Speaker 1: We need to learn what our needs are.
Speaker 2: Everybody has needs in a relationship, and actually needs in
Speaker 2: a relationship are so understated.
Speaker 3: Tys Gibson is a relationship coach, best selling author from
Speaker 3: the founder of Personal Development School.
Speaker 2: The analogy I often give to people as somebody with
Speaker 2: a different attachment style than you. It's almost like you
Speaker 2: sit down to play a board game and you have
Speaker 2: the rules for Monopoly and I have the rules for Scrabble.
Speaker 2: It's going to cause like a lot of unnecessary misunderstandings.
Speaker 2: It's safe to express emotions, it's okay to be vulnerable,
Speaker 2: to rely on other people and to trust them. They
Speaker 2: get this really healthy modeling, and as they grow older,
Speaker 2: they also get modeling for how to communicate and negotiate
Speaker 2: their needs and how to have healthy boundaries.
Speaker 3: I'm Razzi da Vlukia and on my podcast A Really
Speaker 3: Good Cry, we embrace the messy and the beautiful, providing
Speaker 3: a space for raw, unfolded conversations that celebrate vulnerability and
Speaker 3: allow you to tune in to learn, connect and find
Speaker 3: comfort together. Thank you so much for being here. I
Speaker 3: am so grateful to you. I have been binge reading
Speaker 3: your books and I am so grateful that you have
Speaker 3: done so much of the work for us so we
Speaker 3: can understand things so simply through your words.
Speaker 4: And I just want to get straight into it.
Speaker 3: So tell me how you started learning about attachment theory
Speaker 3: and what got you interested in it.
Speaker 2: So I grew up in like a very chaotic household,
Speaker 2: for sure, and I was a very sensitive child. So
Speaker 2: I have a younger sister, and I think as a
Speaker 2: child that was parentified a lot. So I was kind
Speaker 2: of put in the middle of a lot of the
Speaker 2: chaos and the drama my parents went through, like a
Speaker 2: twenty year divorce that went to the Superior Court of Canada,
Speaker 2: just one of those things. And I think I grew
Speaker 2: up as like the sensitive person, kind of thinking like,
Speaker 2: why can't it be different? Why do people who love
Speaker 2: each other? And I knew they really cared about each
Speaker 2: other and they were very loving, like my parents are
Speaker 2: very good hearted people, but they just really brought out
Speaker 2: really difficult sort of sides to one another. And so
Speaker 2: I think from a very young age, I was really
Speaker 2: interested in human behavior. I think it's difficult. I'm not
Speaker 2: recommending that people parentify their children and put them in
Speaker 2: the middle of things, but I think the silver lining
Speaker 2: for me was that I actually really love human behavior
Speaker 2: and learning about people. And I think from a young
Speaker 2: age I was kind of immersed in this environment where
Speaker 2: I was, in a sense, being forced to learn about
Speaker 2: a lot of why people do the things that they do.
Speaker 2: And I became very curious at a young age, and
Speaker 2: so I internalized a lot, went through my own sort
Speaker 2: of struggles both personally and in relationships, and then did
Speaker 2: a lot of healing work and was like, how can
Speaker 2: I go into my adult life feeling like relationships aren't
Speaker 2: scary and aren't so chaotic and so difficult. And a
Speaker 2: lot of the work and healing that I had to
Speaker 2: do with myself ended up being the things that actually
Speaker 2: brought me into this sort of realm of work later on.
Speaker 2: So a big part of my focus became, Okay, well
Speaker 2: how can I go into not just how we understand
Speaker 2: our attachment styles, but how can we change them? Because
Speaker 2: I was a fearful, avoidant attachment style, which is a
Speaker 2: tricky one, and I was very hot and cold, and
Speaker 2: I think at that point it was like, well, I
Speaker 2: don't want to live like this forever and feel like
Speaker 2: relationships are difficult like this, and so doing that work
Speaker 2: with myself first and becoming securely attached and then allowed
Speaker 2: me to bring that out to other people as well.
Speaker 3: And what was your first experience with attachment styles? And
Speaker 3: just we know what, before we do that, could you
Speaker 3: just give anybody, everybody that's listening an overview of what
Speaker 3: attachment theory is.
Speaker 4: Yes, I feel like we're using the tab and feeling
Speaker 4: wait what is that?
Speaker 1: Absolutely so attachment theory.
Speaker 2: We can think of it in a simplified manner as
Speaker 2: being basically the subconscious set of rules you have for love.
Speaker 2: So if you grow up that yeah, and it's sort
Speaker 2: of like we all have this rule book. And the
Speaker 2: analogy I often give to people is somebody with a
Speaker 2: different attachment style than you. It's almost like you sit
Speaker 2: down to play a board game and you have the
Speaker 2: rules for Monopoly and I have the rules for Scrabble,
Speaker 2: and it's going to cause like a lot of unnecessary
Speaker 2: friction and misunderstandings and miscommunications because we're like, what do
Speaker 2: you mean, We're supposed to be doing it this way.
Speaker 2: And so that's really what our attachment style is. And
Speaker 2: it was originally the Body of Work was originally born
Speaker 2: from John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworths out of care University
Speaker 2: decades ago, and then a lot of that original research
Speaker 2: I learned in like first year psych at university. But
Speaker 2: it's sort of like it's really profound in a sense,
Speaker 2: but it talks about the four attachment styles, but it
Speaker 2: doesn't talk about how we can change our attachment style,
Speaker 2: how we can become secure, how we can recondition. Basically,
Speaker 2: and we know we have neuroplasticity and so because of that,
Speaker 2: we can change our attachment style. So that's where our
Speaker 2: body of work was born from there. But the four
Speaker 2: major attachment styles out of John Bolby's work are number one,
Speaker 2: the securely attached child. Securely attached children obviously grow up
Speaker 2: as secure adults, and they grew up in a household
Speaker 2: where there's a lot of what we call approach oriented behaviors.
Speaker 2: So basically there's a lot of when a child is
Speaker 2: in distress, crying, feeling sad, the parent will go towards them,
Speaker 2: and through those approach oriented behaviors, it actually conditions the
Speaker 2: child to feel like I'm worthy of love, It's safe
Speaker 2: to express emotions. My needs will get mad if I
Speaker 2: express emotions. It's okay to be vulnerable to rely on
Speaker 2: other people and to trust them, and so they get
Speaker 2: this really healthy modeling, and as they grow, they also
Speaker 2: get modeling for how to communicate and negotiate their needs
Speaker 2: and how to have healthy boundaries. So they grow up
Speaker 2: to have that framework to become really secure adults because
Speaker 2: of that framework model to them as children. And then
Speaker 2: there's the three insecure attachment styles. One is the anxious preoccupied.
Speaker 2: This is somebody that tends to have a lot of
Speaker 2: either real or perceived abandonment in childhood. So it can
Speaker 2: be that they either literally go through an abandonment where
Speaker 2: a parent is divorced and they kind of move out
Speaker 2: of the household and they're not around very much. Or
Speaker 2: it can also be a lot of very loving emotions
Speaker 2: and actions from caregivers, but maybe they're working all the time,
Speaker 2: so it's sort of like, yeah, so it's like love
Speaker 2: is there, love is taken away. Love is there, Love
Speaker 2: is taken away, And that repetition and emotion fires and
Speaker 2: wires those neural pathways for a person to constantly fear
Speaker 2: abandonment and fear that the other shoe will drop, and
Speaker 2: so they become the clinging individuals. Sometimes in adult relationships
Speaker 2: because that's their way of trying to cope and maintain proximity.
Speaker 3: And okay, so that was this team will right go
Speaker 3: through them and then then we're going to go through
Speaker 3: them in depth. But I feel like if they hear
Speaker 3: the terms, you'll be really useful to them when we're
Speaker 3: going back through it.
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: So on the other end of the spectrum, there's the
Speaker 2: dismissive avoidant. Dismissive avoidance usually grow up with the overarching
Speaker 2: theme being childhood emotional neglect, and sometimes even in mashment
Speaker 2: and so childhood emotional neglect causes a child when they're
Speaker 2: very young to go, something must be wrong with me
Speaker 2: that I can't get my needs met because we're literally
Speaker 2: wired for attunement, for connection, for emotional responding from our caregivers,
Speaker 2: and so a child internalizes it because they every child
Speaker 2: internalizes everything.
Speaker 1: That's how the mind works when they're learning.
Speaker 2: And so a child can't go, oh, my parents are
Speaker 2: emotionally unavailable, so instead they go, something must be wrong
Speaker 2: with me. And so they tend to be the ones
Speaker 2: that are afraid to even bond too much in terms
Speaker 2: of relationships, and they constantly keep people at bay and
Speaker 2: try to keep a distance because they don't want to.
Speaker 1: Feel like that again as adults.
Speaker 2: And so that's or dismissive avoidant. They tend to fear
Speaker 2: commitment as adults, they tend to sort of be a
Speaker 2: little slur to warm up, a little more stand offish. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and last, but not least, it's the fearful avoidant.
Speaker 1: This is what I was.
Speaker 2: Fearful avoidance grub usually in chaotic childhood, so it can
Speaker 2: be a lot of fighting in the home. It can
Speaker 2: be parentification, but it can also be more extreme things
Speaker 2: like having a cluster B personality disordered parent, somebody with
Speaker 2: borderline personality disorder or narcissistic personality disorder, or it can
Speaker 2: also be that you have parents who maybe struggle with addiction.
Speaker 2: And basically the overarching theme is like you have some
Speaker 2: really good moments with love and connection, some really nice ones,
Speaker 2: but some really scary ones or kind of horrific ones,
Speaker 2: and so you never know what you're going to get.
Speaker 2: And if you imagine, like an example of a parent
Speaker 2: who's an addict, let's say mom's an alcoholic. As an example,
Speaker 2: one day Mom comes home, she's had too much to drink.
Speaker 2: She's scary, she's confusing. Another day she's had too much drink.
Speaker 2: She's in a great mood. Another day she's so bering
Speaker 2: up and she's in a really bad mood. She's detoxing.
Speaker 2: Another day she's sober and she feels guilty about her behavior.
Speaker 2: So she's kind and it's like you just don't know
Speaker 2: what you're going to get at any point in time.
Speaker 2: And so a child like that up in a household
Speaker 2: and then feels as an adult like they want love,
Speaker 2: but when it gets too close, they get scared, and
Speaker 2: so they're very hot and cold and pushion, pull, and
Speaker 2: it's sort of like.
Speaker 1: Come here, come here. If somebody gets closer, like get back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so they give a lot of mixed messages
Speaker 2: because a lot of that is like the internal feelings
Speaker 2: that they're caring and responding to.
Speaker 1: So those are the four for major here.
Speaker 3: That was really informative. And I feel like when I
Speaker 3: read through your book and I was reading through all
Speaker 3: these attachment styles, I could think of different people in
Speaker 3: my life who carry different qualities, and what it really
Speaker 3: made me think was, God, it helps me feel so
Speaker 3: much empathy towards the people in my life, not even
Speaker 3: just empathy but understanding of myself, understanding of other people,
Speaker 3: but so much more compassion for it. And I think
Speaker 3: that these styles help you to connect not just to
Speaker 3: your partner, not just to your parents, to but every
Speaker 3: single person that you come into contact with. You can
Speaker 3: kind of start understanding their behavior and therefore have more
Speaker 3: of a compassionate nature. Where you're thinking, this all stems
Speaker 3: from like a that was either neglected or grew up
Speaker 3: in a really difficult environment, and those things are being
Speaker 3: carried with us.
Speaker 4: So how does.
Speaker 3: One go from you know, hearing this where you hear
Speaker 3: what the attachment styles are and being like, oh this
Speaker 3: is me or oh this is my partner, this is
Speaker 3: my mom.
Speaker 4: What do we then do about it?
