at the time we were going
Speaker 2: through like sort of our own power struggle and I
Speaker 2: had to open up and share that I had this
Speaker 2: fear of something sort of similar. Mine was like more
Speaker 2: about like betrayal, and and it was funny because it
Speaker 2: was not really based on anything at the time except
Speaker 2: my own stories about something. But I remember being so terrified, thinking,
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, I can't believe I'm sharing this with
Speaker 2: somebody in scared of feeling weak or rejected or too vulnerable.
Speaker 2: But it's like the change when we learn to do
Speaker 2: that work is so beautiful, because you know, if we're
Speaker 2: in a relationship where someone with somebody we vetted a
Speaker 2: little bit and who's a good fit, people respond way
Speaker 2: more than I think we imagine. Because as a child,
Speaker 2: if you couldn't get your needs met. That's all your programming.
Speaker 2: You're like, oh, well, then my needs will not be met.
Speaker 2: So I have to keep people pleasing or I have
Speaker 2: to keep holding back and not saying anything. And so
Speaker 2: we assume that onto our partners. We tend to project
Speaker 2: that onto our present if that was our experience as children,
Speaker 2: But as an adult, it's actually very different, right. We
Speaker 2: can communicate differently, We can share things more, we have
Speaker 2: emotional literacy, we can talk things out in a different
Speaker 2: way that we didn't have access to as a child.
Speaker 2: So we get to heal all of these different underlying programs.
Speaker 2: And when we communicate our needs, we actually give ourselves
Speaker 2: the opportunity to have people show up for us and
Speaker 2: I can share from my experience. I'm curious about yours.
Speaker 2: But for me, one of the most beautiful things I
Speaker 2: learned is that when I actually shared about my needs
Speaker 2: and I actually took the courage and and the risk
Speaker 2: of being vulnerable, I actually felt so much more loved
Speaker 2: by all the people in my life because they really
Speaker 2: did shop and they weren't perfect, and if they weren't perfect,
Speaker 2: they could go back and have a conversation again. But
Speaker 2: like I couldn't believe how much I actually felt like
Speaker 2: I could receive love from other people when I did that,
Speaker 2: And I'm curious to hear if you felt that as.
Speaker 1: Well, one hundred percent, and not just in terms of
Speaker 1: my partner, Like I remember having like this conversation with
Speaker 1: him where I was like, these are my fears and
Speaker 1: then looking at him afterwards and being like, oh, right,
Speaker 1: so like this is what the next stage about love
Speaker 1: looks like, and being like, I am so in love
Speaker 1: with you right now because you met me here. And
Speaker 1: it was also something that I started doing with my friends,
Speaker 1: so I had a lot of anxiety around friendships fizzling out,
Speaker 1: this preoccupation with this idea that my friends really didn't
Speaker 1: like me, they didn't want to be around me, like
Speaker 1: and or. I would just experience a lot of loneliness,
Speaker 1: even when it was unjustified. And I remember there was
Speaker 1: like this light bulb moment. And it may seem so
Speaker 1: common sense to people listening to this, you're already applying
Speaker 1: these tactics, but I just like messaged my friend and
Speaker 1: was like, I am just feeling really low right now.
Speaker 1: And it's not that I'm feeling like everything in my
Speaker 1: life is great, but I just really need connection from you,
Speaker 1: and I just really need you to call me and
Speaker 1: just like give me a bit of reassurance. And she
Speaker 1: did it, and she was like, Yeah, let's do something
Speaker 1: this weekend, let's go to the beach. And it was
Speaker 1: this weird thing where you're exactly right. As a child,
Speaker 1: you don't know how to ask for that. You can't
Speaker 1: be like, hey, mom, can you stop working late? Because
Speaker 1: I've identified that I'm on the way to beginning like
Speaker 1: anxiously attached, like you're sometimes non verbal, like that's not
Speaker 1: a way that you can operate. But then as you
Speaker 1: become an adult, it's like, wow, it's so crazy to
Speaker 1: realize that, especially as someone who maybe was anxious or
Speaker 1: any of those number of insecure attachment styles, just speaking
Speaker 1: your needs a lot of the time means that they
Speaker 1: will be met.
