The Liz Moody Podcast - We Were Wrong About Secure Attachment & It's Ruining Our Relationships

Starting point is 00:00:00 Despite the fact that we have more resources than ever before in history to become secure, rates of secure attachment have been dropping. Dr. Marissa Franco is a professor of psychology. She wrote the best-selling book Platonic, and now she is back with her amazing new book, Worth, and she argues that one of the reasons for this drop is that we are getting attachment theory all wrong. Welcome to the Liz Moody podcast, where we believe that there is always something that you can do to create a life that feels amazing, and we help you figure out how to help you figure out

Starting point is 00:00:29 how to find the lever to pull at any moment to actually do that. Dr. Franco, welcome to the podcast. Thanks so much for having me. What is the number one thing that attachment theory gets wrong? There's so many things. I mean, one is that we're only one attachment style versus it being a relationship that when we're around different people, different parts of our attachment style comes up. The second is that we're doomed, that if we're anxious, we're going to be anxious for the

Starting point is 00:00:54 rest of our lives and there's no way to change our attachment style. And the third, I would say, the only answer. asked me for one, but here I am going off, is that there's a hierarchy of attachment styles and that we should all try to act secure. And if we're anxious or avoidant, we should be ashamed of ourselves. Wait, so I do feel like I'm avoidantly attached. That's not worse than being securely attached. Well, here's the thing, what I kind of argue is that the way attachment theory has been used is secure is the best. So now let's all try to act secure, try to be secure, try to do the secure thing. and in a way we start to try to suppress, ignore the parts of ourselves that are anxious or avoidant.

Starting point is 00:01:35 And then we are reenacting on our very selves the harm that made us insecure in the first place. Someone shamed us. Someone ignored us. Someone tried to dismiss us. Someone pushed us away, right? And so I think if we want to heal our attachment styles, it's actually about being able to tell the truth. Like, wherever you are is okay because you can only heal the parts of yourselves that you're willing to acknowledge. Can you just lay the groundwork for us for somebody who maybe doesn't know. what an attachment style is or what we mean by secure, anxious, or avoidant, or any of those things. Can you say in a nutshell what that is? Sure.

Starting point is 00:02:04 So basically in your early relationships with your caregivers, the ways your caregivers treated you lent itself to you creating an internal template for how people will treat you throughout your life. And so if your parent was preoccupied with other things, maybe their marriage, working hard, you became anxious. You learn that you have to earn love from other people and that if you're just yourself, you're not going to get it. So you tend to be attracted to people that kind of pull away from you. You tend to see rejection when you're not there, when it's not there. Even your amygdala lights up

Starting point is 00:02:35 more brightly at signs of rejection in the other attachment styles. Or you can be avoidant. And that means your parents probably gave you food, shelter, but there was emotional neglect. They wanted to shut you down emotionally. They want to hear about your sadness, your anger. And you learn that if you get close to people, it's dangerous and you will be harmed and you will be hurt. And so you tend to navigate relationships by keeping people at a distance, not sharing a lot of affection, not being very vulnerable. People feel like they don't really know you. There's not all the intimacy in your connections. You're not putting a lot of effort into them and you're not experiencing them as rewarding again because they feel threatening to you. So you just keep people out

Starting point is 00:03:09 a distance. They have people that are secure and their parents were good enough. Try to fulfill their emotional needs. If you were sad, they try to wonder what you needed and care for you and have compassion. And you go into relationships basically assuming that people will like you and that things could go well and you trust and you can be vulnerable and you can be affectionate. But if someone else doesn't match you, you kind of are flexible. You switch and secure people. They tend to have good relationships with other people. And there's a fourth style too.

Starting point is 00:03:35 Disorganized attachment style. I feel like it's like the evil stepchild. Like nobody talks about it. Yeah. It's the least common one. And it's for people that went through serious situations of abuse. It's disorganized in that your parent didn't have a way, a typical way of relating to you. Sometimes it was completely erratic.

Starting point is 00:03:53 Sometimes they were loving. Sometimes they were cruel. You never knew what you were going to get. And basically you display a disorganized attachment. Sometimes you're like, I really want to get close to you. Sometimes you're like, I need to run away. And it feels like chaotic for you internally. You're experiencing very strong emotional reactions to intimacy with other people.

Starting point is 00:04:10 And you both experience the need to get very, very close very quickly. And as soon as you do, you just want to run away. In your research and in your new book, you're upending a lot of the common wisdom around attachment theory. how does your new view of attachment theory impact the average person just going about their day-to-day life? I tell a little bit about my own story in this book and about how I knew about attachment theory. I knew what it meant to be secure. And in one of my previous relationships, I tried to act secure. My partner was not communicating with me.

Starting point is 00:04:40 I tried to anchor him. I tried to do things like co-regulate. You know, that means trying to regulate his emotions in addition to my own. He would give me one word answers and I would try to continue to show curiosity. Meanwhile, internally, I'm feeling bad. I'm feeling so anxious. And I'm trying so hard to do the secure thing that I'm becoming a strange from how I actually feel,

Starting point is 00:04:58 which is kind of neglected and hurt. And so there's this way, I think, that those of us that are so familiar with attachment styles can try to act secure in a way that makes us abandon where we're really at. And that's why I say it's really about telling the truth as to where you are. The first step of actually being secure,

Starting point is 00:05:16 which I say secure-ish, so we always leave room for the parts of ourselves that need our help and care is to check in with yourself. And I think a lot of discussion on attachment is how we treat other people. But first, can I offer this regulation to my partner? I just regulated myself, right?

Starting point is 00:05:31 Like, can I extend grace? Because women will destroy their sense of self to have grace for other people. Can I offer this grace? Or I'm actually pissed right now. And that's like not actually attainable for me. And so I think the first step of any sort of secure-ish attachment style

Starting point is 00:05:46 is to ask yourself, where am I actually at? how do I actually feel and given where I'm actually at, what can I offer this other person? Wait, women will destroy their sense of self to have grace for other people. Can you explain what you mean by that in some ways that might be manifesting in our lives? Yeah, so I remember I first said this line. I was doing a speaking event. And the questions were like, so my friend just had a baby shower and I had a miscarriage.

Starting point is 00:06:14 So like I really didn't want to go. But like, am I being a bad friend? or like, oh, I've been like reaching out to my friend, but they never respond to me, but I see them posting on Instagram. Like, should I keep trying to reach out? And we just heard over and over the stories of these women that were just so uncomfortable and felt so bad, but couldn't acknowledge how they actually felt because they felt like they had to be a good person and they had to have grace for the other person to the extent that they were shaming themselves for their natural and reasonable reactions to what was happening. And so when I saw that in real time, the ways that like women often have this internal battle with themselves, like we may feel a certain way, but we don't give ourselves permission to feel that way. And we label it as I'm not being a good person. And I just want to give all of us permission to feel how we feel, even if it's quote unquote irrational, even if it's what we shouldn't be feeling, even if it's antisocial, right? Because the first step to changing any feeling is allowing it to exist in the first place. What if we've been met with negative reactions for feeling how we feel in the past? What if people have gotten mad at us or stopped hanging out with us or told us that's not okay? Well, this is a good clarifying point, right?

Starting point is 00:07:26 Because feeling how you feel has nothing to do with other people. It's within you, right? Like, within you, do you allow yourself to notice when you feel upset or are you convincing yourself out of it as quickly as it comes up? You know, I'll say examples of how this works for me is I have a friend who is like, oh, I overslept, so I'm going to be an hour late. And I'm like, oh, I've been like trying to get ready for an hour rushing to see you and now you overslept, but you didn't mean it. This is before I even say anything to her. I'm already fighting internally. And I don't need to do that. I can just be like,

Starting point is 00:07:56 hey, I'm kind of upset. Like, I'm kind of pissed by this. Okay, that's valid. That's reasonable. Let me let that feeling exist within me. And I think for so long, I thought that that would make the feeling worse, but now from writing worth, I realize simply labeling feelings actually deactivates the amygdala, the part of your brain associated with threat. And so the more that you can tolerate the feeling, the less likely it is then to hover over my interaction with that late friend. I can then offer this friend compassion and grace from a place of groundedness that it doesn't involve me abandoning myself. So it's not about the conversation that you have with your friend. It's about the conversation that you have with yourself. Exactly. You hit the nail on the head.

Starting point is 00:08:36 the conversation you have to, it has to be, I embrace whatever feelings come towards me. It's okay to feel. I'll give you another example is. So I had a friend, I didn't feel like I was necessarily getting reciprocity and we kind of had talked about it. Anyway, so finally we were going to hang out. And this friend got into an accident and couldn't see me. And I was like, oh my gosh, of course, take care of yourself. But if I slowed down, I actually felt rejected.

Starting point is 00:09:02 I didn't want to feel rejected, right? Because this isn't about me. This is this friend's thing. They've gone through an accident. Obviously, I just wanted to feel compassion for them. But my ability to slow down and acknowledge, oh, I feel rejected in the context of this friendship and to feel that and to allow that, even if it was not what I wanted to feel, even if I felt like a good person wouldn't feel that way, right, to put all of that aside and to just

Starting point is 00:09:24 acknowledge this moment of rejection, then it moves through me. And I'm able to offer this friend compassion and say, absolutely, take care of yourself, like do what you need to do in a way that feels wholehearted and not in a way that feels like in this moment I'm trying to people please and do the right thing, which I know the right thing is. Even if in my body, I'm feeling kind of differently because this is bringing up other stuff in me. Actually, attending to our feelings makes us treat the other people around us better as well. How do you recognize if you have this buried thing? Like you said, actually, like I felt a little rejected. I didn't really like that. Before I wrote this book, Liz, I would have just sent that

Starting point is 00:09:59 compassionate text and felt kind of a little torn on the inside, but felt like I needed to do the right thing which I knew. And just it would have, it would have been an ambivalent experience if I'm honest in a way that I wouldn't have completely been conscious of. But when I wrote this book, Worth, and I interviewed people that were secure, they said things like, I would wave my hand over the day to see where my emotional energy lied. And I was like, whoa, you're actually looking for those moments where you're a little triggered? Like, that is amazing to me. Like, I'm used to acknowledging feelings when they're hitting me over the head, but not when they're like that subtle.

Starting point is 00:10:35 So knowing that, knowing that these people that were secure, they embrace antisocial feelings, negative feelings, like they welcome them. They allow them to be there because that's a part of themselves that they don't want to leave, that every part of yourself is worth cherishing. And so that made me engage in this practice of mindfulness where now my goal is to be more aware. And I notice in myself that these feelings I shouldn't be feeling, I so quickly push them away.

