Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - What Attachment Style Are You? How To Know, Why It Matters, and How To Change It If You Need To | Amir Levine

Episode Date: June 15, 2026

Your health, relationships, and self-esteem all hinge on your attachment style. Here's how to know if you're anxious or avoidant — and how to get more secure. Dr. Amir Levine is a Columbia-trained psychiatrist and neuroscientist and coauthor of the multi-million-copy bestseller Attached, which brought attachment theory into mainstream conversation and remains the #1 book on Amazon in Relationships more than a decade later. His new book Secure expands this work into emotional regulation and everyday well-being. In this episode we talk about: What attachment theory is  The four attachment styles — anxious, avoidant, secure, and fearful avoidant — and how to identify which one you are Why your attachment style is not fixed and how it can change  What happens in your brain when you're ignored or excluded How being securely connected can extend your life The five pillars of a secure life  How to right-size a relationship with someone unreliable  Small, seemingly insignificant daily interactions as vehicles for change Two rules of secure engagement that can defuse almost any argument  Why anxious and avoidant attachment styles each have genuine superpowers How to build your "attachment topography" Get the 10% with Dan Harris app here Sign up for Dan's free newsletter here Follow Dan on social: Instagram, TikTok Subscribe to our YouTube Channel Join Dan, Sebene Selassie, and Jeff Warren for Meditation Party, a 3-day immersive retreat at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY, October 16–18. Grab your in-person spot here, or sign up to livestream here! To advertise on the show, contact [e-mail] or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/10HappierwithDanHarris This episode is sponsored by:  BetterHelp: Online therapy, matched to your needs. Get 10% off your first month at https://www.betterhelp.com/happier Wix:  Build a fully functional website with AI in minutes at https://www.wix.com/harmony IQBAR: To get twenty percent off all IQBAR products, including the ultimate sampler pack, plus free shipping, text DAN to 64000. Warby Parker: Prescription glasses with virtual try-on. Buy one prescription pair and get 20% off additional prescription pairs at https://www.warbyparker.com/happier

Hey, welcome to the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris. I think about this all the time. We live in a world where we're told that the route to happiness is through the accumulation of money and likes on Instagram, i.e. individual achievement. But in fact, we know from the science and just through the basics of evolution that we are wired to derive our happiness through the quality of our relationships. But nobody's selling us that on Instagram. Today, though, we've got a fascinating conversation that is going to provoke. you to think about what is your attachment style? Like, how do you relate to other people? And how can you tweak that so that your relationships are better, which will improve your health, both your mental and physical health? My guest is the great Dr. Amir Levine. He wrote a huge bestseller called Attached. And he's now followed up with a book called Secure, the Revolutionary Guide, to Creating a Secure Life. We will be right back with Dr. Amir Levine right after this quick break. things before we hear from our sponsors. We've got this awesome new series launching soon on my new -ish meditation app, 10% with Dan Harris. Many people ask me, how do I get started in Buddhism? How do I

learn more about it? How do I go deeper? So we are now going to provide a solution. Every week this summer for eight weeks, every Sunday, the great Buddhist teacher, Sharon Salzberg, is going to host a live session every Sunday at 4, starting on July 12th at 4 p.m. Eastern, then running for eight weeks. And every week, she's going to break down one aspect of the foundational Buddhist list, the eightfold path, the noble eightfold path. This is the Buddha's cookbook for human happiness. It talks about how to get better at seeing the world, clearly, how to get better at meditation, how to get better at dealing with other people, how to get better at work. it really is quite comprehensive. And like I said, it is a great way to dip your toe into Buddhism. Or if you've already learned quite a bit about the Dharma, this is a great way to go deeper. Sharon during these eight live sessions will guide a meditation, talk a little bit about one aspect of the eightfold path and then take your questions. Of course, if you miss any of the live sessions, you can always watch them on demand. You can get all of this on the aforementioned 10% with Dan Harris' meditation app. If you want to get the app, it's at danharris.com.

Again, that's danharris.com. There's a free 14-day trial if you want to try before you buy. I hope you'll come check it out. We'll be right back after this. This episode is brought to you by IQ Bar, our exclusive snack, hydration and coffee sponsor, IQ Bar Protein Bars, IQ Mix, Hydration Mixes, and IQ Joe Mushroom coffees are the delicious, low sugar, brain and body fuel you need to win your day. The Ultimate Sampler Pack is a great way to try all the IQ bar products and flavors.

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our special podcast listeners 20% off all IQ bar products, including the ultimate sampler pack plus free shipping. To get your 20% off, text Dan, DAN to 64,000. Again, that's Dan to 64,000. DAN to 64,000. Message and data rates may apply. See, for details. Amir Levine, welcome to the show. I'm glad to be here. Can we just start with some basics on attachment theory? It's crazy to me that I've hosted this show for over a decade, and we really have not done much on attachment theory. So can you just hold my hand a little bit and walk me through the basics? Oh yeah, yeah. I'm very glad that you ask. I mean, obviously it's been my bread and butter.

I think the way that I like to think about attachment is that it's almost like a safety radar. It's how we feel safe in the world. As a social species, we feel safe through other people. The father of adult attachment is John Balby, and he actually came to the conclusion that attachment that a need to be connected to others is a basic need, just like food and water.

And at the time, it was a strange notion because people thought that baby is attached because the mother feeds them and the mother gives them the sustenance and it's a byproduct. But John Balby actually came around and said, no, it's actually a basic need. And he came up with that

because he, during World War II, he worked in England during the Blitz and he saw all these displaced kids and that even though they were given everything they needed in terms of food and sustenance and they were well taken care of, they failed to thrive because they didn't have that connection, which is really essential for all of us. We need to establish a connection to caregivers early on, and if we don't, we wither.

