Life Uncut - Walk down memory lane - Daddy Issues talking attachment styles

Episode Date: July 26, 2021

Hey lifers!Producer Keeshia here! Britt & Laura are on their final week of 'break' so we are taking a trip down memory lane and for this one, you've got some homework to do. Your homework is to find out your attachment style!We are talking attachment theory! In what fun ways has your upbringing messed you up? Today we get deep and introspective and chat about attachment styles and Attachment Theory. Attachment styles are important. They form how we make bonds with our romantic partners and they are heavily linked to our parents and our upbringing. Some might call it Daddy issues, we call it Attachment Theory!We unpack our own attachment styles and you can too by taking this test:More in depth test - https://bit.ly/2CFLHhCSlightly quicker test - https://bit.ly/3awaIrQJoin in on the conversation by joining our Facebook Group Life Uncut Discussion Group and following @lifeuncutpodcastSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

hey guys it's producer keisha here i hope you've had i'm gonna say a pretty good week i'm not gonna say a great week because half of the country are still in lockdown and if you are one of those people in lockdown. I hope the podcast has been able to give you a bit of an escape and a bit of a laugh because you probably need it right now. Now, this is the last week that Laura and Britt are on break. They're going to be back to normal as of next Tuesday. Last Friday, Laura and Maddie Jay decided to sprinkle something a little extra in there. And it sounds as though you guys loved it. Personally, I loved it too. They've decided that they want to do some batchy recaps of this new season of The Bachelor. So they will be dropping in your podcast libraries every single

friday for about the next six weeks i think that's how long the season goes for i don't know however long the season goes for is however long they are going to be doing them i could be super biased and i probably am because i work for the podcast you know but i thought it was hilarious even potentially more funny than watching the actual episodes of the bachelor so if you haven't listened to it go back have a listen it's the episode from last friday their very first batchy recap and they're gonna have another one for you this friday but for today we are taking a trip down memory lane, which means that we are revisiting some of our favorite episodes from the past. And I think I speak for everyone when I say that we like to know the psychology of our

own brains and maybe of our partners or our family or our friends. We like to know why we kind of act different in different situations or how maybe we feel different about different situations. Now we've done the love languages, we've done the Maya Briggs personality test, we've done conflict resolution, and today we are talking attachment theory. We're basically asking if you've got daddy issues okay if you don't know what attachment type you have you can take the test there is a link in our show notes you can find that by going on to apple podcast or on spotify and you can find out where you kind of sit on the attachment style spectrum we are about to jump into them we're about to talk all things fearful avoidant anxious preoccupied dismissive avoidant and secure and if

you have absolutely no idea what i was just saying that's fine because laura and brit are about to go through your attachment theories. I hope you really enjoy this walk down the lane. Let's jump into it. Okay, so we're going to talk about attachment styles. Now, before I give a little intro into this, I do want to say I didn't know a lot about it. You mentioned it a little while ago, Laura, on one of the episodes that you've done an attachment style quiz. We always said would go back to it but I've never really delved deep into it before I found it so interesting there is a lot of content here guys um and we're going to be reading a lot of stuff out that we've actually just learned from a lot of therapists psychologists just things that we've researched

ourselves so this is coming from both we're still learning at the same time we want to deliver this content to you because we think it's going to really help and affect your life and I think everyone can just learn something from it yeah and the idea of attachment starts so this is a a theory that I've always found really interesting and fascinating. It's to do with like your relationship with your parents. And that's where attachment theory comes from. So in your early life, like in your childhood, when you, from when you were born until when you're about the age three, that's when your parents have a very profound impact on the way that you feel loved, receive love and build attachments towards other people. And if you have had a bit of a

complicated childhood, if you haven't received love or attachment in a way that could be considered you know in quotation marks normal then you may have a slightly more dysfunctional adult attachment type and I guess for me the reason why this became something that I was really interested in is because like I've talked about loads on this podcast before I had a really unhealthy attachment style prior to my relationships with Matt and we'll get into it with Britt and I both did the test now we both kind of uncovered our own attachment styles mine has changed over the years and I have a much more secure attachment type now but we'll get into like how how your childhood basically can really form and affect the way that you feel receive and create bonds

in your relationships as adults but like Brit said some of it is research and some of it is from like our own experiences as well have you got people in your life where you've ever looked at people friends family or thought about the way you're in a relationship some people are really aloof and unattached in their relationships yeah like we've all dated a guy who's like just doesn't give you anything and yeah this guy's fucking stonewall and then others are super attached super clingy really needy they need constant validation and what it comes down to is some people are secure and some people are unsecure that's the very that's the basis of it but there are four styles of attachment so the four attachment styles are secure attachment