Starting point is 00:11:01 I don't even know that it's happening unless I'm engaged in a practice of trying to look for it. And so it was writing this book and realizing that security is about feeling at all, like welcoming at all. And then the next time someone says, I got into an accident and I need to take care of myself, like, because I felt that feeling of rejection, the next time it comes up less strongly, right? It is an investment in myself and in my relationships in the future.

Starting point is 00:11:24 Okay. I have a game to play because there is so much misinformation about attachment styles, attachment theory, et cetera. So we're going to play a secure attachment myth versus fast. Okay, I love this. This is a video from Anna on TikTok. I healed my anxious attachment and became a secure person. And this is how I stopped giving a fuck.

Starting point is 00:11:46 In all seriousness, the best thing my therapist ever told me is that we all have all attachment styles. The trick is to find a person who brings out your secure attachment style. For me, this meant I had to date someone who is naturally communicative, consistent, and trustworthy. Instead of chasing emotionally unavailable, mixed messaging, a dicker. addicted to chaos, bookery. And that happened by loving myself. And I know that there's that annoying platitude of you can't love someone else until you love yourself. I would like to reframe that platitude as loving yourself teaches you what love you're going to accept from other people. Once I started really loving myself the way that I kept wishing a partner would love me,

Starting point is 00:12:26 the less I started tolerating people who showed up with any less. So can you heal your attachment simply by the people that you're in relationship with. Is that a myth or is that a fact? It can and does improve your attachment style to be in relationship with people that make you feel secure. I mean, what we'll go through probably later in this book

Starting point is 00:12:47 is that our attachment style are basically a series of memories that we have as to how we've been treated, right? And building new memories, there's this theory called retrieval competition theory, which is our behaviors and our actions are determined by which memories

Starting point is 00:13:01 are most salient to us. And so as you date someone secure and more of these memories of people care when I'm upset, people communicate, I don't have to walk on eggshells, become more salient to you, then those become more prevalent in your bag of attachment-related memories. Yeah, that was crazy to me, that you essentially can change your memories by the way you approach and think about them. Is that true? Yeah, this is what the crux of the book is. Yeah, I mean, I've just never heard that before. Yeah, it is wild stuff. Okay, we'll get into more of the memory stuff later, but suffice to say that one of the things

Starting point is 00:13:40 that you hypothesize that you share in this book is that we can literally change our memories and change the ways that we remember things, which is wild. Do we all have all attachment styles in us? I would say, yeah. I think attachment styles are less of a category. And even in the research world, they started calling them orientations or styles because different people can bring up different aspects of our attachment styles. And it makes sense, right? Because a lot of us have memories of both being abandoned and of people, people that we couldn't trust, people that have betrayed us, right? Different parents can have different ways of relating to us. And so we have different memories and new situations can trigger any one of those memories. So you may experience yourself

Starting point is 00:14:18 in one relationship as anxious and you date a very anxious person, all of a sudden you become more avoidant and you see that these different attachment styles exist without us. Just to wrap your head around this, Liz, like, if you described yourself as funny, there'd be some friends you were funnier with. There'd be some friends you were less funny with, right? There's some friends that that part of you doesn't get tapped into at all. Like, this is, this is actually true about personality in general that you have trait base, which is like, I tend to be funny across different circumstances, but you also have state base, which is in certain situations, these parts of me come out. I identify as a funny person, but I don't think the podcast listeners

Starting point is 00:14:53 get to see that side of me, which makes me, I'm like, do they think I'm so serious and so boring? Okay, So kind of fact, fact for this person, do you think that a good way to approach healing our attachment issues is to kind of go relationally first, or do you think it's to go inward personally first? I mean, hopefully both. The hard thing about only going relationally, which is self-verification theory, which we were talking about, which is this idea that we look for people that verify our sense of self. And so if we feel bad about ourselves and people see us too positively, we tend to feel threat that they're going to figure out who I really am.

Starting point is 00:15:30 It's only a matter of time. I'm so anxious. Eventually, they're going to reject me. It doesn't actually feel like safety. It feels like precursor for harm for people that have poor self-esteem. And so because of that, even when people with low self-esteem get into more positive relationship with loving partners, they experience less intimacy because it's quite threatening for them.

Starting point is 00:15:50 It reveals how deeply entrenched their low sense of worth is. If you struggle with self-esteem, someone can really love you, but you don't actually receive that love. You underestimate how much people love you. That's what low self-esteem's correlated with that underestimation. And the love I learned in your book can make you feel worse. Like getting praise, getting compliments. It raises your blood pressure to get compliments if you have low self-esteem. When positive events happen to you, you're more likely to visit the doctor months later. What's happening there is that our sense of worth is a theory for how the world works. And if it's low, it's that, okay, people are going to reject me and harm is going to come. And that might

Starting point is 00:16:27 sound like a sucky theory, but what it does is it makes you feel prepared if that does happen. And when people do things that counter your theory, it's like, do I have a coherent sense of reality? Do I have control? Like chaos can happen. Anything can happen. Like, it's quite threatening when something happens that counters our theory, even if it's a good thing. I will get back into myth versus fact in a second, but I want to linger on this for a little bit because it explained so many of the ways that I have interacted with the world historically and so many of the things that I see my friends doing. Like, I have a friend and she says all the time that she wants a life partner, but she doesn't do anything that would bring her closer to having a life partner. And the people

Starting point is 00:17:07 that she surrounds herself with are not the type of people she would ever want to make a life partner. Could that be because she's trying to reinforce the certainty of the way that she sees the world, even though it's not good. It's not actually what she wants, but she's stuck in this life. because it feels certain. And according to self-verification theory, like the certainty of the worst option is better than the uncertainty of this life that she really dreams about.

Starting point is 00:17:32 I love the way that you're applying it. I mean, I don't know your friend, obviously, but certainly, according to that, that's aligned with self-verification theory, that we're actually soothed when someone treats us just as badly as we feel we deserve, right? That is crazy. We are actually soothed when somebody treats us

Starting point is 00:17:48 just as badly as we feel we deserve. Yes, because it's like you're validating, my sense of reality. Like, oh my gosh. It's like women who suspect their husbands are cheating on them. In a way, when they find out he actually is, it's like, oh, what a relief here. I thought it was crazy. I was suspicious this whole time, you know? Like, finally, like, finally. Like, now I have the closure that I need before I was just kind of on eggshells waiting for that bad thing to happen and not knowing what reality was. You can kind of see it in that way, the way that it's actually a relief when the reality that we think will happen, even if it's negative, actually comes to

Starting point is 00:18:20 past. Well, and I think to take that a step further, and I want to leave infidelity out of it because I don't think that it's your fault if your partner is cheating on you. And I don't want anybody to perceive what I'm saying in that way at all. But if we are always trying to create the world that lives in our head because we like that certainty, that's going to impact the way that we show up in our friendships. That's going to impact the way that we show up at a job interview. That's going to impact in a real way the results that we're getting from the world and the positions that we're putting ourselves in and the risks that we're willing to take. And so to me, self-verification theory was this, like, lightball moment of being like,

Starting point is 00:18:57 oh, this is why people are trapped in lives that they hate. Exactly. Because the life that they hate feels certain. And so they have this subconscious part of their brain that's sabotaging them whenever they try to deviate from that. And here's the thing. If you break out of it, it doesn't actually feel like you broke out of it, right? If you found that love that you always wanted and that person is so loving, right?

Starting point is 00:19:20 you don't actually feel loved. If you find that great success and you become that CEO, you're just feeling like an imposter the entire time. And that, I think, is one of the most compelling reasons to work on our sense of worth. Everything beautiful about life slips off of us if it doesn't match how we see ourselves. Wait, so what is one concrete action step

Starting point is 00:19:39 for somebody who's like, wait, I do have the beautiful life and it doesn't feel good, or I feel trapped and I feel like I can't even get to the place where I get that beautiful life that I want? First, the concrete action step is to notice that this is happening, to notice the part of you that's trying to reject this, to notice the part of you that's assuming that the bad thing is going to happen. Because only if you notice that that happens and take a step away from it, can you begin

Starting point is 00:20:04 to question whether this reality that you fear is actually going to happen? But for so many of us, this is so deeply entrenched that it's hardwired, it's running on autopilot. And so the first step is to notice that I have these fears that the other shoe will drop. doesn't necessarily mean that it's reality. Understanding how the brain works, right? My prediction might not necessarily mean that it's reality. And then it's, I mean, the other way is like, we psychologists call it, we capitalize, we try to savor.

Starting point is 00:20:33 When something good happens, actually focus on the good. One practical way that we can do this is, let's say I said, you're so smart, Liz, and you don't feel smart, right? And you're just like, no, no, no, no, because now I have to act so smart all the time. And this is so much pressure to live up to this. Instead, the researchers asked, can you accept that she thinks you're smart? And then they're like, oh, I can accept that she thinks I'm smart.

Starting point is 00:20:57 And that's a way to circumvent the sort of sense of self-filter that's happening. Like, okay, I don't have to accept that this compliment is true about me, but I can accept that someone thinks that it is true. Is there anything that we can do to help if we have another person in our life who we see that they're suffering from this? We see that they're limiting their own life or they're always like, I knew it was going to work out like this or like there's no men. in this whole world for me or stuff like that. Like if we see those signs of that, is there anything that we can do to kind of shake them out of it?

Starting point is 00:21:25 Confident your own desire to shake. Really? Oh no. I know. Okay, so I had a friend, bad at taking compliments. I started to say, I'm about to give you a compliment

Starting point is 00:21:36 and you have to receive it. I started to disclaim that. And now that I study worth, I realize that this is really the wrong approach, right? Because I am trying to force this person to do something that is gravely threatening for them. That is literally triggering an identity crisis in them, that I see them so differently than they see themselves.

Starting point is 00:21:53 Oh, like to your whole point, it's raising their blood pressure. It's actually like having a negative impact on them. Exactly. So I catch myself when friends express doubts about themselves. And that part of me that wants to say, but you're so amazing and you're so great. And I'm like, no. What I have to do is validate how they feel.

Starting point is 00:22:10 I have to be a witness for exactly how they're feeling. Wait, so do you say your piece of shit? No, I say it's okay to feel that way. It's okay to feel insecure. It's okay to feel anxious. All of us feel anxious from time to time. Tell me more, what piece of this feels threatening. What's coming up in you? Like, I'm here to listen. Okay. So to my friend, it's okay to feel like there's literally no good men in this world. It's okay to feel cynical. So many people dating come to a place of cynicism. Tell me more. What are some of the recent experiences that have made you particularly cynical? Like, what's something you've been struggling with lately? I'm here to listen. It is so interesting that when I am trying to be a good friend, I'm actually like attacking them. It actually is so interesting that I'm sitting here thinking like I'm trying to help you see your options, your opportunities, how great the world can be.

