WEBVTT - Attachment Theory & Why It Matters w/ Dr. Wendy Walsh 0:00:02.120 --> 0:00:05.559 Welcome to the Laverne Cox Show, a production of shondaland 0:00:05.600 --> 0:00:12.000 Audio in partnership with My Heart Radio. A good secure 0:00:12.119 --> 0:00:16.200 attachment lowers our blood pressure, It lowers our heart rate, 0:00:16.360 --> 0:00:20.239 It lowers our stress hormone cortisol level, It rises levels 0:00:20.280 --> 0:00:24.520 of dopamine, oxytocin, neurope Eneugh Fron, all those feel good 0:00:24.600 --> 0:00:33.159 neuro hormones. Love is the best medicine we have. Hi there, 0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:37.400 Welcome to the Laverne Cox Show. I'm Laverne Cox. So 0:00:38.280 --> 0:00:41.599 a few years ago, in therapy with Jennifer Burton, who 0:00:41.720 --> 0:00:45.200 some of you have met through this podcast, she said 0:00:45.240 --> 0:00:47.320 this thing about attachment style to me, and I was like, 0:00:47.400 --> 0:00:49.840 what are you talking about? And she was like, there 0:00:49.920 --> 0:00:53.200 is this theory about attachment and I think it could 0:00:53.200 --> 0:00:56.279 be really useful in your work. And she suggested this 0:00:56.400 --> 0:01:00.160 book and I downloaded the book and I started it 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:03.840 reading it and never finished reading it because, like life, 0:01:03.880 --> 0:01:07.559 happens and it keeps coming up in therapy. So then 0:01:08.040 --> 0:01:12.800 I discovered Dr Wendy Walsh and that she specializes in 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:17.240 attachment theory. Thought since I never finished reading the book this, 0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:19.320 this would be a really great opportunity for me to 0:01:19.440 --> 0:01:23.399 learn more about attachment theory to help my life and 0:01:23.440 --> 0:01:28.520 my own therapeutic process and maybe help you as well. 0:01:28.720 --> 0:01:31.360 So for anyone else out there who has not finished 0:01:31.360 --> 0:01:34.880 the book, just listen to this podcast. Dr Wendy will 0:01:34.920 --> 0:01:37.399 break it all down for you in a brilliant and 0:01:37.680 --> 0:01:42.120 very clear way. Dr Wendy Walsh is a psychologist specializing 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:45.560 in human development and attachment theory. She's an author of 0:01:45.600 --> 0:01:48.280 three books about the science of love, a professor of 0:01:48.280 --> 0:01:52.640 psychology at California State University, Channel Islands, and an award 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:56.480 winning television journalist and radio host kf I AM six 0:01:56.560 --> 0:01:59.880 forty in Los Angeles. She also has her own podcast, 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:05.680 Mating Matters, which uses evolutionary psychology to explain human mating strategy. 0:02:05.960 --> 0:02:09.800 Please enjoy my conversation with Dr Wendy Walsh. It's gonna 0:02:09.840 --> 0:02:18.600 be made. Hello, Dr Wendy Walsh, Welcome to the podcast. 0:02:18.680 --> 0:02:22.040 How are you doing today? Like so many, I'm just 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:25.320 at home trying to find privacy during COVID with kids 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:30.000 doing stuff. You have two children, I do, they're almost 0:02:30.000 --> 0:02:32.600 grown young woman women. I have a twenty two year 0:02:32.600 --> 0:02:35.960 old daughter who just graduated college, and I have a 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:40.280 seventeen year old daughter. Wow, good for you. That's incredible. 0:02:40.360 --> 0:02:42.880 So a couple of years ago, I was in therapy 0:02:42.919 --> 0:02:46.400 I'm often in therapy, thank God, and my therapist said 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:49.240 this thing to me about attachment theory, and I was like, 0:02:49.280 --> 0:02:52.000 what are you talking about? And I learned that I 0:02:52.000 --> 0:02:54.480 had an anxious attachment style, and I was like, if 0:02:54.520 --> 0:02:56.280 I had known this twenty years ago, I could have 0:02:56.320 --> 0:02:59.240 saved so much time. So can you please talk to 0:02:59.280 --> 0:03:03.360 the people and held them what attachment theory is? Sure? 