The Sabrina Zohar Show - 5: Ep. 5 Attachment Styles + Nervous system regulation with Masha K

Episode Date: February 24, 2023

This week Sabrina is joined by Masha Kay to talk all things nervous system! They break down the 4 attachment styles, how they affect your nervous system and debunking myths about attachment styles! Want to work with Sabrina? HERE! Stuck After the Podcast? Master Implementation in 8 Weeks with Sabrina's Foundation Course Join the Make It Make Sense: Getting Through a Breakup course HERE! Get Ad-free episodes and 2 Bonus episodes a month HERE! Dont forget to follow Sabrina and The Sabrina Zohar Show on instagram and Sabrina on Tik tok! Video now available on YOUTUBE!  Disclaimer: The Sabrina Zohar Show, formally known as Do The Work, is not affiliated with A.Z & associates LLC in any capacity. Want to work with Masha? BOOK NOW Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Nespresso. Hear that? That's your next obsession. Every coffee, a new world. Every sip, a new taste. This is the new Nespresso. One touch, endless possibilities. Iced, flavored, long, short. Because some days call for that espresso kick.

And sometimes, a smooth, silky latte just wins. It's exceptional but effortless. Like actually effortless. Simply press, brew, and explore. Nispresso, what else? Keep exploring at nespresso.com. Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to another episode of Do the Work podcast. I am Sabrina Zohar, your lovely host for today.

And I have a very special guest, a dear friend of mine, Masha, who is going to talk about attachment styles, the central nervous system. And we are going to fucking deep dive into all the things you guys want to know. So stay tuned and let's get to it. All right. I'm so fucking excited to have you here, Masha. I'm going to just turn the mic over to her so that she can share what she does, who she is in a better light than I ever could and some amazing insight that she's going to share with us

today. Okay. I'm so excited to be here. Honestly, guys, we have been talking about this for a week. So I am pumped. My name is Masha Kaye. And I'm a nervous system and breathwork coach. And that kind of doesn't mean a lot to people. So let me explain a little bit. I typically work with high achievers, perfectionists, people struggling with anxiety. And I help them learn to regulate their nervous system, optimize their health, reconnect with who they truly are, and ultimately just build a better relationship with themselves, which enables them to build better relationships with other people, to show up more fully at work in their careers, and just in all areas of their life. That's fucking awesome. And I would you think it's like what we talk about all the time

is about doing the work on yourself, and it's less about the other people and more about yourself. And I think that is a theme that you're going to hear throughout this episode, I'm sure, is oftentimes we say stop looking and using this information to analyze everybody else and use it to figure out what works for you so that you can have the relationship that makes sense for you. And so I think that'll segue us into too, like, what's your story? How'd you get here? Oh, gosh, that's a long story. You're going to have to like pull me back a few times as I tell it. But how did I get here? So in a very unexpected way, to be honest, I grew up as an overachiev. I was really good at math.

First day in college, I decide my major. First day in college. I go into my math class. I'm like in the advanced math class. And someone's like, what are you going to do? And I'm like, well, I'm really good of math. I just need to figure out what makes a lot of money doing math. And they're like, you know, actuaries are like the thing right now.

They're the number one voted career. They make great money and you don't have to go to grad school. I'm like, done. Never looked back. That was how I made the decision to be an actuary. Did that graduated 4.0, got the, the internship, like, did all the things, get into this career and, like, a year and a half in, I'm miserable.

Oh, yeah. I am like, wait, this is it. Like, I worked this hard and I'm just in this cubicle. I'm not actually that interest. I'd like taking math tests. That's what I realized. I was really good at taking math tests. And when it came to applying that to insurance, I'm like, this is so freaking boring.

I'm not into this. And at that point, I basically have a quarter life crisis. Okay. Call it a spiritual awakening, whatever you want. Sure. And I realize I'm like, I have no idea who I am. I have no idea what I like. I have no idea what my emotions are. And I need to figure all this out because this can't be it. And so at that point, I start getting into my physical health, you know, and that kind of leads into my mental health. And that leads into my emotional health. And so I'm starting to kind of connect the dots of like, I've never been connected to my emotions, my desires, my needs. Everything was about how to get external validation, like how to just be. be really perfect, be a good girl, do what everyone else wants you to do. And so I go through this journey and in that, I'm like, wait, I need to change careers.

But I don't even know what I like. So I just go into another career in a fashion company and finance. And I'm like, this will just be a little slower. And I'll start to figure that out. And in that time, I started just getting certifications to just honestly understand myself better in holistic health, in, you know, mental health, really attachment, polyvago theory. And eventually, I'm like, wait a second. maybe this is what I meant to do.

And I realized that I wanted to become a coach. And so I moved from New York to L.A. And in that time, quit my job and did this complete 180, which I think shocked everybody in my life. Because if you knew me seven, eight years ago, this could not be a bigger 180. Oh, I'm with you. No, same.