Starting point is 00:22:58 And actually I'm raising their blood pressure and making their idea of certainty feel under threat. Well, Liz, what do you see happens after you do this? Oh, it's never great. Yeah. And that's the thing. I think that's a very instructive. like if your friend's sense of reality was somewhat close to the one that you were offering,

Starting point is 00:23:16 they might be able to meet you there, right? So it's not like we should never compliment our friends. Like it could be like a bridge reality. Exactly. And so if I compliment my friend on something very specific, like, I really like this pie that you made, right? She can take that in. And so it's about giving our friends affirmations

Starting point is 00:23:33 that are attainable for them rather than trying to completely pull them out of their sense of reality completely. Because, you know, I'm not saying never compliment your friend, never love on your friend, it's always going to be threatening. For example, there's research on affirmations when people say, I am loved. People tend to feel better after they do these affirmations. But people with low self-worth, do not, because that is not attainable for them. I am loved, right? Maybe it's, I could be liked by some people, right? And so we need to find

Starting point is 00:23:58 what's actually obtainable for our nervous system and offer ourselves that and offer the people in our life that. So my action step is, one, examine my desire to enforce my worldview on the people that I love and maybe reel that back in a little bit. But two, it would be to see where they are at. And if anything, give them like a baby step, a bridge. A bridge. I saw one man who appeared single and nice. I have a nice date. Yeah. And even like noticing that with your friend, like, oh, I know it's been hard in dating and you felt so cynical, but it sounds like you had one really nice date. You know, you can even point out what they're saying back to them. Okay. I love that. Okay. Back to myth versus fact. Secure people don't need outside reassurance. They take care of their own emotional needs.

Starting point is 00:24:44 Oh, no. What secure people have is flexibility, which means that they can go to themselves or other people. Anxiously attached people can only go towards other people. They need another person to soothe them. Avoidantly to attach people can only go to themselves. They can't go to other people because they find that so shameful and even cringe-worthy. And so they have a lot of trouble being vulnerable and are having a confidant. But secure people have the flexibility. They say, I'm going to offer myself some care. maybe if I need more care, I'll go to a friend. You know, the friend will offer me something. Then I'll do a little reflection in journaling on myself.

Starting point is 00:25:16 Secure-ish attachment is all about having that flexibility. Okay, so that is a myth. Secure people don't get jealous. Their feelings aren't reliant on other people's. No, secure people are not perfect. Like, they're human. It's not that they never feel sadness, pain, jealousy. It's just that they have a lot more agility around it.

Starting point is 00:25:33 And that's because they welcome the feeling and they don't shame themselves for them, right? And it's like if you had a friend next to you who was always like, hey, how are you feeling is okay? And it's valid. And I'm here for you. Tell me more. And that's like kind of the more of the internal world of the person that's more secure. Okay. So if you have a partner who gets jealous or you are in a relationship where you get jealous, even a friendship, which I do think we're talking about friendships as much as we're talking about romantic relationships here and you get jealous of your friends, that doesn't mean that you have an attachment issue?

Starting point is 00:26:03 No, no. And in fact, I think we need to allow normal, human, messy emotion. I think that's the way forward to move towards security. It's less about the feelings you feel and more about the reaction to the feelings you feel that marks your attachment style. So the anxious person is typically catastrophizing. I should be ashamed of myself. I'm too much.

Starting point is 00:26:23 I'm too needy. The avoidant person is like, oh, I got to push this away. This is weak. This isn't something I should be feeling. This means I'm less than if I have this feeling. And the secure person is like, oh, there's my jealousy. You know, what do I need? What care do I need? What compassion can I offer myself? So again, secure attachment is not marked by the initial feelings that come up, but what you do with those feelings when they come up.

Starting point is 00:26:43 Would a secure person act not to themselves, but to somebody else differently in the situation? Like, let's say we are jealous of our friends made plans without us. What a secure person do something differently externally in that situation? Yeah, potentially. So a securely attached person would probably feel more comfortable will bring it up, but in a particular type of way. Securely attached people, they tend to be more emotionally regulated because they have this more positive relationship with their feelings. And so when they bring up problems and issues, they do it with high amounts of perspective

Starting point is 00:27:18 taking without blaming or attacking the other person. They might just say like, hey, like, I saw you all hung out. I'm really happy for you, but like, I've been feeling kind of lonely and I would love to be invited versus the anxiously attached person who's like, I can't believe you all treat me like this. How could you do this to me? I thought you were my friends. And the avoidant person who's like, I'm silently planning my own rejection

Starting point is 00:27:40 of this entire group and moving on with my life. I'm not going to say which one I see myself in. Big news. After me taking seeds DSO1 daily symbiotic for five years now and you guys sending me literally thousands of DMs about how much you love it,

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Starting point is 00:28:46 We're getting more nutrients out of our food. Our gut microbiomes impact everything. More than 2 million people have experienced the power of DSO1 and 92% of members have recommended it to a friend or family member. This is definitely a situation where if you have been curious, just try it. See if it makes a difference for you. If you're ready to experience a probiotic that actually works, go to cede.com slash Liz Moody and use code Liz Moody to get 25% off your first month. That is seed.com slash Liz Moody, code Liz Moody. Your skin isn't just getting older. It's being actively broken down by something called senescent cell. They sit there releasing inflammatory signals, breaking down your collagen,

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Starting point is 00:30:41 Again, that's 15% off at one skin.c.co with code Liz. This episode is brought to you by IQ Bar, our exclusive snack sponsor. One of the easiest micro habits to change your diet is to stop giving yourself the unhealthy option. and the option you don't want to reach for in the first place. So the key is to plan ahead, and I do that by keeping IQ bars in my car and in my bag. So no matter how busy the day gets, I already have a smart, healthy option ready to go. These were one of the bars that my personal RD recommended for me as I worked with her over the course of a year to lose 30 pounds in a healthy way.

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Starting point is 00:32:37 Like if they get too upset, too overwhelmed, they'll withdraw. You'll lose them and their love. But if you can detect and fix every problem for them, then you're good. You're safe. Right? No. That's called codependence. Love doesn't require you to manage the emotions of another adult.

Starting point is 00:32:55 your feelings from theirs, allow them to rely on their own resilience, and trust them to manage their own feelings. Be supportive, be present, be kind. But remember, you can't fix their problems for them. Is wanting to fix somebody else a sign of insecure attachment and is not wanting to do that a sign of secure attachment? Well, first of all, I just want to say, like, I think a lot of us attachment influencers. We portray a standard of perfection that's unhuman. And like in the psychology world, emotional contagion, which is like if someone around you feels a certain emotion, it's contagious.

Starting point is 00:33:33 And this is a fact. This is a well-researched fact, right? And it's not necessarily a sign if you're uncomfortable because someone else is like exuding this really negative energy that that's your codependence speaking, right? That's your inability to separate your own sense of self. Like I just, I don't know. I'm just tired of the shaming language around like natural human methods. and natural human tendencies. So I don't think that that's necessarily a sign of your own

Starting point is 00:33:56 co-dependence that you're affected by other people's mood. It's a good reminder to have that, like, this doesn't necessarily mean anything about you or this doesn't necessarily mean that you've done something wrong. I can see how that would be a really reassuring reminder to have, but like, what I want people to do is stay connected to you and stay connected to your nervous system. And so if you're constantly around someone in a bad mood and you don't have the ability to separate yourself from it, right? It's not just about enduring and trying to cosplay like you're secure in the situation, right? It's about attending to who you uniquely are and your idiosyncratic needs.

Starting point is 00:34:34 And so you as someone who's affected by the energy of the room, which could be a temperament thing, could be basic emotional contagion, right? If this is like somebody around all the time in particular, you may have to talk about it and say, like I want you to be able to like feel the way you're feeling. I also have noticed that it affects me and that sometimes I might withdraw and I just don't want us to get into that cycle. And so what can we do moving forward? What can we do?

Starting point is 00:34:55 Because I heard this and I was like, shoot, because I do get, Zach will get grumpy and then I'll get grumpy because I'm hanging out with Zach. And then he'll be like, well, shouldn't I be allowed to feel the way that I feel? I'm like, you sure should. And it makes me grumpy. Yeah. I mean, you can create a plan together. Like think of it as if we're a team, right?

Starting point is 00:35:12 What feels caring to you? What feels caring to me? And so maybe Liz is like, all right, if you're a grumpy mood, I'm going to remind you that I love you. And then I might go play my pickleball. I might stick around and try to be reassuring to the extent that I can. But once I reach that moment where I'm like, oh, now I'm going to get in this cycle with you, it's not good for either of us. Maybe I will redirect my energy. There's this parable of like somebody falls into a hole and one person comes along and they're like reaching down and trying to pull them out of the hole and they get pulled into the hole.

Starting point is 00:35:38 And then another person comes along and like throws a ladder down and then they climb out of the hole. And I think you're saying, like, stop yourself before you fall into the hole. I'm saying, yeah, instead of trying to be secure, you have to start with being who you are. Yeah. Because completely disregulating yourself because this is what a secure person should think. It's not healing you. Secure people don't take responsibility for stuff that isn't theirs and they don't deflect responsibility for stuff that is. Yeah, secure people are pretty good at taking accountability.

Starting point is 00:36:07 Secure people tend to take feedback less as an attack on the self. That really comes from their history where one of the first. the defining factors of parents that raise secure kids is they let their kids make mistakes. And they're not like, you should be ashamed of yourself. Why did you do that? That's such a screw up, right? They're like, oh, it happens. Like, we drop the milk sometimes. Like, I'll pick it up for you, right? And so they haven't necessarily internalized that belief that when I do something wrong, I am wrong as a person that some of the other insecure attachment styles have internalized. Okay, so fact.

Starting point is 00:36:36 Secure people admit when they're wrong have caused harm or been mistaken, including when it wasn't intentional. Yeah. There's research that secure people are more forgiving. They tend to, again, be better at conflict in terms of more regulating and more considerate of the other person's sense of reality. They're able to recognize another person's sense of reality, even if their own is different, right?

Starting point is 00:36:57 And so they can say, like, I know I didn't mean that, but I understand that it affected you. And I still want to acknowledge the ways that you feel. My first book, I talk about, like, mutuality, which is understanding, considering both people's reality at the same time. rather than one person's reality needing to eclipse the other person. Is this like when they say when you're in a relationship, you shouldn't fight for who's right? You should fight on behalf of the relationship kind of. Yeah, because it's like, what is right?

Starting point is 00:37:23 I'm instead more curious about what is true for you. Maybe it's not right that my partner feels threatened when I hang out with my friends, right? Maybe that's not right for me. I don't think they should feel threatened. I'm not doing anything shady, right? That doesn't feel fair. but like if I discount my partner continuously in that, then we're not actually going to be able to work on their feelings of insecurity in that moment.