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:06.800 So it's an area of psychology that's been very well 0:03:06.840 --> 0:03:09.799 researched for many, many decades, and it is the one 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:12.800 that spoke to me most in graduate school. I just 0:03:12.960 --> 0:03:15.760 it just made so much sense. And basically, we all 0:03:15.800 --> 0:03:20.840 come into the world with a genetic predisposition for closeness 0:03:21.160 --> 0:03:27.120 or feeling easily smothered, or predisposition towards anxiety or depression. 0:03:27.400 --> 0:03:29.919 And then what happens with our beautiful little genes is 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:32.639 they meet the environment, and our primary environment when we're 0:03:32.680 --> 0:03:37.120 young are our parents, and so they behave in a 0:03:37.160 --> 0:03:42.000 way that either activates some of our genes or suppresses them. 0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:46.200 And so what ends up happening is, in simple terms, 0:03:46.480 --> 0:03:50.000 during the first three years of life. We form a 0:03:50.120 --> 0:03:53.800 kind of model for love in our heads, and then 0:03:54.120 --> 0:03:57.280 in our adult romantic lives, we go out and we 0:03:57.320 --> 0:03:59.080 go right back to the scene of the crime. We 0:03:59.160 --> 0:04:01.960 try to find somebody who will play along and what 0:04:02.000 --> 0:04:05.520 we believe love is. So even if love was filled 0:04:05.560 --> 0:04:09.840 with criticism, abandonment, God forbid abuse, we will find somebody 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:12.680 who will give us all that and more, because that's 0:04:12.680 --> 0:04:17.559 what's familiar to us. So attachment theorists put people into 0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:24.680 sort of categories, loose categories, secure, anxious, avoidant, disorganized, and 0:04:24.680 --> 0:04:28.560 and then you know it's incumbent on us to understand 0:04:28.560 --> 0:04:32.160 our model for love and to try to heal attachment injuries. 0:04:33.560 --> 0:04:36.800 I love that so much and something and all the 0:04:36.839 --> 0:04:39.120 research preparing for this, and then when I've learned from 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:41.480 my therapist, I didn't realize that there was a genetic 0:04:41.480 --> 0:04:43.839 component to this. You just said that the way our 0:04:43.880 --> 0:04:47.320 parents treat us in those first three years activate something genetic, 0:04:47.760 --> 0:04:49.360 And as can you tell us a little bit more 0:04:49.400 --> 0:04:52.599 about that research around the genetic piece of attachment theory, Well, 0:04:52.640 --> 0:04:57.000 I would say that in fact, about every single human behavior, 0:04:57.120 --> 0:05:01.480 there's a biological, there's a psychological, there's a social component. 0:05:02.040 --> 0:05:05.679 We aren't born in a vacuum. We're actually a many 0:05:05.760 --> 0:05:09.920 one brained species, and we interact with each other. And 0:05:09.960 --> 0:05:14.040 while we're interacting with each other, we're enlivening or suppressing genes. 0:05:14.040 --> 0:05:16.800 So here's an example. Let's say a baby comes into 0:05:16.800 --> 0:05:20.520 the world with a very big gene for anxiety. Maybe 0:05:20.520 --> 0:05:24.280 their parents or their grandparents suffer huge trauma that actually 0:05:24.360 --> 0:05:26.680 changed their DNA. And in fact, we're learning, for instance, 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:30.960 that even grandkids of Holocaust survivors have huge genes for 0:05:31.000 --> 0:05:34.560 anxiety and depression and they live in wealthy neighborhoods in 0:05:34.600 --> 0:05:37.400 Connecticut and never saw any trauma. Right, But it's you know, 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:40.320 passed down from generations. Can I just can we just 0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:42.520 pause there? I just think it's so important because that 0:05:42.640 --> 0:05:46.279 that that's something that I've been looking into and reading about. 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:49.080 The first time I heard that trauma can be passed 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:52.719 down from generation and generation, it just like I felt 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:54.960 there were some things when I heard about my grandfather, 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:57.279 you know, living on plantation for example, it was just 0:05:57.360 --> 0:05:59.120 like I was like, oh my god, It's just like 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:03.440 I knew it was the truth immediately, just in myself. 