attachment, anxious preoccupied attachment, dismissive avoidant attachment and fearful avoidant attachment. What are you? I thought you were going to be like, and now we're going to unpack these, but what am I? Okay. So we're going to put the link in like we did for the love languages test. We're going to put the link into the description notes for this episode so that you can go and do your own attachment assessment and you can find out what sort of attachment type you are and unpack that with your partner. You can also do it with them. And it kind of just opens up this conversation and understanding around why you behave the way that you behave and why you perceive relationships and connection in the way that you perceive and define your

relationship. So my, we're going to start with me. Let's start with the trauma. All right. What are you? So we've both done the test. So mine has changed significantly. So I did my test years and years ago and I was very, very high on anxious preoccupied attachment. Anxious preoccupied attachment is like, I mean, I've described this to you guys before, but it's this need of being in a relationship. I got a lot of my purpose and a lot of my value in myself from feeling loved by somebody else. And I was always very insecure that they were going to leave me. I had massive daddy issues, basically of abandonment. I'm laughing, but like, it's not funny. It's not funny. But, but this was, this was me. And this is like, you know, this was very patent behavior

in a lot of my past relationships. I was always somebody who got into relationships that were very quick moving, very, very intense, very volatile. And, and then I would be left feeling like there was something wrong with me because the relationship didn't work out. That has changed significantly. And I can only attribute that to being in a really healthy relationship with someone who is incredibly patient. Like Matt is an angel and sent from the heavens. But it's changed massively over the years. So I now was really surprised with my results. So I have basically, basically the way it works is like you can be, you're a dominant attachment style. So there's one that is going to be dominant for you. And then we all display characteristics of

the others. And those characteristics can change depending on the relationship that you're in. they can also change depending on the time of your life that you're in. And so sometimes they might be higher or lower, but you know, we have an overall main attachment style. And now in my relationships, my main attachment style style is 50% secure. Unsurprisingly coming a relatively close second, my anxious preoccupied attachment style is my number two at 33% and then dismissive avoidant at 8% and fearful avoidant at 8% as well. So I have a little bit from each category. that's pretty even but yeah secure and guys like you want to be secure that means that you're in a functioning relationship where you feel loved you feel like you can communicate with your partner

safely you're not scared of abandonment um so like being in that and having that as like your most significant value on your scorecard is that's that's a sweet spot that's where you want to be i think it's really interesting i like the fact that it can change because it evolves with you i guess um and it's like you just said you went from just being insecure all the time and needing needy you were needy you needed love to now you are so happy and confident in your relationship and you feel secure you don't feel like matt's gonna ever abandon you and i think that's a really nice place to be so i love that you're you've shown and you're open enough to say yeah i went from one extreme to the other so that's that's really nice so congratulations on being secure

congratulations on getting your shit together laura thank you thank you very much but you know like like we'll get into all of this but there are ways to change your attachment style if you feel like you're really vulnerable in your relationships like therapy we'll talk about all the different ways to unpack it and ways to to really approach if you have a dysfunctional attachment style but yeah and we'll and obviously like after we talk about our own styles we'll get into like what each one actually means and what that looks like as a personality type so mine was interesting um mine was 58 secure which for me i guess it's hard because i've been single for a long time but what these quizzes do if you are single that's so fine

it'll tell you to think of the relationships that you do have in your life or think back to our last relationship but so for me i can be secure in the fact that i have an amazing family who i know are there for me i know they're never going to leave me i know if i need anything i can go to them. The same with my small group of friends. I know I've got people to rely on. So I think that's where it stemmed from me. But the next category in my pie, I was 20% avoidant dismissive, which when I was reading what avoidant dismissive is, I was like, holy bejeebers, like me to a T. I'm going to read you guys what it actually says avoidant dismissive is. avoiding attachment style is a form of insecure attachment style marked by a fear of intimacy

girl too people with avoiding attachment style tend to have trouble getting close to others or trusting others in relationships girl too they typically maintain some distance from their partners or are largely emotionally unavailable in their relationships preferring to be independent and rely on themselves like this is me to a t i you guys all know if you've been following along the podcast for a long time I often joke and I've always thought it was a joke but maybe it's not I often joke that I'm like emotionally void and that the bachelor will will I told the producers were like where are your emotions like why aren't you crying cry harder I don't have feelings um I often joke that and I've always said it to myself like ha ha ha I'm emotionally void and then when