Exactly. But Balby also said that attachment, our attachment needs, like stay with us throughout our whole lifetime, from birth to the grave, basically. That's what he said. And so we still have the same attachment of neuropsychiatry, and we still need to maintain that connection, even into adulthood. It's just like the attachment behaviors are much easier to see when we're children, but they still exist as adults. And then came along Mary Ainsworth, and she found that we actually have, like initially she discovered these three attachment styles, and then the fourth attachment style was discovered. So she added on to that knowledge that we don't all behave in the same way.

way when we attach to other people. I want to talk about our attachment styles in a second, but I think what you were pointing to there, at least one thing you were pointing to in your last answer, was that our attachment style is fluid, that we, obviously our first attachments are to our parents or early caregivers, but we're obviously changing systems as human animals throughout our lives. and so our attachment styles can change as we grow older and as we move from context to context. I'm so glad you said that because you just took their words right out of my mouth. This is what you just said is one of the most important things that people should know about our attachment styles.

And it's not a given at all because if you'll go on social media and you go online, people have this idea that the attachment style that you have as a child is the attachment style that you have as an adult. and it's all fixed at the age of two or the age of three, but it is completely false, and that's not what the science finds at all. And the fact of the matter is that we can change our attachment style. It's not like in one specific category. We can have slightly different attachment style with different people,

although we do have a general one that rules. We are primarily social species, so we're very malleable and very, very able to reshape and remold our attachment. And I find it very promising. And that's why even like in this new book, I really invented a new therapy that's called Secure Priming Therapy to help people understand attachment logic and really help them move towards greater secure attachment because that really helps in relationships.

I will have said some of this in the introduction, but I'll say it again now. So you wrote this huge bestseller attached. and now you have a new book called Secure. So we're going to spend a lot of time on the new book, but I just want to dwell in the land of the first book for a moment. For sure, because it is the foundation. So having said all that, can you walk us through the attachment styles? Yeah, what are they?

Yeah, so there's anxious, avoidant, secure, and fearful avoidant. And the first three ones are the major ones, and fearful avoidant is much more rare. And it's really like a script that we have in our head or the way that we experience the relational world around us. And so if we have an anxious attachment style, we love closeness, but we also are very sensitive to potential threat to the relationship. So if we don't get a text back very quickly or if we feel that there's a disruption in the connection, we really are afraid that the relationship may not last. We worry a lot about the intactfulness of the relationship. It's just like we don't feel that he's very stable.

We feel that it's very fragile. So that's the anxious attachment style. And people who are secure love closeness and intimacy, but they don't have that sensitive radar for potential danger. So a lot of stuff go over their head, and they're just really warm and loving and easy to get along with. Then on the other side, you have the avoidance. And when you're avoidant, you also want to be in a relationship and you want the connection.

But something funny happens when you get close to someone. You start to feel uncomfortable with too much closeness. And you use what we call in attachment lingo deactivating strategies, little ways to some distance between you and the other person. And the script that goes on in your head is that you have to be self-sufficient, self-reliant. And really, like, you think about your independence is the most important thing, more so than the connection itself. It's anxious, secure, avoidant. And then there's a fearful avoidant. It's the combination of the two, anxious and avoidance.

So really, on the one hand, you really want closeness and you crave closeness. But also when people get too close, you start to sort of like, no, no, no, like stay away. So it's like with one hand, your motioning come closer. And with the other hand, you say you're motioning, stay away, stay away. So it creates a lot of instability in their relationship. How do we know which style we are? So you take a quiz and then you find out. And the truth is, well, like in Attach, we really had like one quiz and it was really about

mostly romantic relationships. But now, like with the new research, we know that we can have attachment styles with various people in our lives. On my website, there's a whole drop-down menu where you can take, you can check your attachment style, you can check your general attachment style, but also you can do it with your siblings with your children, with a coworker. Also with a pet, we have attachment styles with our pets. I have a specific attachment style with my dog. We're sleeping right over there. So you can really check and you actually get what I've called your attachment topography. You see how different

people bring out different things in you. And some people bring out more of a secure side and other people will bring out other sides. And it's actually really interesting. And I use that in secure priming therapy as the beginning, as a baseline of this is what we have in the beginning, and now what we're going to be working towards. And yeah, so that's, it's very, very helpful. So just so people have it, what is your website if they want to go take those tests? Oh, it's Amir Levine MD.com. And then they're like, you just take the quiz on there. And you really get the whole topography of all of your different relationships. As stated, you wrote this book attached. It got super successful. And a lot of people started coming.

coming up to you and saying, I want to be secure. And that really was the germ for your new book, secure. And you've referenced secure priming therapy. I think I'm getting that term right. Yes, yes. What is that? And how do we do it? So initially, I didn't really have an answer to people, how do you become more secure? Because all these attachment styles, before I wrote attached, were just like these academic concepts buried in just like academic journals. I came across them by chance. and then I was going through a breakup at the time myself, and I was having such a hard time understanding what's going on in the relationship

because I knew that we both loved each other, but it still didn't work out, and I couldn't really figure out why. And then when I came across this concept, it's like a light bulb, a relationship light bulb, went up, like went on in my head, and I all of a sudden understood what was going on in the different dynamics.

For example, when I get close to someone, I feel like, oh, I really like this person, and I start thinking about building a future together. But the other person I was with at the time, like he told me, oh, when I get close to someone, I want to move to San Francisco. I was living in New York. And it was like, no, but that doesn't make any sense to me.

And so at the time, all I had to go by was knowledge, sort of pre-attachment knowledge, that this idea that love conquers all. Like what he meant for me is that, like if he says that, that means that he just doesn't love me enough because if he loved someone more, he would want to be with that. But then when you understand attachment logic, you know that that's actually not true,

that people can love you, but still get scared from the closeness and feel uncomfortable and want to create more distance. And if you understand that logic, you can work with it better. So the whole idea behind secure priming therapy is to understand that there's an attachment logic that runs through all of our relationships. And if we learn that logic and if you can use it in our lives, and there's specific tools that I really am looking forward to talking about with you, then we can really find a better path

to make relationships work better for us and really become more secure. Let me just say that back to you just so I get it, and so by extension, the audience gets it. Secure priming therapy is a set of tools that we will discuss that help you move towards secure in all of your relationships. Exactly, yes, it sort of really harnesses this idea

about what our social brain needs and how to really give our social brain what it needs to feel that level of connectedness that make us secure. Okay, so let's talk about the tools. There's one thing we need to understand before we even jump into the tools, and that's something that I call the cyberball effect,

which is like the first chapter of the book. And it really describes this very basic experiment, the soluble experiment, and in it you play a little simple video game in which you play a game of catch with two other characters and then all of a sudden they stop throwing the ball in your direction

and what we see like in FMR studies we see areas of painful distress and self-scrutiny that come online and the brain really hates exclusion it's really low I can't even like it's such a strong reaction that we get when we get excluded like that or ignored by the way