I think most people are like, you do what? I'm like, I know from the pack of day smoker to the girl that didn't walk down a goddamn block. And here we are, like the pinnacle of health and wellness. So I'm with you on that. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. For me, it was more like, you're into math and, like, you just care about achievement.

And now you're, you know, you live in San Diego and you're working out. And yeah, it's a complete 180. So, yeah, that's kind of how I started working myself. I started coaching in that time. I discovered, honestly, a lot about myself. Like, a lot of what I do is based on my own journey and, like, tools that I've needed to learn. Yeah. So I learning about the nervous system, I struggled a lot with anxiety and perfectionism

and understanding where did my overachieving actually come from, you know, holistic health, right? Like just taking care of myself better, connecting with my body better. And of course, a huge part of that journey has also been understanding my attachment. I'm, Sabrina knows him. I've been with my husband for 15 years.

Yeah. We're only married for five, but we've been together since high school. So cute. So cute. Oh, my gosh. Is it cute? I cringe every time I say it.

I don't know how that ended up being my story, But it is. And that's kind of been a huge part of my journey because, you know, growing together, going through a relationship together, like we literally grew up together. And so understanding attachment, which was like seven, eight years into our relationship, I learned about attachment. I'm like, oh, so much makes sense. So much about him makes sense.

So much about me makes sense. So much about like some really rough patches that we went through makes a lot of sense. And honestly, understanding my attachment. help me even understand relationships with friends, relationship with family. It was just like a huge puzzle piece for me. Like the nervous system was one huge missing link for me. And I would say attachment was another, which is why to this day I work on helping people reconnect to themselves regularly at their nervous system.

I teach attachment. I teach nervous system work, polyvagal theory to every client. And I teach attachment to every single client because we can't talk about you having a better relationship with yourself, you showing up better at work in your life, with your kids, without talking about your attachment. It's the blueprint of how you live your life that you're completely unaware of. It's this unconscious force, just like the nervous system. And obviously, they're interconnected. But yeah, that's kind of that combination got me to where I am now. And I'm with you because like for a long time, for years, actually, I didn't understand the correlation

between attachment styles and the central nervous system. Truthfully, it's been in the last year that I've really started to understand, like, I always said the pinch has to match the out where you're like, oh, I'm kind of understanding how one goes with the other. And I would love kind of you to give a quick synapse of like, talk to us about truly, what are the three attachment styles aside from secure? Okay. And then it's a four. And I'd love to hear your kind of take on how that impacts the central nervous system. Because I think there is such a correlation. I think so many people that at least write into me or that talk to me or like we even had done the live. a few minutes ago prior to this and hearing so many people asking so many questions of like,

my avoidance is doing this, my avoid, or this a person's doing this. And I don't think that people understand that their anxiety and the reasons that they're asking all these questions about the other person is because they're dysregulated and how it manifests within themselves. And I think there's a confusion about, oh, if I just understand the other person, I'll self-regulate, which we know is not the case. Which is not the case. Not the case. Okay, so let's start the beginning and you'll ask me questions because I can talk in all different directions about this. So let's start with attachment, right? And the way I like to think about attachment is it's this hidden blueprint from childhood that informs your behavior. Yeah. Right. So the easiest way to think about

that, I love this visual, is you want to think about a baby when it's born as like a computer just like off the factory line. Like there is nothing on that computer, right? Like just straight out of the factory. Pure and blank and brand new. And then over, you know, it's debated how many years, anywhere from three to 11, that's debated. Over those years, there's just software being downloaded onto this computer. And that software is the, you know, painful experiences, trauma, the ideas of your parents, of society, of school, all these experiences. And there's just no filters for that. It's just all being downloaded, right?

And then at a certain age, again, three to 11, that's debated. we stopped downloading software, and now we're just running off of that software. And what we now know is 90 to 95% of your behavior is just running off that software of those early years of life. Right? It's unconscious.

Yeah. And I really, like, encourage people to let that, like, sink in. Yeah. That's so much of what you do is unconscious. It was programmed way back when from your attachment to your primary caregivers. And now your relationship, whether that's with partners, friends, family members,

are just a reflection that, you know, we could even apply that to other areas of life, but you're attached, you know, work, money, all of it. And can we also, I like the way you explain this oftentimes when we're speaking, trauma, because we'll get that a lot of, like, I didn't have any traumatic experiences. My parents were great. What are you talking about?

This doesn't make sense. I learned this from an ex-boyfriend who treated me like shit two years ago. So can you please kind of debunk that aspect? Because we're going to do a lot of debunking today of this trauma, and then we can continue on us to like what the different attachment styles are. Yes. Thank you for bringing that up because that is so, so incredibly important. So I hear you guys.

I used to think that as well. I have to be honest. So like Sabrina mentioned, I used to be more avoidant. I would say I definitely still lean avoided, but that's kind of where I come from, meaning disconnected from emotion, sometimes looking at the past rose colored glasses. And I used to think like, I don't have trauma. My parents are amazing. I have an amazing relation to my parents, which I do.

