 Well, welcome back to the show, Judy. Great to have you. Oh, thank you so much. I'm excited to talk to you about attachment this time. I know the last time you were here, we talked about self-sabotage. Right. And I think when it comes to relationships, attachment can be one of those ways that we actually sabotage relationships with others. Oh, absolutely. And I think that it's kind of a hidden thing because you don't always think about or talk about attachment every single day, but it really takes a huge impact on your operating system. It's sort of like the way that you see the world and maybe some of the rules of how you interact with others and even how you feel about yourself. So there's a lot of impacts. Well, I know that it's become more popular on social media to talk about attachment. There's memes flying around everywhere, but for those in our audience who aren't familiar with attachment theory, what is it? So attachment theory is based on these early bonds that we have with our caregivers. Most of the times it's our parents, but it could be other important adults. When you're just coming into the world. And the reason why these attachment bonds are so important is because you're just learning about how the world works, how you can affect change in the world. Do people come to you when you have a need? And in those early years, we're literally helpless without an adult to take care of us. And that's why they make such a huge impact on how we think about ourselves in the future. Now, when it comes to attachment, I know that a lot of people can see it in others, but it's difficult to self-assess. So what are those four attachment styles? And then walk us through how we can start to understand ourselves versus labeling others. Yeah. So there's four attachment styles. One is secure. And so that's sort of considered to be like the optimal attachment type. And then there's three more insecure styles. They each have their sort of pros and cons that are associated with each one of them. And if you're not sure where to start, I do have an attachment quiz. You can see it on my website for free or you can get it from my book. But that's a good way just to kind of understand yourself a little better. But the three insecure attachment styles. I'll start with the first one is avoidant attachment style. So that one is a person who maybe in childhood, they were parentified really early. Maybe they were made just to in general be more independent. They really couldn't count on their parents for various reasons. And I want to just also preface this by saying parents oftentimes are trying to do their best, but still things happen. And so maybe really busy parents, for example, or parents who didn't really like to talk about emotion so much, they might produce an avoidantly attached child. And as an adult, these avoidantly attached are fiercely independent. They just want to do everything themselves, roll up their sleeves. When things get tough, they start to isolate. They don't tell people about their problems. And they tend to focus a lot of their life on their goals and their achievements. And they put less stock on deeper meaningful connections with other people. The second kind of insecure attachment style is the anxious attachment style. So this is the quintessential people pleaser. Maybe when they were young, they felt like they had to do that to keep their parents close. And so as adults, they're generally having those same types of patterns in all the different areas of their life. They tend oftentimes to need a lot more positive reinforcement from their environment to feel good about themselves. So they might not be able to hold on to a higher self-esteem unless they're hearing it from everybody else that they're okay. And when they're away from people that they care about for too long, they start to question, like, do they still care about me? And they'll start to do these sort of like pulling behaviors for attention even if they don't realize that that's what it is consciously. And then the last insecure attachment style is the disorganized. And that one I think is the most misunderstood. When I look on online articles, social media, I see that people sometimes think that it's a combination of the other two styles. Or they think that it's the style that is just like you throw up your hands you can't do anything about it because it's the most messed up one. Both of those things are untrue. People who develop disorganized attachment, they do tend to generally come from more stressful home environments and maybe ones that are traumatic. What happens is it makes it harder for them to emotionally regulate. So oftentimes they feel like there's a lot of chaos around them. They tend to get more overwhelmed with emotion. They tend to be in fight or flight a lot. So that's how they approach a lot of different things in their life from relationships to career goals to even thoughts about themselves. And so it's just harder for them to kind of get to that base level of feeling safe and having stability. So that I think would describe the disorganized attachment well. And then finally, this is a secure attachment type. Doesn't mean that they don't have problems, but it does mean that when they do come across challenges, they feel more equipped that they can handle it either on their own or with someone's help. They generally believe that good things can happen to them and should happen to them. And their self-concept and their self-esteem tends to be pretty rooted in what they are doing internally. So it's not as predicated on whether or not they're achieving every day or what other people are saying about them. Right. Now, looking at parents, for most of us, there's two people involved. So do parenting styles, combination of parenting styles, produce different attachments? Is a household primarily in one style or another? Yeah, it's a good question. So I definitely think that whoever is your primary caregiver, that's oftentimes who your attachment style is going to be developed around. But obviously, if you have two parents who are pretty much equal in your life, even as a child, then if they have slightly different styles, you might actually develop a combination attachment style. And then as an adult, it can play out in different areas of your life. So I've had people tell me, well, I have really secure attachment in my romantic relationships. But when it comes to my career, I feel like I'm more avoidantly attached. And then when it comes to friendships, I'm anxiously attached. That's very common to have a combination attachment style. And sometimes certain situations trigger certain memories. And so it can even be something like, well, my mom and I, we've had a secure attachment, but my dad and I, we did it. It was more insecure. And they find that playing out more when they interact with males. So you can see that too, where it's like the different domains of their life, where these attachment styles can come up. Okay. Now, there's a huge debate, nature, nurture. So what role do genetics play in attachment? Huge. I mean, yeah, I mean, psychology is one of those fields where it would be nice if it was like a black and white answer, right? Yeah. But it's always a combination. And so there's definitely the parents, a parenting approach. And then there's the temperament, the personality of the infant and the toddler, right? And so some people, they come into the world and they just need a little bit more positive reinforcement than the average person. So if their parent is more dismissive of that, it's going to create in them a much more anxious attachment style as they grow up. Or you may have a child who was kind of independent to begin with and they don't quite need as much. So even if the parent isn't there all the time and isn't giving them that extra reinforcement and nurturance, they might still grow up to be securely attached. Okay. Just similar to that first example I gave. Yeah. Now it's interesting that you point out romantic social relationships and then career relationships because I think