Speaker 3: Like? How how does one How did you start to
Speaker 3: heal yourself and what would you know? You said you
Speaker 3: did a lot of healing work. What were the healing
Speaker 3: techniques that really helped you? And how do we move
Speaker 3: through these towards being a secure? Can everyone be a secure?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 2: Yes, everybody can be sec It does require work, Like
Speaker 2: I would say, the caveat is if somebody's not really
Speaker 2: willing to do the work, and that's where the sort
Speaker 2: of the glass ceiling arises.
Speaker 4: But I did.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 2: I first started in client practice after doing a lot
Speaker 2: of my own work, and I saw over the course
Speaker 2: of about a decade, almost eighteen I went through almost
Speaker 2: eighteen thousand client slashs. And if people are willing to
Speaker 2: do the work, people become secure. If somebody came in
Speaker 2: and they were willing, but they dragged in their partner
Speaker 2: who was unwilling, that would be where like that that
Speaker 2: there's not much you can.
Speaker 1: Do past that.
Speaker 2: So my original background was actually I came out of
Speaker 2: school for psychology, went into specializing in hypnosis, and I
Speaker 2: really wanted to learn how we can really change our
Speaker 2: subconscious mind. So one of the things I learned in
Speaker 2: school was that your conscious mind cannot outwill or overpower
Speaker 2: your subconscious mind, which to me was like mind blowing
Speaker 2: because it was like, oh, that's why everybody every New
Speaker 2: Year's it's like I'm gonna quit eating chocolate and seven days.
Speaker 1: Later they're back to the same thing.
Speaker 2: Or we set all these goals but we don't follow through. Well,
Speaker 2: it's because we're not engaging the subconscious mind in the
Speaker 2: process of transformation. So I got into hypno therapy did
Speaker 2: like this year long certification and all of that, did
Speaker 2: a lot of like NLP, a lot of these things
Speaker 2: to really understand how the mind works, and then started
Speaker 2: doing client sessions with hypnosis and was like, kind of
Speaker 2: I thought the power dynamics were strange. I felt like
Speaker 2: it was like give the mani fish instead.
Speaker 1: Of tea into fish.
Speaker 2: And I was like, what, I'd rather spend time telling
Speaker 2: people how their subconscious works and how they can recondition it.
Speaker 2: Because when you look at hypnosis and you pair that
Speaker 2: with neuroplasticity research, there's like a science behind transformation. So
Speaker 2: there's a lot of tools we can use to change
Speaker 2: our subconscious mind, which is how the needle actually moves.
Speaker 1: So what I found over about.
Speaker 2: Ten years of working with people was that there's basically
Speaker 2: four major categories and two kind of minor ones that
Speaker 2: we have to focus on in order to become securely attached.
Speaker 2: The first is reprogramming our core wounds. So we all
Speaker 2: have core wounds, and they're basically like our relationship baggage.
Speaker 2: So if I grew up for example, for me, I
Speaker 2: grew up in an environment where there was a lot
Speaker 2: of chaos, and so I really had a hard time
Speaker 2: trusting because I was kind of like, if my parents
Speaker 2: are betraying trust, like how will I trust anybody? And
Speaker 2: so you know that's an I am betrayed core wound.
Speaker 2: And each attachment style actually has very unique core wounds.
Speaker 2: Anxious attachments have more like I'll be abandoned, I'll be alone, excluded, disliked, rejected,
Speaker 2: dismissive avoidance are more like I'll be seen as defective
Speaker 2: or something's wrong with me because of that internalized shame wound.
Speaker 2: I'll be weak, if I'm vulnerable, it's unsafe to open up.
Speaker 2: I'll be trapped, helpless, powerless. Fearful woids basically have both
Speaker 2: sides because they have that anxious end of winds, so
Speaker 2: a little more core wound reprogramming, but they also have
Speaker 2: this core wounded I'll be betrayed, I'm unworthy, and I
Speaker 2: am bad, like feeling like people will get them in
Speaker 2: trouble or punish them for no reason. So a lot
Speaker 2: of the first work I did just of my own accord,
Speaker 2: was doing a ton of core woundery programming, which is
Speaker 2: based on how we can sort of self hypnotize when awake.
Speaker 2: It's not like really in a process of hypnosis at all.
Speaker 2: It's just a process of like firing and wiring neural pathways.
Speaker 2: We can always talk about like a tool or something later.
Speaker 2: There's some really easy takeaways that people could get started.
Speaker 1: On immediately who are less.
Speaker 2: So first we have to get all of those ideas
Speaker 2: out of our subconscious mind. Because if I'm going into
Speaker 2: trying to love somebody and I'm like, well, I'm going
Speaker 2: to be betrayed, I'm going to be a band, and
Speaker 2: I'm going to be trapped, and all these fears are there,
Speaker 2: then it makes it really difficult to let our guard
Speaker 2: down or to feel normal. So we have to recondition
Speaker 2: those ideas. We're not born with them, they get conditioned
Speaker 2: into us. We can recondition them of the same court.
Speaker 3: And so I guess that first step what I'm hearing
Speaker 3: from you is identifying, like learning and learning yourself and
Speaker 3: identifying what is my mind thinking in that moment, like
Speaker 3: noticing it, because I think a lot of us go
Speaker 3: on autopilot. If you've had it from such a young age.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm going into a room, whether it's with
Speaker 3: my partner or whether it's with my friends, and the
Speaker 3: first thing I'm thinking is, oh, if I act in
Speaker 3: this way, they're not going to like me. Like let's
Speaker 3: say that's let's say that's the initial thought that comes
Speaker 3: into my mind. But you become so used to having
Speaker 3: those thoughts that they don't feel abnormal, they feel so
Speaker 3: part of you. They feel like they are are your normality.
Speaker 3: And so I think, yeah, the identifying part is so
Speaker 3: important when you actually start listening and hearing what is
Speaker 3: going through my mind as I'm going through the world,
Speaker 3: what is going through my mind as I'm interacting with
Speaker 3: my partner, with my close friends, with the people that
Speaker 3: I'm closest to, how am I reacting to things? And
Speaker 3: so okay, step one, identify exactly, and.
Speaker 2: It's really identify and then do the reprogramming work. So
Speaker 2: we'll give a tool in a little bit too, but
Speaker 2: I'll sort of go through the few and then I
Speaker 2: can come back to a tool for actually how to recondition,
Speaker 2: but exactly to your point, like, we have to know
Speaker 2: what it is first, and so a great way that
Speaker 2: people can discover it is whenever we're triggered, So whenever
Speaker 2: we're feeling stressed or sad or emotional, if we can
Speaker 2: really anchor in the situation, So it's when my partner
Speaker 2: didn't call me back, for example, what do I make
Speaker 2: it mean about me? And if we can ask ourselves
Speaker 2: that question, it's a really good way of retrieving the
Speaker 2: core wound. It's based in cognitive behavioral therapy, and so
Speaker 2: when we see that, we can go, oh, well, I'm
Speaker 2: making that mean that I'm going to be abandoned, yes,
Speaker 2: Or I'm making that mean I'm disliked or rejected, or
Speaker 2: I'm making that mean that you know, I'm with the
Speaker 2: wrong person, I'm going to be trapped, you know. So
Speaker 2: we each have like really individual meaning, and when we
Speaker 2: can look at times we felt really emotional or triggered
Speaker 2: and ask ourselves, what do I make that mean about me?
Speaker 2: We'll see clearly what those core wounds tend to be.
Speaker 2: So that's sort of the first way to pull them up,
Speaker 2: and then we can do the reprogramming.
Speaker 3: So what do I so identify and then what do
Speaker 3: I make what was it?
Speaker 1: What would I make this mean about me?
Speaker 3: What would I make this mean about me? I can
Speaker 3: say relate to that. The first thing that I thought
Speaker 3: of when you said that was, I remember when me
Speaker 3: and my husband first got married, he would have this
Speaker 3: habit of when he would come into the door, he
Speaker 3: would leave his shoes right by the door, and I
Speaker 3: would be in my mind, I would be thinking, what
Speaker 3: does he think I'm just going to pick up after him?
Speaker 4: Is that why he's leaving it by the door.
Speaker 3: He thinks that it's my responsibility to pick those shoes
Speaker 3: up and put them away. And it kept tearing away
Speaker 3: at me over and over again. And when I thought
Speaker 3: about what that meant for me, it was because I
Speaker 3: felt like I felt insecure about being at that time
Speaker 3: a housewife. Where I was where I was staying at
Speaker 3: home and he was working, and that was a shift
Speaker 3: that I had just made, and it was something that
Speaker 3: I felt insecure about. And so constantly any actions he
Speaker 3: was taking, which he didn't mean it to be that,
Speaker 3: my interpretation was, Oh, so he's leaving that though, because
Speaker 3: he thinks I should be doing this.
Speaker 4: And then I spoke to.
Speaker 3: Him and he was like, no, I'm so happy doing it.
Speaker 3: I just you know, at that moment in time, it's
Speaker 3: not when I want to pick this up or when
Speaker 3: I want to do that. But I would have done
Speaker 3: it an hour later, or I would have done it
Speaker 3: in my own time. And so the interpretation that I
Speaker 3: had made for myself was so different to what his
Speaker 3: meaning actually.
Speaker 1: Were exactly exactly, but it.
Speaker 3: Was purely based on my insecurities or things that I
Speaker 3: felt maybe in the past, or having to look after someone,
Speaker 3: you know, whatever it was, it was definitely stemming from
Speaker 3: something far beyond just the shoes that were left in
Speaker 3: front of the door.
Speaker 1: So that's so cool. It's such a good example.
Speaker 2: So if you go a step further, it just tell
Speaker 2: me if either one of these resonate with you, I
Speaker 2: don't matter, I'm I am unimportant, or I am disrespected.
Speaker 3: I think that I am unimportant definitely stems from even
Speaker 3: school times where I never felt like I was worth,
Speaker 3: Like I was never told or shown that I was
Speaker 3: worthy to even be in the classroom because I was
Speaker 3: always not getting the grades or always not being the
Speaker 3: person that was performing in the right way to get
Speaker 3: attention or to get adoration in that way. And so
Speaker 3: the unimportant thing I think has always played has been
Speaker 3: a thread throughout what I'm doing, or like the feeling
Speaker 3: of being a little bit unworthy, and then you kind
Speaker 3: of translate it into other things totally.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so that's like what core wounds come from.
Speaker 3: It.
Speaker 2: They never come from like actual like that moment with
Speaker 2: your husband coming through the door. They're always pre existing,
Speaker 2: and then they get activated in those moments and then
Speaker 2: it's something where like the shoes on the floor, like, oh,
Speaker 2: it's your shoes on the floor, but it's you know,
Speaker 2: people are like, oh, it's not a big deal, but
Speaker 2: really it's not about what the objective experience is. It's
Speaker 2: the subjective stuff that we have inside of us that
Speaker 2: arises that feels so uncomfortable. Yeah, so we do a
Speaker 2: lot of the work. The first part is like learning
Speaker 2: exactly what our core wounds are. There's a list of
Speaker 2: like eighteen or twenty. I can actually send you a
Speaker 2: link if you want to put in the show notes
Speaker 2: or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the listeners identify theirs.
Speaker 2: But you can see those ones and then it's like okay,
Speaker 2: then we can plug them into the reprogramming, and then
Speaker 2: we can actually leave these things that were conditioned into
Speaker 2: our subconscious mind from pre existing experiences, which makes us
Speaker 2: way less likely to jump to those conclusions in the
Speaker 2: future or feel that distress.
Speaker 4: It's so true.
Speaker 3: I think about all the times where I've kind of
Speaker 3: jumped to conclusions or had very snappy responses to things,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, why did I there was such a
Speaker 3: tiny thing? Like, technically it's a tiny thing, but because
Speaker 3: you allow things to build up so much, it doesn't
Speaker 3: feel tiny at all, Like that one thing feels so
Speaker 3: huge because of either things I haven't worked through myself
Speaker 3: or things that I haven't worked through with other people. Yes,
Speaker 3: that has ended up leaving little scars exactly, God, no,
Speaker 3: please go.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm just gonna say I always tell people like
Speaker 2: it's never because some people will do that, right, You're
Speaker 2: probably not doing that as much, but people will shame
Speaker 2: themselves for having reactions to things like oh, I can't
Speaker 2: believe I was snappy.