But here's the thing. trauma is not just big T trauma. Yeah. Right? So big T trauma, famine, abuse, rape, war, obviously that's traumatic. And a lot of us don't have those things and we think, oh, that must mean I don't have trauma. Thank God. Thank God.

However, we all, every single one of us has experienced little T trauma, right? And little T trauma could be literally anything because trauma is not the experience itself. trauma is how you felt in that experience. Two people can go through the same exact experience, and one walks out traumatized, and one does not. It has a lot to do with how alone you felt. It has a lot to do with how much agency you had, right? It has a lot to do with,

were you able to handle the physical, mental, and emotional dysregulation that happened, or were you just completely overwhelmed by it? That's what's going to determine whether something is traumatic to you, not the event itself. Totally. And that's why, like, siblings, for example, like, you can have siblings that went through the exact same thing and they turn out completely differently because I think there's

the common misconception, especially about the attachment styles in your adult age, is what people don't realize is you're coming from that emotional age. So wherever the trauma took place, so even if it's something as simple as, I had one girl, she was like, my mom was a workaholic. She was always gone. And she was, you know, it wasn't intentional. She was at work all the time, but my needs weren't met as a child. That's not a traumatic experience, quote, unquote, And I think the norms of society of like, well, the mom didn't beat her and the mom didn't do that. The child's emotional needs were not met. Thus that manifested in this girl's adult life, she was constantly coming from the emotional age of a 10-year-old.

Until she started to do the work, which you can listen to the last week's episode or the last two weeks of about that, that what I talk about. But until she started to do the work and identify, I've been stuck coming from this emotional age of a child. Now that I've done all this work, I am able to reparent and come from an adult response. because as a child, we can't process what's going on with our parents. We are not cognitive enough to go, oh, I know why my parents are doing this. You're seven. What do you know that is going on? So, of course, you internalize it.

But I think as an adult now, that is really where the work comes in of being able to reparent and respond versus react from that emotional age. But I'd be curious, I'd like the way you describe, what are the ways that this trauma can manifest itself, i.e., what are the attachment styles? And then again, how do they manifest itself with the central nervous system? Yeah. So you're absolutely right. Those traumas, those little T trauma or big T traumas then manifest in these different survival strategies, let's call them. Right. And one way we can talk about those survival strategies that we develop in response to trauma is by talking about attachment theory. Right. And so what attachment theory kind of tells us is that depending on your attachment to your primary caregiver, you're going to have a different attachment as an adult, not just to loved one, not just. to like romantic partners, but to friends, family, and so on. And so there's the secure attachment, right?

Secure attachment is if your caregivers were there for you, if you felt like they were meeting your physical, mental, and emotional needs on a consistent basis, which is not perfect. No. No parent can do that perfectly, right? But in a relatively consistent basis, then you grow up to be an adult who's able to spend time alone, to be independent, but then also come together with others.

Right. So you're able to have intimacy, but then also, feel good on your own, maintain boundaries, express your needs, and so on. So that's secure attachment. And let's just be clear. All of us have a secure foundation. We were all created to be securely attached, right? That is within all of us. And if we work on that, that is accessible to all of us. Now, that being said, most of us lean towards one of the three insecure attachment styles. Right. And those insecure attachment styles vary depending on that. connection with your primary caregiver.

Yeah. So if you're a primary caregiver, like you were giving the example of a mom who's a workaholic, right, if your primary caregiver was great when they were around meeting your physical, mental, emotional needs, but not doing that consistently. So when they're there, they're great, but they're not always there. Maybe because they're working. Maybe they have their own stuff going on, right? So many things can happen.

Now as an adult, you lean more anxiously attached, which looks like there's this constant searching for connection. there's this constant fear of abandonment because as a kid, your parent wasn't always there. So you were very hypervigilant about, are they leaving? Where are they going? Are they coming back? You weren't able to trust that they were going to be around. And now when you became an adult, that didn't just go away.

No, it doesn't. So now, exactly, as an adult, right, you still have that hypervigilance. Because, remember, as a child, if your parent wasn't around, you're not okay. You needed your parent to regulate your nervous system, take care of, your needs, right? We need them. Our survival does, in fact, depend on them. And us being hypervigilant about where they are and what they're doing made a lot of sense. Us acting out, crying, right? That was our way of getting our needs met. And it was really, really effective. Yeah. And it's just that we've continued doing that as adults, right? And that makes so much sense. We are still yearning for our needs

to be met. We still don't feel like we'd be safe on our own, even though now as adults, we would be safe on our own. We no longer need our partner, our primary caregiver, to take care of us, but our nervous system doesn't know that. Our nervous system still thinks, you on your own, you're not going to be able to make it, right? It's still living in that emotional age, that emotional age, right? And so that's why with anxious attachment, what we see is there's this intense fear of abandonment. There's a hypervigilance. There's an intense focus on others. There's often a lot of people pleasing, a lot of like, my needs don't matter, yours do. Right. There tends to be a lot of insecurity, they tend to have a negative model of self and a positive model of others.

