 This podcast you were going to glimpse into my monthly mentorship group sessions where we are speaking about relationship attachment styles. I'm teaching the group and doing Q&A with some of the beautiful people in my mentorship group about our human attachment styles. I was drawn to this book some years ago because I didn't know humans had attachment styles until I read the book and I thought yes of course I get it now. The book speaks about three distinct primary attachment styles all humans have that begin in nurture and in our early years. It's a fascinating subject I hope you enjoy it and it encourages you gives clarity to your relational well perhaps and please let me know what you think. Send me a DM at PaulScanlanUK enjoy thank you. Always felt part of my calling I suppose to use that language is to be a crash test dummy for other people who are considering a similar collision in their lives that they anticipate they will have if they behave a certain way or if they are true to themselves they expect certain collisions that they don't know if they'll survive. I feel for me to talk the way that I do about my life is me saying I have just had the collision that you are scared of and avoiding and I survived here's what I learned is I feel part of what I'm supposed to do with my life because I think if you can find someone that has come through what you think you won't survive and has lived to tell the story it inspires you to have a go yourself to some degree. That's why I think like-minded people more than ever right now around the world must find each other. Similar to you Paul I also have a secure slash avoidance relationship style yeah but I'm wondering like how do we assess ourselves and I'm asking in terms of this like I also am very sensitive towards how I can get overly attached to people and how they can influence my decision-making skills and so if they have a lot of sway my decision-making skills I tend to kind of give a bit of space but at the same time I know that when you talked about a secure relationship in terms of the babies when the mother came in or when the mother or when the mother left the babies were okay but then I feel like there's a fine line between the persons there are not in your life you're okay because that could be apathy or that can be secure right so how do you make an assessment between like are you secure in the relationship are you just developing apathy to protect yourself I think what they did in the book they tracked with people into later life to see whether or not what they saw in a baby or a toddler remained in them into later life and it showed that it was pretty consistent so what I think I learned from that is that it can be defined as either and you may feel very secure but to someone else then they interpreted as apathy, disinterest, rudeness, impoliteness, cutting someone off I think secure people are prone to be interpreted that way by people that have perhaps a more anxious style of relating I think I did a post sometime ago because I got fed up with people saying to me over the years I find you very intimidating and I say to them okay so am I intimidating or are you intimidated because there's a difference because I find you intimidating or I find you apathetic makes me feel I have something to fix and I came to the point where because I know I because I know it's I'm capable of being intimidating I always think I've got something to work on and I came to a point years ago where I thought no I'm not intimidating but I know I have been intimidated by people there's people that were in my life that I felt intimidated by and I realized they were never going to change by me telling them that because they didn't know what else to do and I thought it's me that needs to grow up become more secure and I think with these relationship styles Grace I wonder if it's that mirroring thing that we've got to talk about that if people say to you or say to me I find you you know a bit apathetic relationally it may be my way of saying well let me explain to you my secure relationship attachment style maybe it's that that you're picking up on is what I is what I would want to refrain it as because I've come to a stage now where I think I can be prone to nuances of not doing it well but I've settled into this is my sweet spot relationally now but I cannot guarantee you won't see that in a negative light all of these can be seen that way I suppose and there's parts of secure avoided of course that anxious people are going to see as a threat so I don't think there's any guarantees on it Grace you've got to know in your own heart whether you're being apathetic and detached in a negative way or you're just very secure my name is Grace and I am from Jakarta Indonesia I've been part of Paul's mentoring program for about eight months now and it's been a wonderful experience thank you so much for shutting your wisdom and your experience with us Paul I think it's really changed and shifted my perspective towards a new way of thinking a new way of communicating with my team and just a new way of being more aware of the way I personally think thank you so much but if we have an avoidance style which drives us to distance ourselves from people that we regard as controlling how do we avoid becoming controllers ourselves that's a great question said you know one of my one of my I suppose guarantees I won't be controlling is I hated being controlled for so many years I was in the shoes of the controlled and when I walk up to it and that's the thing when I became conscious of it in all its subtle forms that are below the radar because control can be framed as love and concern and compassion and I know what's best for you and trust me when it's when it's shaped that way by people you love and respect control seems the wrong word to use so I didn't but when I walk up to it was exactly that said and how many years I lost and how it had locked me into this an insecure clingy version of me and this dumbed down version of me and this afraid to speak out version of me I think because I'm so aware of what that did to me I am now probably paranoid is the right word about control when I meet it anyway even on a form with someone or dealing with some you know bureaucratic box-ticking person I just you know I'm not I have to like calm down it's like that with me so I think I've gone the other way so I know I can react because of how I felt control for years so that's my guarantee or that's my um safety net for not being controlling to someone else and I think all of us that can relate to a part of our lives or a relationship experience where we felt controlled manipulated coerced and then go there and remember who you were at that time and how you hated that version of you I think that's the only way we can find empathy to not pass that on anymore is what I think I did sit and still do we hope you've been enjoying the episode so far we just wanted to let you know about the mentorship group which Paul has been referring to this is a tribe of people from all over the world all different professions and walks of life that come together each month to discuss with Paul on different topics as well as q&a and so much more is included in this and we'd love to invite you to find out more about it visit the mentorship group dot com or click the link in the show notes thank you and enjoy the rest of the episode so my question is in you kind