Starting point is 00:37:47 And we don't actually make it better. And so I think we need to be less concerned with what is the right way to act in a relationship and what is actually happening. What's actually triggering us. And once we know the truth, then we can figure out what to do from a place of reality. This is from Bree on TikTok. Here's the thing. Secure women are not just following different rules.

Starting point is 00:38:05 they're operating from an entirely different internal foundation. They're not white knuckling their way through not texting. They genuinely feel differently about it. We don't feel the urge the same way because their sense of self and safety and okayness isn't tied to his response. How does the work, not the rules? My question here is, is it okay to fake it until you make it? Or do you need to be operating by this whole different internal playbook?

Starting point is 00:38:33 Oh my gosh. I struggle so much with this content because I'm just like, it's the hierarchy of attachment styles. It's the abandon yourself to act secure in this connection that is actually making things worse. Because now not only are you anxious

Starting point is 00:38:48 about getting the text back, but you're like, this is so bad, I'm not secure, right? And you're adding that layer of shame. It's okay if your nervous system's reacting. Let's start with that. Like, it's okay if you're anxious. You need to be secure

Starting point is 00:38:59 and you really should do better and, like, play by this different playbook. We just need to tell the truth. Yes, securely attached people generally less threatened. They might have less of reaction, but they still might have some reaction. And like, once you acknowledge that you are anxious in that moment, if that is the truth, you can feel that and you can say, I'm anxious. And you can say, let me put my hand on my chest and tell myself, I'm safe, I'm safe, I'm safe. And that is the moment when you start to become more secure. Not the moment when you're like, well, I got to be a secure

Starting point is 00:39:29 lady. And so I shouldn't feel this anxious. And now I'm just going to pretend I'm not. I'm operating from a different playbook than this influencer, which is that it's okay to be anxious. It's okay to be avoided and we need to start with the truth. And whatever is true and whatever is real is good. It's good. Okay, so let's take the specific situation that she seems to be referencing, which is like when you're dating somebody newly and you wish they were texting you and you can't decide whether you should send a text.

Starting point is 00:39:58 And you're like, if I was more securely attached, I would just be off living my life and not caring if they're texting me. What should we be doing in that situation? If I was very anxious about getting a text back, well, I would try to self-sooth. And so that's, again, me putting my hand in my chest and telling myself, I'm safe, I'm safe. I might bring up in person a conversation about texting styles. And what anxious people really need is a sense of predictability. So if they know someone tends to text once a day, they can be okay.

Starting point is 00:40:26 It's when they feel like that person should be texting them throughout the day and they're not, right? And so just be like, you know, I know, like texting can be a thing when you're dating new person and people can like attribute all types of meaning to it. And I just kind of want to see like, what does it mean to you and show some curiosity there? And then you might share, I do get anxious. So it's helpful for me to hear what your own style is and go off of that. And you could even just say like, oh, you know, what feels caring to me is if you ever do have an issue or you're not feeling this anymore, like just communicate it with me directly.

Starting point is 00:40:54 And I really benefit when I know I can trust that in another person. What about the idea that we're trying to portray secure so that we are desirable so that You don't scare people away, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, for me. And this might not be everyone. I get it. First of all, like we have so much internalize this shame around our insecurities rather than, like, it's what we need to be looking for is people that are vulnerable about their insecurities, not people that don't have any. And so I understand why people feel compelled.

Starting point is 00:41:24 But I really think of security as the ability to communicate your insecurities without shaming yourself or attacking another person. That is a beautiful thing. That would make me feel more secure with someone. The person that brought up the conversation on texting in a way that was just curiosity, that's actually a sign of security. Yeah, I actually can picture the conversation and it would feel quite confident if somebody said, hey, it makes me feel good to get a text once a day. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:41:50 Does that work for you? Yeah. That feels confident. My needs matter. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. Okay.

Starting point is 00:41:58 Let's do, as the last one, securely attached people have high self-esteem. and don't rely on other people to make them feel good about themselves. I think some of these statements have been very black or white. They're still human. Their amygdala is not lighting up as much as the anxious person

Starting point is 00:42:14 in reaction to perceive rejection, but they still are really anxious about it, right? They're still a little worried. They still feel rejected sometimes. They still feel excluded sometimes. It's just not as strong of an emotion, again, because of their history of people showing care when they feel emotion

Starting point is 00:42:31 and their ability to give them that to themselves, which the anxious person they've worn in people can cultivate. You say there's actually two types of high self-esteem. There's like a good high self-esteem and a bad high self-esteem. And I immediately had people like pop into my brain for both. But can you tell us the difference? So I'm reading all this research on self-esteem and I see these people that say they feel good about themselves, they feel worthy.

Starting point is 00:42:54 And they have very different profiles in terms of how they treat other people. So one kind, who I call the bad twin in the book, They're trying to act superior to everyone. They're always bragging, maybe trying to be the center of intention, very reactive, tend to put people down, tend to assume the worst than others. And we're antagonistic, have worse relationships than people with low self-esteem. I always viewed that as like compensatory, but you're like that actually is they have high self-esteem. This is just the way it's manifesting.

Starting point is 00:43:22 They say they do on the questionnaire. Okay. Got it. Oh, that's interesting. Yes, they say they do on the questionnaires and they're often not conscious of their own insecurities. And then the other type that says they feel worthy, right? Compassionate towards others, kind, has the best relationships of anybody, able to admit fault, take accountability, non-defensive, pretty emotionally regulated. And so there's really these two different kinds.

Starting point is 00:43:47 And so when you ask people, like, do you feel good about yourself as a measure of whether they're a person with high self-esteem? Is it that they feel good about themselves or that they would be unable to admit if they didn't? And that is the quote unquote bad twin. They are unable to admit their own shame, their own vulnerabilities. They constantly have to present as invincible and perfect. How does this relate to the conversation about worth and secure attachment, et cetera, et cetera? Great question. So as I'm reading all of this, I'm like, I don't want to help people become mean kind of high self-sely.

Starting point is 00:44:22 And that's why I'm like maybe cringing at some of these videos because I'm like, you are telling people they have to be perfect. They can't show their flaws. and that is exactly what is driving the kind of mean high self-esteem, right? And so I'm talking to one of my colleagues, Beth, and I'm like, I don't know what the difference is between these two. Like, why are they both saying they have high self-esteem, but their relationships manifest so differently?

Starting point is 00:44:45 And so she's like, I'm trying to think about when I feel defensive, and it's usually because I'm feeling ashamed. And Beth is someone I could see had this sort of more positive type of high self-esteem. And I realized in the moment the difference between these two. too high self-esteem is one can admit their vulnerabilities, can admit how they feel, can acknowledge how they feel. And because of that, these feelings don't hijack them and lead them to firebom the next person. So that person is then becoming your way of regulating your own feelings by putting them down, right? And so it's the ability to feel everything. And that's really how I

Starting point is 00:45:21 define worth is the ability to treat our internal world as if it matters, specifically to treat the way that we feel as if it matters to us, as if we are deserving of our own attention, care, and compassion when we feel certain types of emotions and that continuous practice of treating your internal world, how you feel as if it matters, culminates in you feeling as if you matter.

Starting point is 00:45:45 And that to you is the missing piece of the conversation that's been... Yes, exactly. Let's start talking about how you're relating yourself internally, not just how you're relating other people because how you relate to other people is a byproduct of how you're relating to yourself internally. And if you aren't relating to yourself internally as this whole person, then you can have this high self-esteem, quote, unquote, but it's really blanketed and shame. Yeah, exactly. It's a way to escape shame by I'm going to portray myself as if I'm perfect all the time. And there's so much shame at the core of that.

Starting point is 00:46:17 I know. Whenever I see those people, I do want to just like give them a hug. You giving them a hug would be involved acknowledging that the shame is there. And that's exactly. what they don't want to happen. So what can we do with those people? I don't know. It's there so far. You know, I hope they listen to this podcast. They can get some insight and some directions forward. What are some signs that we're not securely attached, even if we think we are? This is a good question. People pleasing, doing the right thing for other people, even if it evolves in abandoning your own sense of reality. Ignoring your own discomfort for the sake of your relationship. That might be a sign you think you're secure, but you're actually not. When you desire to withdraw from other people, and you don't really

Starting point is 00:47:01 know why, and you keep trying to ignore it. Wait, I do that. When I'm feeling anxious or sad, and my friends can tell, and then they'll reach out, reach out, reach out, it's when I should answer their text the most. It's when I should respond to their invitations to hang out the most, and I don't, I retreat, retreat, retreat. Is that because I'm not securely attached? What do you think? What do you think of what's going on for you? No, you're the expert. Well, I would say, like, often the withdrawal can be, and I can't speak for you, right? But from the assumption that their care isn't real, and then in fact, it feels quite shameful, and now I'm acknowledging the shame that I have by talking to you about it, right?

Starting point is 00:47:38 And so it's a struggle to actually internalize the care that's been offered to you that makes withdrawing much more attractive. What should I do? Like, should I white knuckle into? I would confront that desire to withdraw and sit with it. and maybe ask yourself what's happening there. What does it mean to you? What's scary about talking to them? You know, explore, explore that.

Starting point is 00:47:59 Explore your own sense of reality. I think I struggle sometimes with when I'm not my sparkly as shiny as self. Am I still lovable in that state? Yeah. And that's so relatable. I feel like so many people can relate to that and feeling like, oh, if I don't present perfectly, people aren't going to like me. You said in the book, I thought that this line was really interesting.

Starting point is 00:48:17 We think that maybe if I finally find the right job, get the right body or date the right person, I will feel good enough. We're pushing off that sense of security for, and then we're so motivated. You know, I have friends that are so motivated by romance. And I'm like, why? Like, you have this beautiful community of friendship. I mean, this is my shtick,

Starting point is 00:48:36 because I wrote a book on friendship. But I realize, oh, it's because they're chasing their own sense of self. And then I have a lot more compassion. I'm like, yes, like, we see our sense of ultimate validation as wrapped up in so many things. Some of its career. it's body type, it's getting a romantic partner. And we have this almost urgency around it, right?

