The Sabrina Zohar Show - 92: What It Actually Means To Be In A Secure Relationship With Julie Menanno

Episode Date: August 16, 2024

Julie Menanno is on the show today, sitting down with Sabrina to talk about the interplay of attachment and relationships. Julie emphasizes that healthy relationships aren't about accommodating each other's insecurities or avoiding triggers but about engaging in mutual growth and healing. She and Sabrina challenge the narrative that one must lower their expectations or avoid partners who trigger them. Instead, they advocate for using those triggers as opportunities for personal and relational growth. A crucial part of building a secure relationship involves self-work—being emotionally balanced, recognizing and regulating your own emotions, and being able to reach out for support when it’s needed. Julie highlights the importance of feeling seen and heard in a relationship, as well as the need for both partners to be committed to growth and co-regulation during conflicts. Drawing from her own experience, she shares how communication, expressing needs, and working through challenges together have been key to maintaining a strong relationship. Today’s conversation underscores that a secure relationship, while more comfortable, requires ongoing effort, self-awareness, and the ability to repair and grow together, especially in the face of life's inevitable stresses and traumas. Get Julie's Book 'Secure Love: Create a Relationship That Lasts a Lifetime' Struggling with a breakup? Join the Make It Make Sense: Getting Through a Breakup course from Sabrina and Britt Frank HERE! Stuck After the Podcast? Master Implementation in 8 Weeks with Sabrina's Foundation Course HERE! Get Ad free and 2 Bonus episodes a month HERE! Want to work with Sabrina? HERE! Don't forget to follow Sabrina and The Sabrina Zohar Show on Instagram and Sabrina on TikTok! 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to another episode of the Sabrina Zohar Show. My name is Sabrina Zohar, and I am your host. Oh, babes, I'm still getting used to the name. You know, I've recorded quite a few intros where I still say the old name. Just shows you. You can teach an old dog new tricks. It just takes a minute.

And this is also just a reminder. It's okay if it takes a minute for some stuff to land and for things to become your norm. You're fucking human. You got this. Today, we've got a very special guest, guys. We have somebody that personally for me, like, changed a lot for my relationships. This is somebody who I have been following for quite some time and who really changed the name and changed the game for me on what a secure relationship actually looks like.

And that is none other than Ms. Julie Menino, one of my favorite therapist and content creators. And today we're talking about really the ins and outs of a secure relationship and how do you genuinely form said secure relationship, especially if you have those insecure attachment styles. remember guys we're not self-identifying with these attachment styles they're not who you are they're a part of your story and so i'm excited for us to have a little bit more of a conversation about that and i'm excited that moving forward you know i've announced this on the next show but like we're going to have a lot more solos i just i need more time with you guys and i'm really excited so feel free to pop into the the comments or anything episode ideas that you guys would want you can even just put like hey would

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the questions, the teachings. Everything is yours for life. And we wanted to make sure that we could support you guys along your journey. This isn't just a one and done, right? Like this work continues, and you can come back to this community anytime you need. So guys, as always, thank you, thank you. Thank you for rating the show. We're viewing it following along whatever platform you're listening to, Spotify or Apple, follow the show. It'll auto-download for you.

And please don't forget to leave review if you haven't already. If you don't think it's worth five stars, that's okay. You have every right to leave whatever review you'd like. Just remember language, right? I'm still a human. We're all in this community together to try and grow and heal. so let's just be cognizant of the way we speak to ourselves and others, shall we? All right, guys, without further ado, let's get right the fuck on into it.

Hi, Julie. Welcome to the Sabrina Zohar Show. I am so excited to have you. I am so excited to be here, and I like the new name. It's beautiful. Well, thank you. Oh, thank you. I know.

It's a weird. It's like neural pathways. I consistently keep saying the old name, and I'm like, no, we're going to learn something new today. So I'm so excited. And before we even get started, I would love if you could share you, who you are, your work with everybody, because I've been following you for years. So I'm so honored to even have you here. But for anybody who might not be familiar, tell us more about you. I'm Julie Monano, and I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist as well as a licensed,

licensed clinical professional counselor. I've been doing emotionally focused therapy for couples, which is a type of couples therapy, which uses attachment theory. So it's kind of based on the concepts of attachment theory and the concepts of the insecure attachment slash anxious avoidant relationship. Most of that, most of the couples we're treating are in that kind of anxious avoidant dynamic that we would call pursuer withdrawer through the EFT lens. So I've been doing that for about 12 years now. And then something happened in 2020 where I started an Instagram account sort of just randomly.