for a lot of us, we might first hear about attachment styles when it comes to our romantic relationships because those tend to be the relationships that we spend the most time in. We get really close with the other person and oftentimes we can actually see their response to our behavior and it leads to arguments and fights and conflict. When it comes to our social relationships and our work relationships, those tend to be a little bit more difficult because we don't often get that direct feedback. Like we do from a romantic partner. I know for myself I'm avoidant in a lot of ways, especially in romantic relationships and I made that discovery through a partner breaking up with me and explaining to me all the behaviors that drove her up a wall. So we look at these romantic bonds. Are there patterns of attachment style that work well together that tend to attract each other? Yeah. Such a great example and thanks for sharing. I think I have avoidant attachment styles as well and it's really through, like you said, talking with my partners, trying to work on myself and I'm like, okay, how do I do this in a way that will feel better for everybody and even myself involved? But yeah, definitely. I'm so used to being super independent that in my romantic relationships in the past for sure where it's just like, okay, I'm just going to rather invest in something else rather than this emotional conversation. I think that interestingly, avoidantly attached and anxiously attached tend to attract each other. It kind of makes sense. There's like a little chasing. People pleasing, yeah. Yeah, like the people pleasing and then like you're in it and then the person kind of goes away again and then like the anxiously attached like chases the avoidantly attached person. But then sometimes the anxiously attached person will start to feel overwhelmed and say, you know what, well, maybe this isn't working. They start to disconnect and then that's when the avoidantly attached person will like co-chase them and be like, wait, are we okay here? Like let's make sure we're okay. And so you get into these patterns and I think that oftentimes people are trying to replicate in some way like making amends with something that had happened to them in the past at some point. And that's why they start to attract each other. I think that that's probably the most common but I think the disorganized attachment oftentimes will end up also attracting the avoidantly attached or the anxiously attached just depending on where they are in their own self-development and how they're managing that. I think that in terms of what works well, I think any attachment style could really work well with any other as long as you're willing to do the work and just have a little bit of insight. You may always have the shadows of your primary attachment style coming back in but as long as you have the self-awareness you know how to switch the tactics. You know how to say, well, I have this urge now to kind of disconnect or I have this urge now to people please and what can I do instead? So I think that every style can work well with every other style it's just about having that acknowledgement and wanting to change for the betterment of yourself and your partner. So looking at those family relationships and their importance on child rearing and our outcomes in terms of attachment style for those in our audience who are parents sounds like we want to raise secure attachment style children. What can we do to be better parents around raising secure attachment? Yeah, so so interesting because I had this idea for this book for several years I pitched it. I got the book bought by Hachette and then I became pregnant. So it was so interesting that just coincidentally in a way the timing of it was now I'm writing this book while I'm trying to raise my infant son and really all of the things that I know as an expert what I've been talking about with parents trying to help my clients now I'm living it now I'm living it also on top of it and I think parenting is so huge I think that a lot of times people put so much stock in their parenting makes sense because you're like I have one chance to do it right but I also think the 80-20 rule applies here where 80% of the time if you're doing things to foster secure attachment your child's probably going to end up being securely attached 20% of the time you make mistakes you were you know slightly just you know busy with something else like did something differently and wish you didn't do it that way most of the times it's still going to be okay I think in general all you really need to do as a parent is just be a mindful parent just be attentive to what your child is needing in the moment earlier you brought up this idea of nature versus nurture you can read all the parenting books in the world go see all the therapists you want and you just have to look at your child what works for your child might not work for another child it what works for your firstborn child might not work for your lastborn child and so it's really just about being observant of what your child needs and your child's temperament and then just doing your best to be there for them and addressing whatever needs are coming up in the moment you don't even necessarily have to have a defined script it's really just about what they need every single day one day they might be totally fine being more independent play on their own the next day they might want more hugs and just want to be close to you and so I've talked to a lot of different parents especially being a new parent myself and it's so interesting that a lot of them have had these same revelations of oh like I had this whole day plan where we're going to do all these activities and really all they wanted me to do today was just like sit with them on the couch and just be near me physically and then that's kind of what we ended up doing instead of all these other activities that we had planned and so I think that that is so much of what we need as human beings to feel secure and safe in those early years it's just a close proximity emotionally and physically to someone who cares so that's kind of it like I'm boiling down parenting to maybe like super simple terms but I think that that's really the key versus over complicating it and trying to turn it into something that in a lot of ways forces children to be outside of their comfort zone to be outside of who they were meant to be exactly and I know that sometimes it comes from a good place you know you oftentimes hear about parents saying well I really wanted my child to have certain opportunities that I didn't get to have of course that's great but you also have to watch your child and you also have to say is this appropriate for my child and so obviously at the extreme you have these parents who are saying well I never got to be a figure skater my child's gonna be a figure skater and drive them really hard to do it and then it makes it feel really difficult if that child is just not into it or they feel like well everything about me is that it's all based on my achievements and what I do for you like that will produce a certain type of child that might be insecurely attached and so I do think that sometimes we're over complicating it and it is just about watching your child and giving your child what they need in that moment and that's gonna make them feel safe and that's gonna make them feel secure So looking at attachment styles basically how we are raised in that parental person both presence in our life that primary caregiver it's kind of the set point of what we see safety and comfort and love as and then we seek that out in other relationships whether that be personal whether they be romantic when you recognize that maybe you have one of these insecure attachment styles what is the work because you said do the work to actually become secure what is that work that we should be doing once we've recognized these patterns in ourselves Yeah so once you recognize the patterns and I think you know you said something like template you know it is kind