And we also, when they check psychologically, they see that people feel that their life is less meaningful, that they're less in control over their life, and less self-esteem. So when I came across all of these findings, I was actually really surprised because I never thought that my self-esteem or how much I feel that I'm in control over my life or how much I assign meaning to my life is related to how connected I am to other people. But to our social brain, it really, really matters. And sort of maintaining that level of connectedness is really important for us. The cyberball effect is an online test that points to something that's true for all of us, which is we are wired by evolution to react. And it shows up in brain scans, too, to react with the same part of the brain that we react to with physical pain when we are excluded or ignored. Yes, and the effect is so strong that even they tried to reverse the, like they told you, you know,

they say, Dan, I'm going to give you some money. And whenever their ball is not thrown in your direction, I'm going to give you like a whole bunch of money. And they saw that that didn't matter at all. Still the same errors of the brain lit up like just as powerfully. And they took it even a step further, which I don't really understand how the ethics committee allowed that. But they said to minority students, these two other people, that you're playing with, there are members of the KKK. So you think, why would I care if the spickle of people

are not throwing the ball in my direction? Like, why would it matter to me? It doesn't matter. The brain still lights up. It's almost like a reflex reaction by the brain because that area of the brain and the way that our social brain works, it really not meant to the way that we're living today. It was meant to the lives that we have

when we were in the middle of the food chain. And to be ignored by someone meant real threat. And it's rather that I be noticed by despicable people or be in contact with despicable people than being alone. Being alone is the biggest threat that could be in terms of for an animal in the middle of the food chain. So I think that's why their brain really loves exclusion and being ignored.

And when I say, you know, it's a very nice scientific word when it says self-scrutiny, but I think the way it translates to people's lives and when someone doesn't return your call, you don't get an email bath. be it at work, be it from your partner, you can say, what's happening? How come they're not calling you? Have I done anything? Did I say something wrong? So that's kind of like the self-scrutiny. It sounds like a big scientific word, but it really translates to becoming preoccupied with what's

going on, what's going on, what's going on. It's very important that people know that. It's just something that happens almost like a reflex. Now, our culture is not built around this wisdom, and yet it is deeply true. If you deny somebody's social contact, by the way, we do this in prisons all the time, and it's a, I think it could be fairly described as a form of torture. Oh, horrible. I actually, as a brief digression, I did a story back when I was a television journalist where I lived for 48 hours in solitary confinement in the Denver County jail.

Oh, my God. And it sucked. It really sucked. And it wasn't like there were other people in the jail I was dying to hang out with, but I would have taken it over just being stuck in a room by myself. And yet, and yet our society is built around ideas like individualism. And I think this mismatch between how we evolved and the culture and society we've created is a big reason why we have unprecedented levels of anxiety, depression, suicide, addiction, and loneliness.

And yeah, so I'll stop talking and see what you have to say about that. I know. I love that you said that because the whole book is basically, the whole, this whole book, the cure is basically about, like, coming to people and say, wake up, look at your brain, look at your social brain. look at your social brain and look at what it needs in order to thrive. And we're not doing it. Even sometimes it starts, you know, even when we have kids. And let's say you have a, like, I'm also a child psychiatrist. And you have like a three-year-old.

She came to like her mother and say, oh, mommy, mommy, Sophie didn't want to play with me today. And usually the usual reaction would be, oh, I mean, it's okay. She'll play with you tomorrow thinking, you know, that's their world. The world is a tough place and you have to sort of learn to live with the punches. But actually, there's an opportunity here. And actually, that's what I also do in Secure to grownups, is to teach people, no, you know something? Maybe Sophie isn't a reliable friend.

And what about Hannah? Hannah always wants to play with you. And isn't that so much better when you have a friend who always wants to play with you? It's really an opportunity to teach a lesson about the reliable friend versus the unreliable friend. Are there people who just don't give a shit? Like, I'll play the cyber ball game and I don't care. Just don't never throw the ball.

and you just keep giving me money. That's all I care about. No, so that's what they found. That's what I think is so profound, is that our brain doesn't care. Like, our brains always respond. Maybe then we can override that response, but everyone will respond.

It's universal. But the other thing that they find is that is something, what I love about this, is that they did the other, the opposite experiment, which is the reverse cyber bowl. So in the reverse cyber bowl, imagine that you're sitting in the,

that you're standing in the middle and then two people on each side of you, and you have the ball, and you turn to the right, you throw it to this person next to you, they throw it back at you. And then you turn to their left, you throw it to them, and then they throw it back at you.

So now you're hyper-included, and the brain loves that, because the brain feels you have, you feel that life is more meaningful, you feel that you're more in control of your life, you have greater self-esteem. So the brain really loves hyper-being hyper-included.

So then I thought, how would you create that scenario in our everyday life? How do we become hyper-included? Because it has such an amazing effect, also affect for longevity, and other really, we can talk about also the other effects of becoming more secure. But so I gave it a lot of thought. And I came up with this particular tool, which is an acronym that are called CARP, which stands for consistent, available, responsive, reliable, and predictable. So if we, and you have to understand the attachment logic, it's about those small interactions.

So if we learn to be consistent, available, and responsive, and others experience us as reliable and predictable. In other words, we're carp. I call these the five pillars of a secure life. It's in the small everyday interactions. And I'm sure you've experienced that before when you send an email to someone and they respond right back. or even in the text, and there's that back and forth that seems very seamless.

It brings joy to our brain, basically. I can't really think of any other way of saying it. This is something I've thought about for a long time, all the way back to junior high, where there would be friends who we would say, yeah, we're going to get together, and some 50% of the time they would flake. And I would know that they were that type of person. And I, in some part of my brain, would put them in. in a different box, like they're not fully safe.