I won't go into the details of how that came about. But prior to that moment, I didn't even have an Instagram account. And I just started doing little cartoons. I felt like, hey, there's a lot of stuff about attachment theory being put out here that doesn't really add up for me, you know, as someone who works with it. And so I started doing little cartoons to kind of explain it to people. and that just took off. And so I kept going with it. And that led to writing a book Secure Love, which takes couples through the process that I use with the couples that I work with in my practice, like a self-help version. And then that led into what is my newest project, which is my most

exciting project for me. I'm on the third episode of my own podcast, which is me taking an actual real couple through 20 sessions of therapy of this type of work to really help the process come alive. They're a very typical anxious attached partner, avoidant attached partner. And so it's meant to kind of bring to life the work in the book, you know, to kind of go come full circle. Like the book sort of reflected this work I do with couples in my practice. And now the podcast is bringing the book to life. And outside of that, I've been married for 24 years. And, I have six amazing kids. And, you know, that's, my life is just providing a lot of emotional support to a lot of people.

Oh, God, I love, I, I, you're drawings, the birds. I've always been following the birds because what I love about what you do is you actually teach people how to do this. It's not just, let me shame you or let me just tell you what you're doing wrong. You give such tangible, like, oh, so that's how I say this to somebody. And I was actually curious, what were you seeing when you started? Because I find it such a valid and true annoyance. What were you seeing when you started that you were like, hey, this isn't adding up to me,

that you were like, where were the holes for you? Well, one hole was the way of void and attachment was being treated because there's really nothing worse or better about any insecure attachment style. I mean, we all need to become secure. It's really all the same insecurity just manifests in different ways. And so that was really bothering me and not just as a way to protect, you know, people with avoidant attachment, but also to protect people with anxious attachment. Because if they're being told, hey, it's all your partner. I mean, that really blocks a lot of work that can be done.

First of all, it makes people feel hopeless and who wants to feel hopeless and like they have no volition or my partner's just kind of broken. So I really felt strongly that I needed to come in and say, hey, look, this, let's look. look at this through the lens of this cycle of communication, where their insecurities are really kind of bouncing off of each other, and they're triggering each other. And let's look at it through that lens instead of, hey, you're broken, you're the enemy or whatever. And then the other thing was this kind of idea that we're supposed to really be accommodating someone's insecure attachment. When we're really not, we want to, you know, the prescription is kind of the same. for everybody, right, which is reinforcing a securely attached environment. And instead of saying, well,

you know, you have an anxious attachment, so I have to be really, make sure that, you know, I call you every five minutes. So your abandon of your doesn't kick in. You know, really it's about working together to kind of, on one hand, this person needs to start learning to self-regulate those fears. On the other hand, they need to start talking about those fears in a way that the other partner can support them with the pain around that in, you know, bonding moments instead of just kind of trying to band-aid it with, you know, these behaviors and sometimes anxious partners, you know, the list can just keep growing and growing and growing unless we're getting really down to the heart of the issue and healing some of that stuff. Or, you know, an avoidant partner

needs to have their need for space accommodated, right? I mean, there's healthy, you know, truths to the fact that we all need our sense of independence, but, you know, saying, well, someone's avoidant, so, you know, I have to have these kind of lower expectations of intimacy isn't really workable. 100%. And I have to say thank you for actually saying that and bringing this to light because I know for me, like that was my issue for a while was I was so, like my, a little bit about me is like I was the poster child to anxious attachment. Like the narcissistic father, people-pleasing mother and that dynamic of like no boundaries, not understanding any, like,

you couldn't say no, you'd get hit, you'd get hurt, you'd lose your caregiver. So when I was dating and like this is, I think, the pain points that so many of us have, and that's why I started this whole kind of similar to you of like, there's a whole missing, there's something here. Yeah. And I just kept seeing all of this content of like the avoidant is the worst human in the world and they're just such terrible. And the poor anxious, they're expressing themselves and,