of a template that you go about life and to me it's sort of like an operating system that's always working underneath and although most of the times we're talking about romantic relationships like you said it does affect all the different areas of your life it affects how you go about goals it affects how you deal with friendships and family members it affects how you think about yourself just in general your whole self concept and so once you recognize insecure attachment then it's really about looking at the operating system and essentially changing what's not working developing a revised operating system that's actually going to work for your life right now as an adult and so what I have found is that with each insecure attachment type they have certain different things that are running as their program so for example the anxious attached a lot of what's running in their program is you know I have to over analyze everything that's part of the anxious temperament or I have to save others I have to you know take care of others because otherwise they won't take care of me or they won't like me and so once you realize what these statements are there's different exercises that you can do to essentially re-parent yourself and that is what I think is really important is that sometimes people will say well okay like I get all that and I hear what you're saying and like I've talked to my parents about it and they're just like what are you talking about they're clearly not interested in the work and maybe they don't even feel like they want to take responsibility for what they've contributed to my attachment style but that's okay the whole idea is that as an adult now you have more efficacy and you have more control and it's in your hands now so you can be upset with your parents but this is not about blaming them because it's not going to help you move forward so what can you do you have to learn to re-parent yourself you have to reprogram what's happened and so there's different exercises that we can do from inner child work to mirror work to like shadow work to empty chair exercises but these are things where you get to confront those areas that have developed from an earlier time these scripts that probably no longer work in your life but you're still running those old programs it's like the old computer that you're still using but it's just not working now and so it is up to you to be able to do those exercises and move forward and develop these new scripts for yourself so it is important to recognize as you said earlier that you know our parents are doing the best they can with what they're given and of course a lot of this information wasn't even available to them around raising kids podcasts videos inner child work so recognizing that we have to take responsibility we want to have healthy happy relationships in our lives I found in our work that we do as the clients is we tend to get a lot of avoidant attachment clients as well being very goal-driven and lone wolves as we call them just happy to push relationships to the side focus on the task at hand so walk us through some of these exercises for those in the audience who are avoidant to actually start to work through breaking that pattern and getting to a more secure attachment style in their life yeah this is a great question you know and I think again the avoidantly attach is interesting because I also talk about the pros of each insecure attachment style because there's so much about how bad they are that it's important to also recognize there are strengths right and so interestingly like you said avoidantly attached individuals they are the proverbial lone wolves and they are admired for it they're admired for their achievements so it's kind of egocentonic to be avoidantly attached and then obviously when they're not feeling good about themselves they like just set up another goal and they do it and people are like whoa you're so amazing you have all this stuff going on your personal life and you're still doing it and so it makes you kind of almost drive even more towards that but eventually you burn out more your self concept is obviously not in a great place in that it's always predicated on what you're achieving and then we all need connection like even the proverbial lone wolves even if you say you're a recluse because we're social animals I mean that's a lot of what your work is on is trying to help people recognize that and harness that and so a lot of the exercises for our proverbial lone wolves really have to do with developing healthy interdependence and so I set up these behavioral experiments for them I know that you like them too in your program where you start to little by little you know starting with lower stake things like ask people to start helping in different areas of your life but you start with lower stakes because it's too scary to ask like the big ass of most intimate relationships but you start with that but you the important thing is that you actually write your hypothesis beforehand right so it's like what do you think is actually going to happen versus what actually happens and oftentimes people who have avoid an attachment they feel like well they're not going to be able to do it or like well they'll do it but they'll disappoint me or like they'll do it but then now they're going to think that I suck and I'm weak I'm weak right and so it's important to write those hypotheses ahead of time because our minds are so powerful that later on after something happens you're going to create the story that's your current ideas so you have to write it down ahead of time then you do the experiment and then you're like okay well what actually happened and then you look at the discrepancy then you have to start in a logical way actually make sense of okay what's the new idea then to bring into my existing script so I guess I asked this person for this I thought that they were totally going to disappoint me and you know what they did pretty good job like could I have done a better job maybe but they did a pretty good job they did a good enough job that I feel more comfortable doing it in the future you know with people that you have more intimate relationships with you can even ask them directly like when I asked you for this did what did you think of me you know people you trust your friends close family romantic partners and you know most of the times you're going to get that feedback of like either nothing or like well yeah obviously you need a lot of help you have a lot on your plate as opposed to you're a week yeah you're bothering me exactly and so I think those behavioral experiments are so important for the avoidant attached because avoidantly attached people are really pragmatic they tend to be really logical and they don't want like so much emotional content and so you got to meet the types where they're at if you're asking the avoidantly attached to do a ton of really deep emotional work right off the bat they're going to run away from that they're going to fit me yeah exactly and with that you know recognizing that yes we have these big goals but we get these goals achieved so much faster with just a little bit of support with just a little bit of help from our community and they feel good helping you right I think that's that's one of the things that's challenging with the lone wolf mindset it's like well I can get there faster alone it's like no actually you can get there faster with support and the people want to support you they care about you they see you in such high regard because of all of your achievements that they're excited to be a part of your journey exactly and I think that that's something that is a huge takeaway for the avoidantly attached because like you said there's all of these different things ideas that you've put in your head that you're doing it better alone and because 95% of the time you're doing it alone you're reinforcing that yourself but once you actually let other people in you realize like you said your goals are much better achieved with people supporting you and you're actually