0:06:03.600 --> 0:06:07.880 But but go on, So here's our anxious baby comes 0:06:07.920 --> 0:06:10.920 into the world, happens to come into the world into 0:06:10.960 --> 0:06:14.080 a set of parents who read all the parenting books 0:06:14.080 --> 0:06:15.720 they can, and they really believe in what we call 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:19.600 attachment parenting, wearing their baby, consoling their baby, not leaving 0:06:19.600 --> 0:06:21.400 them alone to cry it out because it's good for 0:06:21.440 --> 0:06:24.920 their lungs. But when that baby feels anxiety, they say, sure, 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:28.320 come in my bed, baby, it's fine, and they soothe 0:06:28.760 --> 0:06:32.600 that baby. Well, that gene for anxiety doesn't get enlivened. 0:06:33.320 --> 0:06:35.400 Then you might have a same baby with a different 0:06:35.400 --> 0:06:38.120 set of parents who read a parenting book that said, oh, 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:39.960 you know, they just need to cry it out, just 0:06:40.160 --> 0:06:42.560 leave them alone in a room. They'll fall asleep eventually, 0:06:42.920 --> 0:06:46.840 and that baby lies there in the dark, maybe hungry, 0:06:47.000 --> 0:06:51.200 maybe with a wet diaper, and that anxiety gene flourishes 0:06:51.400 --> 0:06:56.160 because of it. And I want to talk about more 0:06:56.200 --> 0:06:58.880 examples book I want to share as yours online. Personal 0:06:58.960 --> 0:07:00.960 so from chief as in one into two thousand and five, 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:03.880 I was in a relationship with a man who was 0:07:04.520 --> 0:07:08.800 a really an insane alcoholic and he was really emotionally abusive, 0:07:09.400 --> 0:07:14.000 and it became a codependent relationship where it was it 0:07:14.080 --> 0:07:17.640 was it was gruesome and it was awful. It really 0:07:17.680 --> 0:07:20.160 really was awful. And what I as I was in 0:07:20.240 --> 0:07:23.160 therapy at the time and working a lot on codependency issues, 0:07:23.600 --> 0:07:28.680 I realized that he with my mother. I realized that 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:31.920 he was my mother, that he was my emotionally abusive mother, 0:07:32.600 --> 0:07:34.960 and he spoke to me, and very soon I thought 0:07:35.000 --> 0:07:36.480 I was in love. He spoke to me in very 0:07:36.520 --> 0:07:39.840 similar ways that my mother did, and that felt like 0:07:39.960 --> 0:07:41.920 loved me. And it's so deep to me now and 0:07:42.000 --> 0:07:44.600 so like my goal in the relationship. If I can 0:07:44.640 --> 0:07:46.680 make him love me, then I can then my Mom's 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:48.520 gonna love me, and then and then I'm enough, and 0:07:48.600 --> 0:07:51.640 then I'm worthy. I'm worthy. It really was about that 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:55.560 working out this whole thing with my mom through him, 0:07:55.680 --> 0:07:57.480 which is a strange thing. I was. It was twenty 0:07:57.560 --> 0:08:01.600 years ago, so you know, so no, even in our 0:08:01.720 --> 0:08:06.800 later adult lives were constantly talking about our partners as 0:08:06.920 --> 0:08:10.400 representations of pieces of our parents, because they always are. 0:08:10.880 --> 0:08:14.680 We go back to try to resolve conflict. Yeah. What 0:08:14.840 --> 0:08:17.000 I what's been lovely though, is I've actually gone to 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:20.760 my mom. We kind of done work together. My mom 0:08:20.840 --> 0:08:22.120 and I are in a great place now. I feel 0:08:22.160 --> 0:08:24.720 so weird. It's like talking about like her being emotionally 0:08:24.720 --> 0:08:26.880 abusive publicly because I'm like, we're in such an awesome 0:08:26.920 --> 0:08:29.360 place now, But it wasn't easy getting to where we 0:08:29.400 --> 0:08:31.800 are now. It was a lot of years of painful 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:34.880 conversations and saying this is how you made me feel, 0:08:35.040 --> 0:08:38.680 and it was really awful, and now it's it's wonderful 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:40.640 and now and and now I'm in a place to 0:08:41.440 --> 0:08:43.480 where I'm like, she did the best she could. And 0:08:43.600 --> 0:08:47.320 then that piece of inter generational trauma to so informed 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:50.720 how she treated me and my grandfather was really abusive anywhere. 