Speaker 1: Over this little thing.
Speaker 2: And it's because it's never about the external experience. It's
Speaker 2: always about what it triggers internally for us. And so
Speaker 2: it's also a reminder for us to be like gentle
Speaker 2: with ourselves. And then if we see ourselves doing that,
Speaker 2: it's never helpful to like shame ourselves or read ourself
Speaker 2: up or something. It's so important to get an adopt
Speaker 2: a state of curiosity and to be like, well, why
Speaker 2: did that affect me so much? What am I making
Speaker 2: it mean about me? And then we see, oh I
Speaker 2: was making it mean I am unimportant or I am unworthy,
Speaker 2: and oh my gosh, there's this like trail of that
Speaker 2: in my experience, how it all makes sense?
Speaker 3: Gosh, can you imagine how many well I'm sure you
Speaker 3: already know through the work you've done, but how many
Speaker 3: arguments are saved.
Speaker 4: After people realize these.
Speaker 3: Little things, Like seriously, I can just imagine the clarity
Speaker 3: of communication and like the clarity of understanding. Even if
Speaker 3: you figure out yourself as being secure, but then you
Speaker 3: end up noticing those traits in your partner helps you
Speaker 3: to also help them unwind and and you know, figure
Speaker 3: those parts out, like where is that coming from? Like
Speaker 3: how is that? How is what I said? What are
Speaker 3: you translating it to be? You know, I remember I
Speaker 3: heard recently Gaba Mathe I love him too, and he
Speaker 3: was talking about how this was more to do with
Speaker 3: what other people think about you, But he was talking
Speaker 3: about how you can never control how someone perceives what
Speaker 3: you've said, because it's going through all these layers, all
Speaker 3: these filters of.
Speaker 4: Their pain, of their trauma.
Speaker 3: And so you can say the same thing to five
Speaker 3: different people and each person will have internalized it completely
Speaker 3: differently exactly. And there's this word in Sanskrit. It's called
Speaker 3: some scars, and some scars are tiny. They're described as
Speaker 3: tiny little footprints that are essentially left on you every
Speaker 3: single time you go through an experience. But what happens
Speaker 3: is sometimes they can get washed away when you end
Speaker 3: up processing them. But otherwise, every single time that same
Speaker 3: thing happens, that the imprint gets deeper.
Speaker 4: And deeper and deeper.
Speaker 3: And so I always think about that when I go
Speaker 3: through life. I'm like, all these little impressions they refer
Speaker 3: to us, All these little impressions that are being made
Speaker 3: determine how we receive anything that we come into contact.
Speaker 1: With exactly and will give. And it's so funny.
Speaker 2: Because this is like how the subconscious works too, is
Speaker 2: exactly what you just described as some scars, which is
Speaker 2: every time we go through a negative thing that we
Speaker 2: can't properly emotionally in process or subconscious stores it so
Speaker 2: that it can protect us from it in the future.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 2: But then when we keep giving the same meaning, we're
Speaker 2: actually firing and wiring those neural pathways are getting stronger
Speaker 2: and deeper. And now you think of your subconscious mind
Speaker 2: as like the lens you see the world through where
Speaker 2: it's almost like every time you have something that like
Speaker 2: or like almost like a windshield when you're driving your
Speaker 2: car and you get these like splats of mud on
Speaker 2: your windshield and they build up and become dirty and dirtier,
Speaker 2: and unless you're cleaning them out, it skews your vision.
Speaker 4: Yes, that's a great analogy.
Speaker 3: So with people, you know, I have a lot of
Speaker 3: friends who get into relationships and you know, you end
Speaker 3: up having these patterns when you end up seeking out
Speaker 3: the same thing over and over again. Is that linked
Speaker 3: to these attachment theories from a young age? And if
Speaker 3: you notice yourself getting into patterns and usually then we
Speaker 3: recognize the patterns usually when they negative, not when they're
Speaker 3: positive patons.
Speaker 4: How would one?
Speaker 3: And obviously these are the ways that you get out
Speaker 3: of it, But when do you know to stop, Like,
Speaker 3: how do you know to stop those patterns? How do
Speaker 3: you stop it from how do you differentiate it from
Speaker 3: who you just are as your personality versus something that
Speaker 3: is wrong with you or something that you have to
Speaker 3: adapt and.
Speaker 2: Change because of how much it's causing us pain. So
Speaker 2: I feel like emotions like they're a beautiful feedback mechanism,
Speaker 2: Like they're always telling us when something is out of alignment.
Speaker 2: And sometimes what we do is we shame our emotions
Speaker 2: or suppress them. But they're always saying something to us.
Speaker 2: And when we can use them as an opportunity to
Speaker 2: go inward, we can go in and heal and do
Speaker 2: that underlying work. And so what's really interesting is that
Speaker 2: our subconscious mind really wants to maintain its comfort zone.
Speaker 2: So it seeks comfort because it equates it to familiarity
Speaker 2: and thus safety. And so your subconscious at the end
Speaker 2: of the day is really survival wired. So even if
Speaker 2: we're going through decades of painful patterns and relationships, will
Speaker 2: attract the same type of people and invest in those
Speaker 2: personalities because we're like, it's familiar, and thus I'm still
Speaker 2: likely to survive. And so what's really interesting is it
Speaker 2: for each of the attachment styles, we are generally most
Speaker 2: attracted to what represents the subconscious comforts wone we have
Speaker 2: in relationship to self.
Speaker 1: So how we.
Speaker 2: Get conditioned as children we will tend to internalize. So
Speaker 2: I always say, for example, like our internal dialogue is
Speaker 2: often our internalized dialogue from childhood, Like how we were
Speaker 2: spoken to will often speak to ourselves. And so let's say,
Speaker 2: for example, you would really critical parents, then you become
Speaker 2: really critical of self, and then you see that you're
Speaker 2: attracted to really critical people because they mirror back to
Speaker 2: you how you treat yourself, and thus it feels safe
Speaker 2: and familiar. Wow. And so you'll often see like anxious
Speaker 2: attachment styles. They are very dismissive of themselves and their
Speaker 2: own feelings because they're busy people pleasing, so they're more
Speaker 2: attracted to emotionally unavailable people.
Speaker 1: A lot of the time, dismissive A.
Speaker 2: Winds are very preoccupied with their own time to themselves,
Speaker 2: and often the attracted to people who are also.
Speaker 1: Preoccupied with the amount of time.
Speaker 2: So we end up attracting what's our mirror, not into
Speaker 2: like what we're looking for, but into who we are
Speaker 2: to self. And that's why it's so important to become
Speaker 2: securely attached to self first, so we're more likely to
Speaker 2: be investing in people who are also going to be
Speaker 2: secure and show up in safe and healthy ways.
Speaker 4: See that puts a whole different meaning to.
Speaker 3: Love yourself first, and then you'll find the person that's
Speaker 3: gonna love you best Like that to me. You know,
Speaker 3: everyone's like, you know, you have to feel really secure
Speaker 3: by yourself first before you get into a relationship. But
Speaker 3: I think the way you just described it of it
Speaker 3: being this reflection, you know, what you end up seeking
Speaker 3: out is a reflection of how you treat yourself. Then
Speaker 3: it makes sense, right then you actually want to be
Speaker 3: in a place rather than someone coming in and trying
Speaker 3: to fix these broken pieces of you. You then realize,
Speaker 3: oh my god, I could deserve so much more, Like
Speaker 3: I could attract so much more in my life, and
Speaker 3: I there's a possibility that I deserve way more. But
Speaker 3: I need to believe I deserve more, and I need
Speaker 3: to believe that things in my own self can be
Speaker 3: better before I can attract better exactly.
Speaker 2: And that goes back to like these major things. So
Speaker 2: it's really interesting. So we talked about like that. You know,
Speaker 2: there's a four major things. Yeah, so the first one
Speaker 2: is core wounds, right, and we have to I have
Speaker 2: to go through the other ones. But the core wounds,
Speaker 2: like if I'm telling myself all day I'm not good
Speaker 2: enough or I'm unworthy, I never So I saw a
Speaker 2: lot of clients within that ten year period or so
Speaker 2: when I was running my practice who came out of
Speaker 2: also narcissistic relationships and not like how people throw away
Speaker 2: through around the term, but like actual, you know, narcissistic
Speaker 2: personality disorder. And it's so interesting because this was like
Speaker 2: the most obvious example to me. And this is to
Speaker 2: be very clear, I'm not victim blaming at all, and
Speaker 2: I'll speak to that in a moment, but but what
Speaker 2: I would see is that every person who ended up
Speaker 2: in a relationship with a narcissist, they first were very
Speaker 2: self critical, They violated their own boundaries to please people
Speaker 2: all the time. They would manipulate themselves into like becoming
Speaker 2: what people wanted from them to people please them, and
Speaker 2: they were often in a position where they were not
Speaker 2: empathizing with their own feelings. They were like judging themselves
Speaker 2: for feelings. So of course somebody comes along who's not
Speaker 2: going to be very nice to you. They're going to
Speaker 2: be like cruel or mean and how they talk to you,
Speaker 2: They're going to manipulate your life, they're going to violate
Speaker 2: your boundaries, they're not going to empathize with you, like
Speaker 2: all these characteristics of a narcissist. And what happens is
Speaker 2: the conscious mind is responsible for three to five percent
Speaker 2: of our beliefs, thoughts, emotions, and actions, and subconscious and
Speaker 2: unconscious collectively are ninety five to ninety seven percent. And
Speaker 2: every client that I would see go through this would
Speaker 2: come into my practice and they would say, I knew better.
Speaker 2: It was almost like logically, which is our conscious mind,
Speaker 2: I knew that something was not right. I knew that
Speaker 2: this person wasn't being healthy, but it was like I
Speaker 2: couldn't stop myself from going and investing in this relationship.
Speaker 3: The autopilot is exactly almost like this dormant autopilot thing
Speaker 3: where it's almost like we're asleep, like it's it's the subconscious.
Speaker 3: To me, it feels like unless you start tuning into it,
Speaker 3: it becomes this part of you that is asleep on
Speaker 3: basically just following patterns that you've already followed before without
Speaker 3: trying to reji like you have to realign it. But otherwise,
Speaker 3: living through your subconscious means I'm going to collect all
Speaker 3: these things that happen. We're going to store it, like
Speaker 3: you said, and then we're going to live in that
Speaker 3: same pattern over and over again until you wake up
Speaker 3: and until you wake me up and start telling me different.
Speaker 2: Exactly exactly, and start doing that reconditioning work, and so
Speaker 2: it's like this whole like landscape of what's happening. So
Speaker 2: that first part is people learning to reprogram their core wounds,
Speaker 2: because as long as I have core wounds, like for me,
Speaker 2: it's so interesting. I saw my parents go through this
Speaker 2: big sort of you know, confused dynamic, and I had
Speaker 2: this huge betrayal core wound, and then I was in
Speaker 2: relationships as a young person with people who would betray me,
Speaker 2: and it was like, oh my gosh, this is my
Speaker 2: subconscious comfort zone and as soon as I recondition that
Speaker 2: that would change. Right, So we tend to like actually
Speaker 2: not just have these core ones, but then we invest
Speaker 2: in people who are more likely to activate them. So
Speaker 2: that's the first The second part is we need to
Speaker 2: learn what our needs are. Everybody has needs in a relationship,
Speaker 2: and actually needs in a relationship are so understated. So
Speaker 2: there's the beautiful work of doctor Gary Chapman. He talks
Speaker 2: about the five love languages, and I would actually say,
Speaker 2: much more important than the love languages are our needs
Speaker 2: because I can I have a big quality time love language,
Speaker 2: but I have a big need for emotional connection, and
Speaker 2: if I spend quality time watching Netflix with somebody, it's
Speaker 2: not the same as having like a deep conversation and
Speaker 2: feeling like that's like a really connecting thing. So our
Speaker 2: needs are absolutely huge, and they're how we actually give
Speaker 2: and receive love in a relationship. And when needs are
Speaker 2: not being met, and not to fear amonger people listening
Speaker 2: to this, but when needs are not met, that is
Speaker 2: the context for usually how infidelity happens long term and relationships,
Speaker 2: because the subconscious mind is a needs meaning machine, and
Speaker 2: so what will happen is we won't get our needs met,
Speaker 2: let's say in a twenty year marriage, and then we'll
Speaker 2: start to resent, and then somebody comes along who does
Speaker 2: meet those needs. They do make you feel seen or
Speaker 2: heard or significant, and the subconscious mind will go through
Speaker 2: these enormous feelings of infatuation, which obviously this is usually
Speaker 2: with the exception of people who are like sex addicts
Speaker 2: or things like that, the vast majority of infidelity happens
Speaker 2: in these very drawn out times where needs are not
Speaker 2: being that and then the person justifies it and strays.