giving them a gift oftentimes they like want to and they feel privileged that you asked right to be a part of it yeah and so that's why these feedback conversations after the fact are so important it's like the people that you do trust that are kind of in your inner circle like how did you feel doing this like you need that feedback you need to remember that for the next time and you need to write it down so you don't forget or create a different narrative that fits your existing ideas absolutely I know for myself growing up I was in a household where my emotions are often dismissed so expressing emotions especially quote-unquote negative emotions was just not seen as comfortable for me even after growing up and becoming an adult and in those relationships your partner can sense that you're feeling difficult emotions you're not hiding it you're not getting anything under your partner's nose but with that they feel disconnected from you because you're not showing your true self exactly and I really that really resonates with me as well because you know growing up in a more traditional Chinese household stoicism is very valued and so when you have negative emotions they are dismissed it's like well don't don't complain about it don't talk about it right and that was my parents way of cheering me up though right whenever I had a hard time when I had a difficult time and so again I recognize that my parents were only using the scripts that they grew up with and they were actually trying to help but it definitely made me feel like oh we just don't talk about negative emotions and I remember that earlier in my life I was pretty uncomfortable when people became more emotional around me and when they were expressing negative emotion I was like oh my god it would make me super uncomfortable I would either try to like make an excuse to get out of there or it would just make me even more stoic which would drive the person crazy because they're like are you even hearing me I'm distressed and I'm like and I'm like everything's fine they're like no it's not you know and so it actually fires them up more which obviously achieves the opposite effect and so it does take some time like you said like to try to show up authentically to recognize that negative emotions serve a function so again speaking to the more logical and pragmatic mind of my brain I had to tell myself you know what all emotions exist for a reason they're evolutionarily adaptive if you didn't have negative emotions how would you know something was wrong like negative emotions are what propel spider flight when you actually need it right and so the negative emotion if we can just develop an attitude of curiosity towards it like oh well I'm feeling this why am I feeling this what is it trying to tell me about my life maybe there's something that I need to address if you can take that attitude of curiosity and approach it as an intellectual exercise maybe that's a little bit easier of a bridge for people who tend to be more avoidantly attached with their emotions and so it's interesting now like on the other side since I've done so much self-development work on my own that now I'm like my feelings matter like I want to if I feel this way today like it's okay like and it's funny because I feel like it took a lot of time for me to get to that place where that's more comfortable for me but even as I'm saying it now sometimes I'm like no too much emotion like there's still an old script that sometimes tries to interfere with the newer development so I think that's an important point in all of this that it's not this like complete erase of those memories and erase the script it's always going to be there just how are you reacting to it are you able to recognize it and are you able to move against it away from it or towards the things that really matter to you in those moments and now you know in the loving caring relationship well your partner wants to see all of the emotions from you they want to see the positive and the negative emotions they want to see the excitement and they want to know when your heart is broken because that's what real support is I know in my situation with my family a lot of their view on negative emotions where they were contagious so like get that negativity away from me or even worse like hey you made someone at the family gathering feel this way because you were acting this way so act in a different way don't show that negative emotion because you hurt Aunt Jerry and it's like well I didn't mean to hurt Aunt Jerry I was just trying to express myself so in a lot of ways I walled off all of those emotions in relationships and I went through a period of grief and losing my dad and you know it actually disconnected me from my friends because they had no idea how to even communicate with me because I just wasn't being open and honest about the grief I was feeling and I just didn't want to answer their call I didn't want to talk to them I didn't want to dump those emotions on them right yeah and I think that that is so true that again as a proverbial lone wolf you do try to go through all the most challenging times of your life on your own but that can be so hard and it becomes like the self-perpetuating cycle too and then again that reinforces these ideas like well people can't be counted on it's like well but you haven't asked for help either you know and yeah this is huge that most people would avoid an attachment they're always afraid of being a burden to others and like you said there's some earlier experiences that may have caused that and so as an adult when those ideas still come up like you said it's not black or white it's not like okay once the healing work is done like it's never going to come up again but that doesn't mean that you haven't gotten to the other side it's more just about oh now I recognize what it is and so can I do something different and what you were alluding to earlier about like living the values based life still you know like okay well I am in distress right now it's a little chaotic but what can I still do to like drive towards the things that mean the most to me so that's a great turn to say okay what are my top three values today and what's one small thing I could do to move each of those things forward and just feel like I'm still living that truth you know that's really important even being an avoidingly attached person wanting every day to be super productive and super goal oriented and then beating yourself up when you're not having that day well you know what some days aren't going to be like that for a variety of reasons but are you still living a values based life and if you are then you can go to sleep by feeling good about yourself yeah well I mean that's really the power in values over goals goals are important but if you orient your entire life around goals there are going to be periods where you you aren't reaching them where you're falling further away from them where for completely outside of your control circumstances you just can't achieve them but values are a way of being that you can incorporate into your daily life whether or not you're feeling a negative emotion a positive emotion you've had a distressful experience at work you've had a co-worker who put something on you that you didn't deserve you can still live in a value based life even if your goal is to be promoted exactly and I think that that's why it's so important to know that truly mindful living it actually is going to move the needle forward more in the long run even if one or two days you just have blips where you're like I'm not doing as much and it is about like where am I today and how am I feeling and what's going on and sometimes there's things out of our control people with avoiding attachment especially they want to try to control everything it's like well I'm going to do everything myself some things are out of your hands and you're just going to have to let it go and that's another important lesson of you know how do we actually achieve that more balanced self-concept of yes my achievements are so