Starting point is 00:48:57 Where it feels like it's almost consuming. That's like this is the most important thing in my life and I elevated it above all else, right? And whenever there's urgency or rigidity, I think there's a deeper, often a deeper wound there. And often it's because I'm seeing my sense of self-worth as being offered to me if I do this one thing. Well, and going back to self-verification theory, if you get the thing, if you find the love of your life. If you get your dream body, if you get your dream job, it will not feel good to you. If it feels incongruent with your vision that you have for yourself in your life. I'm sure you've seen this so much, Liz, because you're around successful people all the time,

Starting point is 00:49:35 that they're not always happy. They're often not happy. And in fact, you know, I've had a doctor tell me that, like, at least before I was a doctor, I had hope. I had hope that if I became a doctor, it would all go away. I've heard this from very rich. people who have like hundreds of millions of dollars and they're like at least before I had the money and I'm not saying, like, you don't have to out there, like, sit there feeling bad for very rich people. And they're like, before I had this money, I had this idea that if I made a lot of money, that would solve all the problems in my life. And now I realize that's not true. And now it's worse because I don't have the hope that there's something that will solve it, right?

Starting point is 00:50:13 I mean, not saying having a ton of money makes your life worse, but. Yeah. I'll still take it. Yeah. Exactly. But, no, I think there's a very real thing with, yes, go after all of those things. Like, so much of my time on this podcast is spent saying, here's how you get. your dream job. Here's how you get your dream partner. All of these things. Here's how you get the health that you deserve. And if you don't feel internally worthy of this, this is real psychology, real research, it won't feel good to you. It will actually make you more stress. Make you more. Isn't that so sad? That's crazy. The very things that we think should make us feel

Starting point is 00:50:45 better are only making us feel worse. Like, it's hard to be a human being. For me, that was just the biggest wake-up call in your book. It's like, you have to do this work. Otherwise, everything else that you are working towards in your life is not only not going to feel good to you. It's going to make you feel worse than if you did not get the things of your dreams. Okay. Let's talk about if we are not securely attached. How might that play out? Let's say it work. Again, insecurely attached, people are more reactive. And that might manifest in different ways. You might be snapping at people. You might be withdrawing. You may have trouble bringing up that there's a problem or issue to your manager or boss, because if you're anxious, you just think it's your fault. If you're avoidant, you don't trust anybody to

Starting point is 00:51:26 help you. You might struggle to take criticism at work. If your boss gives you negative feedback, you might be planning your escape, whereas securely attached people often tend to have more of a growth mindset. Again, because of their history, they're able to say, oh, I made a mistake. Okay, this is something I can work on. Like, what can I do to improve this? It's also going to manifest in your relationships with their colleagues. Like, if you're avoidant, less likely to form close relationships with their colleagues, which, you know, leads to more career success and and promotion versus if you're anxious, you might feel like you have. You do invest in those relationships, but you're constantly wondering if they really like you

Starting point is 00:52:01 or they're invested in you or a lot of insecurities come up around those connections at work too. And we've talked about friendship and romantic relationships a little bit. I'd love to talk about our relationship with our kids. Are we destined to repeat our attachment styles with our kids? I just have so much empathy for parents, right? because it's so hard. Like related to this process of truth telling

Starting point is 00:52:25 of like being able to speak to when you're insecure and have that be okay, I understand what a juggernaut parents are in because it's like, yes, I'm really disregulated right now and also like the gentle parenting, this kid needs me to like be an anchor for them. They're forming. And so I just wanted to acknowledge like how hard it is.

Starting point is 00:52:45 But I think for parents, a lot of this work that I talk about in the book and I share exercises on how to do it, of being able to, when you're triggered by your kid, I even talk about a woman in the book who, when her daughter was angry, she would lock her outside. And she was like, you could only come in

Starting point is 00:53:01 once your attitude is better because of how much that anger triggered her and her own ability to sit with and confront what's happening with her. So then she has to control the environment and control her child. As parents, like this work of compassion for ourselves, of acknowledging how we feel,

Starting point is 00:53:15 of starting to offer ourselves that care, even when we're feeling things that are not motherly or not fatherly, right? To acknowledge that and allow it and to care for ourselves means that we take it out on our kids less. So the version of everything that you're talking about in this book, which is like to really be securely attached, you have to be able to accept everything you're actually feeling. As a parent means you have to be able to accept how you're really feeling as a person first, I would say, and then a parent. Yeah, exactly.

Starting point is 00:53:44 Like I think especially moms, there's so much pressure. is, I love all of this. Nothing stresses me out. This is great. I never have any regrets to any of this. And we think that that will make us a better parent trying to be perfect, right? But in fact, that's just too much pressure and you're going to crack. What I've realized in this book is these people that try to numb out emotions become hyper-emotional in moments. All of these emotions that they try to push away come out in an extreme way. And in fact, allowing yourself to be angry, upset, annoyed, frustrated, sometimes regretful, feeling guilty. Like, all of that being acceptable actually allows you to be better at regulating your kids

Starting point is 00:54:29 because when you acknowledge it, you're regulating it in yourself. Not to be like too nuanced, but should you be doing this in front of your kids or will that mess them? You're like, mommy sobbing. You're like, I don't know. Like, is that going to freak them out? It can be as quiet as just like taking a moment and being like, all right, I'm a little annoyed right now.

Starting point is 00:54:47 putting your hand on your chest and acknowledging that and noticing where you're feeling it. Like, all right, I feel this is like a lump in my chest. Just a moment. Just a jiff, right? Later on, maybe you could explore that feeling more deeply. But even taking a moment, again, just labeling your feelings deactivates the amygdala can be really helpful. You talk about, is it identity stretching? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:55:05 Yeah. Yeah. And so not the, this is like, I believe, tell me if I get this wrong, but it's the idea that we kind of say certain types of identities should exhibit certain traits or behave in a certain way. And I think that exists so strongly for moms. So strongly for moms. Like moms should be this type of person. Exactly. And that's what I talk about in the book. Instead of using our identities to dictate our sense of reality, we can go from the ground up. Here's what I feel. And that's maybe what it reveals about my identity, right? Here's how I feel in this interaction. Maybe it reveals that

Starting point is 00:55:35 this is the kind of mom I am. I'm the kind of mom who needs more support. I'm the kind of mom who needs more care. I'm the kind of mom that needs to go into work, right? Because this is driving me crazy. and I can acknowledge how I feel. And that tells me more information about my style of mothering and my needs as a mother, right? Instead of like, this is a mother and this is the only things I can feel, this is what I feel. And how does that shed light on my own needs as a mother, my own style as a mother? It's an interesting conversation, even about labels. I was listening to a podcast recently that was about the idea of diagnoses and how those impact our sense of identity.

Starting point is 00:56:07 and whether labels like autism or ADHD or anxiety or attachment styles, whether they're helpful or harmful in specific situation. And it's interesting even with the label of like mom or dad that you're essentially taking on this word that has so much history, so many shoulds attached to it. And how do you break free of that even with your most conscious effort? Yeah. I talk about it in the book, Eric Fromm is this I call it. He really says that our identities can disconnect us from ourselves, right?

Starting point is 00:56:41 Because we're not actually experiencing our sense of reality. We're filtering our reality through what's acceptable to that identity. He even says, like, do you like Coke or do you like a label? Are you actually tasting the Coke when it's there for you? Like, are you actually being mindful in this moment? Or you just like, this is what I've known about myself throughout history? And so that's replacing my experience of this moment now. And so Worth, I think, is an invitation to live more fully in the present.

Starting point is 00:57:03 And for that to not be threatening, right? maybe I'm different than who I was back then. That is okay, right? I have high regard for myself no matter who I become. Even if I'm like, oh, I was always a teacher, but like at this moment, I don't enjoy this job as much. And that can be really threatening to admit because we feel like our identities are what gives us a sense of control and a sense of stability. Self-verification theory. Yeah, exactly.

Starting point is 00:57:26 So much comes back to this idea of like when stuff fits within our preconceived notion of ourselves in the world, we feel safe. We feel safe. Exactly, exactly. But I think when we do this work of worth, what it allows us is more flexibility. Because we feel safer more generally, we don't necessarily have to have such a rigid identity to find safety. And this is Robin Carhart Harris. He does great work on psychedelics. And his theory is that when things are so chaotic, one thing that we do to give ourselves a sense of control and predictability is we make ourselves rigid. We come up with a rigid sense of identity for ourselves. Now I am the self-made And if I have to acknowledge that anyone help me, that's threatening my sense of reality, right? Like, it's protective for us. But sometimes it can be like freezing your credit score at the lowest score, right? That's like what low self-worth is, is like, yes, I have a coherent sense of reality that makes things feel less chaotic and unpredictable. But it's also kind of keeping me low in a way.

Starting point is 00:58:24 Okay. You prepared two truths and a lie for me, right? Yes. Okay. Attachment styles are hardwired in childhood. Okay. You can have different attachment styles with different people. Okay.

Starting point is 00:58:36 And even though they don't show it, avoidantly attach people are very sensitive to relationship harm. Okay. I feel like are those all true? No. I feel like the lie is the last one because avoidantly attach people do show that they're sensitive to relationship harm. They show it physiologically, but they don't tend to show it. Oh, they're like masking? They mask it, but if you're taking their physiology, they're actually freaking out internally.

Starting point is 00:59:02 Oh, wait, that's so interesting. Okay. I feel like I have some avoidant tendencies, but I don't feel like I'm subtle about it. Oh, really? I feel like I'm over here. Like, I remember when I was a kid and I would be unhappy and I would go close my door to my room and then I'd cry really loudly so that whoever is on the other side would hear it and come and be like, oh, are you okay?

Starting point is 00:59:25 And I'd be like, no, I don't want to talk to you. You know? Like, I feel like I'm a loud avoidant. You're a loud avoidance. Yeah. Attachments are hardwild in childhood. at birth and do not change. Oh, that's a lot.

Starting point is 00:59:36 That part, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And then second one was... You can have different attachment styles with different people. And that is definitely true. You can have one attachment style with your boss, another one with your partner,

Starting point is 00:59:47 another with a friend, et cetera. And is that because they bring up different memories from your childhood essentially? Yeah, you have different associations with different people. Okay. And the first one, just to go back to that, they are hardwired in your childhood. Yes. Yes. That is true.

Starting point is 01:00:01 But they do change. They do change. Okay. continue to evolve throughout life. And then the last one would be true then. Yes, yes. Which is? Even though they don't show it, avoidantly attached people are very sensitive to relationship

Starting point is 01:00:14 harms. Okay. So they really, most avoidance don't show it. I'm the weird. Yeah. Yeah, they tend to be like, I'm fine. Like, it's not a big deal. Like, I don't know why you're making a big deal out of this.

Starting point is 01:00:23 Like, you're dramatic. That's the kind of a typical energy of a more avoidant person. You guys ask me constantly if the hype around red light is real. And the answer is yes. but with one huge caveat. Most of the devices on the market aren't actually powerful enough to make a difference.