Even if they're not malicious, I can't really rely on them. And a friend of mine was saying something to this effect recently. We were talking about a third friend. And he said, yeah, this other guy is like sometimes he'll show up when he says he's going to show up, but often he doesn't. And I, this is now my second friend talking, I know my nervous system well enough to know that, like, I can't handle that. So I have to, like, there's only so much closeness that is on offer for me,

with this other person. Right, exactly. So you really captured it so well. And that awareness is actually something that I try to teach people in the book. I have this specific tool that's called Walt Tennis with Love because unfortunately a lot of people don't really do what your other friend does or maybe what you were able to have that realization in high school. And especially I think people who have an anxious attachment more tend to, no, I got to fix this. Let me try to fix this. Text them, talk to them. Like, send another question mark. You there. All these different things. So trying to get the response. And part of secure priming therapy is teaching people, no, this is actually not good for your social brain. And so the first thing that you do is you do like a corporate

intervention. So you tell this third friend, so you know, being consistent, available, responsive and is really important for me. And it's also important for my social brain. And we didn't get into that, but it helps reduce mortality. It increases, it decreases biological age, feeling connected as these huge benefits for even physical health. I'm not just talking about the psychological health. So you say you can really do this carbon intervention and you tell this person, so it's really important for me. I hope that you can maybe rise to the challenge. Many people can actually. But then if they don't, then I would do what your friend actually described,

kind of like lower the volume on that relationship. And the tool that I used for that is called wall tennis with love. Wall tennis with love. Yeah, well, tennis with love. What does that actually mean? So what it means is, I don't know if you've ever played tennis against the wall. Yes. So when you play tennis against the wall, the wall, like whatever you hit the wall,

the wall will respond back with about similar. velocity, similar direction. And the idea is with wall tennis with love is that if you know that this person is not carp, that they're not reliable, and you know that it affects your brain, like not in a good way, then it's really a way to keep...

So what you're doing, you're the wall. Whenever they're throwing something in your direction, you respond back with love, but you don't initiate too much. You don't really... You don't take actions that can actually lead to that exclusion or to that being ignored. And for example, I have a friend that I have a wall tennis with love sort of thing going on with. And so I would text it.

It's like, I wouldn't text him because that's, I'm being the wall. He would text me and he would say hi. And I would text right back. I'm the wall. Hi. A week would go by. Then a week later, I get another high. Then I say, hi, right back.

Then two days go by. Then all of a sudden, he will call me. I answer the phone if I can. Obviously, if not, I call right back. Because it's with love. You want to keep the back and forth. You don't want them to feel excluded. You're not trying to get to them or get at them.

So he calls me and we talk and everything's really nice. It helped their relationship because we've been friends for 20 years. And there are times where it was not an easy relationship, like I think for about a year and a half. We didn't speak to each other. And now we'd really find the right balance where if I have a problem or if I have an issue that I want to talk to, I'm not going to go to him because in the past I did and it didn't, it wasn't good. He either was very quiet on the phone or he not hung up very quickly and it made me very upset. So I have my other, my secure village, my car people that I go to. And with him, I do the Walt Tennis with Love and actually preserve the relationship.

So interesting. Let me ask a technical question about texting and emailing back promptly. I do that most of the time. Sometimes my team members have to remind me that I failed to respond to a Slack. I think Eleanor, who's producing this episode, had to do that with me today. But generally speaking, I try to be quite prompt. I have heard some people, including Adam Grant, who I have a lot of affection and respect for, argue that, especially in a business context, given how over loaded and overwhelmed we are, all are. You shouldn't feel too much responsibility to answer every email right away. And you also shouldn't apologize, as I often do with sorry for the delayed response. So I have sympathy for both sides of these arguments. I'm interested to hear where you come down. I'm really glad that you said that. And also, I think it's important that we'll, in a minute, we should just remind me because it's important to talk about people with ADHD and being carp. But I have to say, first of all,

your response is the secure response because you really convey that you have this commitment to this back and forth between people. But it's not that his response is wrong. It's just like it's whatever we bring to the table and the truth be told, like we're very savvy social species.

And we learn there's something that I call in the book, this attachment home eustasis. We learn to identify with the attachment to home you stasis is. And so I will learn that Adam Grant takes him several days to answer his emails. He doesn't always answer the emails or he doesn't always text back. I'm not going to expect that at all. But I will learn that you are like a pretty, like you answer very quickly. And I will learn to expect that.

My brain, my social brain will learn to expect that. So I think you see both are right. and you know that there's that expectation and you live up to it. And he creates a different baseline and he lives up to it too. So it's okay. And it's the same thing with people with ADHD. They oftentimes forget and they oftentimes don't respond. They get overwhelmed.

But I think a lot of my patients who have ADHD, they've learned to say, you know what, I may really forget or I may not be able to always respond and it actually overwhelms me. But don't be afraid if I didn't respond enough, just send me a lot. just send me like several reminders. I actually like that. It helps organize me. So you can still be carp and not always respond right away.

You just have to create a certain framework that people will learn what to expect. It's more about setting a certain expectation and creating a certain baseline. But then once you created that baseline, you have to stick to it. Just in defense of Adam Grant, two things. One, he does, in my experience, reply with extraordinary speed. And two, I may not even be articulating his POV on this correctly. So Adam, on the off chance that you're listening, I apologize if I did you dirty there. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.

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com slash happier. Let's just go back to Karp for a second. Can you just go through the acronym again? I'm glad that you're asking about that because there's a nuance there. So the idea is that I have to learn to be consistent, available, and responsive, because that really maintains that back and forth. It's not enough that I think, oh, I'm so great, I'm consistent, available, and responsive to this person. I then have to, it's like a two-factor authentication. I have to reach out to you and say, and make sure that you actually experienced me as reliable and

predictable. So because it's attachment. It's a dietic process. So that's why it's consistent, available, responsive. And then the other part of it is reliable and predictable. And if we can do that, then I think it's really a brain just, it's really what it's, the social brain, it's really creating that hyper-included, that in that reverse cyberball, you're creating this scenario for the brain when it feels hyper-included. I just want to make sure I really understand this. There are two levels to the acronym. Again, the acronym is C-A-R-P.