I read this and it specifically states like these people largely are are emotionally unavailable and I don't they can't feel that I was like oh my god it's actually me then it says they prefer to be on their own and rely on themselves totally me and I just think that stems from obviously the toxic relationship that I did have it does definitely does not stem from my family life because they've always had the support so for me and this is what can happen too in the reverse the way that you had a insecure feeling and you came through that now you're really great I was the reverse because that can happen I was very very always very secure and happy and emotionally available and and obsessive with my relationships like when I fell in love I was in love like I wanted to be

with them every single day then I went through this really toxic few years with this crazy sociopath episode three um and well that plug but if you haven't listened to episode three it's by far both of our favorite episode it's just Brittany's story about her dating uh sociopath that had two double like a double life is the most insane episode ever so we recommend that on every air basically yeah but um we only say that for the newcomers all you ogs know that but um so then it put into reverse and it put me from being like really really really secure into this place where I was like I don't want to rely on everyone again and I remember saying that to myself I remember saying I will not rely on a man again and it's almost like I've driven myself to

the extreme um so I need to find a way to wind that back a little bit however I think it's important and just in your results there like to keep perspective like if you're still very high on the secure like percentage wise of these tests but you do have like a 20% of something that is that is very manageable and that is a very like minimal percentage in comparison to your secure attachment so overall you have the like you have the ability and the sense to be able to see your relationship with with a healthy perspective and create healthy attachments we're always going to have some level of insecurity we're always going to have some level of doubt or something in us that prevents us from wanting to be hurt again if we've been through bad relationships. And I think,

you know, depending on where you're at in your life, if you've just come out of a really shit relationship, your scale and your percentages in this test is going to be completely different if you feel like you're in a really stable and healthy relationship. So it's very dynamic depending on what's happening in your life. But it also shows that different things that happen in your life, like things that happen in your childhood or bad relationships that you go through can be triggers to stop you from being able to commit to somebody or have a happy relationship further in life i was just going through that because i thought it was really interesting that is only 20 percent um i am i know that i'm secure now and i know that when i have a relationship

it'll be fine and i know there'll be no jealousy there'll be no wondering where they are there'll be no is he gonna leave me because i'm just beyond that now you do get to a point where you like i think that's why i'm so picky because i just know that when i pick that person I don't want to have to worry about it so if I ever get spidey tingly senses when I'm dating someone that I'm going to feel insecure I'm going to wonder where they are and who they're with I just wouldn't pursue it so what was your other one then because there must be another in there that's a small percentage yeah so one one percentage down again was the anxious and anxious ambivalent and then only eight percent was disorganized which is interesting

so I reckon what we do is I reckon we unpack what each one actually means so for anybody who's listening and they're like holy shit that's how I approach my relationship you can kind of identify yourself before you even do the test so secure attachment is the most predominant attachment basically secure attachment is like I'm fine you're fine 55% of the population have secure attachments and that's a really healthy way of approaching your relationships basically it means you are happy when you're together you still feel safe when you're independently apart you don't have this fear that your partner's going to cheat on you. You're not worried about their whereabouts. You don't feel clingy. You don't feel obsessive. You just have a really healthy relationship and

dynamic when you're together and you both compliment and bring a really positive light to each other's life. But you're also very capable people independently of each other as well. And that's a very healthy and secure attachment. And the idea behind this attachment is that through your childhood, your parents have been there for you. They've been a constant in your life. They have provided you with the love and affection when you've required it. And your basic needs have been met, love, food, shelter, support, conversation, all of those things have been attended to you and you're able to have role models in your life. So you go, oh, that's what a healthy relationship looks like. That's what a healthy love and romantic relationship looks like.

That's what healthy friendships look like. So having these really strong role models help for you to be able to then form and have great relationships in your adult life. That's not to say that someone who is secure can't possibly get into a relationship that's toxic and bad. They absolutely can. Like we all can make bad choices and end up with people who are manipulative and bad for us. It just means that someone who is very secure in themselves is more likely to be able to walk away from it than somebody who is say like an anxiously attached person who might stay for a lot longer and cop a lot more abuse because they don't feel worthy of something better than that boom that was a lot basically just where you want to be basically secure is

the sweet spot that's what we're all gaining for secure is where you want to fight for so if you do feel like one of if you do the quiz and you do have a larger percentage of one of these other attachment styles it's not the end of the world you can change it and you can work towards it again we'll get into that later but I'm going to jump into attachment style too and that is the anxious preoccupied attachment which is like the I'm not fine but you're fine it's basically this attachment style that's marked and the basis of it is this fear of abandonment so they say that that's coming back from when you're a child because that's I want you guys to remember this is all based off the first two years of your life this is where this stems from the way you were