Yes. Yes. Yes. That is huge. As somebody who I can identify as the anxious, you always think every, you put everybody on the pedestal for them. They have done zero to deserve that, but you're like, oh, fuck it. Let me help you up because it takes away. You can always look to strive to become better through somebody else's lens as opposed to realizing that it's through your own lens. But I have seen that with some avoidance as well, I'd be curious to know, okay, so we understand anxious, we understand secure, and give us the meat and potatoes of the one everybody wants to know, which is avoidant, and then we will break and come back. Okay. So yeah, let's talk about the avoidant. So hopefully for the anxious, you can have

a little bit of compassion. I'm like, oh, that makes sense why we would do that. We had to do that as kids and we're still doing that as adults, right? Now I want you to have that same level of compassion when you start thinking about avoidant attachment. Because for those that struggle with avoid an attachment, what happened in childhood is that they are primary caregivers, their physical, mental and emotional needs were not met or were met in a very rigid way. Or there was just like some neglect. And again, it could be for a very innocent reason. This doesn't mean you had to have like abusive parents. It might be parents that were working. It might have been parents that were going through trauma. Like I immigrated here. Like I know why I'm avoidant. Because

I know what happened when my parents were immigrating here and my experiences, right? And so those kids that are, you know, whose needs are not getting met in a consistent basis, what happens for them basically is they say, you know, to crave connection and belonging and not get it over and over and over again is so painful that they learn to disconnect from their emotions. Yeah. They learn to completely shut that off. They learn, I can't trust other people.

I cried out. I called out. and those needs weren't met consistently. And so I could only rely on myself. And the only way I could do that is if I completely cut off from my emotions, I just become incredibly self-sufficient. So as adults, what that looks like, avoidance tend to push away intimacy and connection because at the end of the day, they don't trust other people.

Other people didn't show up for them consistently. They had to learn to take care of themselves, right? And so that looks like being counterdependent, not just independent, but almost like needing other people. people depending on other people feels like a weakness. They tend to be very logical, right? Whereas like, anxiously attached people tend to be more creative because they're a little more in touch with their emotions. Now, I want to like point something out. It's not that the avoidant isn't afraid of abandonment, right? Like the anxiously attached, we are, we all are. Yeah. Right. It's just that

the avoidant is expecting abandonment and is protecting themselves from it. Whereas the anxiously attached is still like yearning for it. Like maybe if I try hard enough. Right. The avoidant is like, it's not going to happen. There's no point of trying. I'm going to expect that everyone's going to reject me and abandon me. And so I just need to focus on myself. I'm going to, they tend to be very focused on their careers, very logical, very disconnected from their emotions, right? And again, some of these things are strengths in our culture, by the way. Right. That's why I think, I think that's right. That's the perfect place to segue into. That is why I think people look at it as avoidant is better than anxious. Oh, well, you don't feel. You're so career focused. You're

independent, you focus on you and the anxious is so dependent on everybody else and can't be alone. And that is, I think, where there is a divide in the understanding about both sides that one is not better. They both stem from insecurity. They both stem from needs not being met. Like, I remember a guy, I dated a guy and he was super avoidant because, like, growing up, his father would put him down for having emotions. It was that he would be made fun of and he was always told that there wasn't safe to be emotional and like to be a man. And so he grew up with, I don't do that. I completely retreat. It's terrifying that vulnerability was so scary for him to show. And I think there is that perception of, oh, well, then they don't care.

So we've identified a lot about avoiding avoided and anxious, but I still think there's more to go. There is. There definitely is. You take it. So one thing I did want to say before we move on to the third, I want to say something about avoidant because you liked when I said about the anxiously attached negative model of self for anxiously attached positive model of others for avoiding that flips. Positive model of self, negative model of others. And just again, keep in mind why that makes so much sense based on their experience. In their experience, people weren't showing up for them. Right. Right. And so they learned, I can't rely on them, but I could rely on myself. And they have a lot of proof of relying on themselves working. Right. Right. Career-oriented successes. Exactly. Exactly. And so

they tend to have a positive model of self and that negative model of others, which is where the fear of intimacy really comes in. It's not that they don't want connection and love. They absolutely do, but they're almost expecting to be let down, right? So that's the avoidant. Yeah. And that's why they jump ship so quickly. That's why you'll see an avoidant, they can oftentimes come in really hard. And then it's a, but I understand they just abruptly left. And it's like, were you starting to get closer and build a connection and start to form intimacy? Yes, exactly. And, There is that, like, that's a protective mechanism, right? So again, this is where the nervous system, like, has been coming in here and there, right? So the avoidant regulates by withdrawing. Yeah. They have learned to self-regulate. Self-regulating is things you do on your own to calm your nervous system. Yeah.