important I own that that's a big part of my identity but there's also times where being interdependent with somebody else like that should be just as important or if I'm not able to move towards my goals as quickly as I can I still feel good about myself at the end of the day and I think the secret is mindfulness and value space life yeah I think my own personal journey one of the unlocks for me were helping other people reach their goals and the feeling that that that gave me around fulfillment and joy in my own life recognizing that well if I let other people in on my goals as the lone wolf they can feel that as well so really recognizing those behaviors and actions and others being self-reflective and saying oh okay that's the gift that I'm giving to these people that I share my goals with that I ask for that support from right exactly because at the end of the day we all want to be connected with other people we all want to say like we made a positive impact in someone else's life and yeah like it's an interesting challenge of hey why are you taking that away from people who care about you like they actually want to be part of your journey and they want to see you on the other side I think part of the problem that I see on social media around the labeling of attachment is the negative feelings that it fosters the beating up of yourself the judgment the critique and I think a big part of this is is developing self-compassion recognizing that hey this is a pattern that again was out of your control based on the way you were raised environment genetics all the things that go into that attachment style understanding that there's going to be some work if you want to move towards secured but at the same time recognizing that hey there were some benefits to having this attachment and allowed me to reach some goals some success in my life it hasn't been all negative so what are some ways that we can develop self-compassion towards our current attachment yeah this is such a huge I'm so glad that you brought that up it's so true we have such difficulty being self-compassionate and oftentimes you know that you have problems with self-compassion if you're pretty critical of other people like because the rules come from somewhere like so if you're upset with people for things it's like actually there's a part of you that's upset with yourself you know and having compassion is so important I think that one thing is moving past anger I think that sometimes people will have a lot of anger either toward themselves for having an insecure attachment style now and like maybe the negative impacts it's had or like anger toward their parents like I'm so mad at you because you made me do this or like you made me this way and I get that that's oftentimes the first step you have to have something to direct your upset at but eventually you have to move past that and say how can I honor myself and value myself just as I am because all human beings have worth regardless of our mistakes regardless of what we've done regardless of the mistakes in the past and until you can achieve that self-compassion you really can't move forward in a positive way because there's always going to be something that gets you stuck or sabotages your best efforts so one of the things that I love the most about you know self-compassion at work is really just about like sitting with your inner child so your inner child is that metaphorical little you that still lives in all of us and you've probably seen your inner child come out when you're stressed and you just want to play video games forever or like do something that like makes you happy from childhood you're like I don't care about any of my responsibilities or have a tantrum kick-scream and cry exactly and like and and if you can have compassion towards your inner child then it's going to heal your adult self and give your adult self some compassion too oftentimes I think as an adult we push our inner child aside because we're like no like that's the tantrumy like irresponsible little child I don't want to recognize it but if you don't you're never going to have compassion for yourself so one exercise I love to do is a visualization exercise where you essentially picture your your inner child at whatever age you want to it could be five it could be three it could be 10 maybe going through a difficult time maybe you can just reflect upon like what was a difficult moment during my elementary years or junior high years and then just you know really bring that picture of your inner child to life as much as possible and then imagine your adult self meeting your inner child and essentially asking your inner child what do you need like just that simple question what do you need and then just listening and seeing what your inner child's telling you maybe your inner child is saying like I just need a hug or like I just needed to be told that I'm okay even if I didn't get that A you know but whatever the case is you know really recognize that that's something that your inner child is still caring with you and is probably affecting you to this day and then thinking about in the next 24 hours what's one small thing I can do to like meet this need of my inner child so if they're saying like I need to be told that I'm okay even if I'm not achieving it's like okay well as the adult self I have a lot more resources I have a lot more wherewithal control over my life like what is something that I can do to nurture that part of myself and if you do this exercise even weekly you're going to start to notice that you have so much more compassion for yourself because you're basically saying hey you're my inner child you're allowed to come and express your emotions and your needs to me at any time my adult self will help take care of it and it gives you that bond of it's okay even if you're telling me something that like my adult self is saying whoa that sounds really childish or like really unreasonable but the more that you actually dialogue with your inner child the more you'll realize this is not unreasonable this is something that a human being needs and I can give that to my own self and that is compassion that is a form of self-compassion that is very real and that you can take with you Yeah it's recognizing that part of yourself that's still present from childhood is creating these patterns that are coming up in relationships communication the way you see the world and recognizing that hey that operating system in that moment I understand where it comes from I understand how it gave you safety and security and love in that situation it doesn't work in this moment and I still care and love about and love you I think that you're capable even if you're feeling this way even if that insecurity is at its peak Exactly and I think that that is so important because our inner child is still operating in our adult selves like all the time and especially when we're stressed and so if you're able to do this type of exercise especially when you're stressed you're basically saying hey it's okay and it's kind of like every child that you've ever been around they're like having a tantrum but like you basically say hey I'm here or like okay let's do this like they calm down right it's like they only get louder if they don't feel like they're being heard so if you can say hey I hear you like that might even be enough if you're like hey I don't have any great ideas of how I'm gonna help you today but at least I hear you and I accept what you're saying that might be enough to get you through that next challenge Yeah and one of the visualizations that we do in our program is in that moment where you're feeling that stress and that ultimate insecurity take into its conclusion that you know maybe you just want to be loved or maybe you feel that person hates you or you're never enough or you're a complete failure and then picturing yourself as a child saying that out loud to you and how would you respond would you agree and say yeah you're a complete failure and no one loves you to you as a child no you would give that child