treated the way you were made to feel your environment they really do believe that this is all started in those first two years of life which is crazy and that's a whole nother conversation because it makes you be like what do I do with my kid oh my god I know this was something else that Britt and I were talking about in relation to this I was like holy shit the pressure that there is to raise a well-rounded and like normal kid that feels like they're loved I was like fuck I don't know if I'm doing a good job you're doing a good job I don't know what if she's super dysfunctional when she grows up she cries for like one second you're like i'm here mommy now what if she turns into a narcissist because i'm too attentive i just don't know

it's a fine line but this this this anxious relationship you feel like and you're always worried that your partner's gonna leave you these sorts of people are always really hungry for validation and they get anxious very easily like why hasn't my partner texted me back yet you know, it's been five minutes. Has something happened to my partner? Is he with someone else? There's this really, really constant deep seated issue of this isn't right. They're going to leave me. And you live in this state of anxiety, which is awful for anyone that's ever felt any level of anxiety. No one wants to be in that place. So this is sort of where that stems from. And it never really ends well because partners can often get defensive. It can be quite suffocating in a

relationship and it's just it's really really not a healthy place to be yeah 20% of people have this style of attachment and Laura you said that you actually were pretty big on this style of attachment from things in your past how do you feel like you recognize that at the time or is it just something that you look like did you know at the time that you were living in a state of anxiety could you recognize and be like why am I always anxious or is it something that you look back on now that you're in this healthy secure relationship do you look back and be like I only know how fucked up I was then because of how good I feel now. Good question, Brittany. Do you know what? I find, I find this so interesting because, and I just want to like make this point really

clear, regardless of what your attachment style is, there is no blame in this. Like, you know, there's no blame on you for the way that you deal with relationships and there's definitely no blame on your parents. That's not what we're doing here. I have, I don't talk very openly about my childhood. I had a pretty you know a lot of it was great a lot of it wasn't and my my mum and my dad divorced when I was really young and my my dad moved away so I think just just from that and that of itself without like going into any of the other details surrounding my upbringing I think when you're a product of divorce there is this feeling of abandonment and without without it being an intentional thing but even if your parents are telling you that they love you

the fact that they've chosen to move away and move far away and that they're not physically there the words of I love you don't really match up with the actions of I'm not physically here so there is that feeling of abandonment that comes from that and then you know moving on from that my mum was a single mum she had two kids she started dating again and I like we when she got remarried to her second husband he was not a great guy by any means and it was a really turbulent on time in our childhood and I guess that there was this inconsistency and that's the thing about this whole anxious attachment style is like if you feel like there's an inconsistent love in your upbringing as a child then that's what can make you feel as an adult that you're anxious in your

relationships because you just don't know you you don't know like you don't know where it's coming from you you genuinely constantly feel in this state of like maybe they're gonna leave me maybe I'm not good enough maybe my feelings aren't valid and and there's this fear that's attached to abandonment and I really like look back on my relationships now and I go oh wow like that's what that was like I can identify that in myself and I also identify a lot of like my mom and my like my mom's behavior in what I was doing as well like I really mirrored my mom's dating life myself because she didn't want to be alone and I didn't want to be alone and I realized that I was trying to get my purpose from being in a relationship. Like I was always in a relationship with someone,

but also like on that, like my relationship with my mom is great. Now my relationship with my dad is great. Like we, we both have very adult, very mature relationships and I know they love me. I know that they support me. I just think as a child, there were times where I didn't get the love or the support that I felt like I needed at the time. So it was, it was a bit mismatched and it wasn't a reflection of not being loved by my parents. It was a reflection of them going through some really, really challenging trauma themselves. And also trying to deal with the fact that they had children that they were trying to raise. So, you know, this is not a blame thing. This is just the reality of the world and the reality of relationships. And I guess as I've gotten older,