no one listens. And so I adopted that mindset and I kept walking around as if I'm this healed version and I at least am expressing myself. I wasn't expressing myself for shit. I was anxious. I was using protest behavior. I was coming at it from, well, you didn't text me and you're the problem and you're the problem. And that's when I met my partner who is, he's more avoidant. I'm more anxious and he's studied psychology. Like he's very aware. But he goes in words. Like there's nothing wrong with him. He just shuts down and like gets overwhelmed. and you could see it. And when I first started dating him,

all the content I saw was similar to what you're describing of like, well, you don't need to take it and he should be doing all of these things. And if he doesn't text you every day, he doesn't like you. And I had all of this chirp birds chirping, no pun intended on what you were, but I had all of these things chirping in my ear.

But then I had to look and go, well, wait a minute, but what's my part here? Like my anxiety, this narrative I've created that he didn't text me, which means he doesn't like me. That's also on me. Yeah. Right? Like, yeah, we're literally creating a narrative to reaffirm that,

oh, there's, see, there's the issue. I knew it. And what I kind of realized after was, wait a minute, both of us have the same traumas. We're both scared of abandonment. We're both scared of rejection. We're both terrified at the fear. He just literally, I express, he goes in. Exactly. That's it. That's truly. And it started kind of boggling my mind. And so I got a lot of heat by saying the texting stuff and like, let's work on self-regulation. Let's see. How am I feeling what's coming up for me it doesn't always have to be about the other person and so i think like when it comes to i think kind of that myth of like oh well if if you're not so i saw something the other day it actually love your thoughts on this it was a therapist saying don't date someone that triggers you

don't don't just don't take people that trigger you because if you get triggered they're not right for you yeah and hearing that i think when we see okay well anxious and avoidant they're going to get triggered severely. How can you actually navigate? Is it, whoa, this person's triggering me. This isn't healthy for me versus, wait a minute, a trigger could also be something I can explore. How do we see when it becomes like detrimental versus, hey, maybe we can move sort of security together? Sure. That's a great, question. I mean, there's some truth to the fact that, you know, life is going to be harder if you were with a person who's just chronically triggering you, you know. So I understand kind of what people are saying, like, look, you want to find some level of harmonious from the outset, right?

But at some point, you are absolutely, I'm sure you will agree, going to trigger each other. You know, that's just the par for the course when you have two people coming together. And especially, you know, when you start having more emotional expectations of each other and more expectations of just kind of overlapping lives and finances and running a household together and all of these things. I mean, there are going to be plenty of triggers. So it's really, are you using those triggers as growth opportunities? Are you using them to kind of ultimately, you know, create a less triggering environment?

Not one that is completely devoid of triggers, but how are you using those triggers to grow as individuals, to grow as a couple? Are you using them? Are they kind of, you know, the triggers not really getting dealt with? And so the material is just kind of going under the rug and the same thing keeps popping up. we keep dealing with the same triggers over and over and over. I mean, that's a bad sign if it's the same triggers. But yeah, so it's really, you know, it's hard with those kinds of issues because there's no real right or wrong answer, you know. I mean, we do want a harmonious relationship.

And I wouldn't want a couple to be together and just be triggering each other left and right and then saying, oh, well, this is all normal. We're supposed, you know, triggers are normal. So I like to say, look, you know, are 75 to 90% of the time? Are you existing in the relationship in a way that you're not feeling triggered? And when you do have those triggers, are you able to resolve it? Get back on track. Get back to your norm, your normal kind of sunny, moderate climate together. And if that's not happening, then something needs to be looked at.

Does that mean the relationship needs to end because, oh, we're triggering each other too much? No, absolutely not. You might need to go get some help and figure out, you know, what's blocking. you from working through that stuff. And sometimes relationships do need to end. Sometimes the triggers are overwhelming to the point that the couple can't work on it because it's just too much. A hundred percent. I think for when my partner and I were in couples therapy and I think a lot of people are like, what is there something wrong? And we're like, no, no, no, no. We wanted to do that before we get married? We want to make sure that, hey, are we good? Do you agree with these things?