Speaker 2: It's so beautiful. And I just love like talking about
Speaker 2: things like this because it's so powerful, Like, you know,
Speaker 2: having also witnessed that firsthand with so many like friendships,
Speaker 2: family relationships, like how much we actually allow ourselves to
Speaker 2: be loved by people we care about so much when
Speaker 2: we do those things and it's like such a rewarding
Speaker 2: experience and for people who like maybe think of this, like,
Speaker 2: what if the person doesn't show up, Well, that might happen,
Speaker 2: But then those people aren't really meant to be in
Speaker 2: your inner circle anyways. You know, those people aren't meant
Speaker 2: to withstand the test of time in your life. And
Speaker 2: it's worth building relationships with people that are. It's worth
Speaker 2: going through figuring those things out so that you can
Speaker 2: have people around you who really do show up for you,
Speaker 2: who really do care about you. And I think as
Speaker 2: an anxious attachments out, it's good to also practice showing
Speaker 2: up for ourselves, Like you know, there's that part as
Speaker 2: well of self soothing. But I cannot stress enough how
Speaker 2: beautiful it is to practice that vulnerability piece.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, we're going to take a quick break and when
Speaker 1: we come back, we're going to discuss the interactions between
Speaker 1: the anxious attachment style and the avoidant attachment style. We
Speaker 1: will be back with you very shortly. Something that I
Speaker 1: have learnt recently is that the anxious attachment style is
Speaker 1: often attracted to the avoidant attachment style, whether that is
Speaker 1: fearful or dismissive. Why is that? Because that feels so counterintuitive.
Speaker 1: Surely the anxiously attached person would be most attracted to
Speaker 1: someone who was secure, but you were telling me that
Speaker 1: is not often the case.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's an amazing question. So here's what happens. So
Speaker 2: when we think of our attachment style, I want us
Speaker 2: to first think of the difference between like conscious and subconscious.
Speaker 2: So conscious mind, I'm sure everybody's had this experience in
Speaker 2: some way where they're like their mind knows better. They're
Speaker 2: going I know this is not the right fit for me,
Speaker 2: or I know I should leave this relationship that's not working,
Speaker 2: or I know that this person's like not the guy
Speaker 2: I should be dating, or not the woman that I
Speaker 2: should be, you know, and yet we repeat patterns. Well,
Speaker 2: that's the difference between our conscious and subconscious. Conscious minds
Speaker 2: can logically analyze and see things, but our subconscious is
Speaker 2: the one running the show. The subconscious is actually responsible
Speaker 2: for ninety five to ninety seven percent of our beliefs,
Speaker 2: our thoughts, our decisions, our emotions, our actions. So what
Speaker 2: happens is when we think of our attachment style, I
Speaker 2: like to get everybody in the habit of thinking of
Speaker 2: it as like the subconscious set of rules that you
Speaker 2: have about love. And when we look at tackling the subconscious.
Speaker 2: One thing that's really valuable to realize is that our
Speaker 2: subconscious mind's biggest priority is survival. So what this means
Speaker 2: is that anything that feels familiar feels safe and thus
Speaker 2: increases the chances that we're going to survive, and that's
Speaker 2: what the subconscious is seeking the most. So what's funny
Speaker 2: is that what our subconscious comfort zone is, that sort
Speaker 2: of zone that our subconscious keeps wanting to keep us
Speaker 2: in and stay in, is actually that as an anxiously
Speaker 2: attached person, the relationship you have to yourself is to
Speaker 2: constantly dismiss and avoid your own feelings, needs and desires
Speaker 2: in favor of pleasing other people, which means your subconscious
Speaker 2: comfort zone, the zone that you're used to operating in
Speaker 2: all day long, is to put your needs last, feelings last,
Speaker 2: not really care about your own boundaries, not worry too
Speaker 2: much about you being a priority, and so that's that
Speaker 2: zone of familiarity and safety to your subconscious mind. So
Speaker 2: when we're starting to invest in people or we're dating people,
Speaker 2: guess what one of the biggest factors is that drives attraction.
Speaker 2: If somebody represents the subconscious comfort zone and the relationship
Speaker 2: we have to ourselves, which means that often anxiously attach
Speaker 2: people even though they might see somebody be dismissive not
Speaker 2: make an effort pull away. The anxious attachment style often
Speaker 2: goes that doesn't feel good or that's not healthy, and
Speaker 2: yet their subconscious is like, and we love them. We
Speaker 2: really are so interested, you know, they're on our mind
Speaker 2: twenty four to seven. And so it's because that subconscious
Speaker 2: comfort is a big factor that drives attraction. So that's
Speaker 2: really why the sense of happening. And obviously both the
Speaker 2: fearful avoidant attachment style and dismissive avoidant they both tend
Speaker 2: to sort of push people away and kind of be
Speaker 2: a little bit dismissive or avoidant, which really feels familiar
Speaker 2: and like we have the butterflies that go off, which
Speaker 2: may actually be more like red flags that are being waved,
Speaker 2: but the subconscious mind doesn't know any better.