I've looked at the relationships that I had in the past and what I want and don't want for myself. And I was just really lucky. And there's a big portion of luck that's come into this. The fact that I met Matt and he is completely different to everyone who I've dated before. He's a very secure personality type he's always been incredibly reassuring and over the three years that we've been together he has molded me into a secure attachment because he's just so fucking normal it's annoying um and so that's changed you know like I used to date guys that were emotionally unavailable so something that's actually really common which you would think how could this work but people who have an anxious attachment type often end up dating people who are dismissive

avoidant which are guys who are totally emotionally unattached emotionally unavailable don't really need you don't really want you and make you feel unloved because there's this feeling of like I want more and you keep going back for more whereas someone who is secure and like has a very healthy attachment style wouldn't put up with that shit only someone who's anxious would actually put up with that shit so it's almost like two opposites attract and two bad characteristics often become moths to a flame in that sort of situation yeah I think like wow wow like that was a lot there and um I mean I know a lot about you and your history and everything and um it's I don't know I just think you shared a new little part there which is great but it's

funny to see like you said I found that really interesting when you said um you know my mum was dating a lot because she didn't want to be alone and then so I was dating a lot because I didn't want to be alone I don't think we realize until we're older how much we mimic those people that are in our lives yeah and good characteristics and bad characteristics like when your main role model for relationships that's your main model for relationships that's your normal like that's of course what you're going to end up doing yourself as you get older I think when I look when I'm when I think about how I was dating afterwards I was only dating after my relationship I was only dating people that, like you had just mentioned, they would tell me, hey, like

I'm emotionally unavailable. I'm not physically available. Like I don't want a relationship. I don't want a relationship. And they're the people that I would invest my time in. And I was doing it because deep down I didn't want it either. And I was too scared to actually form any sort of relationship with anyone. So as soon as someone was like, hey, heads up, I didn't actually want anything.

I was like, brilliant, when really deep down I wanted it. But I was too scared in case someone was going to leave me. So I, I did have that form for probably around a year or two or 10, um, no year or two. I had that, but there's a real theory to things. And I think it's so interesting when we start to unpack like who we are as people and why we make the decisions that we make and why we choose the type of guys that we choose. Like there's, there's a pattern to this. And so much of it comes from like our personality and who we are and what we've been through

in our lives, what we've been exposed to. And like, like I just mentioned earlier as well, but you know, if you do find yourself constantly being attracted to people who are bad for you, or you're not feeling satisfied in your relationships, or you don't ever feel like you're in a healthy relationship, like going to therapy and not going to therapy because you need to talk about the relationships, but going to therapy to better understand who you are as a person and why you have these needs and these wants and these insecurities or these, these, I'm not going to call them shortcomings but like these feelings of inadequacy you can unpack that better understand who you are

as a person and then that allows you to make better decisions in your relationships and find people who are healthy and find people who are you know not gonna fucking play into your trauma because they are out there somewhere they're out there you know they're hard to find but they're out there um the third one which i spoke about before because it was me was the dismissive avoid an attachment so that's the i'm fine and you have issues 20 of people it's literally just where you're scared of intimacy you're afraid to get close to anyone you don't want to trust anyone you only want to rely on yourself you're very independent um you're basically emotionally unavailable and you're attracted to people that are emotionally unavailable so that's that one

we've spoken about that a lot that was me the reason why people may have created a dismissive personality type is because and they and they totally dismiss their feelings and they they what they do is they sometimes can't even understand why people feel so much. They are the type of person that, yeah, Brittany's sitting here pissing herself. They're the type of person where when you go to them and you are upset about something in your relationship and you're like, I need to talk about this. They don't want to talk about it. They make jokes to downplay your feelings or they are just so avoidant of conflict because they can't actually understand or comprehend that you could feel so much about something. They trivialize and downplay things.

well okay and the reason for that and the attachment to that as a childhood attachment is coming from a family or having parental caregivers who don't attend to your needs basically maybe when you're a you know one two three year old you are emotionally upset about something you're crying you need to be cuddled and need to be loved and need to be given affection need to be told i love you you're not having that met maybe all of your food your dietary requirements your your house like all of the other functional things are being met but your emotional needs aren't being met and without feeling like love and connection you as a child that can be very very traumatic and what happens is that over time you start to downplay your own

feelings you you don't play into them you don't allow them to actually be real and so over time you've created this defense mechanism to downplay feelings and like not value their importance if that makes sense I was like I know what I'm saying here but is that a bit deep it's just I'm laughing because even when I'm reading this now and looking at it on the screen and listening to you talk about it I've just never felt so seen than this attachment style like when I was reading it I've just never categorized myself so much I've always just thought I was a bit different with my emotions and when I saw it on paper I was like it's actually a thing and I'm actually that thing I'm actually that thing in that box. There's this one statement that they put in this type of