Speaker 2: And so every person has needs. We need to learn
Speaker 2: our own needs and how to meet our needs ourselves
Speaker 2: first so that our subconscious mind is ready to receive
Speaker 2: them from other people and we're primed. And then the
Speaker 2: third piece becomes we need to learn to communicate our
Speaker 2: needs vulnerably and transparently and so hard.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess like, okay, we've done on this week.
Speaker 3: And then you have to learn how to ask for
Speaker 3: what you need, which I think even more so for
Speaker 3: women than I think for anybody else. We're just so
Speaker 3: used to being the people were being in a position
Speaker 3: of being givers and being people who are.
Speaker 4: Okay, care take.
Speaker 3: It's part of our nature to be that way, and
Speaker 3: so to then be like, this is what I need,
Speaker 3: it feels like such a big step and a very
Speaker 3: vulnerable moment to even do that.
Speaker 2: So big so as a fearful avoidant as well. In
Speaker 2: the past, I remember the first time I communicated in
Speaker 2: need and it was to my now husband, and we've
Speaker 2: been together for like ten years, but we were early
Speaker 2: on into dating, and I had done a lot of
Speaker 2: this work on myself first, but I hadn't really done
Speaker 2: it in a relationship. I took this kind of time
Speaker 2: out from dating, like this sacred kind of pause, to
Speaker 2: like do a lot of inner work because I knew
Speaker 2: that I needed it, and and it's funnily enough, he
Speaker 2: was like the first person actually dated after.
Speaker 1: Coming out of that and then we got married.
Speaker 2: But he like, I remember one time I felt really
Speaker 2: insecure about something and it was like this misunderstanding that
Speaker 2: was happening, and we were only a few months into dating,
Speaker 2: and I remember knowing, if I don't say right now
Speaker 2: that I just need like clarity and reassurance that I'm
Speaker 2: going to store it and I'm just going to kind
Speaker 2: of push him away.
Speaker 1: And I remember like where I was, what I was wearing.
Speaker 1: It was such a good moment because.
Speaker 2: It was so scary, but I was like, hey, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm feeling like a little bit unsure about this situation
Speaker 2: that's happening, and I need like clarity and reassurance to
Speaker 2: feel okay. Otherwise I know it's just gonna I'm gonna
Speaker 2: get in my head and I don't want it to
Speaker 2: come out in a different way in the relationship. And
Speaker 2: he like was so sweet about it and so like
Speaker 2: and it was the first time met ever communicated, and
Speaker 2: it was like positively reinforced like that, and it was like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is what it's supposed to feel like and it's
Speaker 2: so scary when we haven't done that before. And to
Speaker 2: your point, like women a lot of the times too,
Speaker 2: are like care takers and they're not supposed to like
Speaker 2: have have needs or take up too much space. But
Speaker 2: I think that without that, relationships just often become dysfunctional.
Speaker 2: And the more we have unmet needs and there's a
Speaker 2: lack of communication that goes in direct correlation with how
Speaker 2: much resentment boils in the relationship, and so that's the
Speaker 2: big thing. So so we do the core wounds, we
Speaker 2: identify and reprogram core wounds. We learn our needs and
Speaker 2: we learn to meet them to with self. So if
Speaker 2: I need encouragement, I better be more validated of self.
Speaker 2: If I need certainty, how can I create my own
Speaker 2: certainty with more boundaries in my life or things like that.
Speaker 2: And there's like each attachment style we can go through
Speaker 2: them afterwards too, but each attachment set actually has very
Speaker 2: unique needs that tend to be there, so we can
Speaker 2: learn from that what they are, and then we learn
Speaker 2: to meet them with self, and then we learn to
Speaker 2: communicate them with others. And then the last kind of
Speaker 2: pieces is we have to develop healthy boundaries, and then
Speaker 2: we have to do a little emotional regulation just through
Speaker 2: things that get us into parasympathetic nervous system mode, meditation,
Speaker 2: breath work, habits, just like little things that will help
Speaker 2: us reregulate if we come from a history of relationship trauma,
Speaker 2: and then in doing that.
Speaker 1: That will shift our behaviors.
Speaker 2: So really it's like if you can learn your coremones
Speaker 2: and reprogram them, learn your needs, express your needs to
Speaker 2: other people, emotionally regulate, and have good boundaries. It sounds
Speaker 2: like five like things that take a lot of time,
Speaker 2: but really it's like ninety days for people to really
Speaker 2: do the reprogramming. Do like a little breathwork exercise in
Speaker 2: the morning, you're regulating your nervous system, and then go
Speaker 2: into your life and learn to understand your needs and
Speaker 2: communicate them to peace and set your boundaries and really
Speaker 2: like just conditioning that for ninety days, we'll see people
Speaker 2: really move into being securely attached.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because you know, what you're just saying reminds me
Speaker 3: of the friends I was talking about, where if they're
Speaker 3: used to being in you know, similar relationships where it's
Speaker 3: actually quite painful. The problem is even when a man
Speaker 3: comes along that is completely different and possibly a secure man.
Speaker 3: They find it disturbing and they can't even appreciate the
Speaker 3: man who is secure, communicating, stable, And so it's almost
Speaker 3: like you lose out on these opportunities to have because
Speaker 3: they're always thinking, Oh, I just need to find that guy,
Speaker 3: that guy that makes me feel secure, the guy that
Speaker 3: makes me feel like it's all going to be okay.
Speaker 3: But the problem is you find that and then it's boring.
Speaker 3: And you find that, and then it's suddenly like, oh,
Speaker 3: but what else do I do?
Speaker 4: Now?
Speaker 3: This is I'm just bored and I don't know how
Speaker 3: to react to this. And so it's almost an unfair
Speaker 3: position that you're putting the other person in because you
Speaker 3: have and you're not ready to receive that yet. And
Speaker 3: so what you were talking about it just kind of
Speaker 3: makes it. It's almost like the work that has to
Speaker 3: be done before an exam, right, you have to do
Speaker 3: the work that it takes to accept the goodness that
Speaker 3: comes into your life if you've been in a position
Speaker 3: that's used to not receiving that exactly.
Speaker 2: And like, it's so hilarious that you said this because
Speaker 2: I just recorded a YouTube video. It hasn't come out yet,
Speaker 2: And it's about how if you're not secure, you'll often
Speaker 2: find secure people boring. And and because in our so
Speaker 2: we do these like programs in the personal development school
Speaker 2: and people all the time. So we'll do like these
Speaker 2: daily webinars and people will come in and type stuff
Speaker 2: and all the time. Like I was like, I have
Speaker 2: to make a video about this and address it because
Speaker 2: so often people will literally be in there and they'll
Speaker 2: be like, hey, I'm like seeing the secure person, but
Speaker 2: I don't know, like I feel like it's kind of boring.
Speaker 1: All the time, like just non stop. And so you
Speaker 1: nailed it.
Speaker 2: And it's because if your subconscious comfort zone and I
Speaker 2: actually had that experience firsthand when I was younger and
Speaker 2: dating when I was not securely attached, and because my
Speaker 2: subconscious comfort zone was chaos, I was attracted to chaos,
Speaker 2: and anybody who's gonna make me feel calm instead of chaotic,
Speaker 2: I would reject because it was not familiar.
Speaker 1: And even though it's.
Speaker 2: Like totally backwards, I would perceive that as not safe because.
Speaker 1: I'm not used to it. And so it's like we want.
Speaker 2: To go back to what's familiar, but sometimes that's not
Speaker 2: the actual thing. That helps benefit us.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they're not safe is because you're not used
Speaker 3: to having to have someone that doesn't respond in ups
Speaker 3: and downs. And I think that's that's what it is.
Speaker 3: It's like the adrenaline rush, right. I think about it,
Speaker 3: even with friends who go on tour and they're on
Speaker 3: you know, on stages, or they used to people screaming
Speaker 3: their name and they're so used to this high high
Speaker 3: that can't be experienced anywhere else, and so everything else
Speaker 3: feels so dull and so boring. And in the same way,
Speaker 3: it's like if you're used to this pining of oh
Speaker 3: my gosh, when is he gonna talk to me again?
Speaker 3: Or oh my goodness, he's so angry with me right now,
Speaker 3: but eventually you know it's gonna get better, and then
Speaker 3: it's gonna get worse, and then it's gonna get better,
Speaker 3: and then it's gonna get worse. It's this, You're on
Speaker 3: a roller coaster with adrenaline over and over again, and
Speaker 3: so when there's no adrenaline rush in that way, you
Speaker 3: start to think this is really boring.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: And something else that I found to be so like
Speaker 2: useful and honestly is kind of is I don't want
Speaker 2: to say like sad, but it's so important to recognize
Speaker 2: this is that every relationship as well, it.
Speaker 1: Has six stages.
Speaker 2: So this was originally based off the work of doctor
Speaker 2: Susan Johnson, but I sort of adapted over the years.
Speaker 2: The first stage is the dating stage. It's like our
Speaker 2: betting stage. We're supposed to see if somebody is a
Speaker 2: good fit. Then we go into the honeymoon stage, which
Speaker 2: is like the rose colored glasses that like. The dating
Speaker 2: stage usually lasts zero to six months, honeymoon stage another
Speaker 2: year or so, sometimes up to a year and a half.
Speaker 2: Then we go into the power struggle stage. I can't
Speaker 2: tell you how many times I would have clients come
Speaker 2: in when I was running my practice and they would
Speaker 2: be like they would be like, I married my wife
Speaker 2: at a year. We moved kind of quickly, and then
Speaker 2: as soon as we got married, she turned into a monster.
Speaker 2: Like I would hear a story after a story like this,
Speaker 2: and it was like, no, no, no, you just it
Speaker 2: wasn't like she was trying to bait you to get
Speaker 2: married and then become someone else. It's just that you're
Speaker 2: in the power struggle stage now, and if we make
Speaker 2: it out of the power struggle stage, we go into
Speaker 2: the security, commitment and bliss stages. But and the bliss
Speaker 2: stage is like the honeymoon stage, but you deeply know somebody,
Speaker 2: you really let them in, you know their fears and flaws,
Speaker 2: and you've accepted each other's and there's like a lot
Speaker 2: more communication and openness. And that's where we're trying to
Speaker 2: get to. But most people who are insecurely attached, they
Speaker 2: go dating stage, honeymoon stage, power struggle stage, break up,
Speaker 2: start again. Oh so they also don't realize that, like
Speaker 2: love isn't supposed to be the high of the honeymoon
Speaker 2: stage or the low of the power struggle and they
Speaker 2: keep trying to like keep the highs and the lows alive,
Speaker 2: because what you'll find is, if you make it out
Speaker 2: of the power struggle stage, love is less about like
Speaker 2: the highs and lows of almost like that pleasure seeking,
Speaker 2: and more about this really deep fulfillment and that only
Speaker 2: happens when we build those deeper roots. And when people
Speaker 2: don't realize that that's how it works, and they don't
Speaker 2: know their attachment style, it's like we go in blind
Speaker 2: to love and relationships and it keeps us so easily
Speaker 2: stuck with the wrong expectations or rules for love.