One wants to, you want to make sure that in your relationships you are consistent, available, and responsive, and you want to make sure you're checking with the other person that they are experiencing you as reliable and predictable. Yeah. So this is a personal practice. We have agency. We can be this in, we can be carp in the world. And there is a high likelihood that we will get back what we're putting out there, as Paul

McCartney said on the, I believe the last song, the Beatles ever recorded. The love we take is equal to the love we make. But I also just want to say the other part of carp is not just a personal practice. It's what you are looking for in the world. Like you want to make sure you are surrounding yourself by carp. Exactly. No, that's exactly it. You described it really well.

Yeah, I mean, it's not enough that you really want to create a secure environment for yourself. And so it's not enough that you yourself are carp. You also want to make sure that your environment is carp. And so you want to reach out to other people. And I mean, if you did that attachment topography initially and you see who are the people in your life that are secure, they're most likely like carp because that goes along together with being like securely attached. Secure people are like naturally very carp. They just do it automatically.

So you'll see, you'll get your attached topography and you'll see who are these people that are carp in your life and who are those like is it's like four quadrants. So I'm like really thinking about it topographically. Who are those who actually are further out there? And those people are usually less carp. And what I invite people to do is to part of secure primac therapy is to really recurate your social environment or remold your social environment in the direction of creating more secure environment.

I call it the carp intervention. And I've mentioned it before. You really, you can come to people and you can say, hey, hey, you know, I've emailed you and I call you and you don't respond for two weeks. And like, it really bothers me. For me, I try to be consistent, available and responsive. But I also want other people in my life to be the same. And you can even blame it on your brain.

Blame it in your social brain. You don't have to say, oh, I was abandoned as a child or as a child that wasn't really treated well. Because we saw that those attachment styles are not necessarily related to how, like, you were treated in childhood. You can actually morph them in the here and now. So you say, in the here and now, my social brain really doesn't like those disruptions. So that's what I'm trying to do for myself. Is it harder for some people to be carp, though, if they did have a tough childhood and are naturally avoidant or fearful or both? Insecure, I really try to go into a lot of, really explain some of the origins of a

attachment styles, and a lot of it we don't know, that there's been really fascinating research about what it means to have these different attachment styles. And I think the way that I see it in secure is that there are advantages to having these different attachment styles. And I think the best experiment that captures that is like when they got a group of people into a room and they had a little bit of smoke come out of one of the computers. And it was the people with the anxious attachment style that identified the smoke the earliest and alerted everybody else.

But it was those with the avoidant attachment styles were first out the door. And so for me, I can tell you if there was a little of smoke, I would probably notice it, but I was like, I would turn to the people next to me, should we go, should you leave, what do you think, is it okay? should we stay, what should we do? But if you're avoidant, like you don't really ask anyone.

You operate on like you really are self-sufficient. This is like, I'm out of here. You guys can do whatever you want and other people follow. So you can see the advantage of having the anxious, which is the canary in the coal mine that can identify things in the environment that other people can, but also having the avoidant attachment or mindset that you're a free thinker and you're like, I don't care what you all are doing. I'm out of here. And then other people follow. So there are advantages of having different attachment styles. And I think it's very important to emphasize that. It's not just like always only a deficit. I think that's a, it's much more nuanced than that. Is that your way of saying we can all be carp no matter what our background is?

I think so. There's a certain logic to attachment and we can learn how to really maintain that connection, but sometimes we have to be more creative about it. One of the examples that I give in the book is about this mother of college kids who, when her kids went to college, when she called them, they're like, we don't have time for you. It'll be very dismissive on the phone. And it hurt. The way that she found the workaround is that she got connected with them on their exercise apps. So now they all see each other what they're doing. And so they thumb up, like if she see that they're walking, they've reached 10,000 steps. She gives them a thumbs up. They give her a thumbs up. And also, she started a Snapchat also around their family dogs, sending like cute little pictures of the family

dog. And so they interact through there. So she found a way to maintain that back and forth. And she also, she knows, like around what time they call her when they're driving or something. So she makes it a point to be available. But so she really found a way to maintain that connection. And again, our brain really loves the connection, and that brings us to the other acronym in the book. There's only two acronyme, I promise. It's the, how important are those what have come to call the seemingly insignificant minor interactions in everyday life, or I call it like semis, because oftentimes when people come to therapy, they think, like, I need to talk about difficult things that happened to me, childhood in order to change, or like about really big events that happen in my life.

And that's not, I'm not saying that it's not true, but people who hardly ever think about the seemingly insignificant minor interactions of everyday life as a vehicle for change and of how the brain really changes. But as a molecular neuroscientist who does epigenetic work on the brain, I know that those small interactions, each and every interaction like that is a potential vehicle for change of really showing the brain something new or teaching it something new. Many of us think that in order to be happy, we need big things to happen. Fall in love, get a promotion, make a big sale.

But your argument is that these seemingly... What's the seemingly... Seemingly insignificant minor interactions. So your argument is that these seemingly insignificant minor interactions or semis are actually like a constant daily source of joy. And it's kind of like we're leaving money on the table. table by not paying attention to them. So each semi is an opportunity to show the brain something different and an opportunity to create a connection. So for example, when I used to go on Uber's,

I used to be like, don't talk to me. I'm really interested in my phone. And ever since I've done the research on this book, and I wrote this book and I understood how much that hyper-inclusive and being connected to others is important. I actually found it as an opportunity to connect. talk to drivers. I welcome people talking to me about the weather and the elevator. I nod and say hello to people. Like even those people at the gym that I always talk and I used to sort of circle around and try to avoid, I talk to them now. And he made a huge difference in my life. I've made a similar change in recent years. So I'm on your side with this, but let me just throw you a skeptical question because I think some people are worried, especially like type A high achievers, are worried that

if they're stopping and chatting all the time, they're never getting getting anything done. I actually would argue that it's the opposite because I think if anything, there's all these research about the benefits of being more securely attached. I was astounded when I found out all these information because you know we go,

we take all these supplements and coal plunges and peptides and we do all these things for longevity. But being connected is one of the biggest longevity hacks that we have. And it decreases mortality by 50%. but it also increases cognition and it actually also increases brain volume. So if you're really worrying about

being able to be on top of your game, it's the opposite. You want to connect more. You want to create that feeling of connectedness. And then you feel more in control of your life. Remember that life is more meaningful and like the increases self-esteem? I really was my own self-experiment because I wasn't like that at all.