a hug you would give that child compassion in that moment if they were saying it but somehow when we're saying it as an adult we give it more weight we give it more credence we believe it Yeah that's such a great point and like you said you know when you really turn around and you say would you really chastise that child that way this like crying child at the age of five and say no it's not okay to feel that way no you would like you said give them a hug give them encouragement but as an adult we feel like we're supposed to have it all together and like we can't express those feelings anymore but that child essentially shows you like one of the purest forms of being human because it's before there was all these social constructs it was before they thought that there were certain ways they had to act and so it's showing you like the purest form of here's what I need to self actualize here's what I need to feel safe so I can actually do the things that are meaningful to me and it might be a little easier when you picture that to say yes I accept that and I can give that to you versus our adult self but eventually that's the connection the connection is that you're giving that to your adult self you're giving them that permission now with attachment styles and relationships in general there's typically another person involved in the relationship and I know one of the questions that we hear from our clients once they start working on their attachment style is they become really in tune with their partner's attachment style and sometimes it can actually drive them crazy it can feel very frustrating that you're doing the work on yourself you're overcoming these patterns and maybe your partner's not moving along and maybe your partner doesn't want to deal with these patterns so what is your advice in that situation when you feel that maybe the relationship and the work you've done on yourself isn't being met and your needs aren't being met in this relationship yeah it can be really frustrating because you know oftentimes one partner will be ahead of the other partner in self-development and it doesn't mean that that relationship is not going to work but you also have to show up authentically and let your partner know what's bothering you and so again we've been talking a lot about avoidant attachment because I know a speech a lot to your audience and you know the avoidantly attached person might just be like starting to dis associate from them like just start to go away and be like well this might not work for me anymore like you have to challenge yourself to say no like this is a time to communicate it and say look we don't have to have the same journey but I've been frustrated because I feel like I'm working so hard on having better communication with you but I don't really feel like it's going both ways so like what do you think about that and what do you think is a way that we can improve our relationship put it in the other person's court after communicating because you don't want them to feel like they're being accused right so you want to you don't want to say well I think that you don't want to work on yourself because you don't care about self-development no you should just talk about what you're observing right stick to things that you can actually look at it's like a research study like just what can you observe from the outside but don't make any presumptions about their intentions and then put the ball in their court like what do you think and how do you think we can improve because I want to be more connected to I want us to feel happier in this relationship and so I think that that's really the first step it's not really about like throwing up your hands and giving up on it but just letting them know like this doesn't feel good to me so what can we do to like meet this need together because this relationship is important to me it's really two patterns combining into one in a relationship and depending how long you've been in that relationship together well those patterns become quite comfortable for both of you how you're showing up and now you're doing all this work you're breaking your pattern in the relationship well it is going to cause discomfort in your partner they're not going to know necessarily how to show up now because it's different than how you've showed up in the past and in arguments and conflicts and in distress exactly I mean it might get worse before it gets better it almost always does with any kind of change whether it's parenting or relationships or even like corporate structures you know something that we talk about a lot is like family systems theory which is like when somebody in the family system all of a sudden doesn't do what they used to do for better or for worse like that throws the system into chaos it's like oh no you were supposed to be the black sheep of the family now you're getting your shit together and like you're doing all like that freaks people out you know so you have to also give your partner a little grace at oh wait like they used to communicate this other way now they're doing this what does that mean for me like how does that mean about my communication with them and so it does take time it does take effort but you can always restructure the system for the better whether it's a partnership a family or like a work team let's talk about that family environment because I know with a lot of this work outside of the anger and resentment we talked about but with family we might just want to start over and create fresh communication now that we've recognized this pattern and maybe in the past in that situation and family conflict you would just become a void in and not answer their call or not agree to go to the family trip but now you want to be a bigger part of the family system how do you make change in that environment where it's now a dynamic that really has been well-worn probably lasted longer than a lot of our romantic and personal relationships yeah so I think that the first key is really just to start practicing active listening as a family so this is something that we do a lot of in therapy we talk about a lot in therapy but I feel like it just has so many different applications so we can really listen to understand oftentimes when we're talking to other people even in a social environment we're like thinking about what we're going to say next like you're saying something to me and I'm like oh I really want to say this other thing but then you start missing part of the actual conversation and what they're really trying to communicate it's kind of about trusting yourself that you know that you're going to come up with the next logical thing to say or the next interesting or helpful thing to say but that's easier said than done so active listening has a very easy script essentially somebody else is going to communicate for a little bit you're going to try to listen and be as attentive as possible when they're done the thing that you're going to say is just trying to recap what they said and it can be in your own words you don't have to use their words right it's just kind of summarizing and paraphrasing and then that gives the other person a chance to say yeah that's what I was saying or well actually you miss this one piece or like no that was not right but let me try again but it's so helpful because then you're not carrying with the miscommunication of what you heard and then that fueling what you say next right so even just that piece it slows down the communication and makes sure that it's actually accurate what's being communicated and then the second step is just affirming something about what you heard so once the person says okay that's pretty much what I said like that sounds good the next thing you can say is okay so based on what you said like this was interesting to me or like I totally resonate with this and understand it or like even though I don't agree I can empathize with how you're feeling right it's not really about oh now we all agree with each other but it's just about is there something that you can acknowledge and