Starting point is 01:00:38 But if you get one that is, it can transform your skin, your pain, your energy, your hair, even your mood. The huge problem is that the vast majority of red lights on the market are nowhere near the right dose level or what's called a radiance

Starting point is 01:00:51 to actually have those benefits. That is why I love Loombox. It was founded by a doctor who could not find a device that actually met the studied standards to have real results. So she made her own. It is a lightweight portable panel. You can use it anywhere that you need it. I love putting it on my head for headaches. And it is a god send for cramps. And of course, I use it every single day on my skin. Each bulb amidst both red and near infrared light. Wave lengths and irradiens are third party verified. It's FDA registered, which is so rare. It's really less of a beauty gadget and more of a medical device that also happens to be great for beauty. So if you have been curious about trying red light therapy at Loombox is the one that I would recommend. And right now you can get 40% off.

Starting point is 01:01:32 40% off when you go to the loombox.com slash Liz. One more thing. If you have an HSA or FSA, Lombox may qualify as a medical expense through TrueMed and qualified customers save about 30% on average. You can head to trumed.com slash loombox to check your eligibility before you buy. TrueMed is for qualified customers. HSA, FSA tax savings vary. Again, though, go to the loombox.com slash Liz for that 40% off.

Starting point is 01:01:58 I've been drinking element every single day for literally years. I usually use one packet a day, but I break it up and I kind of spike my water throughout the day. So it makes my water taste amazing and it helps me stay consistently hydrated, which for me means more energy, fewer headaches and way clearer thinking. That's like probably the biggest difference I notice is my brain just works so much better. Research actually shows that you hydrate better when you sip throughout the day instead of chugging all at once. An element makes that so much easier because plain water is honestly so boring and I just will not

Starting point is 01:02:29 drink enough of it otherwise. I even use a glass straw because research also shows that you will drink more water if you drink it through a straw. Right now I'm obsessed with the lemonade salt flavor. It's my favorite hands down. Zach and I fight over who gets the last packets that we have left. Although I also love watermelon, but like lemonade, oh, it's so good. I also love muddling a few raspberries in a glass and then I'll add the lemonade element and then I'll sip it all afternoon or I'll use it as like a fun little moktail. Element is a zero sugar electrolyte drink mix with no fillers, no dodgy ingredients, and it delivers a powerful dose of sodium, potassium, and magnesium to support real hydration. Electrolate imbalance can cause headaches, fatigue, cramps, and brain fog, things

Starting point is 01:03:08 that so many of us deal with daily. You can get a free eight-count sample pack with any order at drink element.com slash Liz. It is totally risk-free. If you do not love it, they offer no questions-asked refunds. You truly have nothing to lose. Go to drinklm-tt.com slash Liz. Every single movement that your body makes every step, every workout, every muscle contraction depends on energy produced at the cellular level. And at the center of that is your mitochondria. Here is the thing that nobody tells you, certainly nobody told me, starting around age 30, our mitochondria naturally become less efficient. More get damaged, more become sluggish, and over time that impacts your energy, your strength, your recovery, and your resilience.

Starting point is 01:03:55 Most of us respond by pushing more. We're like noticing these things and we're at adding in more protein. We're trying to fix it with more supplements. We're trying to do harder workouts. And those things do help. But timelines research suggests that we also need to be supporting the cellular machinery underneath. And that is exactly what their supplement mitochondria does. It contains urolithin A, which helps your body clear out damage mitochondria and support healthier ones so that your cells can produce energy more efficiently. Because this is happening to your cells, it's going to impact your entire body, your immune system, your muscles. It's going to impact your energy, your sleep, your skin. Your cell health impacts

Starting point is 01:04:34 all of this, and urolithin egg keeps your cells healthy. Support your cells and how you age with mitopure gummies from Timeline. Visit Timeline.com slash Liz and save up to 39% on your mitopier gummies. That is timeline.com slash Liz. Okay, so let's talk about the memory thing because you were like different types of people can bring out different attachment styles in us. And that's because they are triggering these different memories from our childhood, even if we're not consciously connecting them.

Starting point is 01:05:05 And your hypothesis is that one of the top ways to heal our attachment style is to essentially re-remember our memories and change them in the process? Yes. What the fuck? Yeah. What mad scientist mumbo-jumbo am I talking about?

Starting point is 01:05:23 Well, it's all quite sad and tragic to think that attachment styles are a reflection of your memories. Because what can you do with your memories? It's in the past. You can't change the past. But here's the thing, Liz. Memories are not made to record the past. They're made to predict the future. Which is why they have this function that when we revisit a memory, we can change the memory.

Starting point is 01:05:49 And specifically, we can change the emotional valence of the memory. We can take a memory that was negative and be at peace when we look back at it now or be less anxious or be less angry at remembering. It's really started with these rat studies where they would shock these rats and play beeps and shock these rats and play beeps. And eventually when you play the beep, the rat starts freaking out because they're like, I'm going to get shocked. But then you give them propanol and it's this drug that makes them have less of reaction. Yeah, less of reaction. Then later on, the researchers were like, okay, now if I show you. show them the beep, is the rat still going to freak out?

Starting point is 01:06:24 Because they had that memory of the shock, well, they're not on the propanol, when they're not on these drugs. That memory of the shock is still there. It's hardwired in them. Or did that new memory where they were calm at the beep? Did that sort of replace the old memory in a way? What's going to happen when this beep plays? And at the time, the researchers were like, oh, no way, that mouse is going to freak out.

Starting point is 01:06:44 Or a rat, I don't remember. But it's going to freak out, right? Because it has all these memories of being shocked. But what they found was actually the new memory of being calm. at the beep would sort of replace the old one. And then the mouse was able to be calm at the beep. And this was big in the field of memory. Like everyone thought memories were so calcified

Starting point is 01:07:02 and you couldn't change them, right? And for the human beings, it contributed to this like inner child work, this reparenting work, which involves going back to memories from your childhood and picturing a different outcome, picturing yourself intervening when your parent yelled at you to tell you you're safe

Starting point is 01:07:21 and I am here, and it is going to be okay. Yeah, I have done a little bit of inner child work, even on this podcast. I did an episode with the founder of IFS, and he had me do some live on air. And I've always been a little skeptical of it because I've been like, why would this work?

Starting point is 01:07:37 Like, I know this isn't the real little me. And so you're saying the reason that it works is because you're essentially retrieving your memory and changing the tone of it. Yeah, changing the emotional tone, the emotional valence of the memory. And then you put it back. And then whenever you retrieve it in the future,

Starting point is 01:07:51 it has. balance comes up. And that's what the research finds that when people go back to the memory, maybe picture positives that came out of a negative experience or picture their adult self-intervening. Not only do they report less trauma symptoms, higher self-esteem, you see changes in the hippocampus, the part of their brain, that stores memory. Okay. We'll get into that a little bit more in a second, but first I want to ask, if we take like a beta blocker and public speak, I know a lot of comedians take it on stage, then can we stop taking the beta blockers and we won't be afraid of that? that thing anymore? Potentially, yeah, that's kind of what memory reconsolidation theory indicates.

Starting point is 01:08:27 That's so interesting. Yeah, I haven't seen research on that directly, but that is a fair application of the theory. That's so interesting. You'd think all the times I've flown on Xanax would make me less afraid of flying by now. I guess a caveat to memory reconsolidation theory is sometimes you have to do it a bunch of times to reconsolid a really deep memory. And the struggle is that when we're kids, we're taking in the world very differently. We're not looking to confirm our sense of reality, we are looking to experience it as it is. So those memories from our childhood tend to be particularly powerful versus memories in your adulthood. When you're returning to that memory, you're still returning to it as yourself with all of your assumptions and your biases.

Starting point is 01:09:04 And so it's kind of hard to convince yourself of something different when you are literally the outcome of that different thing, right? Wait, okay. So our childhood memories are harder to shift. They're more ingrained. They're more ingrained, yeah. So how do we do that? Is it like revisiting over and over and over and over. You can do multiple revisitings. One of the like attachment techniques for secure attachment is going back and picturing a secure parent that you didn't have and how they might have treated you in that moment. And it is a repetitive practice that people do. If it's a more recent memory or if it's a less emotionally intense memory, it's often the emotional intensity that can take time to change, then it might be just one thing, one interaction

Starting point is 01:09:45 and it can make it better. But yeah, you might have to revisit a couple times or you use strategies that are focused on implicit memory, which we can get into as well. Yeah, what would be some of this? So implicit memory are things that you don't remember that continue to affect your sense of reality now, your sense of self, how you perceive others. I mean, that's this attachment styles. An interesting research on it. When people were shown a slide, a blue slide, a loud noise came.

Starting point is 01:10:10 A blue slide, a loud noise came. A blue slide a loud noise. Eventually, the blue slide comes. The loud noise doesn't. They're sweating. They're already sweating because of that memory. But if people had damage to their, hippocampus, then you would ask them, what color slide was associated with the noise? Is it green? Is it red?

Starting point is 01:10:26 They say, I don't know. But you show them the blue side. They start sweating. So there's another part of your brain that's capturing memories, even that you're not conscious of, and that's the amygdala, part of your brain associated with threat. And it is building those memories when you are super young before you even remember. And it could be happening in your infancy that the amygdala is picking up on things and using it to affect your sense of reality now. And so that's why implicit memories affect us. Because even if they're not stored in your conscious memory, your hippocampus, where you're, like, checking out books and you're like, oh, yeah, I remember this. But in the book back, it's stored in this more reptilian part of your brain that's like threat, threat, I'm processing threat.

Starting point is 01:11:05 Yes. Yeah, exactly. And so some of the strategies to work with implicit memory have involved, you know, if people are familiar with like EMDR or tapping, it basically involves focusing on the trigger and something else simultaneously and holding both. of those things in your memory, because your working memory is quite limited. And if you overtax it, what is going to happen is that trigger, which is a representation of an implicit memory, that trigger is going to become less vivid and less strong because your brain doesn't have capacity to focus on this ball moving back and forth and fully embody that trigger at the same time. This was so interesting to me in your book because tapping and EMDR are both other

Starting point is 01:11:45 things I'm kind of skeptical of. I've done EMDR. When my cat died, I was like in the midst of grief. I'll do anything. I watched like a ball go back and forth and thought of memories of my cat and my grief and all of these things. And I was just like, why would this work? And you're saying because you're essentially like overriding. Oh, yes. You're overwhelming your brain's capacity to remember.

Starting point is 01:12:05 And so it remembers less vividly and the memory becomes less poignant. And you're almost like causing the computer to glitch out. Exactly. You're using your brain's flaws to heal yourself. And that's the same with tapping, which I also thought was kind of like a load of shit, but it's not. Well, I'm just like you, Liz. I'm not going to believe it unless I understand it.