They're really good at that. So when they get overwhelmed, when there is danger, and remember, other people to them are a sign of danger because other people have hurt them. Yeah. They withdraw and they self-regulate, which is where they pull away. Now the anxiously attached, how did they regulate? They regulate with others. That's all they learned.

Remember, their primary caregivers were around, but they couldn't really depend on them. They were kind of always going away. So they never learned to self-regulate. They were fixated on other people and connecting with other people, connecting with their primary caregivers, which never allowed them to form a connection with themselves, to learn to explore, to find self-expression, right? They picked belonging over self-expression. Which is like, and I can, it's almost in the same, like, the anxious, probably wants to be saved.

Oftentimes, it's like, you want someone to just come and make this all better, whereas the avoidant has understood, no, I need to be, I need to completely retreat myself because only I can make this better. Exactly. So it's an interesting perspective. Yeah, I would just be to me. I love that. But I think somebody also asked, can you be both? Oh, okay. So there's two parts to this, right?

First of all, our attachment, and maybe this is an important time to say this anyway. Our attachment changes throughout our life. Yeah. It is not just like a fixed label that we put on ourselves, right? But even more importantly, we could have different attachments in different parts of our life because we've had different experiences, different traumas, let's say, and our nervous system learned to protect us in different ways because that's what these things are. There's survival strategies that your nervous system picked up in response to trauma, right?

So if people weren't showing up for you, your nervous system is like, okay, our survival strategy, just do everything on your own. That's going to keep yourself from pain because remember how much pain it caused you to want other people and them not to show up? Yeah. So that's how we're going to keep you safe. We're never going to rely on other people. So that's kind of one way of keeping you safe. And so you could have different attachments in different parts of your life. That's kind of what I was trying to say, meaning like you could have with your friends, you could be avoided. But with your romantic partner, you could be really anxious because you probably had different traumas. If you had a friend trauma and then a very

type of trauma in your relationship, you'll have different attachments in different areas. And how they come off to you, too. And so that's the second part. Yeah. It's like that feeding that off. Right. So first of all, you can have different attachments in different areas of your life based on different traumas, but you also feed off the other person.

Yeah. So you could be relatively secure or maybe even anxious, but then if you're with a partner who's really anxious, you might be like, whoa, I'm really overwhelmed by their emotions. And suddenly you shift into avoidance. Yeah. And I know this has happened, like, in the course of my relationship. I've been with my part of 15 years. Yeah.

I feel like we've had multiple relationships and we've shifted. Yeah. His attachment has shifted. My attachment has shifted. And it's just been so interesting to watch how we play off each other. Because actually for a long time, I thought I was anxiously attached. And then I realized, oh, I'm not anxiously attached. He was just avoided and maybe even disorganized when we were young.

And that was just regulating my nervous system, which made me kind of lean in. But for the most part, if I look at all other areas of my life and how I am now that we've kind of done some more work, I'm probably the one to pull away a little bit more. I get overwhelmed by people's emotions sometimes. Which makes sense. I mean, so I know that you can exhibit different, but like I know me even with the tech, I am significantly more avoided now than I ever have been. And also just because the pendulum sometimes swings and yeah, you get triggered. But what about disorganized or feel full avoidant? That is, that's in it of itself, something else. And that's something else, right? So a lot of people say, oh, disorganized is just a combination of the two.

And that's not exactly true. You could have two. different attachment, different areas, or change attachment, but disorganize is a little different. So what disorganized attachment is. Let's keep going back to what that looked like in childhood to understand what was actually happening and what is still happening. So disorganized attachment happens when in childhood your physical, mental, emotional needs are severely neglected, or there's abuse, or there's a primary caregiver who's struggling with mental health issues. So there's a lot of instability. There's chaos. The child grows up. never knowing what they're going to get, right? And they start to equate love with pain.

Yeah. For whatever. There might be, it may be because of abuse, but it might also be because the primary caregiver is not well or struggling themselves. And so they're constantly getting hurt. They love their parents. They want to be with them, but when they're close to them, they feel pain. Okay. And so that creates this organized attachment or fearful attachment. And what that means is it's an intense need for connection, which is what we all have. That's the common thread here, right? coupled with fear. Right. Because in their lived experience, in their trauma, being close to people led to a lot of pain.

Yeah. And so when they grow up, they go into adulthood in relationship. They want to be close. They want to be connected. They want to be loved. But as soon as they get close, they pull away because there is an intense fear that comes over them. And so let's talk about like model of self and others, how we talked about before. They have a negative model of self and a negative model of others.