Speaker 1: Well, it's that age old sense. And I say this
Speaker 1: all the time. Sometimes our brains our bodies confuse anxiety
Speaker 1: with excitement and with the spark and with passion, when
Speaker 1: that is sometimes not true and just your brain trying
Speaker 1: to interpret a situation is more positive and is more beneficial.
Speaker 1: So this, this is really fascinating to me because obviously,
Speaker 1: what a dismissive and avoidant, fearful avoidant, and an anxiously
Speaker 1: attached person wants out of a relationship is different because
Speaker 1: what they yet, because what they're looking for in relationship
Speaker 1: is different. What they want from the relationship is different.
Speaker 1: Why is that so destructive for the anxiously attached in particular?
Speaker 2: Yeah, because exactly what they have is their subconscious comfort
Speaker 2: zone in relationship to self, which is causing them so
Speaker 2: much pain, is exactly what they end up attracting in
Speaker 2: relationships or being attracted to in other So one of
Speaker 2: the biggest things is that as anxious preoccupies, if anybody
Speaker 2: who is ap could sort of take a look, they
Speaker 2: would see that as an anxious person, anxious preoccupied person.
Speaker 2: The things that they do to themselves that hurt themselves
Speaker 2: the most is that they don't speak up for their needs.
Speaker 2: They put themselves on the back burner. They pretend like
Speaker 2: things are okay with them when they're not. You know,
Speaker 2: I think of like somebody's sitting there and somebody's hurting
Speaker 2: them and they're like, it's fine, it's not a big deal.
Speaker 2: Because they're always prioritizing other people and getting that approval
Speaker 2: and that connection, but it's always at the expense of
Speaker 2: self abandonment, right, So part of what happens is how
Speaker 2: we keep our subconscious wounds alive from childhood because we
Speaker 2: have to ask ourselves the question, like, if our wounds happened.
Speaker 2: Let's say somebody's in their twenties listening to this on
Speaker 2: your podcast, and this happened their abandonment wounds started when
Speaker 2: they were five, how are they still here? The past is,
Speaker 2: you know, fifteen years gone, twenty years gone. Well, what's
Speaker 2: actually happening is that we actually can't keep wounds alive
Speaker 2: unless we're constantly opening the wound and you know, sort
Speaker 2: of peeling off the scab on a regular basis. So
Speaker 2: the wounds stay alive for an anxious, preoccupied person because
Speaker 2: they keep abandoning themselves first. And so as long as
Speaker 2: that cycle of self abandonment, putting themselves last, not sharing
Speaker 2: their boundaries, not speaking up for their needs, as long
Speaker 2: as they keep that alive in the relationship to themselves,
Speaker 2: that's still going to be what they're attracted to in others.
Speaker 2: And then when somebody else does that back to them,
Speaker 2: it hurts one hundred times more because there's a wound
Speaker 2: there that hasn't had the chance to heal. So for
Speaker 2: somebody secure to experience that they don't have these preexisting wounds,
Speaker 2: it's not as big of a deal somebody anxious who
Speaker 2: has these preexisting wounds. When somebody touches it, it hurts
Speaker 2: so much more. And that's part of where that problem
Speaker 2: needs to really be solved for a root level.
Speaker 1: It also sounds like such a cycle right where it's like,
Speaker 1: if the only love that you've ever come to expect
Speaker 1: and accept is this kind of blueprint, Obviously you're not
Speaker 1: going to know any different. You have no idea of
Speaker 1: what love, healthy love, secure love actually feels like, So
Speaker 1: you're going to just repeat behaviors that put you in
Speaker 1: the same situation again and again and again. So how
Speaker 1: can we actually move past our anxiously attached tendencies? Like
Speaker 1: a question that I really had for you coming into
Speaker 1: this was is our attachment style forever? Is it predictive?
Speaker 1: Or are there things that we can do about it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's an amazing question and such an important one.
Speaker 2: So the answer it always gives to people is like,
Speaker 2: first of all, you're not born with the attachment style.