Speaker 3: One of my best friends is exactly like this, and
Speaker 3: she'll know when she's listening to this the butec she.
Speaker 4: In my mind.
Speaker 3: But that's our conversation over and over again. She keeps saying, Oh,
Speaker 3: you know, I wanted to feel like it felt when
Speaker 3: I was really when I was younger and dating in relationships,
Speaker 3: Like when I'm meeting people, it doesn't feel that exciting anymore.
Speaker 4: And it doesn't. And I was like, but all those
Speaker 4: people you broke up with, so there was a reason
Speaker 4: that that didn't work out.
Speaker 3: But she's constantly seeking this, like she's like, what about
Speaker 3: the butterflies and the excitement. I was like, you still
Speaker 3: feel that, but it just feels it's a different type,
Speaker 3: Like the excitement is different, but for a good in
Speaker 3: a good way. Yes, the butterflies are there, but it's
Speaker 3: not as intense. And I think it's the intensity that
Speaker 3: people are so used to that intensity of emotion, and
Speaker 3: it's almost like you just want to feel something, even
Speaker 3: if it's even if it's a bad feeling, you just
Speaker 3: want to make sure you're feeling.
Speaker 1: Yep, totally.
Speaker 2: And we get to we get addicted to the neural
Speaker 2: chemistry of our court wounds. When they're up, we get
Speaker 2: not just cortisol but also dopamine. And it's actually very
Speaker 2: similar neurochemically to what people get addicted to when they're gambling.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, and like the intermittent.
Speaker 4: So much sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so it's there for that reason.
Speaker 2: But I would say, and I'm curious, like you probably
Speaker 2: noticed this, but I would say, you know, we can
Speaker 2: sort of share about this as people, probably for anybody
Speaker 2: who hasn't had this experience, but I would see this
Speaker 2: with tons of people, both in my practice, through our
Speaker 2: programs and people.
Speaker 1: It's like pleasure.
Speaker 2: Seeking can only go like this high and this low,
Speaker 2: but fulfillment can outgrow the peaks of pleasure, like when
Speaker 2: you have such deep fulfillment and really deep connection and
Speaker 2: peace and appreciation and gratitude like all of those things,
Speaker 2: they grow slower, like you know, but over time, the
Speaker 2: depth of fulfillment won't like the pleasure of like the
Speaker 2: roller coaster doesn't hold a candle to how fulfilled you feel.
Speaker 2: But people, because they're not getting the opportunity to go
Speaker 2: through the stages and get to that point, have no
Speaker 2: reference or contacts, and so they keep seeking out those
Speaker 2: highs and lows.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I always just think, why should the person that
Speaker 3: I'm spending my life with make me feel the same
Speaker 3: way I feel when I'm in the most anxious stages
Speaker 3: of my life, like the things that scam me the most.
Speaker 3: If you're feeling the same way with your partner as
Speaker 3: you do doing the things that scare you the most
Speaker 3: on a daily basis, that can't like.
Speaker 4: That doesn't make sense.
Speaker 3: And I think about it all the time, like, oh
Speaker 3: if I if like I the way that it should
Speaker 3: be is my nervous system feels soothed when I'm with
Speaker 3: my person, like my I feel at ease and calm.
Speaker 3: But again, it's what you're saying, it's when that's not
Speaker 3: your normality. It feels like being in anxiety feels so
Speaker 3: much better for you than being in a state of
Speaker 3: calm and.
Speaker 1: Ease, exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot of people who who I work
Speaker 2: with in the school and they come in and they say, Hey,
Speaker 2: I've become securely attached and I'm dating somebody now, and
Speaker 2: I can't tell the difference if I'm if I don't
Speaker 2: like them, or if attachment style is just not activated.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, you're gonna know if you don't like somebody,
Speaker 2: and you'll still have the butterflies, like you' still have
Speaker 2: those good feelings and like a little bit of nerves
Speaker 2: if you're interested in somebody, in that excitement, but it
Speaker 2: won't There's something called like your attachment style being at debated,
Speaker 2: which is when your wounds are on, and a lot
Speaker 2: of people actually misperceive when they're not securely attached that oh,
Speaker 2: my wounds are activated, I'm feeling really anxious or I'm
Speaker 2: feeling really avoidant or stress, and that must mean I
Speaker 2: like this person, And it's like, no, no, no, there's
Speaker 2: a difference between infatuation and a good, healthy, rooted way
Speaker 2: versus your attachment style being in that chaotic space.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and when I was reading your book, you talked
Speaker 3: about in anxious anxious attachment, you were talking about the
Speaker 3: difference between sacrifice and compromise. I would love for you
Speaker 3: to go into that a little bit because I found
Speaker 3: that really interesting.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's a really important concept for people who are
Speaker 2: either anxiously attached or even just like leaning anxious, like fearful,
Speaker 2: wouldn't have that anxious side as well, so generally what
Speaker 2: happens is we often tend to go into a space
Speaker 2: of thinking, Okay, I'm going to do what I think
Speaker 2: you would want me to do.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to communicate about it. I'm going to
Speaker 1: try to mind read you.
Speaker 2: And a lot of times, like the deeper level of
Speaker 2: this is actually someone called covert contracts, where we basically
Speaker 2: think I'm going to kind of buy my future favors
Speaker 2: for you through doing a bunch of things now, and
Speaker 2: we track it and we're like, I'm gonna do these
Speaker 2: five things, so when I need to ask you for
Speaker 2: this thing next week, you're going to owe me. And
Speaker 2: this is like often behavior we learn when we grow
Speaker 2: up in a household where we're taught we have to
Speaker 2: people please or we can't really be ourselves or we
Speaker 2: can't communicate about our needs or get them met. And
Speaker 2: so that's sacrificing, that's going against ourselves to please others,
Speaker 2: and it will always end in resentment. Compromise is we
Speaker 2: learn to communicate our needs openly as a couple or
Speaker 2: as a unit. Even like let's say you and I
Speaker 2: are living together, we're super close friends, Like even in
Speaker 2: that kind of relationship, it can be with friendships, family relationships.
Speaker 2: We want to be fully transparent and be able to say, hey,
Speaker 2: here's what I am available for and these are my
Speaker 2: needs and what are yours, And compromise means we actually
Speaker 2: both honestly put our cards on the table and then
Speaker 2: we work through define common ground. And what that does
Speaker 2: is it prevents her from being resentment and also both
Speaker 2: people feel seen and hurt. Like when we actually get
Speaker 2: into relationships where we share our needs with somebody and
Speaker 2: they hear us out and they meet them and vice versa,
Speaker 2: and we know that we can talk those things through.
Speaker 2: There's such a deep sense of fulfillment and safety in that.
Speaker 2: And so compromise means we can actually be honest and
Speaker 2: authentic and truthful with the people closest to us. And
Speaker 2: when we do make those compromises, we take ourselves into
Speaker 2: consideration in the process. So I have been given an
Speaker 2: analogy for people too who are newer to this concept,
Speaker 2: where let's say my neighbor says tays, I want you
Speaker 2: to come over on Friday, and let's say it's Thursday evening,
Speaker 2: and they're like, I need you to help me move.
Speaker 2: I'm moving, I'm packing all my stuff. Can you come
Speaker 2: over at six pm and help me till two in
Speaker 2: the morning. You know, let's say I love my neighbor
Speaker 2: and I really want to help them because I really
Speaker 2: care about them. I'm not going to sit there and go, okay,
Speaker 2: two in the morning if that's not something that you know,
Speaker 2: if I have a busy Saturday the next day, or
Speaker 2: if that's something we're at the end of a busy week,
Speaker 2: I'm not available for that. So what I would do
Speaker 2: is I would take myself into consideration and think and
Speaker 2: feel into myself and be like, well, what am I
Speaker 2: available for? Yeah, and maybe I say, you know what,
Speaker 2: I can't come that late, but I can come at
Speaker 2: six o'clock till eight o'clock or six until ten, or
Speaker 2: I'll come at six until eight o'clock and I'll cook
Speaker 2: you some dinner and bring it over too. And so
Speaker 2: that's also part of the construct of making compromises is
Speaker 2: we don't lose our frame of reference being attuned to
Speaker 2: ourselves when we make those decisions. And so because we
Speaker 2: do that, we never feel resentful because we're actually acting
Speaker 2: in relationships in an authentic way based on our trips.
Speaker 3: And when I was reading through your book, anyone listening
Speaker 3: to you now. When I first started dating my husband,
Speaker 3: he was definitely a secure and I think I was
Speaker 3: a dismissive avoidant, and it was It's been such an
Speaker 3: interesting journey because he's I mean, he's always held space
Speaker 3: to help me grow and like all the things that
Speaker 3: you were saying, I'm like, gosh, you really did do that.
Speaker 3: Like he's been secure since I think since we started dating,
Speaker 3: and he's remained that way throughout our relationship. But he's
Speaker 3: also the type of person who's kept who's kept this
Speaker 3: space open for me to have my journey to grow
Speaker 3: through that. And that makes such a difference because I
Speaker 3: imagine it can be very frustrating for someone who is
Speaker 3: as secure and having someone who is constantly battling certain
Speaker 3: things and battling against him when he's not fighting against me,
Speaker 3: do you know what I mean? Like I he's always
Speaker 3: he's always there to hold the space, and I'm fighting him,
Speaker 3: but against things that I've had from my.
Speaker 4: Past, not him.
Speaker 3: So he's like, I'll carry your bags, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: why should you carry my bag?
Speaker 4: I can carry my own bag.
Speaker 3: And he's doing out of love, not because he thinks
Speaker 3: I can't look after myself. But I have a wound
Speaker 3: that feels like, oh, people think I can't look after myself,
Speaker 3: that I'm that I'm all over the place and I'm
Speaker 3: going to forget things, and so no, you can't hold
Speaker 3: my bags. I can look I can hold my own bags.
Speaker 3: And so we've gone through our and slowly as I
Speaker 3: was reading through book, I was like, gosh, I really
Speaker 3: did do those things when we started dating where I
Speaker 3: would be so I'll be fighting a cause, but the
Speaker 3: cause wasn't him. It was it was me trying to
Speaker 3: fight something of other people in my past, so other
Speaker 3: things that I'd been through, but it was all coming
Speaker 3: out through the way he was treating me in such
Speaker 3: a sweet way, and I was like, no, you're trying
Speaker 3: to be loving. No, I don't want it. I totally understand.
Speaker 2: So my husband, when I met my husband was dismissive
Speaker 2: avoidant as well, and so I like very much understand him,
Speaker 2: and he's been amazing dismissible avoidance. Like if they show
Speaker 2: up and they like do the work and are mindful,
Speaker 2: and like they're so sweet because they're like so empathetic
Speaker 2: and they're very caring, and it takes them a little
Speaker 2: bit to feel safe, being vulnerable enough to express it.
Speaker 2: But on the inside that's really a part of who
Speaker 2: they are. And so what's so beautiful about their journey
Speaker 2: to being secure? And I saw this so much in
Speaker 2: my husband is like as you sort of peel back
Speaker 2: the layers and as he felt safer and safer to
Speaker 2: like kind of drop his guard and like let me in,
Speaker 2: it's like this very like beautiful soul. Yeah, And so
Speaker 2: it's so cool to see that journey too, And it's
Speaker 2: beautiful that you've been through that.
Speaker 4: Y definite.
Speaker 3: I think I am still still going through it, but
Speaker 3: I definitely have improved. Another part that you spoke about
Speaker 3: was the concept of ameshment, and you know, being from
Speaker 3: Indian culture, it's something which is quite normal in our
Speaker 3: culture to constantly put what your ideas and constructs are
Speaker 3: of what your child is and what you want them
Speaker 3: to be based on your own fears or own insecret.
Speaker 4: You know, my parents came as immigrants to.
Speaker 3: The UK, and so a lot of what their traumas
Speaker 3: had that they'd gone through was so much with financial security,
Speaker 3: making sure you get the grades, making sure you know
Speaker 3: you have stability in your life because they lacked so
Speaker 3: much stability growing up, and so it all made.