style to explain it. They often make jokes to avoid difficult conversations and feel anxious and trapped when a partner expresses feelings. Now, this could not be more accurate. I always have said, and I always do, my bachelor finale is like testament to this. When I'm uncomfortable or upset or feeling heightened emotions, I laugh and I joke. And even when Nick was like, it's not you you just laugh when you say that I know I'm laughing now I laugh and I make jokes about it and if you can look back at any interview or anything I've done or even you guys know me on the podcast like as soon as it gets too deep I like make a lol um but I when I remember when I went and delivered this news to Sophie on my bachelor finale it was all very big she was

bawling her eyes out and I was in hysterics I couldn't stop laughing and I in my inside of me I was like stop laughing because people think you're nuts like people don't get it but that's how I deal with my heightened emotions and when I'm upset um I like it was a cry laugh I was crying because I was emotional but I always try and make light of a situation and like but I think so many people will relate to this like humor really is a coping mechanism for so many people it's a way that we are able to not look like we're vulnerable like especially women like women a lot of women and I'm guilty of this as well I don't want to be vulnerable I don't want to seem like I'm weak or that I need someone to help me or fix me and it actually took me a really long time to realize

that there is power and vulnerability and I used to be the person as well that made a lot of jokes whenever I was upset about something because I wanted to be fine all the time everything's fine I'm the queen of using that word I'm fine you're fine we're fine everything's fucking fine to the point where some of my friends have genuinely banned me using the word fine because it's okay to not be fine. It's okay to actually struggle. You actually, you still say, you say, oh, so fine, babe. So fine. You say all the time. And I was like, you're crying in the corner naked. You're not fine. That was one time, Brittany, we said we'd never talk about it on the podcast. This is not fine. But yeah, like humor is a coping mechanism. Humor is something that we use to

deflect our emotions and it's, that's okay. There's nothing wrong with doing that, but it can be healthy to actually unpack what those feelings are and sit in feelings as well. Because like I said there is real power in vulnerability and when you are the person who is always fine and you're the person who's always making jokes you become the person who never gets help because people don't want to reach out and help someone who seems like they're always fine they're always strong and that's why it's really important to ask your friend who seems like the one who's always got their shit together and is always okay with every situation if they're actually okay because they probably aren't sometimes they may be naked in the corner and crying it's funny i've

I've come a long way now I never ever ever told anyone I wasn't fine and I never cried to anyone but now I've got a small group of people Laura's one of them that I'll just have my cry break down on the phone and I'll be like I'm not okay and that's it's been so helpful for me to have that group of people to do that too um and it's I think it's finally letting let me move in the right direction so I think this is a really big thing is to acknowledge that you're one of these things that you're one of these styles or that you have principles of one of these styles just to acknowledge that have a think about it and and work towards getting out of that so I think that's I've like it's been a really big thing for me to be vulnerable but I am and that's I don't know

it's great oh bloody great no it is but even when you and I are crying on the phone sometimes like we both do it we'll be upset about something but then we'll still be making jokes like even in our deepest like in our tears like and then we're cracking up but then we're still really sad but like we can't just be sad. It's ridiculous. But I guess like that also comes, you know, when you're a really independent person, when you felt like you need to be the pillar of strength for yourself, because you're like, well, no one else is going to do it. Like that's, that's the outcome of it. And like we've said at the beginning of this, there's no right or wrong. There's no, there's no bad way of being. You haven't done anything wrong. You're not broken. You're not

deficient. You don't have issues just because you're, you're not sitting in a secure attachment style just because you have traits of all these other things like we've all been through some shit in our lives that's affected us in different ways that's made us skeptical of relationships that's pushed us and pushed our boundaries it's but it's really healthy to understand what those things are so that you can work towards becoming a secure attachment type that's that's all this is it's not about shaming anyone for sitting in a category or struggling with their emotions and I know there's going to be loads of people who are listening to this episode who are like oh like I'm totally fine. I have a totally normal attachment style. I had a totally normal upbringing and

that's amazing. Like there are people out there who have been super fortunate. There are people who have really fucked up childhoods. There are people who have really fucked up relationships like you Brit, like, you know, you call it like, well, my childhood was great, but my first real relationship was so chaos. Yeah. So messed up that it then totally rewired my ability to trust or to feel love again. That's why I find this so interesting and so important because it allows you to identify what's happening in your life and make changes to have a better life. That was fucking deep. That was deep. We're about to get deeper. All right. Give me the last one. Number four, it's fearful avoidant attachment. Now this is like, I'm fucked. You're fucked. We're fucked.