Speaker 2: It's conditioned into you, and it's really through repetition and emotion,
Speaker 2: that sort of key thing we keep talking about, and
Speaker 2: we can recondition it through repetition less emotions. So there's
Speaker 2: a few things that we can do and anxious attachment styles,
Speaker 2: there's a few core things that are really good starting places.
Speaker 2: One is you have to learn what your needs are
Speaker 2: and you have to start advocating for them, because if
Speaker 2: you try to advocate for your needs when they don't
Speaker 2: get met, you advocate for them in a way where
Speaker 2: you're also less likely to be heard. So if you
Speaker 2: advocate for your needs, you're like, you never give me certainty,
Speaker 2: you never spend enough time with me. People just hear criticism,
Speaker 2: and then it's tragic because then somebody gets even less
Speaker 2: needs met and it becomes aus vicious cycle. So one
Speaker 2: of the first things and what anxious attachment styles tend
Speaker 2: to need the most in their relationships is certainty, consistency,
Speaker 2: Transparency is very important, a sense of safety, reassurance, validation,
Speaker 2: presence again not gifts, but like actual attunements, somebody giving
Speaker 2: their ability to be present to the person they love,
Speaker 2: and a lot of encouragement from their partners. Like those
Speaker 2: eight things tend to be really top to your needs
Speaker 2: for anxious attachment styles to feel like they can really
Speaker 2: feel safe in a relationship, rest, decompress. But we also
Speaker 2: have to as anxious attachment styles, part of self soothing
Speaker 2: and not feeling when you feel that sense of panic
Speaker 2: as an anxious attachment style where you're like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 2: and that panic's alive in your body and you're having
Speaker 2: that kind of trauma response. Part of how you learn
Speaker 2: to self soothe so that it doesn't always have to
Speaker 2: be calling again or things like that, is to learn
Speaker 2: to give those needs in the relationship to yourself through
Speaker 2: repetition and emotion. So if an anxious attachment style learns
Speaker 2: their needs, knows that those are their top eight needs,
Speaker 2: starts giving those to themselves repetitively on a daily basis,
Speaker 2: like validating their wins each day, creating a sense of
Speaker 2: certainty by asking the right questions, but then also brings
Speaker 2: those needs into their relationships with others and let them
Speaker 2: be known, asks for them, practices that vulnerability. That's a
Speaker 2: first huge place for anxious attachments to start healing. And
Speaker 2: a second place. It's really profound for anxious attachment styles
Speaker 2: is sometimes aps tend to get into a space where
Speaker 2: they'll go into enmeshment and codependency, meaning when they get
Speaker 2: into a relationship, they will make that person the center
Speaker 2: of their universe. And it doesn't mean that somebody can't
Speaker 2: be like this massive, huge, beautiful, amazing person in your life,
Speaker 2: because they absolutely can and they should be. But anxious
Speaker 2: attachment cells sometimes will start chipping away at the other
Speaker 2: areas of life. So, for example, when they're in a
Speaker 2: romantic relationship, they'll spend less time focusing on friends, family,
Speaker 2: their career, their finances, their physical health, their mental emotional health. Like,
Speaker 2: there's so many areas of life that are really valuable,
Speaker 2: but sometimes anxious preoccupies will kind of like put them
Speaker 2: on the back burner when they get into a relationship.
Speaker 2: The more that you give yourself away, the more that
Speaker 2: you stop focusing in a sort of balanced way across
Speaker 2: those different areas of life. Like you put your career
Speaker 2: goals on hold, you're just prioritizing your relationship. You spend
Speaker 2: all your budget going out to buy new clothes and
Speaker 2: impress the person you're dating, or spend money on a
Speaker 2: fancy dinners, you know, the more that you give yourself
Speaker 2: up without like actually considering how those choices are affecting
Speaker 2: you at your core and not seeing yourself it's also
Speaker 2: a person equal to the other person. The more you
Speaker 2: will then subconsciously put stress on the relationship because it's
Speaker 2: like that person becomes your whole world because you're ignoring
Speaker 2: the other parts of your world. So another really important
Speaker 2: part of healing for anxious attachment cells is to make
Speaker 2: sure that you're making space and time for the other
Speaker 2: areas of your life that fill you up, that will
Speaker 2: actually help you stay really grounded and centered and present.