what they said that like resonates with you that you have more questions about that like makes sense like that's all we're asking we're not saying you have to agree on everything but that is just a huge key to like start breaking down any old patterns that aren't working in your family system and starting to communicate in a better way that makes everybody feel heard I feel in a lot of ways with that anger and resentment bubbling up there can be no room for forgiveness and might even want to cut your family off and completely disassociate from your family how can we practice forgiveness in these situations again harkening back to what we said earlier that our parents were trying the best they could in a situation that they were in and they did care and love for us even if they're bringing past patterns and their own attachment theory into the way they're raising us yeah definitely I think that anger can be such a powerful emotion it's such a strong cover for more vulnerable emotions that oftentimes we just want to live in it forever because it sometimes feels more comfortable to be angry than to be sad or to be disappointed or to be heartbroken right and so kind of recognizing that anger actually doesn't really help you like anger really manifests in such terrible emotional and physical ways especially if it's chronic so like of course you should let yourself be angry but like let yourself also move past it after that initial phase and basically say okay I don't have to be so in love with my mom and dad now like all of a sudden I'm like pretending that everything's fine that's not what we're talking about but it's more about can we go back and just recognize like one thing that they gave me today that like is a positive you know I mean that's a that's a start of just one little even it's a little thing even if it's like well like because they were so anxious like I guess like it made me more aware of like potential dangers even if it's sometimes overboard but like it has helped me in some ways to be more cautious maybe when I should right it can be any little thing and then I think it's really just also about recognizing that you can do this in doses it doesn't mean that you now all of a sudden want to like spend a whole weekend with your parents but it could be like you know what like let's just start by saying like let's go get lunch and let's keep it low key let's like have an end time because I don't know if I want to hang out with them for three hours but it's just about letting yourself do this in the doses that feel comfortable to you and you should throw out whatever presuppositions you have about what you're supposed to do as a good child or like how you're supposed to heal it's like if you don't want to talk to them after the lunch for three weeks like it's okay too you know like you just have to meet yourself where it's at but I think that it's always important to kind of think about we only have this one life we only have limited time like is your true goal never to speak to your parents again and never have a relationship and if it's not like let's meet them where they're at let's value and cherish the good of the relationship yeah it could definitely be a challenge and of course we want it to happen fast and quickly but it doesn't always work that way in a family dynamic in a family system yeah and I think that a big part of it is also forgiving yourself you know sometimes that anger it's really hiding that there's parts of yourself that you resent you know because sometimes when we resent what our parents have taught us the biggest realization is that maybe some of those lessons still seeped into how you work how we are yeah and then so like there's a little bit of like self-hatred in there that maybe we need to resolve too and so until you can kind of see the other side of okay there's still some good that came out of this you have to recognize it in yourself as well as you know other people for that work to be complete going back to the earlier part around anxious attachment and in career so I know for a lot of our clients they don't want to change their anxious attachment in their career and oftentimes it leads to difficult relationship building at the career level and it leads to you feeling that you're only as good as your last achievement when in actuality your network can create more achievement and more opportunity in your career so what is your advice when it comes to breaking free of that anxious attachment in our career yeah I think it can be so easy to say you know what like I I am responsible solely for what I'm doing and I have to keep achieving and I can't let anyone stop me so then instead of seeing other people as resources and support you see them as enemies you see them as competition competition you see them as barriers to your success and so it's not going to be something that you can do overnight but it is something where you start to value other people for the areas that they're good at one of the things that has helped me the most is really connecting with people who have like slightly different expertises than me but there's some overlap because I know that I'm learning something from them and then maybe that's the first step of like oh I see the value in what you're bringing and then slowly understanding that really is these collective minds that allows like bigger opportunities I've always found that when I start talking to somebody about an idea it sparks other ideas like there's only so much your one brain can do but maybe the little space to like start the work is to find other people whose expertises are like slightly different from yours but there's some overlap and interest or or skill set so that there's a mutual respect of well I don't know as much about this area so that's something that you can tell me about it's really interesting there was actually a really cool research study that was done with elementary students and it was helping them to foster collaboration and what they did was they would break up a project into four pieces it was like a jigsaw so essentially you really could not finish a project unless you listen to the other person so it's almost like everybody has like one part of a short story but then you needed to make a summary of that story so then like one person has like the first page a second person second page so you literally remove them from being able to do the work completely by themselves and you have to listen to the person recap page two for you or else you won't have the whole story so it's almost like that kind of idea when we're thinking about how to work in teams and how to help people with avoidant attachment start to rely on others is like let's bring in somebody who has something that you don't and like the good the end for you is I get to learn something that helps me towards my goals but you start to recognize the value of other people when you start working in this way yeah and that reciprocity of delegation right recognizing that starting small with delegating tasks and then also supporting others and taking on some tasks that maybe aren't directly your goals and oriented around what you want to achieve can start to break through that piece around vulnerability and starting to trust others in your work yeah and then I think once you start to have more positive experiences it's going to start bringing you more towards like a balance more secure attachment when you say oh you know what maybe there are some things that I should be doing because I'm I really am the best at them I've been working on it but there are other people who can help with these other pieces and in turn I can help them too and like that'll help both of our achievements you know yeah I know in my own experience I was in a lot of ways just starved for appreciation and I found it only when I achieved big lofty goals like getting into college and getting into graduate school but outside of that in the day to day where I really needed some appreciation in pep talk I wasn't getting it from my family structure and then it became very difficult