It's fucked. Everything's fucked. And the floor's on fire. But this is also really important to know that this is the absolute minority. This is 5% of people. 4%. There we go. This is 4% of people who actually have this as their predominant attachment style and this is like this is some serious trauma shit this is like you have had an extremely traumatic childhood and it takes years of therapy there's also often substance abuse or abuse of other kinds that are involved in this attachment style so this is very rare but it's very real it's a really hard one for these people that are in this style because they're in this like constant conflict of what they want and need they really really want to avoid relationships and are scared of it

but on the other sense they're craving it and they want it and they don't want love but they really really don't want to be alone too so they don't there's no balance for them and I can't imagine this fight and storm that they would have in their mind because all they want is this this need to be loved and secure but they're so scared of it that they could think of nothing worse at the same time like how how what do you do in that situation I think this is when it's really really important to go and seek help go and see a professional I don't think that sort of attachment style is something you can really work through on your own I think if if the trauma is that deep-seated and like you want to feel loved but you're so fearful of being loved that you lash

out and push people away like that's when you have to go do some heavy lifting with a therapist there's lots of stuff to unpack there and there's lots of things about yourself and about your relationships that you have to talk through and like we said earlier you can change your attachment style you just have to a recognize it so do the quiz there are so many different quizzes there are ones that have like 200 questions that are deep and they go into every aspect of your life and then there are some that are like 50 questions there are some that are like 25 questions we're going to put two of them in the details for this podcast anyway so we both we both did a couple of them um one of them I found really great because it's like a very intensive questionnaire that you

can do one of them is a little bit more top level so we'll put them both in that way you can choose but I also think like during this time of 2020 crazy COVID, this has been a real amplifier for relationships. You know, this period of being in lockdown with your partner, this period of like working from home, spending all your fucking time together. This is really, really put the microscope in a lot of relationships. And for some of them it's galvanized, it's made your relationships even better. It's made you absolutely certain that you are with and supported by the person you love and then for other people it has really amplified the flaws and made you go holy shit like this we've got some problems here we've got some stuff we need to work on so do this

attachment theory questionnaire and have these open conversations with your partner along with doing the love languages as one as well from a few episodes ago because that is bloody good yeah so just to summarize um what therapists and psychologists do say to do if you do want to try and change your attachment style this is gonna sound like very obvious we've said it a lot but it's obviously so important that every therapist always comes back to it number one is just identify your relationship patterns just look back at at like what laura was saying look back at your past relationships hers were all the same they were all toxic they were all because she was in a place of need not want so go back to your past relationships and identify them assess your current and past

attachment style see if these patterns are still relevant now or if you slowly started to change and the big big one which seems so damn obvious but none of us do it enough is work on your self-esteem so it's super common characteristic across all of these insecure attachment styles to have low self-esteem you just need to learn to embrace and love yourself and look after yourself first be okay on your own and we say that so much but it really really is so important to get to a place where you're happy with who you are you're happy with where you're going you're comfortable in your own space and your own time and your own thoughts and from there a whole new world opens up and I think if we all sit back and be really really honest with ourself all of us at some

point in time would have had issues with our confidence and self-esteem and we probably still struggle with that now it fluctuates I mean I even think now like I feel like I got to a point where I was like yes I feel very self-confident I feel great about myself now that I'm 34 and I feel like in the last year I've aged about fucking 700 years in a year there are days where I feel totally insecure again like it's just I think it's that level of having self-love it's dynamic and you know I'm so happy for the people who are like Buddha and feel enlightened and they've reached it and not just on the superficial social media level that we see all the time where it's like love yourself here's a photo of my cellulite I mean really actually experiencing and practicing

self-acceptance I think it's very very hard and I think there's no shame in saying that sometimes sometimes you practice self-acceptance and sometimes you feel insecure about things about yourself and you know it's dynamic it shifts and you can you just have to work towards having that as more of a constant in your life actually one thing that Brit put down Brit did the notes for today's episode. I do the notes for every episode. Like every 60 episodes. I do the research too. Excuse me. Okay. So one thing that Britt's written down here, which I actually really think this is great. You know, there's a lot of frou-frou around self-love and self-acceptance. There's a lot of like, woo, like love yourself no matter what, embrace everything. And like,

that's great. But you know what? Sometimes there's often so much self-acceptance talk, especially on social media that if you don't feel like you're at a point where you totally love yourself it almost makes you feel worse that like everybody else is so fucking in love with themselves and I'm not so why don't I love myself that much totally like sometimes I have to switch off totally switch off and mute people because I'm like this this constant conversation about how accepting you are of yourself makes me feel like I'm not really winning because I'm like some days I feel great and some days I still struggle with it and that's where I'm at yeah and that's okay and that's when you know to turn your social media off for a day or two totally well one of the