And I have to say that even in the gym now, that one person who talks to everyone that I used to like really try to say, like, I talk to him now. And it's about 10 minutes talking to him, talking to him about different things. But I do feel there's a sense of community now for me there at the gym that I never had before. And I know now I can feel the value of it. Like I really like in my in my body like somatically. Yeah, I really plus one on all of that. And I say this as somebody, and I've made this joke many times before, but my factory settings are firmly at Frosty New Englander and getting over that has really helped me. Just a little, you were just listing all the benefits that show up in the research for people who have what you call secure magic,

who have, you know, who have secure attachments and positive relationships in their lives. I made a note that I believe one of the other benefits of generally having secure relationships in your life is that you can better handle social media. I'm glad that you bring that up. That's what I found so surprising and why in this book there's been so much more research since attached about how secure, how it's much, it goes much further than our romantic relationships or even just our relationships with others and how it affects how we behave in the world.

So one of the things that they found is that it actually helps with shopping. Like people who are secure are less susceptible to consumerism. The logos and such, it doesn't really affect them as much. Another thing that they found is that if you're like searching for a job, you're doing it much more securely. Like you're not, you're less bogged down by it. And it doesn't affect yourself esteem as much. In terms of like healthcare, they found there's one study where they looked at fibromyalgia.

like people who have fibromyalgia, and they found that people who have more secure, have better relationships with their health care provider, but also report less symptoms and less pain and really manage their illness much better. And finally, what you were asking about, I just couldn't help but really bring up all the other highlights, is like that people are also able to handle social media much better.

They don't really, it doesn't affect them. They get like 100 likes or like, you know, how many people viewed my thing or they didn't view my thing. It's just like, whatever. I just want to, in the name of being reliable and predictable, I do want to check. Did I give you enough of an opportunity to talk about ADHD? I think I alluded to it, but I think it's important to say that it's harder for people with ADHD to be carp. And so, because sometimes they forget certain things. You can still be carp, even if you have attention deficit disorder. And you can say, hey, you know, I have attention problems.

But if you see that I'm not responding, just hit me up more and I'll respond eventually. And it actually helps me. And whenever I think people really welcome that people with ADHD, sort of the ability to be proactive and say something and then giving people the authority or the permission to try to get a response from them more if they need it. So that's like a secure way of dealing with that. What is the appendix rule? It's a tool that's specific for people with anxious attachment because those carp semis,

these are tools that you'll use very differently if you have an avoidant attachment style or you have an anxious attachment style because it's like a different script that you have to attend to. So people with an anxious attachment style have a very sticky attachment. And unlike the way that you said it that you even knew like in, in junior high, you know this friend, they don't show up for me as much. And so I'm going to stick with my other,

more secure friends. Like, people with anxious attachment are not very good at it. And so they keep going back to, I don't know, for lack of better word, to the scene of the crime and trying to make, like, their relationship work even though it's not working. And so part of secure priming therapy is to tell them the appendix rule

is, means like telling them, you are really harming, your brain by going back to these insecure relationships and trying to make them work. And you're ignoring, and usually that's the case on the topography, you're ignoring all these secure people in your life that can give you so much by trying to fix something that you've tried with carp intervention and it's not working and it's not fixable for your own health. Let go those relationships in order to be able to foster a more secure brain and get into that secure mode. So the appendix rule basically says you have to let go those relationships and you can't

hold on to them because it's harmful for your brain. This brings up a lot because I had a conversation here on this show not long ago with Esther Perel, who I'm sure you know, the legendary couples therapist and author. And she made an argument that really landed with me because I've cut people out of my life, not many, but a few, we were like really bad relationships. Esther was arguing that sometimes when you cut somebody out of your life, they start to occupy even more space in your brain. A hundred percent, but remember, I don't actually, if anything, I say that to do the opposite, to use wall tennis with love in order to right size the relationship.

So it's 100%. Like, cutting someone out of your life, like what happens from a lot. attachment perspective is that you get an attachment backlash and then you start really missing them. It's very painful. They totally take center stage. You actually, you achieve the opposite of what you wanted. In order to really right-size the relationship, that's why the Walt Tennis would love is so important for people with anxious attachment because I don't like fool your brain. The relationship is still there and it's manageable and you continue, you're continuing the the back and forth, but secretly, you've shifted your priorities and now you're really giving a

lot more time and a lot more effort into those secure relationships. So you haven't left them. You haven't cut anyone out. You just really reshuffle your priorities. Got it. It's about, it's about like a volume knob that makes a ton of sense. It actually makes a lot of sense if you think about it. Like with my friend, when I were used to go to him with all some issues and I'm probably like if something happened and I needed advice. And for whatever reason, he wasn't able to give it to me. And then usually what happens from an attachment perspective, it's important to understand how powerful secure bonds are.

Because I'm sure you also have that in your head. Like if something bad happens to you, I'm sure there's this, you know exactly who's person number one that you'll go to, person number two or number three. And then if we're securely attached to those people, sometimes all he takes us a hug or a word or a sentence to make us feel better. It's such a powerful thing because we're social species. There's no clonopin or Xanax that even comes close to the powerful effect of a secure bond.

But the opposite is also true, like insecure attachments can be one of the most powerful instigators of emotional turmoil. And so I always say that attachment really is at the basis of both suffering and healing from suffering. There was a therapist on this show a while ago who said something that's been knocking around in my head, which is that wounding happens in relationships. Healing also happens in relationships. And so choose wisely. Exactly. But also, if you understand the attachment logic, you can approach disagreements from a much better place, I think. And I think a lot of people don't know that logic.