0:08:50.720 --> 0:08:52.120 We're not going to go there, but like that, all 0:08:52.160 --> 0:08:54.160 of that is actually connected to attachment style if we're 0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:57.160 talking if it's genetic, and so what is so beautiful 0:08:57.840 --> 0:08:59.640 is that I've you know, healed a lot of that 0:08:59.760 --> 0:09:02.280 with my mom. She's still with us and she's healthy, 0:09:02.360 --> 0:09:05.160 and that's awesome. And now I have not repeated that 0:09:05.280 --> 0:09:08.520 relationship either. I have not dated an alcoholic since you know, 0:09:08.679 --> 0:09:10.000 since I broke it off with him, and I have 0:09:10.120 --> 0:09:12.959 not repeated that pattern of dating someone emotionally abusive. I've 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:16.719 done other things, We're always growing, but I haven't done 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:18.959 that one again. I do want to say, though, that 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:22.040 that is such a beautiful story, hardly because you were 0:09:22.040 --> 0:09:24.400 given the gift of an open minded mother who was 0:09:24.440 --> 0:09:27.040 willing to grow with you. But for other people listening 0:09:27.400 --> 0:09:30.800 who may have an abusive parent where they're only ability 0:09:30.880 --> 0:09:33.520 to heal is to completely cut off all communication with 0:09:33.600 --> 0:09:36.240 that parent. You don't have to go back and fix 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:39.760 things with them to change inside yourself, and you can 0:09:40.000 --> 0:09:42.480 use what I call the romantic objects that you pick, 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:46.080 because as you pick better and better ones, as I say, 0:09:46.480 --> 0:09:48.920 you start to heal yourself. You know, I don't know 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:51.480 if you've ever heard this metaphor for the four stages 0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:55.120 of personal growth. The first stages, you're walking down the street. 0:09:55.679 --> 0:09:57.559 You don't see a hole, and you fall in it. 0:09:57.840 --> 0:10:02.800 There's your alcoholic, abusive boyfriend. Right stage two, someone tells you, oh, 0:10:02.880 --> 0:10:04.960 this is about your relationship with your mother, and you're 0:10:05.160 --> 0:10:07.520 now aware of it. So stage two, as you're walking 0:10:07.559 --> 0:10:10.599 down that street, you see the whole this time and 0:10:10.760 --> 0:10:16.240 you still fall in it. The third stage, that's the 0:10:16.320 --> 0:10:19.559 second alcoholic boyfriend you get next. The third stage is 0:10:19.640 --> 0:10:22.480 you're walking down the street, you see that whole, and 0:10:22.600 --> 0:10:26.760 this time you very carefully walk around it thinking about 0:10:26.880 --> 0:10:30.640 every step you take. But the fourth stage is you 0:10:30.720 --> 0:10:35.640 take a different street. Oh yes, that is if I 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:38.120 get to bed fourth stage. But it's a process. It's 0:10:38.160 --> 0:10:40.400 a process, and learning doesn't always happen in the moment. 0:10:40.440 --> 0:10:43.559 And sometimes I have what I've learned to about relationship 0:10:43.679 --> 0:10:48.199 that I was if igiated this guy briefly next like 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:51.240 two or three years ago, met this guy. I knew 0:10:51.280 --> 0:10:54.800 immediately that he had issues. He was he was in recovery, 0:10:54.960 --> 0:10:56.720 but he it was a mess. He was a mess. 0:10:57.000 --> 0:10:58.960 I knew that there were issues there, but I also 0:10:59.080 --> 0:11:00.920 knew that I needed to work something out. So I 0:11:01.000 --> 0:11:03.760 didn't just like unmatched, blocked delete immediately. I was like, 0:11:03.920 --> 0:11:05.800 let's just see this out, you know. And so it 0:11:05.920 --> 0:11:09.239 was about three months of you know, with some boundaries, 0:11:09.320 --> 0:11:11.040 and like