things that Britt's written down which I think is actually really great is instead of like standing in the mirror and telling yourself an affirmation that you don't really believe like you know maybe you think you need to stand in the mirror and be like I'm beautiful I love myself I'm worthy of love you don't have to say that why don't you start with something that's more about self-neutrality and like actually accepting who you are not loving yourself yet but just having some acceptance and being like, you know, like I'm, I'm a good person. I am worthy of a relationship. I am worthy of being loved. Like that is enough to set you on the right path towards rewiring your brain and convincing yourself and, you know, step it up when you feel like having a good day. Yeah. You look

hot today. You look fucking hot. But on the days that you're not feeling that be kind to yourself and be very conscious of your internal monologue and the words that you're using to describe yourself. Because if they're not words that you would use to describe your friend or somebody who you just met on the street then don't use them to describe yourself in terms of self-neutrality is that how you say it neutrality neutral neutrality neutrality neutrality yeah let's go for it didn't roll off the tongue I don't know if we're saying it right in terms of coming to self-help talk with Brie and Laura in terms of self-neutrality one thing that I would say to myself and I still do say to myself is you deserve to be treated the way you treat others

i think that's a really good one because it's not i'm not pep talking myself like yeah you look beautiful you're hot you've got this you can win the world it's literally just about this it's literally just about saying like you deserve to be treated the way you treat other people and i think it's just a really good one to reset your your brain and your thought process and be like no you know what i do deserve this and i don't have to settle for anything less so i think that's a really good one to start with when we're when we're talking about this like look in the mirror thing yeah totally and also guess what you don't even need a mirror you don't need a mirror and also like I and this has nothing to do with this episode but I'm gonna say it anyway because I

really really believe in it like your worth is not based on what you look like and I think that there is times where we really need to get away from this idea that like to be worthy and to be successful you need to be atypically beautiful like that's bullshit your worth is not based on your beauty and we're all going to get old we're all going to get saggy we're all going to get pigmentation. We're all going to get wrinkles. You and that pigmentation really sticks in there, isn't it? Well, that's my jam. We all know that that's the one thing that gets me self-conscious, but yeah, like we're all going to get those things. And if your worth is based in how you look, then you're really going to struggle when that, that goes, you know, when you're getting pitted

against 20 year olds and you're in your late thirties, like you need to work on having pillars of value that are not based on your looks, which is what social media does to us these days. So like that is totally off topic but i'm pretty sure that that's a topic we should talk about a completely other day i know i could go i was just about to launch into my own i was about to be like intelligent and humor this is this is that's how we ended up doing a three-hour podcast and that's our whole week gone guys on this podcast um no i think look i think we've gone into it some pretty solid depth i think we've covered a lot the last thing i want to say and we're not going to get into this because there's so much into it but i just want to make you aware

of it. These attachment styles can translate into your work life as well. So if you're having trouble at work, you're not progressing, um, or you're, you're in charge and you're having trouble with other people, they can actually be bringing these attachment styles into their work. And there, there's so much information on that in the internet. So I just wanted to, to flag that with you guys. It's just something you think about if this, um, triggers anything with you. A hundred percent, but also on top of that, it's not just like when we've been talking about romantic relationships because obviously that's something that we focus so heavily on on this podcast but it it regards your friendships in regards to your work in regards to like how you

communicate and and build relationships on a day-to-day level like it's all it affects all types of attachments and all types of relationships big and small it's just that you know often the biggest relationship that we kind of have to deal with is a romantic one in our life that can be like the flagship one that all the others kind of get compared against yeah my biggest relationship is the one I have with food but and that's a healthy one thank you Brittany it's a solid one guys thank you so much for tuning in we love your support we love getting your feedback it really really does it for us it just means the world to us like we are so sick for our reviews it's our like guilty little pleasure it's like my hit at the moment seeing you guys share how you're

listening to life uncut we absolutely love that when you're going for a run when you're going for a coffee some of you are cleaning the house and like your toddler's dancing to the theme song we can't get enough so keep sharing those throw them on your instagrams and tag us because we love to reshare them as well so if you're not already following our instagram page it's life uncut podcast if you're not already on the facebook group get on it for the batch chat and for all the other goss that is also life uncut podcast and you know the drill guys tell your mom tell your dad tell your dog tell all your friends tell your sister tell your brother just tell everyone you know what and share the love because we love love we just we just bloody love it

We'll be right back.