Speaker 4: Sense to me.
Speaker 3: But I could see now looking back how a lot
Speaker 3: of the emphasis and what they put emphasis on also
Speaker 3: kind of I then carry with me through my life.
Speaker 3: But their intentions were so sweet because of what they'd
Speaker 3: been through. But at the same time, it put a
Speaker 3: lot of pressure on me in areas which I wasn't
Speaker 3: thriving at and therefore felt like a lot of my
Speaker 3: value was based on those things, and when I couldn't
Speaker 3: perform it those things, if felt like it took away
Speaker 3: my value, if that made sense. And so if my
Speaker 3: parents are listening, I love you and you did the
Speaker 3: best thing, and like the incredible parents, But traumas.
Speaker 4: Just get passed on in that way. And so.
Speaker 3: The ameshment, when I read it, I was like, wow,
Speaker 3: we have to learn. Even reading it as someone who
Speaker 3: eventually wants to be a parent, I was thinking it's
Speaker 3: so easy. I was, you know, I want my child
Speaker 3: to do this, and I want him to be like
Speaker 3: this or her to be like this, and then you're
Speaker 3: constantly building these constructs for them that they haven't signed
Speaker 3: up for yet.
Speaker 4: Yes, exactly, could you explain ameshment?
Speaker 3: For anybody who doesn't know, and how that can affect
Speaker 3: someone's attachment style and going through their life.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's such an important topic.
Speaker 2: I love that you shared that too, because it's like,
Speaker 2: so I think it's so nice for people and they
Speaker 2: listen to hear these like real life examples and to
Speaker 2: your point, like when people are conditioned to have an
Speaker 2: insecure attachment style, parents either already have that attachment style
Speaker 2: themselves and so it's just being passed along because there
Speaker 2: are rules subconsciously about love or what we passed down,
Speaker 2: or it's people who think that they're doing the best
Speaker 2: thing their child infinitely, like I can't tell them how
Speaker 2: you tell you how many times I would see clients
Speaker 2: who were parents who would be like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 2: I've learned about this attachment style stuff. I realized I
Speaker 2: was so tough on my children. But my relationship to
Speaker 2: why I was tough on my children was that I
Speaker 2: thought I was preparing them the beast that I could
Speaker 2: for the world exactly, And so it's never like anybody's fault.
Speaker 2: It's just a process of recognition and awareness and how
Speaker 2: we can do that in our work to heal what's necessary.
Speaker 3: So my mom would always whenever we talk about therapy
Speaker 3: or things that we've been through in childhood, and you know,
Speaker 3: I loved my childhood growing up.
Speaker 4: My parents were phenomenal.
Speaker 3: But whenever we talk about little things that we think
Speaker 3: have affected us, she's like, does that mean I wasn't
Speaker 3: a good mom?
Speaker 4: I was like, it's not that at all.
Speaker 3: You know, I can imagine why that must hurt parents
Speaker 3: so much as well, to know that they've created, you know,
Speaker 3: ripple effects in their children or anything that's been traumatic
Speaker 3: in their child. But it's also not a reflection of
Speaker 3: being a bad parent. Like it's you're not a bad
Speaker 3: parent because you went through trauma that you've passed on
Speaker 3: to a child, Like that doesn't make you a bad
Speaker 3: parent in any way. It just makes you human and
Speaker 3: like not a superhero that has healed and done everything
Speaker 3: that you you know, it's it's so unrealistic to not
Speaker 3: carry certain things with you through So for any parent
Speaker 3: this is thing too. It's like, just because good child
Speaker 3: has carried anything with them through through you doesn't make
Speaker 3: you a bad parent.
Speaker 1: Exact yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: And it's so common to have these different attachment challenges,
Speaker 2: Like it's it's not this and it's also not like
Speaker 2: a diagnosis like you're stuck with it forever. It's a
Speaker 2: set of patterns that we have in relationships. So yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 2: But to answer your question about enmashment, so basically, en
Speaker 2: meashment is that we will emotionally take on others emotions
Speaker 2: as if they're ours, and oftentimes we'll follow through with
Speaker 2: behavior more focused from the outside end rather than the
Speaker 2: inside out. And this can be common in codependent families.
Speaker 2: This can be common culturally, absolutely, and some cultures more
Speaker 2: than others. And this basically teaches us that, like, we
Speaker 2: are responsible for everybody around us and how they feel.
Speaker 2: And there's there's something called directed meashment or indirect so
Speaker 2: directed mesh will often be that enmeshment is taught like,
Speaker 2: let's say you have a brother or a sister and
Speaker 2: they're going through a hard time. You better skip your
Speaker 2: soccer game to go be there for your brother because
Speaker 2: and so you know, there can actually be this like
Speaker 2: teaching of that. Or you shouldn't go out on Friday
Speaker 2: with your friends as a teenager because your sibling needs you,
Speaker 2: And so that's very direct where it's taught, and even
Speaker 2: negatively reinforced if you're not operating that way. And then
Speaker 2: there's indirect in meshment, which often happens when we have
Speaker 2: a child who's in a home where they can't understand
Speaker 2: what their parents are going through. But it's a very
Speaker 2: hard time. So I can share a story of a
Speaker 2: client once and I won't say his name, we'll call
Speaker 2: him see yes, And he had a single mom and
Speaker 2: she was extremely depressed, and so he grew up in
Speaker 2: a family where he would always see her like sleeping.
Speaker 2: He always knew something was off and she wasn't okay,
Speaker 2: and so he would kind of like do extra cooking
Speaker 2: or cleaning around the house or take a lot on
Speaker 2: And basically she wasn't like trying to make him take
Speaker 2: on her emotions, but because he could see her in
Speaker 2: distress constantly, he would internalize that and worry like, if
Speaker 2: she's not okay, how am I going to be okay?
Speaker 2: Because his children, we know that we're dependent on our
Speaker 2: parents to survive, and so there's this dynamic foster where
Speaker 2: we can become really afraid if somebody's not okay around us.
Speaker 2: And so then as adults, we tend to if we
Speaker 2: come from and mashed backgrounds really take on the feelings
Speaker 2: of others very quickly, and sometimes that can cause us
Speaker 2: to like constantly try to get close to them and
Speaker 2: fix them. Or sometimes we can kind of go through
Speaker 2: burnout really easily because we're taking so much on, which
Speaker 2: instead we cope with by kind of pushing away and
Speaker 2: keeping a distance so that we can just maintain attunement
Speaker 2: to self and how we actually feel as a means
Speaker 2: to regulate.
Speaker 4: Wow, intense, but amazing. Can you be a mix of two?
Speaker 4: Can you be?
Speaker 3: I'm assuming when you're secure, you can only be secure,
Speaker 3: But what about the other three? Can you kind of
Speaker 3: be a mix of all three of them?
Speaker 2: Yes, So you can actually like have what we call
Speaker 2: a primary and secondary attachment style. It's basically that you'll
Speaker 2: learn different patterns, so you're usually rooted in one. So
Speaker 2: you can be secure with like anxious edges, like a
Speaker 2: little bit of anxious, do you know if that comes up,
Speaker 2: but it's not dominantly how you're going to show up.
Speaker 2: You'll still communicate your needs, you have a little less
Speaker 2: core wounds things like that. You can also be fearful
Speaker 2: avoidant leaning more anxious, or fear of avoidant leaning more
Speaker 2: dismissive or dismissive with a little bit of fearful avoidance secondary.
Speaker 2: So you've got like a little bit of hot and
Speaker 2: cold or anxious leaning a little fearful avoidant. But what
Speaker 2: we don't see is a jump from one to the other.
Speaker 2: So you won't generally see a dismissive avoidant person who's
Speaker 2: then you know, anxious as their secondary. And one of
Speaker 2: the big differences I think that's important to note is
Speaker 2: it's it's based on how you behave.
Speaker 4: So I was gonna ask, like, what are these symptoms?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, So dismissive avoidance sometimes will say to
Speaker 2: me like, oh, but I feel anxious. Sometimes, like if
Speaker 2: I ask someone out and I'm waiting to hear back
Speaker 2: from them, I still feel anxious. And it's like, well,
Speaker 2: dismissive avoidance aren't robots, but you're you're still going to
Speaker 2: feel human feelings. But generally what you'll see is when
Speaker 2: dismissed the winds feel a little anxious, they'll tend to deactivate,
Speaker 2: they'll tend to try to minimize their need for attachment as.
Speaker 1: A means of self soothing.
Speaker 2: So they'll be like, well, if it doesn't work, it
Speaker 2: doesn't really matter, or maybe they weren't anyway.
Speaker 4: Do you say that's the dismissing yes, yes, yeah, so
Speaker 4: you can.
Speaker 2: Still feel anxious, but your way of coping with that
Speaker 2: anxiety will be to try it down exactly.
Speaker 3: So that's how you feel, say, want to talk about it,
Speaker 3: I don't want to. I don't want to hear about it. No,
Speaker 3: I don't want to discuss what's making me anxious.
Speaker 4: Right now, because it'll make me more anxious.
Speaker 1: Exactly exactly.
Speaker 3: I am. I can be your your what's the word
Speaker 3: the figure that you can show as a dismissive.
Speaker 1: I know what you meant, the mascot.
Speaker 4: They gotta be the mascot, Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2: And so that's that's the dismissed avoidant. And then you'll
Speaker 2: see anxious attachment styles. When they feel anxious, they keep
Speaker 2: trying to get closer to people, so they'll do the
Speaker 2: exact opposite. And in fact, if you take an anxious
Speaker 2: and a dismissive together, it's yeah, it can be so
Speaker 2: hard because if there's a conflict or an argument, that
Speaker 2: is what needs usually some time and space to process
Speaker 2: what they're feeling, to kind of cool off, and then
Speaker 2: they'll come back to it. But anxious attachments, they they're
Speaker 2: terrified of time and space, so they're like, no, we
Speaker 2: need to talk about right now, and then the dismissive
Speaker 2: is often like, no, I'm not ready to talk about
Speaker 2: it right now, and then of course we have like
Speaker 2: all of the unnecessary chaos that ensues until people find
Speaker 2: the happy medium through compromising, when they know their attachment
Speaker 2: style and they know how to address these things.
Speaker 3: Because I imagine, like if you're an anxious attachment person
Speaker 3: and you're constantly wanting to communicate, but then if you
Speaker 3: have a dismissive avoidant and they're shutting you down, would
Speaker 3: the anxious attachment person end up kind of changing their
Speaker 3: behaviors and how they communicate and almost become a dismissive
Speaker 3: avoidant as well because they're not given the space to express.
Speaker 4: Does that make sense?
Speaker 1: It's such a great question.
Speaker 2: It's very insightful because what you're saying and what you're
Speaker 2: getting at too, is like neuroplasticity, Like yeah, basically, if
Speaker 2: we get around space through repetition and emotion, it happens
Speaker 2: over and over again, and so yes, in theory, that
Speaker 2: will happen whoever we're connected to the most, but generally
Speaker 2: because that sparked from big core wounds, often the core
Speaker 2: wounds and how they're feeling in that situation instead is
Speaker 2: what reinforces those feelings. So often what you'll generally see
Speaker 2: is that they'll just go through a really big power
Speaker 2: struggle intil the relationship dissolves because the anxious attachment will
Speaker 2: keep needing to talk in the moment and then dispissa
Speaker 2: it will be like, oh my goodness, like give me
Speaker 2: a second, and then they'll go into one room and
Speaker 2: then the anxious follows them, and then you know, you'll
Speaker 2: usually see this whole thing unfold or I find.
Speaker 3: You get shut down, like if you get shut down
Speaker 3: lots of times, and then eventually you're like, okay, fine,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna stay quiet. I'm just gonna stay quiet. And
Speaker 3: then you stay quiet, you stay quiet, you stay quiet.
Speaker 3: Eventually just blow up and say you're like, actually, I
Speaker 3: wasn't I wasn't actually trying to avoid it. I was
Speaker 3: just trying to keep it in exactly, and then you
Speaker 3: have anxious explosion, yes exactly.