I recently have these two rules. of secure engagement to really help people in an argument. What are they? I'd love to hear. So the first rule, and it all has to do, I'll explain the attachment logic

and then I'll explain the rule. Because as I told you before, when you really think about secure attachment and really the role of a secure relationship, it's to really help regulate our emotions. Secure relationships

are very, very good in regulating our emotions. Like I said before, there's no Xanax or Klonopin in the world that comes even close to that. So if we accept that the role of a secure relationship is to help regulate our emotions, then we can also accept the first rule that the only one person is allowed to be upset at the time in any given argument, because if you're upset, then it's my role now to help regulate your emotions

and help you to calm down. And that's really the basic tenant of a secure relationship. but unfortunately it's not always easy so when the one person is upset to stay calm because when we're attached to people it's like we almost become like one physiological unit and the feelings reverberate between people so when two people are upset oftentimes what happens they say wait a second there's a first rule only one person is allowed to be upset in a time and I was upset first so it's my turn and they start laughing about it and that helps diffuse some of the detention but let's say even that's, they're beyond that. Even that doesn't help diffuse the anger and both are now upset. So then comes the second rule, which is the, I call it the Mia Copa rule. It's my fault rule.

So if you're both upset now, then you both have to apologize to each other. And oftentimes, people get so hung up on who's right and who's wrong. And there's like, they try to argue their case. It's like, no, but I need you, Dan, I need you to understand me. And though I'm right here, so you need to really understand and so you can give me what I need. But it's really a big mistake because oftentimes attachment, because that's a lot of prefrontal cortex chatter.

But you have to remember that attachment is pre-language. We get attached way before we can even speak. And it has a different logic. It doesn't care about who's right and who's wrong. It cares about being connected and it cares. It's upset because of the disruption of the connectedness. So from the point of view,

of attachment, you both have to upset for disruption, disrupting that connection. So you can say, you know, I'm really sorry that I wasn't able to help you calm down, that I actually may even worse by actually me getting upset. And now you became more upset and we're just like not going anywhere good. So I'm really sorry about that. I really want to help us feel better. And I'm like, what can I do? And you can say something else similar to that effect. So both parties really apologize about not being able to bring it down a notch. And if you want to argue about who's right and who's wrong, you can do it tomorrow or once you've come down. And from my experience, people don't really care usually about who was right and it was wrong. They just want to feel that connectedness

again. Yeah, I'm kind of in a self-critical spaces. I'm listening to you talk here because I think I'm, I just have historically such a need to be right that I can't imagine myself not being able to follow these two rules. But the other thing maybe that potentially would be helpful is to understand that because of these different attachment styles and because we see the world from a very different perspective, both people can be right at the same time. So I can give you so many examples. Let's say a couple that are dating.

They're going out to spend really like an amazing weekend together. And they're very close to one another. And then come Monday, the avoidant person forgets. They usually text on Monday morning, every morning. He forgets the text. Because, you know, it needs a little bit more distance. Or she. It can be he or she.

Doesn't matter. It's like, it's not, uh, women are avoidant too. But then the other person who is more anxious is like, oh, my God, it's the beginning of the end. I know this, this is all too familiar. There was so much closeness and not their backing away. I, I'm sure this is it. I know this is it.

And so they try to text to you, But you don't really see it. You don't text back. Later on at night, you talk. The other person is really upset. They're cold or they lash out or they say something. And then you're the avoidant. You think, what do they want for me?

I just gave them so much all this weekend. And now they want more. There's no end to how much they, to their neediness. So in a way, you both write because you both have these different scripts in your head. But if you understand attachment logic, then you can understand that, this one person needs more of their distance and this other person needs that stability. And then you can say, yeah, you know what? You're right because I was able to be stable. And then you're right because now I'm like I'm aggravating like whatever is going on.

And let's just like both apologize because we haven't dealt with that attachment baseline well enough in order to like be able to keep it all like stable. It sounds like if we have a basic understanding of attachment theory, we can avoid so many fights and so much unnecessary anger. So much. If we understand the basic law attachment logic, which is a different logic than our intellectual logic. It really lives in our emotional brain about being connected. So it really operates from a different brain area and it's completely, and if we understand that logic, we can avoid so many issues. Like if you're avoided and you understand, oh, there's an attachment baseline and I always text on Monday. And if I don't text on Monday, that's going to be like, then they're going to hit hit up my phone. Then you don't really feel, oh, my God, there's like now trying to get my independence away. No, you understand, you know, that's what I did.

So I'm getting the attachment backlash. It helps in so many different ways. And there are little things. Remember, because it's really more about the simies. it's about little tricks that you can change in little ways that can go so much further than most people even can imagine. My parents live in assisted living. My dad had a stroke, so he can't really talk well.

I can't even hear well either. And so my parents have this little thing that when they see each other across the room, they give each other the finger. And it's kind of they laugh. They think it's funny. And that's like a little see-me. It's like they're a little loveling. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. It's like, it's this back and forth of connectedness. And it's just really actually gives me goosebumps to hear that because I have to say since writing attached and then secure, part of the problem is that we oftentimes ignore the secure people in our lives because they're so dependable. And they're always there for us and there's no drama. And especially if you're insecure, you're like, no, I mean, you gravitate the more like trying to fix or the insurm.

security, but I really learned to, I've fallen in love with the secures of this world, like over this process of writing these two books and doing this new type of therapy, but also seeing that we all have this secure potential in each and every one of us that can be called out and really some part of that whole idea of the corporate intervention is to reach into that secure potential that I think resides in each and every one of us and bring that out and give it a chance to come out and really show itself. We've talked about a bunch of tools. Have we hit them all?

I seem to remember there's an idea you have about working on your secure spiel. That's a Yiddish term for your secure story. Narrative, yes. The secure narrative. I think so there are specific tools also for avoidance that I can talk about, but also the secure spiel, the secure narrative. is more about how that's really like it talks about the third part of the book. It's about the secure mind.

And it's really these different ideas. Because in the first two parts, I talk about the secure brain. And then the second part is about how to get into secure mode. So if you have these different attachment styles, how do you use the cinies and the carp to actually get into that secure mode? And the third part of the book that I'm really glad that you asked me about because I hardly ever get a chance to talk about is about the security. your mind and these different ideas that stand in the way from us becoming more secure.