And that's what makes it so hard. They don't trust other people because they've been hurt. Yeah. But they also never learn to trust themselves similarly to an anxiously attached person. And so that's what creates this intense back and forth, these intense mood swings. They tend to give off a very come here, go away energy. They tend to come off very outgoing, gregarious. And then when you get close, their nervous system just sends off all the warning signs of

like, this is so dangerous, this is so bad. and they retreat very, very quickly. So they want to be connected and close, but as soon as they're there, they just get overwhelmed and they pull away. That's where I think the blend, or it's like there's a blend of it because there are characteristics of both.

It's not like you cut them both down the middle and you got to disorganized, but I have, as we talked about earlier, I have dated somebody like that. And when you brought that to my attention, even my own mom. My own mother is disorganized. And I didn't, but then talking to her

and understanding her childhood traumas, I'm like, no wonder. Yeah. She had that push-pulled. the mother wasn't really giving, but she wanted the love. And so I can completely see and understand it. And I think it's just, it's so interesting for us to understand. And then I think what people, you know what?

We're going to get into that in the next segment. There's more to life than finding the perfect car. But finding the perfect car can help you get the most out of life. Like the SUV that handles everything from drop off to off road. And the car that hulls groceries and hockey teams. Or the van that's gone from just practical to pre-oval. practically family. Whatever you want, wherever you're going, start your search at ototrater.ca, Canada's car marketplace. Welcome back. So we've now established, obviously, we know the attachment

styles. I'd love to debunk this a little bit and talk about some, some, I think, myths or some things that I think are going around that it's time somebody spoke up. So I'll let you take this from here, because I know you got a few and I'll interject. Okay. where do we begin? So I think the first one that comes up for me is that attachment is like a dating tool or a technique. Yeah. Right? Because we learn about it on here. We're like, okay, I need to apply this to my dating life. And that is not what attachment theory is for. It is not to improve your dating life. Like that's not literally what it's meant for. And what it's actually meant for? Like why I teach it to every single client of mine, honestly, every person in my life,

I'm like, you need to understand this. Yeah. Is because it allows you to have compassion and understanding. Yep. For yourself and for others. Yeah. That's what it enables you to do. You could understand your behavior and have some compassion for it instead of like,

oh, why am I such an anxious mess? Like, oh, that makes sense. Yeah. There's some unresolved pain within me that I'm still dealing with in my nervous system is asking me to look at, right? And in the same way you could do that for other people of, oh, why are they acting like that? They must be an asshole.

They must be a narcissist. Yeah. Maybe. Or maybe they're also struggling. Maybe you could have some understanding that their nervous system is feeling overwhelmed and that they need a little bit of support. But the support they need when they're dysregulated is different than the support you need when you're dysregulated.

And I think that's what attachment could really, like attachment theory could really give us. And I think we're missing that. Oh, 100%. I mean, we scream this from the rooftops. It's like, we don't go over all of this stuff to go, okay, cool. And how do I not date and avoidant or how do I deal with it or how do I get them? This isn't about changing other people.

This is about understanding yourself, your core, your wounds, your triggers, and how to move into a place of security so you can live a life that feels more aligned with the life that you want to live as opposed to living in this fight or flight trying to figure out how to not walk on the landmines along the way. Because it's a lot of, well, how do I do this with an avoidant and how do I do that? It's like what you do is you stop fucking with people that are triggering your whatever it is that you are feeling triggered and understand why it is that you keep going for those people. What is coming up for you? What is this trying to tell you and where did you learn along the way that you, that these are your belief systems?

And where did that become ingrained in your being? Where did you add that to your computer? Along the journey. Once you understand that, you can work to fix your fucking self. and then you can start to identify in future partners what triggers you and where you shouldn't spend your energy in time. Because as you move into a place of security, it's not that like I always, it's not like these things go away. You don't just wake up and you feel, oh my God, I'm great. Everything's perfect. I'm not going to make any of those mistakes. But what it does

teach you is you can start to identify when you start to see, let's say, somebody avoidant or your central nervous system is getting flared up, you know within yourself, ah, this is triggering something within me that doesn't feel good. It's not about great. Now, how can I use this to manipulate or to figure them out? It's to go, I don't like this. This is triggering for me. This brings up this. And you know what? Somebody who can't, like an avoidant, somebody who can't regulate and has to take the space doesn't work for me. Or maybe it's, I can identify this is where I'm being triggered. This is where my anxiety is start to play in. And it might be, it's okay to date someone that's avoidant. It's not like we're sitting here saying avoid this with all the cost. I mean, shit,

makes up a good population of the people. But it's about then how you can handle and understand you accept other people. Like you said, you have the compassion for other people to accept where they are on the journey, where you are on the journey, and can you actually make this work

by respecting their boundaries as well? So if an avoidant has a need for space and you're super anxious, get a fucking grip and start to sit in that discomfort as opposed to, well, I want my way and I need someone that's going to give it all to me. Yes, exactly. Oh, yes.