Speaker 2: And so generally you'll see it like people will try
Speaker 2: to not have it go that way, but often that
Speaker 2: will be the output, and then it'll just be like,
Speaker 2: you know, I would see couples come into our programs
Speaker 2: and it would just be like they're just arguing all
Speaker 2: the time, or they're just like back and forth at
Speaker 2: each other's throats with that. But then it's like, okay, well,
Speaker 2: if you reprogram your core wounds, you're not so afraid
Speaker 2: of abandonment or you feel safer to be vulnerable if
Speaker 2: you're the more avoidant person, and so then like, okay,
Speaker 2: now we're not so triggered when those things happen. And
Speaker 2: then when you learn to communicate your needs and talk
Speaker 2: about boundaries, it's like, oh, it's totally fine. And generally
Speaker 2: what you'll see people say is the output between like
Speaker 2: a dismissive, avoidant anxious, preoccupied is you'll usually see that
Speaker 2: they learn for the dismissi avoidance to say, hey, I
Speaker 2: don't know what i'm feeling just yet. I need a
Speaker 2: moment to process, but I'm going to take twenty minutes
Speaker 2: and then I'll come back and talk it out with you,
Speaker 2: and I will be here, and so they can take
Speaker 2: their space, but they're communicating that they're not abandoning them,
Speaker 2: that they'll come.
Speaker 4: Back that's nice.
Speaker 2: And then the anxious preoccupied knows okay, like they just
Speaker 2: need to figure out what they're feeling, and they're gonna
Speaker 2: come back to me, and then they can hold that
Speaker 2: space for longer. And then as they're reprogramming their wounds
Speaker 2: and those triggers aren't so strong, eventually you just see
Speaker 2: them have a really adaptive, healthy coping mechanisms and relationcation.
Speaker 4: Yes everything, isn't it huge? Okay?
Speaker 3: What would you say a good few, maybe like three
Speaker 3: questions that somebody should be asking themselves before they get
Speaker 3: into a relationship.
Speaker 1: Ooh, I like this question.
Speaker 2: I would say. The first question is what are my
Speaker 2: non negotiables? Because this is something that although that should
Speaker 2: seem like such an obvious thing. I cannot tell you
Speaker 2: how many times I would see people who would come
Speaker 2: to me and be like, hey, I've been with my
Speaker 2: partner for five years. They said that they never were
Speaker 2: going to have children. I wanted children. We both thought
Speaker 2: each other would change, and now here we are, and
Speaker 2: so like, we need to know our non negotiables and
Speaker 2: that can be you know. I know for me, if
Speaker 2: I ever had to start dating again, I would say,
Speaker 2: somebody has to be willing to resolve conflict in a relationship,
Speaker 2: like you know, that would be a non negotiable somebody
Speaker 2: willing to talk things out, or you know, if somebody
Speaker 2: grew up with I had a client once whose mother
Speaker 2: passed away from lung cancer. Her non negotiable was, I
Speaker 2: will never date someone who smokes. So like, non negotiables
Speaker 2: are different for each person, but knowing her non negotiables
Speaker 2: just really helps us avoid really big errors in relationships.
Speaker 2: So what are the things that you know? And what
Speaker 2: a non negotiable is is what are the things that
Speaker 2: if somebody exhibited these behaviors or showed up this way
Speaker 2: in a relationship, you staying in that relationship would be
Speaker 2: a betrayal to self.
Speaker 3: Okay, Yeah, Because I was gonna say sometimes no negotiable.
Speaker 3: I was going to ask you, how you know where
Speaker 3: the non negotiables are valid?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: You know, I mean, like, how do you know whether
Speaker 3: your non negotiables are fair and valid to the other
Speaker 3: person or is it really just about you?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Great question, And I would say that it's exactly that.
Speaker 2: It's like the moment I would stay in relationship with
Speaker 2: somebody who did those things, I would be betraying myself.
Speaker 2: And I would feel like, wow, this is me going
Speaker 2: against my truth.
Speaker 3: And so these are non negotiables more to do with
Speaker 3: personality and behavior rather than non negotiables to do with
Speaker 3: externals like finances or attributes like physical attributes, or can
Speaker 3: they be the non negotiables.
Speaker 2: That's a great question. Those can be the non negotiables.
Speaker 2: Like you know, I've seen people who came from a
Speaker 2: family upbringing where their parents divorce and they lost everything.
Speaker 2: They're non negotiable. It's like I'm not going to get
Speaker 2: with a partner who has more than a x amount
Speaker 2: of money in debt, or I'm not going to marry
Speaker 2: the person if that person can't manage their money or
Speaker 2: you know. So there can definitely be those things. Physical attributes,
Speaker 2: I would say less so, but it can still technically
Speaker 2: be there. But I would say those are more like
Speaker 2: our preferences than non negotiables. But sometimes the negotiables can
Speaker 2: be literally like around money or things like that. Usually
Speaker 2: it's if there's this relationship to like safety that a person.
Speaker 3: There's a deep a meaning behind it, like it's not
Speaker 3: the finance, it's what it represents for them exactly. Yeah, Okay,
Speaker 3: so number one is what are your non negotiables, Yes, well,
Speaker 3: any other questions.
Speaker 2: Number two, what are my standards or needs? Okay, we
Speaker 2: can kind of use them interchangeably in this context. So
Speaker 2: just like the things that I'm actually looking for from
Speaker 2: a relationship. And the reason this is really important is
Speaker 2: because most people go into dating on autopilot, and when
Speaker 2: they don't know their standards, they're working from their autopilot framework,
Speaker 2: which is usually their pre existing core wounds. Often they're
Speaker 2: deeply on met needs from childhood. They're expecting people to
Speaker 2: kind of meet without like being able to articulate them.
Speaker 1: And we have to spend.
Speaker 2: Our dating stage of relationships vetting, Like if we don't
Speaker 2: do this, we're not dating intentionally, and then you know,
Speaker 2: somebody may be in a period where they don't want
Speaker 2: to date intentionally, they just want to like date people
Speaker 2: and see what they learn. But like, we ideally want
Speaker 2: to be clear about what we're looking for, and ideally
Speaker 2: the dating stage is best done if I know what
Speaker 2: I'm needing, the other person knows what they're needing, and
Speaker 2: we're able to vet during the dating stage by asking
Speaker 2: like one question per date to get to the bottom
Speaker 2: of those things. So if I knew that, Like, a
Speaker 2: really important thing for me is somebody who's also interested
Speaker 2: in personal growth. For example, I might on a date say, hey,
Speaker 2: you know I love personal growth. I'm reading these kinds
Speaker 2: of books. Do you like this stuff?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 1: And so we would just ask the question.
Speaker 2: I think sometimes people hear the standards and needs and
Speaker 2: they're like, I'm going to sit down with my paper
Speaker 2: and I'm going to ask seventy four questions on day one,
Speaker 2: and it's like, no, it's going to be like a
Speaker 2: job interview. But knowing what we're actually looking for is
Speaker 2: extremely important. And then I would say, number three, how
Speaker 2: do I actually feel when I'm around this person?
Speaker 1: Because we do a lot of.
Speaker 2: The you know, oh, I I'm you know, this person's
Speaker 2: dismissing me and they're they're you know, not looking out
Speaker 2: for me, and that's my comfort zone for how I
Speaker 2: treat myself. So I want to dive in their head
Speaker 2: first and then wait. But if that's triggering you, that's
Speaker 2: either for you to work out and your triggers, or
Speaker 2: for you to communicate about and see if the needle moves,
Speaker 2: or probably both. And so just being mindful of like
Speaker 2: what our actual experiences and our emotions. I can't tell
Speaker 2: you how many times I would see people never giving
Speaker 2: up on their ex and then I'd be like, well,
Speaker 2: how did this person actually make you feel the entire
Speaker 2: time you're with them? And they'd be like, oh, like
Speaker 2: really bad, and I'd be like, well, why are you
Speaker 2: chasing them right now? And so just depending on like
Speaker 2: if it's just an attachment style clash, or if it's
Speaker 2: somebody maybe somebody totally different who has like narcissistic personality
Speaker 2: disorder or just isn't healthy, Like we have to be
Speaker 2: able to attune to ourselves and notice how we actually
Speaker 2: you feel in that person's company.
Speaker 3: There's are great questions to ask yourself. I loved what
Speaker 3: you said in the second one about intentionally dating because
Speaker 3: I feel like I can't remember where I heard this.
Speaker 3: But it's like, you have to do the work at
Speaker 3: some point. So you could have fun for a year,
Speaker 3: for two years dating, but then you get married and
Speaker 3: the work starts because then you start noticing, and so
Speaker 3: the work has to be done. You can choose when
Speaker 3: it happens, and so either you end up having to
Speaker 3: do extra work once you're married and start thinking that
Speaker 3: you know someone, but you haven't done the depth of
Speaker 3: the work to figure that out, or slowly, in small
Speaker 3: little ways, as you keep dating, you start asking those questions,
Speaker 3: you start intentionally doing that work. So either you don't
Speaker 3: waste your time or you don't have It's almost like
Speaker 3: leaving your home muchil the last minute.
Speaker 4: You know, but you know you have to do it.
Speaker 3: That was me always, I know I have to finish
Speaker 3: my dissertation, but I am up the night before trying
Speaker 3: to cram everything and so anxious when I'm doing it.
Speaker 3: And so it's either you do things as time is
Speaker 3: going on, or you suddenly realize you've bombarded yourself with
Speaker 3: all this work that has to be done in the relationship.
Speaker 3: And when you start realizing it all at once, imagine
Speaker 3: the pressure that it puts on that relationship, exactly in
Speaker 3: your honeymoon phase of when you when you've just got
Speaker 3: married and sudden you start noticing all these things that
Speaker 3: you had no idea about in the two three years
Speaker 3: of dating because you were busy having fun.
Speaker 1: Exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I always tell people because some people will
Speaker 2: be like, well, I don't want to do the work.
Speaker 2: The work is work, And I'm always like, you know
Speaker 2: what it's way more work to try to not do
Speaker 2: the work because it's going to get really big and
Speaker 2: there's going to be a lot of work at some point,
Speaker 2: or you're gonna find yourself floating from a relationship to
Speaker 2: relationship going oh my gosh, why are relationship so hard?
Speaker 1: Until you do that in our work for a period
Speaker 1: of time.
Speaker 4: See, my Mum's always right. Don't leave your homework to
Speaker 4: the last minute.
Speaker 3: Okay, don't leave your homework to the last minute. What
Speaker 3: would you say are questions you mentioned, you know, asking
Speaker 3: certain questions on days? What would you say are the
Speaker 3: questtions you should ask your partner? Do you have like
Speaker 3: three questions that if you're in a dating environment, you're
Speaker 3: starting to date someone, what would be three questions that
Speaker 3: you recommend asking.
Speaker 2: That's a great question. I would say number one, like
Speaker 2: what is this person actually looking for?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: And I think having that question in there, I don't
Speaker 2: think that has to be like date number one, but
Speaker 2: I think that when somebody is more secure and they're
Speaker 2: rooted in themselves, like that's something you ask when you're
Speaker 2: a few weeks into the dating stage, because if you
Speaker 2: don't have the security to just like have the dialogue
Speaker 2: or conversation, and if you're looking for something different than them,
Speaker 2: even if you're compatible in lots of ways, if you're
Speaker 2: different in different stages of life, like that actually just
Speaker 2: becomes a non negotiable. So like what are they looking
Speaker 2: for like in this season of their life in regards
Speaker 2: to dating, but also what are they looking for in
Speaker 2: a partner? I would say it would be number two,
Speaker 2: Like what are those important qualities and characteristics? And it
Speaker 2: goes back to this part where vetting should be reciprocal,
Speaker 2: like we're not just supposed to that. It's funny because
Speaker 2: different attachment cells may do this in different ways. So
Speaker 2: anxious attachment cells will kind of like find somebody attractive
Speaker 2: and like them, and then they won't vet them at all.
Speaker 2: They'll just people please them and try to win them over.