So one of them is having all sorts of different ideas in our head about oftentimes things that I call in the book Hidden Sparks of Talent that we see as impediments or that we don't really understand that are like, we have these innate biological talents, but we have a different shatter in our head that comes in a way from seeing how we can actually, by finding the right environment, they can really flourish. Some of the work that we do in Secure Priming Therapy is look at some of what we believe as impediments and see that oftentimes they can actually are potential strengths that are misunderstood or they just don't have the right set up in order to really flourish. Tell me a little bit more about how that would work specifically. If

if, for example, I'm an anxious, an insecure attachment style. So someone who has, like, for example, an anxious attachment style, what I describe in the book and you see it, like when you go through the data, it's really amazing to see, even though I have to say that even some of the research is biased because they always show that they have a sixth sense for danger. But when you look at the data, you see that they really can notice patterns and notice little subtleties that other people can see. I'll give you one example of a patient that came to me when,

this woman basically ghosted him and he was in immense pain. He was really, really bad. And he just said, you know, I want you to extract this anxious attachment from my brain. And I said, you know, it doesn't exactly work like that. We can't exactly extract it from your brain. But also, this person was hugely wealthy and he did most of his fortune in the stock market. And I explained to him, you know, you have this sixth sense of identifying trying trends before anybody else can. And that really worked for you in an amazing way,

because that's part of how you made all this massive wealth that you have by noticing different trends in the market and betting on them way before anybody else could. So would you still want to get rid of it? I can help you. I can teach you how to really navigate the whole dating world to find more secure people. But you wouldn't want to get rid of all of it. It's almost like, you know, these movies with the people with superpowers and how initially when they try to use them, it backfires because they don't know how to control their power. It's a little bit like that with people with anxious attachment. It's learning how to hone in your instincts and your ability to identify things in their environment in a way that

works for you and not against you. Tell me if I'm close to being able to summarize this. The goal here is we want to be as secure as possible as much of the time as possible. However, and somewhat counterintuitively, the way to reach that goal is not that. to make our anxious or avoidant or anxious avoidant tendencies bad. It's to come up with a spiel or a story about ourselves that allows them to, allows us to use the natural upsides of these tendencies to our advantage to get us closer to secure. It's a three-part scenario. First, you have to understand what your social brain needs. Then you understand your attachment style and what are the specific social brain needs for your specific attachment style.

And then once you accept that, then you can create an environment for yourself that would actually counteract some of your world beliefs about other people. And by doing that, by showing your brain different evidence, you see these simis? Like people are not always going to try to, not always going to try to leave you. People actually can be there for you. people can show up for you, then that's how the brain changes in a molecular level when you really engulf it in an environment, a social environment that is filled with those carp semis. And then the latter part is those different ideas that stand in the way. And it's funny because

oftentimes people come to therapy and they think, oh, acceptance is just a way, it's a way, it's a wishy-washy thing. The therapist say you just have to learn to accept how you are, instead of really trying to change them. But if you understand the brain, it's the first step of changing. Because once you understand this is how I am, this is my biology, like, yeah, I'm more of an introvert, and I'm a better writer than someone who's going to be able to climb up the corporate ladder. So maybe I should work from home more and look after the kids and also write. And then my wife is going to go out and work in the corporate world instead of me really finding and honing in on your talent.

and giving yourself the right biology instead of trying to say, no, I shouldn't let this bother me, I should muscle through this, I shouldn't let the fact that someone ignored me get to me, because guess what? Our social brain doesn't care

what you think, what you should or shouldn't do. It will care. And the opposite is true. If you create a right environment, like the amount of potential that you can reach from your brain is almost endless.

Okay, so leave, us with some closing wisdom here, like send us out into the world with a way to think about most effectively upping our secure quotient. I would say first really, like figure out where you're attached to topography is, not just that you really get a whole map of your social realm and where you fit in that realm. And then you start to see who are the secure people in your life. and you can really learn to give them to really up the volume there because oftentimes I told you,

oftentimes some people tend to really ignore them and not give them the value that they should be given because these are, and essentially, these are your vehicles for change. The more you increase the volume on those people and the more you increase those them or interactions with them, the more they'll teach you how to become more secure.

The other part that we didn't talk about is like the, and not all of us have pets, but the importance of pets in helping us become more secure because I have a dog. And to me specifically, he's not like the easiest dog in the world. He loves my partner. And whenever I come to pet him, he growls at me. You can even see my partner like pets him. He's happy and can be like more, more, more. When I pet him, he growls of me immediately. But I've learned to really accept him for who he is. And I've learned to love him. So, he's happy. And I've learned to love him. So. dearly. And I think our pets really remind us. And pets have attachment styles too. Some love closeness, some like more, more distance. But I think we really give the people, the pets around us, more of the benefit of the doubt than we give the humans around us. So for those of us who have pets, to really use that as a potential framework of how we can also become more securely attached to the people around us. This has been great. So fun to talk to you. Is there Anything else that you were hoping to get to that we didn't? No, I mean, you know, the book really describes the whole sort of method of therapy.

There's so much there. It's hard to really summarize it. Even in a short conversation, I really, the way that I wrote it, it's like if you read it and went through all the different exercises, it's almost like being in a whole year of therapy with me. It's kind of like the equivalent of that. So I think we've covered a lot. and hopefully people can take home some of these ideas of changing the social realm,

really learning to accept their looking for their hidden sparks of talent, and inching those carp semis and inching towards greater security. Amir Levine, the book is called Secure, the Revolutionary Guide to Creating a Secure Life. It follows on his previous book, which was a huge bestseller called Attached. And his website, I'm going to try to recreate it from memory, is Amir Levine. MD.com. Am I right about that? Yes. Thanks, Dan. Yeah, what a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you so much for your time. I'm here. I really enjoyed it. Thanks a lot, Dan. Thank you so much to everybody who works so hard to make this show. 10% Happier is produced by Tara Anderson and Eleanor Vassili. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our managing producer. Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer, DJ Kashmir,

is our executive producer and Nick Thorburn of the great indie rock band Islands wrote our theme. One last thing I want to say before you go, if you enjoy this show, please do me slash us a solid. Follow the show and leave a rating and a review on whatever platform you watch or listen to us on. It only takes a minute. It's free and it really helps new people find us and spread the good news that the mind is trainable. Thank you. Sincerely, I mean, thank you.