Just so much of it. right? And like kind of brings to the next kind of myth, which is that one attachment is better than the other, right? That like anxious is better than avoidant and I need to avoid avoidance. It's like, well, by that logic, they would avoid you because you're anxious, right? But by that logic, like, you're also a problem. The reality is like attachment isn't trying to say that someone's broken. They're not broken. You're not broken. It's just giving you a deeper understanding It's like, what is driving that? What is happening within my nervous system?

What is happening within theirs? And you're right. Once you understand your attachment and you start doing the work, you could say, hey, these are my needs. Can this person meet them? Can I try to communicate them? We could work together. And maybe they can't.

Or maybe you decide, hey, I know, like you could almost start to use attachment as a love language of this is my stuff. And can you understand that and what are ways you can support that? And I can understand yours. and what are ways I could support you and love you in the way you need to be loved. Right? Because at the end of the day, all of us are healing. All of us have trauma. There are very few people who are just 100% secure. And like if your goal is to go out and find that, good luck. Good luck. I wouldn't believe anyone who said it. Exactly. And honestly, if that you find that

unicorn, like, well, if you're anxiously attached, I don't know if they're going to see that as a red flag. Right. And so it's like that's not the point. We don't need to be looking for these like perfect people, we need to be understanding ourselves, what's happening within us, understanding our needs, voicing our boundaries, and trying to communicate that to another person. And if they're open and receptive to that, well, then there's like, you just found a huge opportunity for personal growth. You guys can grow together and support one another. And the fact that one of you is anxious and one of you is an avoidant, that could actually be a good thing. Yeah. Right. If you guys are both willing to come to the table and learn about one another and understand one another.

But we're not using attachment that way. We're using it to like point fingers and label people and cancel people. And like, that's not the point. We're missing it. We're missing these like huge opportunities for growth. Amazon presents Jeff versus Taco Truck Salsa, whether it's Verde, Roja, or the orange one. For Jeff, trying any salsa is like playing Russian roulette. with a flame thrower.

Luckily, Jeff saved with Amazon and stocked up on antacids, ginger tea, and milk. Habaniero? More like habanier, yes. Save the everyday with Amazon. I'm going to say a Masha statement. People are using it as an excuse and not an explanation. And that was one of my favorite things that you said when we first met.

And I was like, oh, fuck, there it is. Because it's not about using it of, well, I'm anxious and my partner isn't meeting my needs. for all those folks that like to say that, in the same vein, what do you think they say about you? Well, I'm avoidant, and she's super fucking anxious and won't leave me alone and keeps texting me and won't give me any space in the same light that you keep saying, well, they're not texting me and they want the space and they're pulling away from me. You can understand what I mean by it keeps triggering the situation. So what you use, like, when I recommend attached, I always tell people

I'm like, don't become attached to your attachment style. Don't wear this like a badge of honor of like, well, I'm avoidant and that's just what I am or I'm anxious and that's what I am. It's like you're going to dig your heel in the sands. All right, well, good luck with that. But you use it as a tool of saying, I have this and this is how, oh, I understand that this behavior causes me to feel this, not this behavior. Okay, so now how can I change that behavior? How can I change the other person? Because I'll tell you right now, for everyone listening, if you're going to ask us, how do you date and avoid it? Here's the best advice. Learn to accept. Stop trying to change them. Learn to accept that they need space.

It's the same as when I started dating tech guys saying I have more anxiety, I was like, you're going to need to know these things about me. That this is how I regulate and we can, you know, you compromise and you learn and you grow. But at the end of the day, who you are is who you are. And then you start to differentiate, do, is it a want or is it a need? Exactly. And your attachment style is the need. But your central nervous system is the want.

Or I'm sorry, I lied. Your central nervous system is the need. They need certain things to self-regulate, but your attachment is the want. Well, I have to have all of this. No, you don't. No, no, you don't. No, no. Absolutely, you do not.

And that also kind of brings up the other, I think, myth, which is you can predict or you could effectively identify another person's attachment. Yeah. Right? Because that's another thing. Like, when we're using it as this dating tool, we're kind of using it as like, oh, I just went on a few dates of like, I think he's this. And that means this. And it's like the reality is you actually can't effectively identify someone else's attachment, especially early on in a relationship.

Don't get me wrong. When the relationship starts getting a little deeper and there's a little bit more intimacy, you will start to see signs. And even then, you might not have all the puzzle pieces to really be able to say what it is. Yeah. But early on in a relationship, it's very easy for all of us to kind of come off secure because we mostly are secure, right? it's when we get into kind of more intimate dynamics that our trauma,

our stuff starts to come up and start to get triggered. And that's when the attachment is going to come out. So like trying to anticipate it early on, again, why? Right. And it's like, what do you think you're going to get out of that? I think another, the last debunk that I have for me is that like secure means that you're super healthy in the sense where like nothing bothers you. But what secure actually means is that you know,

you will be okay no matter fucking what happens. So I can even see out of the corner of my eye, a lot of these things that we start to see that start to crawl in of like, well, this and what is this and what is this? And you can start to see where the anxiety even lays when people ask a specific question because it's, there's so much of this,