Speaker 2: And then I would say a third thing that tends
Speaker 2: to be really valuable is I call this just questioning
Speaker 2: your stories. It's a form of reprogramming. If we do
Speaker 2: it repetitively, it's very, very valuable. But as an anxious
Speaker 2: attachment cell, you know, as somebody who's lived through this,
Speaker 2: I was fearful avoidance. I had the anxious side. And
Speaker 2: it sounds like you've lived through this. Is it's so easy,
Speaker 2: Like somebody doesn't call you back, and where does your
Speaker 2: mind go. It's like, oh my gosh, they're leaving me,
Speaker 2: they're not coming back, they're losing interest. You know, we
Speaker 2: jump to conclusions based on our own pre existing core wounds.
Speaker 2: But if we can really sit in that story and
Speaker 2: we can question it, we can say, Okay, they didn't
Speaker 2: call me back and it means they're leaving me right now?
Speaker 2: Is that really true? Can I one hundred percent know
Speaker 2: that that's true? And we can just take the wind
Speaker 2: out of the sales of like that story that wants
Speaker 2: to take us a million miles an hour down to
Speaker 2: like all the worst case scenarios that are going to
Speaker 2: happen when we can hold those narratives in the light,
Speaker 2: or sometimes we go they didn't call me back, they
Speaker 2: got in a car accident, all these bad things are happening,
Speaker 2: Like we can really project all these scary scenarios. When
Speaker 2: we can learn to witness those thoughts and just question
Speaker 2: them and not jump too far into them, we can
Speaker 2: also self soothe in a powerful way. And if we
Speaker 2: do that repetitively, a lot of those stories stop showing
Speaker 2: back up, because repetition and emotion is actually pro reprogramming
Speaker 2: that from being that comfort zone of what we're used
Speaker 2: to thinking. So I'd say those are three really really
Speaker 2: powerful places to start.
Speaker 1: I love those tips. And further to the last one
Speaker 1: as well, just ask, just be like, hi, you didn't
Speaker 1: just ask them. It's so it's so funny that like
Speaker 1: it's it seems so like I think for anyone who
Speaker 1: is like securely attached, they'd be like, hey, why didn't
Speaker 1: you reply to me like I'm annoyed? But for anyone else,
Speaker 1: they'd be like, how what do you mean? I can
Speaker 1: say that, isn't that just going to drive them away further?
Speaker 1: But it's like, no, you can just ask. And the
Speaker 1: other thing that I would actually add to that is
Speaker 1: sometimes when we I think, when we haven't had the
Speaker 1: love that we think we deserve, when love has been
Speaker 1: like in a deficit and we've had really like the
Speaker 1: supply has been low. Right, not to use like an
Speaker 1: economics term, but when we feel like love has been
Speaker 1: in a deficit, we see it as like the only
Speaker 1: thing that we want in life, and we are we
Speaker 1: put it on such a pedestal. And of course love
Speaker 1: is so important, it is like the lifeblood of being
Speaker 1: a human, but it is not the only thing about
Speaker 1: you that is valuable. Is your capacity to be loved
Speaker 1: and I also think that love isn't something that only
Speaker 1: has to come from other people. You can show yourself
Speaker 1: the love that you expect from others. I always think
Speaker 1: about this in the sense of like the love languages, right,
Speaker 1: we constantly think that we need to receive words of
Speaker 1: affirmation from someone else, acts of service from someone else,
Speaker 1: physical touch from someone else in order to fill up
Speaker 1: those needs. But you can actually perform your love languages
Speaker 1: for yourself in those moments where you're feeling really anxious,
Speaker 1: or really abandoned, or really like trying to catastrophize every
Speaker 1: small thing, Like give yourself a hug, speak words of
Speaker 1: affirmation to yourself, go and take yourself on a walk,
Speaker 1: and buy yourself like a little treat, a juice, something
Speaker 1: that's going to make you feel better, as a way
Speaker 1: to show yourself the love that you're constantly expecting from
Speaker 1: others and should be expecting from others, but also should
Speaker 1: equally expect from yourself.
Speaker 2: I love that. That's so beautiful and it's so funny
Speaker 2: because we talk a lot about this too, and you
Speaker 2: just nailed it, which is like we actually give love
Speaker 2: to our our selves through our love languages, but also
Speaker 2: through our needs and so the things that we feel
Speaker 2: like we're needing so badly from somebody, when we just
Speaker 2: want them to answer the phone, or we just want
Speaker 2: them to call us back, or we just want them
Speaker 2: to text us more. It's often a really valuable exercise
Speaker 2: to give those levelanguhiges absolutely, and the big ones for
Speaker 2: anxious preoccupies are usually quality time, physical touchboards of affirmation
Speaker 2: like those are usually the top tier ones we're anxious.