then I had to cut it off. But 0:11:11.440 --> 0:11:14.800 sometimes we have to like see something through and work 0:11:14.840 --> 0:11:16.360 it out. And I say this to friends of mine, 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:17.880 what do you think about that that sometimes we have 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:21.680 to you know, go back the hole in the street, 0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:25.319 you know, and maybe like risk falling in. Well that's 0:11:25.360 --> 0:11:28.440 the walking around stage, right, So watching it and walking 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:31.720 around stage, and I think that's a lovely concept. Now, 0:11:32.440 --> 0:11:34.719 not for everybody, because there are some people that just 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:38.679 continue to re injure themselves, and there are other people 0:11:39.040 --> 0:11:42.319 who cut off something at the first hint that it 0:11:42.360 --> 0:11:44.439 could be pain and their manufacturing it in their head. 0:11:44.679 --> 0:11:47.079 So they definitely need to stay in it and walk 0:11:47.160 --> 0:11:49.120 through a little bit. But you know, I always say 0:11:49.520 --> 0:11:53.719 relationships are a gymnasium for the mind. Relationships are a 0:11:53.800 --> 0:11:57.360 gymnasium for the mind. Explain. In other words, you don't 0:11:57.360 --> 0:11:59.959 get stronger by sitting on a mountain and meditating alone. 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:03.040 We need to actually be entangled with somebody and pushing 0:12:03.080 --> 0:12:06.360 back against them to grow bigger muscles, and the same 0:12:06.400 --> 0:12:10.839 with your psychological muscles. So you've touched on this a 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:13.040 little bit. But can we change our attachment style? Are 0:12:13.080 --> 0:12:15.480 we're always going to be anxious, once anxious, always anxious? 0:12:15.679 --> 0:12:19.400 Or can that change? And then does knowing that can 0:12:19.480 --> 0:12:23.679 it help us in navigate relationships better. Well, now I'm 0:12:23.720 --> 0:12:25.920 going to get really complicated on you, because our attachment 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:28.280 style is actually a number of things. It's based on 0:12:28.480 --> 0:12:31.679 the relationship we had with our mother, the relationship we 0:12:31.760 --> 0:12:35.080 had with our father, and the relationship we witnessed between 0:12:35.160 --> 0:12:38.400 the two of them, and that our own genes. What 0:12:38.559 --> 0:12:40.679 if what if you had a single mom and never 0:12:40.760 --> 0:12:42.600 knew your father like me, like I met my dad 0:12:42.640 --> 0:12:45.760 one exactly. So there's a big empty space and a 0:12:45.920 --> 0:12:49.599 hole in one piece of your love map, right, And 0:12:50.000 --> 0:12:53.000 so the short answer is, even in present day, you 0:12:53.120 --> 0:12:55.719 can have different kinds of attachments with different people. It's 0:12:55.760 --> 0:12:58.280 not like you are doomed to have an anxious attachment 0:12:58.400 --> 0:13:01.040 with all your friends, your work curse, and your lovers. 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:03.600 The dysfunction tends to show up the most in our 0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:07.599 most intimate relationships. And yes, there are three kinds of relationships, 0:13:07.720 --> 0:13:12.760 according to research, that can actually heal attachment injuries. The 0:13:12.840 --> 0:13:18.599 first one is the therapist patient alliance. No matter what 0:13:18.840 --> 0:13:22.720 degree your therapist has, no matter what brilliant intervention they 0:13:22.800 --> 0:13:25.520 make during a session, that's less important to your brain 0:13:26.000 --> 0:13:29.000 than the consistency, the fact that you know, every Friday 0:13:29.040 --> 0:13:32.240 at ten am, good mommy's there, who's going to reflect 0:13:32.360 --> 0:13:37.480 back to you good parent, and that shifts your attachment style. 