Speaker 2: Dismissive avoidance sometimes because they get afraid of being vulnerable.
Speaker 2: Can flow find a little bit when they get too close,
Speaker 2: so they can be like a little nitpicky of people
Speaker 2: because they don't want to feel like, oh yeah, this
Speaker 2: is a perfect connection, or they don't want to like
Speaker 2: them too much or put them on a pedestal, so
Speaker 2: they'll kind of like flow find a little bit, and
Speaker 2: the balance is what we're ideally looking for. We're looking
Speaker 2: for I'm going to vet you and look for the
Speaker 2: qualities that you have and see if those are a
Speaker 2: good fit for my life without being two in the
Speaker 2: flaw finding space. And I'm also going to, you know,
Speaker 2: make sure that I'm clear about your qualities and I'm
Speaker 2: going to open up about my own so that you
Speaker 2: can see if I'm a.
Speaker 1: Good fit for you.
Speaker 2: And so it's not people pleasing, but it's being open
Speaker 2: and vulnerable and transparent so we can see if this
Speaker 2: is actually something that could work. And so I would
Speaker 2: say those are two really important questions. And I would
Speaker 2: say the third question is really going to be about
Speaker 2: like what are your non negotiables around dating, because again,
Speaker 2: when we can get that touper clear, we put ourselves
Speaker 2: in a position where we're just not like wasting our
Speaker 2: time and we're able to do things so much more intentionally.
Speaker 4: Thank you. Those are great question for people.
Speaker 3: I actually had written down the question of do you
Speaker 3: does your style make you that way towards yourself and
Speaker 3: you've already answered that, but it was really interesting to
Speaker 3: me when I read my question after going through the
Speaker 3: attachment styles and reading the book that I didn't even
Speaker 3: you know, in my mind, I wasn't sure, Like I
Speaker 3: was like, but what's crazy to me is that you
Speaker 3: don't expect them to be something you do to yourself.
Speaker 4: Yes, Like I think you could read that.
Speaker 3: I think you could go through these attachment styles and
Speaker 3: be like, yeah, he presents is this and I present
Speaker 3: as this to him or to her, but thinking about
Speaker 3: the fact that I do it to myself, Yes, it's
Speaker 3: I didn't connect the two.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's like, I think so important for anybody
Speaker 2: listening to flash out to like dismissive a point sometimes
Speaker 2: will neglect their own emotions because it's that internalized emotional
Speaker 2: neglact and sometimes kind of like push things down or
Speaker 2: like step it away or avoid it a little bit.
Speaker 3: That because there are other people in the world going
Speaker 3: through this and this, and so why should I feel
Speaker 3: sad about this?
Speaker 1: And that's like.
Speaker 2: In its own essence, it's this beautifully packaged emotional denial,
Speaker 2: right because it's like, oh, like other people are going
Speaker 2: through harder things, so I'm not allowed to have or
Speaker 2: be entitled to my feelings, which is just emotional neglect
Speaker 2: of self in a different form and so, and you'll
Speaker 2: see like for each person they are that to self. Right,
Speaker 2: anxious preoccupants are people pleasing everybody else, but in that
Speaker 2: they're literally abandoning themselves all the time. And so no
Speaker 2: wonder their abandonment wound is so strong is because they're
Speaker 2: keeping it alive. Like I always think of when we
Speaker 2: don't know how to meet our own needs, and this
Speaker 2: is very like anxious attachment cell. Like imagine that you
Speaker 2: have an anxious attachment cell and they're driving to a
Speaker 2: gas station and their gas tank is fully empty. You
Speaker 2: pull into the gas station and you're like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: it better be open. You're panicking. But if your gas
Speaker 2: tank is always halfway full when you pull in, if
Speaker 2: this gas station is not open or they're out of gas,
Speaker 2: you're like, oh, that's fine, I can go to the
Speaker 2: next gas station because your tank is half full. And
Speaker 2: that's really what it means to meet our own needs
Speaker 2: a relationship to self. Not only is it our form
Speaker 2: of self soothing, but it's also our ability to not
Speaker 2: panic and get so dysregulated if somebody's not available to us,
Speaker 2: because we're not running on empty in the relationship to self,
Speaker 2: all the time, and so because they keep themselves on
Speaker 2: empty there, they fear that from other people just like
Speaker 2: by the same token, like even for a fearful avoidant,
Speaker 2: which I haven't mentioned.
Speaker 1: Like for me, I.
Speaker 2: Would be like all or nothing all the time with myself,
Speaker 2: like really focusing doing a really good job for a
Speaker 2: few days on being kind to myself whatever, and then
Speaker 2: drop off and.
Speaker 1: Go to the full opposite direction.
Speaker 2: And like you'd see that, and then of course I
Speaker 2: show up that way in relationships because that's relationship to
Speaker 2: me first.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we just were not taught to even
Speaker 3: reflect on ourselves in that way. You read all these
Speaker 3: things and you're thinking about how am I acting to
Speaker 3: this person or how is this person acting to me?
Speaker 3: But the last thing you think about is how am
Speaker 3: I acting to myself?
Speaker 4: How am I relating to myself? How am I speaking
Speaker 4: to myself?
Speaker 3: And so I think it's such a great exercise to
Speaker 3: go through, like start with yourself before you end up
Speaker 3: thinking about anybody else that you or acting towards or
Speaker 3: having an interaction with.
Speaker 4: It makes such a difference.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, can you.
Speaker 3: Tell people because I haven't even mentioned I mentioned the
Speaker 3: book briefly, but there are two books of yours that
Speaker 3: I have. Could you share the books with people? Because
Speaker 3: I think that after listening to this, I mean, how
Speaker 3: informative was this. This was such a great conversation. But
Speaker 3: I think for people to know what should the next
Speaker 3: steps be, I think reading your book would be great.
Speaker 3: So could you share both your books and just give
Speaker 3: a little bit about what each of them are?
Speaker 1: Yes, thank you.
Speaker 2: So the first is called The Attachment Theory Guide, and
Speaker 2: it's kind of like about the attachment cells and how
Speaker 2: to recognize which one you are. And then there's our
Speaker 2: second book, which is called Learning Love, and it's all
Speaker 2: about like it's really learning self love and how to
Speaker 2: bring that into relationships. But it's actually about those major characteristics,
Speaker 2: so reprogramming core wounds, learning your needs, emotional regulation, the boundaries,
Speaker 2: and the communication. And so we go through when we
Speaker 2: break down how to recognize each attachment cell, but then
Speaker 2: how to reprogram your attachment cell and actually heal it
Speaker 2: to become secure attached, and we go through all the
Speaker 2: different like reprogramming exercises and all that stuff.
Speaker 4: So it's great.
Speaker 3: So you feel like people are able to do this
Speaker 3: by themselves without needing the help of a professional if
Speaker 3: they can go through the you know, go through the
Speaker 3: books and they able to help themselves before needing to
Speaker 3: maybe go out to somebody to do that.
Speaker 1: Yes, they're designed to be that way for sure.
Speaker 2: I mean I don't want to tell people like, don't
Speaker 2: ever get support, but it's all designed to be that
Speaker 2: you can.
Speaker 1: Go through and become securely attached for doing that work.
Speaker 4: Yeah, my god, thank you. This is amazing.
Speaker 3: But I want to ask you a few questions about
Speaker 3: you actually, Okay, what would you say is something that
Speaker 3: people don't know about you that you would want them to.
Speaker 2: I would say, I'm not sure if it's like I
Speaker 2: want them to, but I would say that something I
Speaker 2: never share is I actually grew up and played soccer.
Speaker 2: I played Division one soccer. I got a full ride
Speaker 2: soccer scholarship. It was like my passion and like my
Speaker 2: first really big thing. I was obsessed with my young
Speaker 2: adult life. And yeah, fun fact amazing. And what are
Speaker 2: you reading and listening to right now? What are your
Speaker 2: favorite podcasts? Your favorite books at the moment? Oh my gosh,
Speaker 2: there's so many. I feel like I'm just so I
Speaker 2: love a course in Miracles. I'm really into like a
Speaker 2: lot of the spiritual stuff. And so every morning I
Speaker 2: listened to like an hour long Course of Miracles podcast
Speaker 2: go through like the Daily last Day.
Speaker 1: They're so good. It takes a bit to like it.
Speaker 2: I didn't get into it right away, but I'm really
Speaker 2: into like the spiritual side of things too, and so
Speaker 2: I love that. That's like my my like deep peaceful activity.
Speaker 2: And then I'm reading doctor Gaber mad Day's book, one
Speaker 2: of those newer books that he wrote, I think with
Speaker 2: his son. It's called The Myth of Normal and I love,
Speaker 2: I love all the stuff that where he talks about
Speaker 2: like the body and how this is affected and yeah,
Speaker 2: and I'm also reading this other book because I'm really
Speaker 2: interested in a lot of health related things too, called
Speaker 2: The Root Cause Oh Bye, Isabella wentz Okay.
Speaker 1: And it's like that's one of the best health book
Speaker 1: I've ever read. It's so good. So yeah, really good ones.
Speaker 4: It's amazing. And what are you working on at the moment?
Speaker 3: Are you excited about anything in life that you're ready
Speaker 3: to share with people?
Speaker 1: Yeah? So we are.
Speaker 2: So we have the Personal Development School. We have like
Speaker 2: all these programs are like more immersive programs for becoming
Speaker 2: securely attached with these like ninety day boot camps, and
Speaker 2: I'm working on creating this certification for people to also
Speaker 2: get like certified in all these different things.
Speaker 1: So excited for that. And then I'm working on preparing
Speaker 1: to have.
Speaker 2: A baby in a year or so, Like I'm like,
Speaker 2: we're going to maybe start the process, my husband and
Speaker 2: I in a little bit, so like that's sort of
Speaker 2: a personal thing that I'm working.
Speaker 3: Oh. I love that you shared that because I think
Speaker 3: the preparation you know, Iraida talks about that all the time.
Speaker 3: How when you're thinking about having a child, need you
Speaker 3: need at least a minimum of six months, if not
Speaker 3: a year to start not just preparing your mind or
Speaker 3: your external environment, but your physical body and to invite
Speaker 3: you know, your in your in your spiritual state, your
Speaker 3: mental state, and your physical state to be prepared to
Speaker 3: invite a beautiful soul into your body and into your life.
Speaker 3: And so I love that you said that you're preparing
Speaker 3: for that because I think it is something that is
Speaker 3: such a uh it's a responsibility and it's something so
Speaker 3: magical that happens that to spend the time to prepare
Speaker 3: for it is so important.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's so cool. It's so cool to hear that.
Speaker 1: I've never heard that before.
Speaker 3: I'll share some books with you. Honest really love that
Speaker 3: last question. When was it the last time you cried?
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, are you a crier? I have a crier?
Speaker 3: Are you are?
Speaker 2: I cry happy tears a lot more now than sad tears.
Speaker 2: But I will say, my poor dear sister is going
Speaker 2: through a hard time physically with some health stuff, some
Speaker 2: really serious health stuff.
Speaker 1: So I cried a few days ago about that.
Speaker 2: We were really worried about her. She she had to
Speaker 2: go to the hospital. She she went through a lot
Speaker 2: of like heart issues, and she's really young, so that
Speaker 2: made me cry.
Speaker 1: I feel like if I told her cry on your podcast.
Speaker 3: No, you didn't have to go into detail, but I
Speaker 3: appreciate you doing that, and honestly, everybody on everybody does
Speaker 3: listening to this, say little prayer for your sister. I
Speaker 3: think I wished her well and thank you so much
Speaker 3: for this.
Speaker 4: This was phenomenal, I think.
Speaker 3: I mean, I can't wait for all of you to
Speaker 3: listen to this, And when you do, please please go
Speaker 3: and find Tyson's share all your thoughts and give her thanks.
Speaker 4: If you appreciated it. Thank you all so much.
Speaker 3: Subscribe to the podcast and I would love feedback whatever
Speaker 3: it is.
Speaker 4: Thanks so much.