Starting point is 01:12:24 I have to understand the science behind it. I understand working memory theory. It also applies like there's, I don't know if you've heard of this already, but research on people bringing up a trauma symptom and playing Tetris at the same time. I have. And it's actually really interesting. There was recently a very traumatic event on the internet. And a lot of people saw a video that was really, really traumatizing.

Starting point is 01:12:43 And in almost every comment where somebody would say, I stumbled across this thing. It was a person self-harming. and they were like, I really didn't want to see that thing. All the comments would say, go play Tetris, go play Tetris, go play Tetris right now. And the reason that works, though, because I'm not sure any of the people commenting that necessarily, they're just like, this is what you should do. It's because you are glitching out your brain essentially. Limited working memory capacity, yeah.

Starting point is 01:13:07 That's so interesting. Yeah, so I'll even do it like a very simple way to do it is I'll focus on a trigger and I will count off. Like, let's say I'll say one and then add two to that, three, and then add four to that, seven, and while try to focus on this trigger simultaneously. This is just like a really easy way to do it wherever you are. But what are you focusing on if you can't remember the thing? Yeah, that's a good question. So implicit memory manifests as sensations in your body. So I'm getting triggered. I'm feeling reactive. I'm feeling aggressive. And you don't know why. You don't know why. It's probably something from your past. What's hysterical is historical, as Freud said.

Starting point is 01:13:43 And so you're focusing on the manifestation in your body. Is it a tightness in your chest? Is it a gulp in your throat? Is it a tingling sensation in your leg? Is it feeling like your jaw is really tight? You're focusing on that sensation while doing the other thing. That's so interesting. Again, I've done so many therapy sessions

Starting point is 01:14:02 where they're like, where do you fill that in your body? And like, I'm like, okay, but why? Like, why does this matter? You're so right. And that's, I wrote words for us why, people. Because I'm like, I will be so much better at doing this EMDR if I understand why it's working, if I actually buy into it, you know? Well, and I find that.

Starting point is 01:14:18 is so helpful. I'm somebody who doesn't have a ton of memories from my childhood, but I certainly do feel like my childhood is impacting me today. So you're saying, you don't need to be sitting there and like, well, what happened on this day? Whatever you're like, whatever you feel now, let's work with that. And let's glitch out your brain. Let's glitch out your brain. And give you a fresh start. Yeah, I relate to that. I don't remember a lot. But when I have those triggers now, I'll do my counting. I also do EMDR in my therapy or I will. And do you find EMDR really helpful? Yeah, it's really help me. Has it helped you? Not yet, but I'm excited for it too. And you tap as well? Sometimes I'll tap. Yeah, it depends on how public I am. Which strategy I will try to use.

Starting point is 01:15:01 And then the other way that you talk about to move ourselves into the secure-ish attachment realm is to reinforce our positive memories, which you seemed like you liked a little bit less. I did. I mean, I was a little scared of it. There's these competing theories. Memory Recon. consolidation that we have to change the memory and retrieval competition. It doesn't matter if we have these negative memories as long as positive memories become more salient, right? It's about those memories being activated less. And so I'm like, well, I'm kind of scared if the negative memory's still there. I can kind of pop up at any time. But I really pulled from retrieval competition when I was talking about stigma. And like, I interviewed someone who has a larger body and feels the stigma of that.

Starting point is 01:15:40 And she said, I feel like I have to be a spiritual guru to not be affected by this. And I validated that. I drew from this really great book called Entangled Life. It's all about fungi. And he talks about how, like, there's microbes in our body that we need to digest food. And they are foreign to us. And so we are ecosystems. We are not individuals. We are inherently infected by our environment to survive.

Starting point is 01:16:03 And so there's no shame if you as a bigger body person have been affected by all the messaging that's around you. There's no shame if you as a person of color have been affected by the sense that you're inferior or you as a woman of certain age, start feeling bad about yourself because of your appearance, right? We are just vulnerable to our environments. But the power that we have is to change our environments, right? To change what social media is coming up. So it's more positive or affirming to that identity to change the people that we're interacting with.

Starting point is 01:16:32 So they're not making negative snide comments about us for these different identities. And that's really retrieval competition theory at play is like, we need to develop more positive memories and associations with this identity, even if the negative ones will still exist inevitably because we live in a society where people of certain identities are perceived as more worthy. So it's not cheating to remove triggering content from your social media or to not hang out with somebody because they make you feel bad about yourself. No, you have to listen to how you feel and what you need. That's the secure attached thing. It's not never being affected by your environment. It's being aware of the ways that you are and trying to meet your needs in that. And it's retrieval

Starting point is 01:17:10 competition theory. So the idea is that you can kind of only store and store and pull out so many memories at a time? The idea is that the memory that your brain uses to make sense of the current environment will depend on what's most accessible. Not just what's there, but what's most accessible. Okay. And the most accessible, does that tend to be the most recent? Yeah, it can be the most deep-rooted. I mean, that's the part where I'm like, oh, it's hard about retrieval competition. The negative memory's still there, so it can still pop up at a random time, but it'll be less likely to pop up if you have a lot more positive memories that are buffering that negative one. So our two approaches here are either we can pull out those memories and we can change the emotional

Starting point is 01:17:50 valence of them and then put them back in and then our amygdala reacts differently. Or we can essentially like take the drop of water in the pool and we can flood it with a bunch more water. And that's why we talked about with the anxious person who finds a secure partner, right? They are flooding the pool. Wait, that's what I'm doing with Zach. I'm flooding my pool. You're flooding your pool with more examples of security. Oh, that's so interesting.

Starting point is 01:18:13 In your mind, are we doing both of these things all the time? That would be great. I think we should be doing both of them. I think there's so many different approaches we're talking about curating our environment for more positive memories and associations, going back to the past, but also while we're triggered in the present being there for ourselves when we are. And then the last approach that you talked about in the book that I would like to just touch on briefly is psychedelics.

Starting point is 01:18:35 Yes, I do touch on psychedelics. Why are psychedelics so effective? Okay, so I interviewed this woman, Esme, and she had the first. this really sad story of like really trying to be friends with this person when she was in like eighth grade and she just calling them every day and being like, let's hang out. And eventually that person is like, I don't like you. I don't know why you're calling me all the time. And then from that moment forward, she was never able to initiate another friendship.

Starting point is 01:18:59 She met someone she liked and she was like, you're going to have to call me first because of this thing that happened all of these years ago. And so I'm sitting with Esme and I'm like trying to use some reconciliation exercise. And I'm like, well, if you go back to your. younger self, what would you have wanted to tell them that might have made you feel better? And Esme is like, it's just a blip, like other people will like you. But I could see that she didn't have the conviction, right? Because literally, she had been interpreting reality in ways that had matched that memory ever

Starting point is 01:19:28 since. So it was hard for her to say convincingly, oh, people do you like you. You'll find people that like you. But the thing that psychedelics do is they deactivate the default mode network, which is the part of our brain related to our sense of self. And so all of a sudden, we're able to see old. memories in completely new ways, almost like a third party might see them, right? We're taking it far less personally.

Starting point is 01:19:49 We're blaming ourselves far less. And so if, if Esme safely did psychedelic therapy, she might actually be able to go back to that memory. And this is MDMA is the one that's been used most for like PTSD symptoms and be able to say to herself, hey, you know, everybody gets rejected sometimes. And I am so proud of you for putting yourself out there. And there's so much more out there for you. And she'll actually believe it.

Starting point is 01:20:12 and she'll actually internalize it because of her sense of self is less active. So it lets you pull out that memory and change the emotional valence if you're maybe struggling to do that otherwise. Exactly. Yes, in a sort of more compelling, visceral way. And if we're afraid of psychedelics because we overdid drugs in our early 20s asking for a friend, but we maybe are having some of those struggles removing the memories and putting them back in, is there something that we can do that would give us that same effect? In the book, there's a lot of like takeaways from the science of psychedelics that can be really helpful for you. And so you kind of are going to have to manually do it.

Starting point is 01:20:49 When you're rejected, ask yourself, what if I don't take this rejection as a reflection of my worth? How would I feel differently? Pause and acknowledge that feeling. It's almost like, what if I didn't receive it this way? What if I was able to put aside that I felt rejected ever since? What if? What would that actually feel like for me? And pause to actually receive it in your body.

Starting point is 01:21:07 Focusing on that new sense of reality more intentionally, more visited, more visible. literally until it actually changes the way that you feel in your body. It's just more intense and focused work of trying to recreate the memory. There's a group of people that you say that therapy doesn't really help. Intellectualizers. Intellectualizers. I feel like this is me. Can you explain who this is and why therapy doesn't work for us?

Starting point is 01:21:31 We are, I say we. But I've become a little better at it. We are obsessed with developing insight as to what is wrong. logical reasons why things are going the way that they do. But we're not actually confronting how we feel and sitting with and tolerating how we feel, the deeper emotions that are underneath all of these insights. We're almost escaping and evading them through focusing more on information than emotion. Why are we this way? Oh, I don't know Liz. It's safer. It's certainly a lot safer than feeling very vulnerable feelings and emotions that are shrouded in so much shame and having to

Starting point is 01:22:12 tolerate that, right? So would a therapy session look like, well, here, like, I'll go into therapy and I'll say, okay, here's why I am the way that I am. Here's what happened when I was two. Yeah. And you won't actually feel any better. Yeah. You won't actually feel any better because it's about the feelings.

Starting point is 01:22:27 Like, one of the things I say in the book is that people had the same memories of maybe someone, a house burning down, or a very harmful relationship. and then they reported their self-esteem. Self-esteem was only lower for people that had something called open memories, which are memories that still trigger emotion in us. We don't want to look at them. It feels uncomfortable. We don't have closure.

Starting point is 01:22:49 We don't know why it happened. We still get angry when we think about it. It's only open memories that affect our sense of self. If the memory is closed, if we're like, yeah, that happened. I'm kind of at peace with it. I have closure. Like, I feel like I've moved forward, right? That no longer affects our sense of self.

Starting point is 01:23:03 So really what we are targeting to, to improve our worth and engage in that memory reconciliation is emotion, more than it is the reality, more than it is the insight about that experience. The reason we want to give ourselves new insight is because that new insight triggers different emotion in us. And in fact, there was a study on people that tracked therapy clients and looked at what are the factors that most predict whether their self-esteem improved at the end of therapy. And it was how much they emoted, how much feeling they released. So if we do want to be in therapy or if a therapist is listening, it would not be let's explore what the thing is.

Starting point is 01:23:37 It'd be like, okay, let's sit with how did that make you feel? Exactly. And let's explore the new feelings that come up for you when you see your adult self, providing you what you needed. What do you feel in this moment? I could be a lot more grateful to my adult self, I think. I have a speed round for you. Sure. What is one thing that people commonly do in dating or relationships that you would never do knowing what you know is somebody who studies attachment? I would never ghost on someone.