0:13:37.880 --> 0:13:41.760 The second one is if you're lucky enough to get 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:44.640 hot for somebody who happens to have a secure attachment 0:13:44.720 --> 0:13:47.680 style and they accept our craziness, then after a while 0:13:47.720 --> 0:13:50.200 you calm down right, So you get like the really 0:13:50.240 --> 0:13:53.079 secure attachment guy who's like really straight and okay, and 0:13:53.200 --> 0:13:56.000 the spinning out the drama queen who you know, come forward, 0:13:56.040 --> 0:13:58.240 go away kind of person, or the drama queen and 0:13:58.280 --> 0:14:00.360 he's like, you are so cute when you're doing that. 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:02.640 Don't worry, baby, I'm here when you want to come back. 0:14:03.160 --> 0:14:06.080 That was my That was my last two relationships because 0:14:06.080 --> 0:14:09.040 I very much have an anxious attachment style. And two boyfriends. 0:14:09.320 --> 0:14:12.079 He was just so consistent and he was there and 0:14:13.240 --> 0:14:16.000 it's soothed and then and then we had to break 0:14:16.080 --> 0:14:18.559 up and the next one sued that even more, and 0:14:18.679 --> 0:14:21.640 so and literally my therapist like, you're learning secure attachment. 0:14:21.680 --> 0:14:27.120 I'm like, okay, cool. And then the third relationship is 0:14:27.560 --> 0:14:30.640 parent child relationship because plenty of people like I myself 0:14:30.720 --> 0:14:33.200 had an anxious attachment. So I can definitely tell you 0:14:33.320 --> 0:14:35.000 that I had all the symptoms of it, and I 0:14:35.080 --> 0:14:37.640 practiced attachment parenting with my girls because I used my 0:14:37.680 --> 0:14:40.640 anxiety to be attached to them. Oh, through you being 0:14:40.720 --> 0:14:43.360 a parent, not with your parents, but with you being 0:14:43.440 --> 0:14:47.520 a parent, you can explain because what ends up happening is, 0:14:47.640 --> 0:14:50.680 let's say a mom with anxious attachment style is consoling 0:14:50.720 --> 0:14:53.040 a baby, and she's saying, you know there, to a toddler, 0:14:53.280 --> 0:14:56.040 It's okay, baby, Mommy will always come home. Don't worry. 0:14:56.080 --> 0:14:58.040 Mommy's gonna let's look at the clock. When the big 0:14:58.160 --> 0:15:00.520 hand gets on the floor, Mommy's going to come back. 0:15:00.560 --> 0:15:03.480 And here you can hold my nightgown that smells like me. 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:06.440 And here's your teddy bear, your transitional attachment object. And 0:15:06.520 --> 0:15:08.640 the more she does all these things for her child 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:11.840 with their anxiety, consoling them, there's another brain in the 0:15:11.960 --> 0:15:15.080 room who's also getting consoled, and that's the mom's brain. 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:18.040 We are self consoling at the same time as we 0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:23.840 become good parents, we are reparenting ourselves. That cool, It's 0:15:23.880 --> 0:15:26.400 really cool. I'm just like processing that in the moment. 0:15:26.480 --> 0:15:28.160 It actually kind of got emotional, so I'm like just 0:15:28.360 --> 0:15:30.640 kicking him in it. That was like, I mean, just 0:15:30.760 --> 0:15:34.840 the idea of I'm just breathing the energy, the idea 0:15:34.960 --> 0:15:37.080 like when you know, tin to the coccus, tin to whatever, 0:15:37.320 --> 0:15:39.280 like my parents going to be there. It's like it's 0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:41.040 I don't know why. That just makes me very emotional. 0:15:41.240 --> 0:15:44.840 It is these are the most tender feelings in the 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:49.320 human mind. These are really tender stuff. It is the 0:15:49.440 --> 0:15:53.440 most important motivator of human behavior that exists, and it 0:15:53.640 --> 0:15:56.400 is the backbone of who we are because we're programmed 0:15:56.400 --> 0:16:00.000 for connection, like we are social beings, connection and belonging 0:16:00.200 --> 0:16:04.400 our immutable needs of human beings. Wow, that's just blowing 0:16:04.440 --> 0:16:10.200 my mind. And attachment impacts our careers, our relationships with 0:16:10.320 --> 0:16:14.880 co workers, our ability to manage people. It impacts our 0:16:15.240 --> 0:16:20.320 need for power or not attachment every relationship. How what 0:16:20.560 --> 0:16:23.000 is an attachment theory in the need for power? What's 0:16:23.120 --> 0:16:26.240 that control? So here's the baby, right who's out of 0:16:26.320 --> 0:16:31.560 control and doesn't have reliable parents, and so as a result, 0:16:31.840 --> 0:16:34.800 they