Speaker 2: But then also to be like, well, what is it
Speaker 2: that I need from them so badly? And when you
Speaker 2: said that beautiful thing where you know, often like it
Speaker 2: represents a deficit people who feel like love is the
Speaker 2: center of their universe, And I do agree with you.
Speaker 2: It's like the lifeblood of being a human being. And
Speaker 2: if we're yearning for it from other people so so much,
Speaker 2: it always means that we don't have enough in the
Speaker 2: relationship to ourselves, and so we can We don't have
Speaker 2: to just do that when we're anxious. We can do
Speaker 2: that where we meet our needs or love lang which
Speaker 2: is when we're anxious and needing something from others. But
Speaker 2: also the more we make like active habits and practice
Speaker 2: out of it on a daily basis, and the more
Speaker 2: we just show up and create those routines in our lives,
Speaker 2: we fill our bucket halfway. And part of what's happening
Speaker 2: for anxious attachment styles is that they're not filling their
Speaker 2: bucket halfway. So the moment somebody else can't fill their bucket,
Speaker 2: it's like driving around with your gas tank and you
Speaker 2: know that you've like two kilometers left right, it's like
Speaker 2: you're right down to the brand, and so we panic.
Speaker 2: But if you can get into the habit it's always
Speaker 2: driving with a half tank full, then if somebody can't
Speaker 2: go from you know, pull in your gas tank and
Speaker 2: go from half to full, you're still totally fine and
Speaker 2: it's completely okay. And so you know, if you're seeing
Speaker 2: that in your life, being able to give yourself to
Speaker 2: that proactively and habitually makes such a difference and also
Speaker 2: really helps retrain the subconscious mind to get more secure
Speaker 2: in the relationship to self.
Speaker 1: I love that analogy. I absolutely adore that analogy. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for coming on the show and for
Speaker 1: spreading your wisdom. I feel like I actually learnt so
Speaker 1: much like I'm listening to I was listening to you.
Speaker 1: Being like that is just making so much sense to me.
Speaker 1: Everything is checking out. I can apply so much of
Speaker 1: this to my relationship and my past relationships and the
Speaker 1: relationships that I've had with my parents and so many
Speaker 1: other people in my life. So I want to thank
Speaker 1: you again for finding the time to come on the
Speaker 1: podcast and share your wisdom. Where can the listeners find you?
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. Thank you for sharing. Got that too,
Speaker 2: So even buy me at Personal Development School dash TII
Speaker 2: skipson It's spelled tchai ask kind of like tie with
Speaker 2: an ass at the end, but just Personal Development School
Speaker 2: will show up. And then also if anybody wants a
Speaker 2: free attachment style quiz, we have a free quiz. It
Speaker 2: tells you like your attachment style and then it gives
Speaker 2: you a report on like your wounds, your needs, the
Speaker 2: ways you can communicate, gives like some supportive tools all
Speaker 2: for free at www dot Personaldevelopment school dot com.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, I'm going to go and do that
Speaker 1: now I feel like I know the answer. But what
Speaker 1: a good resource. Also, there were so many attached quizzers
Speaker 1: out there that it's like we can tell you your
Speaker 1: attachment style and like five questions and then you have
Speaker 1: to you have to like submit, like you've got to
Speaker 1: pay for it. It's like fifty dollars in it like
Speaker 1: doesn't tell you anything.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, ours is free and I think there's
Speaker 2: about thirty questions on there to really get into like
Speaker 2: the nitty gritty and really get you a clear answer.
Speaker 1: I'm so excited, I'm actually gonna go and do it.
Speaker 1: I'm going to send it to my friends as well.
Speaker 1: So again, thank you so much for coming on the show.
Speaker 1: As always, if you enjoyed this episode, please feel free
Speaker 1: to leave a five star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
Speaker 1: wherever you are listening right now. If there is a
Speaker 1: friend who needs to hear this, maybe you should share
Speaker 1: them a link, send it along, share the love, maybe
Speaker 1: they'll learn something. And make sure that you are following
Speaker 1: us so you know when new episodes come out. And finally,
Speaker 1: if you have an episode suggestion, if you want us
Speaker 1: to talk more about maybe the dismissive avoidant the fearful avoidant,
Speaker 1: please reach out to me at that Psychology podcast on
Speaker 1: Instagram and have a lovely week. We would be back
Speaker 1: next week with another episode.
Speaker 2: M