of breaking free of that establishing a new way of your being regardless of relationship regardless of work or setting is there something in you that is like just like non-negotiable like I won't work with you I won't be part of that church I won't be part of that organization that's just like I guess the dance between your calling destiny sense of wanting to do something but then not wanting to like having such a strong boundary that you wouldn't be a part of something yeah I think all I think all of this data for all of us has to have boundaries that will be different for you to someone else and I think you have to have non-negotiables in your reinvention because other people have them for themselves they may not tell you that they don't want you to have them but they want to have them so I think I had to have non-negotiables for me which were to do with I wouldn't be in their space I wouldn't be in a car with them I wouldn't be in the WhatsApp channel with them I wouldn't go to the event with them I wouldn't sit with them these were my boundaries I created I suppose and eventually I started to be resistant and have a radar for the energies when the person wasn't around the energy was still in the room and I could see people in the room been affected by someone that wasn't in the room but the energy that they knew that person would have towards what was being said so now we now we're having a conversation about people that aren't even in the room who are dominating us that are in the room and these became my non-negotiable boundary areas for me to stay true to this secure version of me rather than my anxiety about what they will think about what's been said in this room so let's change the outcome to keep them happy would be my anxious me yeah that's good so do you feel too in the personal reinvention of even you in this last 10 years actually becoming the healthier version of you actually changes the trajectory of what you do and how you function and even who you do life with like it totally I mean my trajectory that I began on this journey in the reinvention of the church 20 years ago yeah hundreds of people left my trajectory it's kind of been like that ever since really I feel I feel that I am a very polarizing person and influenced in energy but I think I've come to settle out as part of my calling and so I want to do that well I don't want to be divisive rudely ignorantly or without care but my trajectory has made me be disruptive I suppose and I'm happy for that so yeah whatever you decide to become if it's not who people like if it's not the version of you they like then you're going to have a trajectory away from them and you have to say it's a non-negotiable I am not going back in that skin anymore I'm not which is difficult to do if it's a marriage or or a romantic connection or a deep friendship for you to say no I am not going back to that version of me and if they're not upgrading at the same time then it is an awkward situation for sure if I want to grow in this or maybe I want to move past some of this anxiety and a desire to go deeper in the relationships that I have you know journal has been a big thing for me or you know whatever your version of that is guys so what I would do is I would journal this is what Paul is like when he's anxious and I would journal my behavior wouldn't tell anybody some of it was very nuanced no one would perhaps have spotted but I knew the energy I felt the fear the hesitancy the insecurity I would try and journal that and ask myself was it valid when did it when did it flow when did it ebb what kind of people made me feel that way to try and find a pattern if you can perceive a pattern I think on this stuff less you can see your anxiety rather than as individual situations but a pattern that suddenly has a narrative to it I felt my anxiety had a narrative to it that I've just articulated to you on my parenting and what that did to me I didn't know it back then how it moved me into this attachment with people that were leaders in the church how that made me vulnerable to be taking advantage of I saw a narrative then to how this anxiety in me about relationship and attachment forced me into relationships that always made me vulnerable and never gave a good outcome if things went a certain way and I didn't like it so when I reinvented the church and so many people left and my anxiety was going off the charts I realized okay this is literally gonna kill me it's gonna make me sick before it kills me but it's gonna affect my health and well-being I'm gonna age 20 years here and the next six months etc etc so I began to do the work the effort required internally I think to track the anxiety and try to minimize it and then a few people that I felt very safe with and it's never more than that for any of us I felt confident to talk to it talk to them about it without the language of this book but to try and help them help me and me help them with our their varieties of this back then is all you can do so I don't know if there's any hacks other than like you just said being aware of it and the book is good to give you a language for it and think okay I I see myself in that example in the book I have been like that in a relationship I was like that with a girl or a guy I'm like that in my marriage or whatever I like I like that language because it so describes why they dumped me why I got fired why didn't get promoted why they didn't call me back why they ghosted me even I think it's that that I think the book could be helpful in and I find it helpful secure in who you are you you guys know it's a big thing for me and I guess for you guys to be comfortable in your own skin to know who you are to not be someone else's version of you because everybody else has an idea of who they think you should be and if they can't let go of that they will not stay in your life that's why I become a void and I'm a void and I've become a void of people that are trying to make me their version of them so I think as Cain said for me my primary work for the last 20 years especially has been to hell with whatever you think I should be I am going to be me I'm going to be I'm going to do that well I'm going to be the best version of me and I know however well I do it in any given day someone's going to hate it but I'm still not going to change it I'm still not going to adjust it because I know I have done a lot of work to become this version of me so I'm not going to let you tell me I'm intimidating you're intimidating so you need the work not me I would never have said that to someone years ago because it seems rude and dismissive and unkind but to be secure in who you are as a person enables you to say I don't think so I think you've got work to do and I've done that around the world now for 20 years and I've got to tell you I can see how the room's divided instantly when I respond in a way answer a question in a way that is from my secure version of me but people in the room that are not secure have a heart attack people say to me I can't believe you just said that it's like the Simon Cowell effect thank you for listening to this episode by Paul Scanlon why not share with him your thoughts on this particular episode at Paul Scanlon UK by sending him a DM or tagging him in a post and don't forget to check out the mentorship group dot com to find out how you can be a part of this global community thank you again for listening