need to be the CEO and dominate, right, because 0:16:34.840 --> 0:16:39.560 their parents may be narcissists or had substance abuse issues 0:16:39.720 --> 0:16:42.640 and there was no consistency for them, so they have 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:45.040 this desire for control. Then you could have the other 0:16:45.640 --> 0:16:49.040 baby who was waiting and longing all the time for 0:16:49.200 --> 0:16:51.720 mom to come back to the crib. And there's that 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:55.840 employee who's always taken advantage of at work, who's just 0:16:55.960 --> 0:16:58.680 waiting for somebody to notice them and give them a promotion. 0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:01.320 But they're not going to actually go out and get 0:17:01.360 --> 0:17:05.479 it because that's their normal place to be, that's their 0:17:05.520 --> 0:17:10.080 familiar place to be longing. Wow, this is a good 0:17:10.119 --> 0:17:21.159 time to take a little break. We'll be right back though. Okay, 0:17:21.440 --> 0:17:23.560 that's taken care of. Let's get back to our chat. 0:17:24.880 --> 0:17:26.680 What's kind of interesting to me as you talk about 0:17:26.680 --> 0:17:29.200 attachment theory, there's a lens that we can sort of 0:17:29.280 --> 0:17:32.200 filter almost everything through attachment theory in the same way 0:17:32.240 --> 0:17:34.720 that we can through a shame lens or trauma lens. Look, 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:38.719 I will say this about of Americans have a secure 0:17:38.760 --> 0:17:42.359 attachment style. There's been so much research done. People with 0:17:42.440 --> 0:17:45.600 a secure attachment style get better grades in school, they 0:17:45.680 --> 0:17:48.280 tend to make more money, they tend to have fewer divorces, 0:17:48.320 --> 0:17:51.080 they tend to have fewer mental health problems physical health 0:17:51.200 --> 0:17:54.400 as well. Know, attachment theory has been studied in relationship 0:17:54.480 --> 0:17:59.200 to just about everything, including religiosity. God as an attachment figure. 0:18:01.000 --> 0:18:08.800 Some people have an anxious attachment to God. I that 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:11.640 feels like a full episode, but I think physical piece 0:18:11.680 --> 0:18:13.639 because you because I wanted to ask you about this, 0:18:14.040 --> 0:18:19.080 how does attachment style affect our physical health? So here's 0:18:19.160 --> 0:18:25.119 the sad part. When babies either fear their primary attachment figure, 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:28.280 or are left in states of longing for them to 0:18:28.359 --> 0:18:33.520 come back. Their cortisol levels rise, and so lots and 0:18:33.600 --> 0:18:36.920 lots of research has been done, long term, longitudinal research 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:40.720 on babies who have an insecure attachment style early in 0:18:40.840 --> 0:18:46.440 life and later diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, because 0:18:46.520 --> 0:18:49.720 these it's like they're in their life long in a 0:18:49.880 --> 0:18:53.960 constant state of alert, either alert that an angry parent 0:18:54.040 --> 0:18:56.639 will hurt them, which in adult life is the world 0:18:56.760 --> 0:18:59.560 is against me, or that they're just in a state 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:02.200 of pression and anxiety and longing for a lover to 0:19:02.280 --> 0:19:04.880 call them back, and that impacts our health. You see, 0:19:05.320 --> 0:19:09.560 love is so good for our health. A good secure 0:19:09.760 --> 0:19:13.800 attachment lowers our blood pressure, it lowers our heart rate, 0:19:14.000 --> 0:19:17.840 it lowers our stress hormone cortisol level, It rises levels 0:19:17.920 --> 0:19:21.360 of don't bemane oxytocin Europe and there from all those 0:19:21.520 --> 0:19:25.639 feel good neuro hormones. Love is the best medicine we have. 0:19:27.160 --> 0:19:29.760 I've always felt that, but I love hearing the research 0:19:29.840 --> 0:19:31.840 on it. And what I'm aware of listening to that 0:19:32.280 --> 0:19:34.680 is that that very much intersects with a lot of 0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:36.400 the work I've been doing in my therapists over the years. 