I'm not going to be okay if this doesn't work out. And what do you think people feel? But when you are secure, you know it might hurt. You might get triggered. Yeah, you're right. But you know how to stop. sense your shit and go, wait a minute, I'm doing it again, aren't I? Which is what I did yesterday when I had my little fucking anxiety moment. I had a little meltdown. And I had to stop myself in the

moment and go, oh my God, you literally just created an entire narrative to fit the old ways of thinking. That is somebody who can be secure to go, we're not going to let that happen because I know even if the breakup happens, I'll be okay. My happiness doesn't, isn't contingent upon the other person in my life. They're in addition to, not instead of. And my central nervous system isn't calmed because of somebody else, I can do that myself. I have the tools now to self-regulate. Yeah. And I, this kind of brings up an important point of like with anxious attachment, the goal is to self-regulate. So first of all, you said something important too, even if you've done a lot of work and healed. Yeah. That doesn't mean you, your attachment will never come up again. I've done a lot

of work and I could still notice my avoid an attachment come up. And I notice myself even become anxious in certain situations, right? If someone triggers me or in a relationship with a friend or my partner does something, right? Like, that's still going to happen. It's what's showing how much work you've done or how healed you are is how capable you are of regulating through that and then coming to a calm grounded place and then making a decision from that more calm grounded place versus the dysregulated place versus that like 10 year old making the decision. Right. And I think that's really, really important. And so with anxious attachment, it's all about self-regulating. You said that so beautifully, like, you know you've done the work because you are like clearly

showing these moments where you're getting triggered because you're human, because you're in a, your relationship, the intimacy is increasing. And of course, that means you're going to get triggered and you're able to pause, regulate. And then come out on the other side and make an informed decision. Right. And that's the work for an anxiously attached person versus or someone who leans more avoidant, their work is actually going to be in co-regulating. They need to regulate their nervous systems with other people. They only know how to regulate on their own.

And how could you sustain a relationship if every time there's a problem and every time you're dysregulate, you're going to run the other way. Right, yeah. Right? You need to learn to also co-regulate. And I say this because I think like sometimes we talk a lot about self-regulation,

but in a healthy, like a healthy person could both co-regulated. co-regulate and self-regulate. If you're just self-regulating, yes, people a lot of times say, that's secure because I'm good on my own. It's like, no, you're afraid of regulating with others. You're afraid of connection and intimacy, right? But if you're only co-regulating, obviously, that has its own problem. So we really need both. And this is where the nervous system comes in. At the end of the day, what we're really talking about here is just different ways of regulating different survival strategies that we learned in response to trauma. Same, same, but different. In my same, same, but different in my eyes.

And I think, you know, I think maybe next week we'll dive in even deeper because I think there's just so much more to talk about of like how do you regulate and how do you use all of these tools that we have had. So I think this is the best place to say part one has come to an end. But next week, we're going to fucking keep going into this and we're going to talk more and we're going to end deep dive. And we have so much more to talk about. So, Masha, thank you for joining on this part of the week. I'm going to let her give a send-off. My last send-off is, please like the podcast. Thank you guys so much.

If you want to work with me one-on-one, you most certainly can. Or you can join the Patreon, which is Brina Zohar on Patreon, and you can become a monthly member. And Masha will share how you can get in touch with her. Yeah. And if I could just say one final thing, it's just like if you guys take away anything, it's to remember that you are not broken. Whatever your attachment style, whatever is happening in your nervous system, it's not broken. It's actually incredibly fucking brilliant.

your nervous system learn to survive. It learned to overcome unimaginable pain and traumas, which we've all gone through. And that's what you're experiencing. Yeah. Right. And you can heal that and you don't need to be perfectly healed, but you could work through that.

You could find regulation within yourself and in connection with others. And yeah. That was so beautifully said, by the way, so whoever stays this long in the episode, you're going to hear that again next week because I love that. And so we're going to remind everybody of that thought. We'll talk about it again.

But anyways. But anyways, where you could find me. You could find me on TikTok at Coach Masha K, K-A-Y. M-A-S-H-A. And on Instagram, you could find me at Masha K, again, K-A-Y. If you're interested in working with me, as a thank you for listening all the way to the end. So like, you deserve this. And I'm offering a nervous system audit.

So a 90-minute one-on-one session with me to check. in on your nervous system to notice where's the dysregulation, identify the triggers, all of the good stuff. If you'd like to do that, you can use the code Sabrina to get a pretty huge discount. Yeah. And yeah, it's actually huge. Yes, it's, it's, it's, the session is going to be 99 instead of 275. So it's a big discount as a thank you for hanging out with us today. Yeah, and I will, I'll tag everything in the show notes so you guys can find Masha everywhere. But until next week, guys.