for me as I moved into leadership role to then appreciate those around me because I'm like well it's not a big goal like we we have bigger goals that we have to focus on and I started just with our team just focusing on appreciating more frequently and seeing how powerful that was and now I incorporate that with all of our clients that work with us you have this tendency to just start recognizing the talents the gifts that other people around you have and verbalizing it share that appreciation see their response see how it impacts their work and you're going to find by leading that oftentimes you'll hear that appreciation back exactly I think when you're in a leadership role so much of it is like an opportunity to also help heal insecure attachment and your teammates and like employees and people that you're supervising but it's so interesting when you said that you know as an avoidantly attached person like because you weren't getting as much of that like it also didn't really necessarily occur to you to do that for others like automatically until you start saying hey you know what this could actually be of such value and it's so important that we all recognize that like obviously we're all coming from our own experiences and sort of how we operate and then learning how important and how much like just one sentence of appreciation goes like just goes such a long way for people to invest more to feel good about themselves and then to like actually start to spark ideas of self initiation of like oh what can I do next to like get the next accolade like I want to have some more positive reinforcement or like I want to help this person like they've helped me they made me feel good about myself like so I now want to go to bat for them you know so even as a leader or a manager I think that it's important to recognize that that no matter what attachment style you're working with most people want to be acknowledged and appreciated in different ways you know it's kind of like a love language that I think is relatively universal absolutely the validation piece and just being fully seen in the work that you're doing because I know for a lot of us especially at this stage in our career those goals are big and they take a long time to be reached at a company level and if we're not appreciating all the steps along the way it can feel very daunting demotivating it can work against our productivity and our mental health in a work environment exactly and I think sometimes we think well no like we don't want to you know recognize the small things because then they might like not keep their eye on the prize but actually it helps people to keep their eye on the prize to say I do recognize what you did today and I know that there's still a lot before we get to that big goal but like what you did today was helpful it was instrumental it helped move the needle yeah now I have to ask what the listeners are probably thinking at this point is the goal secure attachment like if I've recognized that I'm anxious or avoidant should I be working really hard in reading your book to become secure attachment or can I live with my current attachment and improve on the way that I'm interacting in relationships yeah that's not an awesome question I mean I think that there's obviously a lot to take away from the secure attachment style and I think that probably for most people the goal is to become more securely attached but I also think that in the name of self-compassion like we've been talking about throughout you know our time together it's also about just like recognizing and like honoring where you are and if you're avoidant attachment just keeps showing up it's okay like there's nothing wrong with that either it's like okay well how can I harness the strengths of it and then try not to let the the things that it might cause problems with like get the best of me and that's really all that it is I mean I actually think that you know every single attachment style even the insecure ones come with pros and so it's really just about leveraging the pros you know we we spent less time talking about anxious attachment but anxious attachment oftentimes they're people-pleasers they're always wanting to bend over backwards to help other people so are we saying throw that out with the bathwater no we're just saying hey you know what like think about yourself sometimes so too and also this is not the only way to get reinforcement from other people so like learn to say no a little bit but obviously you love helping other people makes you feel good we're not saying take that completely away and so it's not about changing yourself so much that now you feel like you're not even an authentic part of yourself for the sake of secure attachment but it's more about like harnessing what's working for you except where you're at but then take and harness what is working for people who are securely attached for yourself too yeah and bring those tools into your communication and relationships you know for the anxious attachment put the oxygen mask on first like we need to take care of ourselves before running around pleasing everyone else exactly I mean I love that analogy it's just like that there's a reason why they say that in the safety briefings on planes because if you try to help somebody else you might like die in the process and pass out because you're not actually breathing and I think that that's something that's really important for us to reinforce in the research for this book was there anything that stood out to you that was really surprising and interesting yeah I mean for me I think that because there's been so much focus on romantic relationships like what I found to be really interesting and surprising it's just how much it can really affect all the different areas of your life but even how much you dream like how much you dream and what you vision for your life like when you ask those big questions like the big miracle question of like if you woke up the next day and you had the life that you wanted what would it look like what I find is that some people with insecure attachment they just tend to have more difficulty dreaming big and like really envisioning a life where like things are relatively optimized like their dreams tend to be a little bit smaller or they tend to be either dependent on other people or too dependent on themselves and so that I think is something that people need to know because again in pop media we always hear it being talked about in romantic relationships and we've already talked about why that is so interesting and tantalizing for people makes sense it's like the most intimate relationships for most people but it shows up in so many areas it shows up in like just at the base level what you think is possible for you and I think that that is so important for us to address yeah and you mentioned it earlier the secure attachment doesn't believe that they're not worthy doesn't believe that good things shouldn't happen to them and so much of our insecurity in the other insecure attachment styles has that belief that I'm not deserving I shouldn't feel loved I shouldn't speak out I shouldn't achieve such big things in my life I need to be focused on helping others achieve big things or they're worthy exactly and the self-sabotaging behaviors and patterns come from that because when you do achieve something good you're like oh something's not right like and then subconsciously you do things to mess it up or to take it away and then of course once that does happen you're like aha see didn't deserve it in the first place that's why I went away but we don't realize that our own behavior patterns and our thoughts are contributing to that beautifully put so where can our audience find the book and the quiz and learn their attachment style so you can follow me on social media at Dr. Judy Ho or you can go to my website I always have free resources on there at Dr. Judy Ho.com and you can find it wherever books are sold most people get it from amazon so it's available there thank you it was a pleasure thank you me too you