0:19:36.640 --> 0:19:40.720 The community resiliency model and regulating my nervous system and 0:19:41.280 --> 0:19:44.879 dealing with trauma and cortisol levels, right, and so just 0:19:45.040 --> 0:19:47.000 be I've just been kind of aware over the past 0:19:47.040 --> 0:19:50.040 few years that I've been in a constant sative bipe 0:19:50.080 --> 0:19:52.119 lighter freeze that at my court is all that I 0:19:52.720 --> 0:19:54.800 and I'm thinking that it's started with attachment, and my 0:19:54.880 --> 0:19:57.480 therapist is that this. But now it's like I'm still 0:19:57.480 --> 0:20:01.600 of having an AHA in a different way where it's like, oh, okay, So, 0:20:01.960 --> 0:20:05.520 like I I had a moment happened in in Griffith Park, 0:20:05.640 --> 0:20:07.639 like you know, a couple of months ago, and I 0:20:07.840 --> 0:20:10.080 was so triggered by it. And I've learned that when 0:20:10.119 --> 0:20:12.760 it's hysterical, it's historical. So it's not about that moment, 0:20:13.080 --> 0:20:15.240 but I'm just thinking about, Oh, it's because I've been 0:20:15.280 --> 0:20:17.800 bullied so much in my life, and I've experienced violence 0:20:17.880 --> 0:20:20.920 and and like I've had so many traumatizing experiences. But 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:26.439 even before that, it started with the attachment, even before 0:20:26.480 --> 0:20:29.440 all the bullying, Right, So the bullying that I experienced 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:34.480 in school activated this sort of insecure, anxious attachment that 0:20:34.600 --> 0:20:40.399 started when I was a baby. That's that's exactly girl. 0:20:41.240 --> 0:20:45.280 It was the next version of it. And you know 0:20:45.520 --> 0:20:48.520 your inability to at the time as a child, to 0:20:49.080 --> 0:20:52.080 maybe stand up for yourself or find other connections with 0:20:52.160 --> 0:20:54.720 people who would help make you feel secure, was that 0:20:54.880 --> 0:20:58.159 you were just sort of reenacting what was familiar to you. 0:20:58.640 --> 0:21:01.000 We know we have voices inside our head, right and 0:21:01.760 --> 0:21:04.440 we're not even aware. But sometimes that voice is saying, 0:21:04.760 --> 0:21:06.720 you know, you're bad, you're wrong, you don't fit in 0:21:06.960 --> 0:21:09.639 or whatever. We don't know. They're so subtle. I know 0:21:09.760 --> 0:21:11.920 the voice very well. Yes, I did a lot of 0:21:11.960 --> 0:21:14.360 work around the voices in my head, especially during quarantine 0:21:14.359 --> 0:21:18.040 and I live alone. But go on, But did you 0:21:18.200 --> 0:21:23.520 know we can actually change those voices ourselves. We can 0:21:23.720 --> 0:21:27.840 reparent ourselves. So here's my little trick for you. Because 0:21:28.000 --> 0:21:29.439 of and I'm going to tell you this is an 0:21:29.480 --> 0:21:33.199 outsider first. You may not know that this is how 0:21:33.400 --> 0:21:42.120 most people look at you. Beautiful, glamorous, brilliant, well spoken, 0:21:42.920 --> 0:21:49.879 and an absolute survivor and crusader. You don't know that, 0:21:50.440 --> 0:21:53.600 but that's what we see. I'm assuming you don't know 0:21:53.680 --> 0:21:55.680 that because I'm talked to the child in you. So 0:21:56.640 --> 0:21:59.480 every time you go in the mirror and begin your makeup. 0:22:00.400 --> 0:22:02.960 I want you to literally say out loud into the mirror, 0:22:03.680 --> 0:22:07.560 I am so proud of you. I'm so proud of you, Laverne, 0:22:08.680 --> 0:22:10.600 and I want you to implant that a voice, and 0:22:10.680 --> 0:22:13.960 if you do it every single day for months, you 0:22:14.040 --> 0:22:19.960 will be amazed and how your brain will literally change that. 0:22:20.200 --> 0:22:21.679 That feels like that drew to me that I'm going 0:22:21.760 --> 0:22:24.840 to add that one. I become very aware of just 0:22:25.640 --> 0:22:27.719 the thoughts because I'm alone with my thoughts a lot, 0:22:27.760 --> 0:22:30.040 because I you know, I'm single, now, kids, now pets. 0:22:30.359 --> 0:22:33.920 And I became aware early on in quarantine, like March 0:22:34.040 --> 0:22:36.080 or April of the quarantine, and I was like, oh, 0:22:36.280 --> 0:22:40.040 the negative thoughts and negative self talk is strong with 0:22:40.240 --> 0:22:45.439 this cognitive behavioral therapists call it thoughts stopping and thought replacement. 0:22:46.160 --> 0:22:50.080 Thought stopping and thought replacing replacement. So as soon as 0:22:50.160 --> 0:22:53.520