Starting point is 01:24:02 Because, like I said, like having a sense of closure around your memories means that it never hovers over you in the future. And so when you're ghosting on someone, you don't give them a sense of closure around that experience. And so it's just more likely to continue to follow them. They're more likely to fear, rejection, fear that someone's going to unexpectedly pull away. And so realizing the domino effects of that, that you're creating a new harmful open memory because they don't have the reason to kind of clomp on to that helps them move on.

Starting point is 01:24:32 like, it's kind of cruel. And if we're being ghosted, what do we do? Play Tetris? Well, there, a lot of this memory reconciliation is like making meaning out of an experience that was negative, so it's more positive. And that changes the emotional. Exactly. So it could be, I realize that I don't want someone in my life who does that kind of thing

Starting point is 01:24:51 to people. And so by them doing the active ghosting, they showed themselves to me as someone that wouldn't be a compatible partner to me. I appreciate that I found that out early on. I love that too because it means that when you're, rationalizing, it's almost like, it's to an end because you're changing the emotional tone in your mind, which is going to change your attachment self. I like the idea that it's not just like me bullshitting myself. What's one thing that people commonly do in friendships that you would never do

Starting point is 01:25:15 knowing what you know is somebody who studies attachment? Oh, man. I mean, the big one I've been working on is staying with my friend's sense of reality. I think we've talked about this. You know, I find myself so quickly being like, no, you're so great. What are you talking about? I literally still have to remind myself, even after I've written this whole book, to be like, okay, you feel upset, you feel insecure, that is okay. I am here with you. Like, tell me more about what you're feeling. Like, it is, it's still a process of reminding myself to be with them where they are rather than trying to pluck them out of it. What's your hottest take about attachment theory? That attachment theory is leading a lot of us to abandon ourselves. What's one piece of research that really changed your mind about something? There was a study on what predicts who gets PTSD, you know, aside from that you went through an experience that can be seen as traumatic. And they looked at factors like whether you have a history of trauma, you have social support, all the big guns. But the number one factor that predicted whether people got PTSD was whether they dissociated at the time of the trauma.

Starting point is 01:26:15 It was really compelling for me because that really spoke to the importance of being with your feelings and acknowledging your feelings and the ways that if you don't, it can really feel. follow you. And again, no shade on anyone that has to dissociate. That's a process that our body does automatically when we are overwhelmed and we can't possibly take it anymore. And it gets to be a point like you're underwater and you need to take a breath and you can't take a breath. And so that is something that our brain does automatically. But it was a compelling way for me to really be intentional about acknowledging my feelings and emotions. Can I ask just a clarifying question? What's the difference between dissociating in a moment of trauma and like playing Tetris or tapping or doing this like re-overwhelm your brain and click restart.

Starting point is 01:27:00 So when you are doing working memory theory, you are practicing both acknowledging the emotion and feeling and another thing at the same time. When you are dissociating, you are, it's a circuit breaker that completely shuts down all feeling and emotion. Okay. So the people who saw that traumatic video online, they're not being like, I didn't see anything. I'm playing Tetris frantically. They're saying that brought up these feelings for me and I am playing Tetris. Yes.

Starting point is 01:27:23 Okay. That's really interesting. And is our likelihood of being somebody who is dissociating during trauma because of our childhood? Yeah, we're more likely to dissociate if that's been our go-to strategy in the past. And when we're kids, I mean, you can't fight or flee. You can't fight or flee. So all you can do is dissociate. And then that becomes cumulative.

Starting point is 01:27:41 You become more likely to dissociate and you face traumas in the future. One of the biggest things I've been doing in adulthood is recognizing when I have adapted these coping strategies at a time where I had so few options available to me. and which one of those are left over when I have so many options available to me now, which is really helpful. That is like a reconciliation, right? You're like, now I'm an adult and I have so many more opportunities. Being an adult's great. And you can also eat ice cream for dinner. Recommend, recommend. 10 out of 10. What's a piece of common self-worth advice that's actively harmful? Okay, fake it till you make it from what we've talked about today that actually trying to disconnect from your vulnerabilities and insecurities. can make them a lot worse because you can only heal from what you can acknowledge. But fake it till you make

Starting point is 01:28:28 it can work again if that faking it is obtainable for you. You're like, oh, I'm like being confident and it feels like I actually am more confident. This is actually making me feel better and not like I'm gaslighting myself and now feeling really bad. So it really depends on the person. But if you're faking it and it's so detached from how you actually feel, then that is going to put you in a place of more pain. I think a really cool thing to do can be to not fake it in terms of how you feel, but fake it in terms of what you do. So I remember for my last book, I decided to do a one woman show because I was insane. And I went out the very first night. And right before I was going to go out, they were actively introducing me.

Starting point is 01:29:05 I was like, and Zach was standing next to me and I was like, I need to go poop. My whole body was rebell. And he's like, you can't do that. They're actively introducing you. And I was like, I can't be here. I got to go. And he literally pushed me out on stage. And I got out on stage and I looked out at these like hundreds of people in the

Starting point is 01:29:20 crowd. And I said, I'm so nervous right now, but I'm so excited to be here. And I can't wait to do this with you guys. And so I was like, look, I'm physically doing it, but I'm not going to deny that this is scary for me. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, it also reminds me of like when people are stressed and they're anxious and they can say, this is extra energy for me to do what I want to do, right? That kind of reframe that if it's accessible to you, it's really helpful. Yeah. And sometimes it's like braver to be shitting your pants and doing it anyway. Yeah. Exactly. I just went on this trip and we had to fly in these teeny tiny planes to get to the hotel that we were at. And I was like, for everybody who was like, this is no big deal for me.

Starting point is 01:29:58 I'm like, this was a huge deal for me. Like, this is much braver for me to do because I thought I was going to die the whole time. Exactly. It's like, oh, when I bring all of my feelings, then I can realize just how big this is. Yeah. Oh, I love that. Finish this sentence. People would be so much happier in their relationships if they just stopped.

Starting point is 01:30:16 Lying to themselves and their partners. What is one habit that's changed your life? This can be in the realm of attachment theory, everything we've been talking about, but also anything in the whole world. I spend time with my pain literally every morning. I'm like, hmm, how was I activated? I'm okay. I'm okay. I'm okay. I'm safe. I'm safe. Just being a loving person for myself internally, like getting away from shaming myself or pushing things away to like embracing it all. like palms open like I'm here for you I'm just here for you and like you don't need to present any different way than what you are like that has been so transformative to be a practice I've taken on internally from writing this book and you do that like pragmatically as part of your morning routine yeah and part of my morning routine when I wake up from bed and you know sometimes when you're going through something you kind of get hit by that thing in the morning you know it's the

Starting point is 01:31:10 first thing that comes to my is the thing that's stressing you out and instead of being like no I got to go focus on my day I'm like okay it's okay I'm safe what do I need to here. I'm loved. I'm loved. Just providing myself a moment of care every morning and treating my own pain as a request for my attention and compassion. What is one thing that anybody who's listening are watching right now could do immediately to begin to feel some of the benefits that you're promising in your book? Take whatever you're stressed about. Ask yourself what you would need to hear to feel better and actually tell yourself that thing. And in a way that it actually affects how you feel in your body. You actually feel yourself internalizing it. And why scientifically will that work?

Starting point is 01:31:52 Because that involves accessing emotion, being able to label the emotion in a way, and also offering yourself compassion and self-compassion is what's behind the good twin of self-esteem, their ability to feel their emotions and allow them to exist and have compassion for them. Amazing. Your brilliant new book is out now. It's called Worth, The New Science of Self-Esteen and Secure Attachment. Can you tell us a little bit about it in your own words? The beauty of finding worth is that the beauties of life are actually internalized by you. People are going to love you and you're actually going to feel loved. You're going to get your dream job and you're actually going to feel excited about it and like you belong there. And that is, I think, one of the most compelling reasons for us to all work on our

Starting point is 01:32:41 sense of self. I love that. And if people want more from you, where can they find you? I am on Instagram sharing tips on how to connect with self and others at Dr. Marissa G. Franco, D.R. M-A-R-M-A-R-I-S-A-G-F-R-A-N-C-O. And on my website, Dr. Marissa G-Franco.com, you can access a list of tips, practices to improve yourself worth, or reach out for speaking events on self-worth at work. And worth is available wherever books are sold and you can get a signed copy if you order it from Lost City Books in D.C. Amazing. Well, thank you so much for this conversation and also just for changing what I believe to be true about attachment theory. It just feels revolutionary. Thank you so much. You know, like, I'm going in for like the nervous system change, you know, not just the surface level,

Starting point is 01:33:24 but the nervous system. We need it right now. That is all for this episode. Thank you so much for listening on Apple or watching on Spotify or YouTube. You can subscribe or follow so our next episodes get sent directly to your feed. If you like this episode, leave a comment or better yet, send it to a friend, a coworker, or a parent, or somebody else that you think might love it. I love you. Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you on the next episode of the Liz Moody podcast. Oh, just one more thing. It's the legal language. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, a psychotherapist, or any other qualified professional. Big news after me taking seeds

Starting point is 01:34:10 DSO1 daily symbiotic for five years now and you guys sending me literally thousands of DMs about how much You love it. Zach, my dear husband, finally decided to try it. And it turns out he is obsessed. Surprise, surprise. He's like, I did not know that my gut could feel like this. Here's the thing about DSO1 that I do not think most people fully appreciate until they experience it. This is not your average probiotic. The vast majority of probiotics that you can buy do not even survive digestion. The SO1 is specifically engineered and actually tested to get through your stomach acid and actually reach your colon where it can do its job. It also has prebiotics, which very few probiotics have and are critical. If you have probiotics, but no prebiotics, the probiotics

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Starting point is 01:35:31 your first month. That is seed.com slash Liz Moody code Liz Moody. A lot of you guys know that about four years ago, I started being what I call an intentional drinker, meaning that I've stopped drinking just because it's like a Thursday night. Now I drink a few times a month at the most. And the only downside of that is that I have almost zero tolerance for feeling poorly after I drink now because I'm so used to feeling energetic and good every single day, which is why I'm so, so excited about Zbiotics pre-alcohol. I tried these for the first time at my friend's birthday party in Vegas, and I was very skeptical, but now they are my absolute go-to.

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Starting point is 01:36:36 August does not slow down, and neither to you. Pre-alcohol keeps it that way. Go to Zbiotics.com slash Liz Moody and use code Liz Moody for 15% off. That is zbiotics.com slash Liz Moody, code Liz Moody.

The Liz Moody Podcast - We Were Wrong About Secure Attachment & It's Ruining Our Relationships

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