And it's such a safe space to be able to say, hey, this really annoyed me. And him's, what? What? what's going on. That way we could learn how to communicate with each other, but I just, I'll be honest, for anybody that's listening, most people that are super anxious, it's like, yeah, yeah, I'm so kind of tired of hearing this like, no, just don't date avoidance. Oh, I just need to avoid them and I don't want to see. Just don't ever. And it's like, good luck that. I'm sorry, but like there's no detective playing. There's no quiz that you could take to make sure that this person's secure and this person's healthy. What I hear from a lot of that is like, I don't trust myself that I know what's good for me or that I don't trust myself to be able to show up

in this because I was for a long time I was doing that I was just oh I need someone secure and I wanted to actually and before I even ask you this question I learned the hard way that like I thought I was so secure I still had my shit and what really made the relationship actually work was that we were both willing to invest we both genuinely want it we both are in our own therapy we both have come together to say this means something to me I want to make progress that to me is worth its way to if we can actually come together that way versus you hurt me. It's like, sure, you're a human,

but what do you do with it? Exactly. Yeah. 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 flamethrower. Luckily, Jeff saved with Amazon

and stocked up on antacids, tea and milk. Habaniero, more like Habinier, yes. Save the everyday with Amazon. So, but that one question I had for you was a question I hear all the time is, and somebody asked us on Insta, what are examples of what we should be looking for in a secure partner? And maybe we break that down into like the early stages of dating and then maybe the relationship aspect. But I'd love to hear your thoughts, especially for people in that early stages when everyone's on their best behavior and we don't really know, what are things that somebody can start to either implement or look out for

within themselves and somebody else that they're dating of a secure partner or earn secure? Sure. Yeah. Well, I would say in the early stages of dating, you know, you want to feel a sense of, you know, being heard and seen by someone when you're interacting with them. Are they curious about your world, your inner world? Are you curious about their inner world? I mean, that's a really good sign that you have work to do if you find yourself not being curious.

Are you, you know, is that person fixated on what they can get from you or they also fixated on what they can offer to you? You know, we want people who have a balanced approach to that. It's not just about what can this person give me. What can this person give me? It's what can we do to help each other care, you know, to help each other be, feel good with each other. feel like whole people. Someone who, you know, it's tricky because early in the relationship, you don't want to dive in and go, well, how do you feel about, you know, working on yourself? You know, that's, some people are fine with that. And it would be nice if we lived in a world

where that conversation could happen at the first state. But, you know, so just knowing, like, feeling out for is this person into growth at all? I mean, you said it a minute ago. It was like, don't date and avoidant. That was the message you were getting, right? And I, what I want people to say and what I teach my kids is don't date anyone who isn't willing to work on it. You know, it's like growth mindset is everything. You know, you can overcome a lot, anything, you know, with a growth mindset. And so does this person tend to have a growth mindset? Again, just that felt sense of do you feel responded to in the conversations? Do you feel like, you know, you? You know, you? You you know, you're being valued.

Do you feel like this person kind of does what they say they're going to do? They're not just like sending a lot of mixed messages. But then it's, I would say, just a felt sense, a felt sense of ease. You know, you want to make sure I'm not feeling like kind of judged or like they kind of go blank or all of a sudden when you start to ask questions that are a little too real, they freeze up or do they feel kind of, is there like a sense of urgency there? you know so paying i think a lot of it too is being healthy as an individual being emotionally balanced within yourself is kind of like part of what helps you feel for the health and other people so there's really no you know substitute for your own work i guess is where i'm going with this but where my expertise really lies because i'm seeing the people who come to me after they're all ready together right

that's where my expertise is in judging secure versus insecure. So it's, you know, first of all, do we have two people that are able to be able to access their emotions, put words to their emotions, recognize this is extremely important, and I do tons of this work with the couple in my podcast. Are they able to recognize the bodily sense? That's so, so, so important. It's the bodily experience of emotion. That's really where it all starts. You know, really being able to check in, recognize, you know, there's this tight feeling in my core or wherever my limbs, wherever it might be, my head feels pressure. What is that trying to tell me?

That's going to get them to probably the word fear. Triggers are almost always about fear, right? And it's like, okay, so what's the fear in this moment? What is the impact of the fear? and being able to kind of access this stuff within your body and put feeling words to it, you really can't learn to be emotionally engaged unless you can do that. Otherwise, you're just being kind of like emotionally conceptual. You're speaking about your emotions, but you're not really speaking from an engaged emotional place.

And then on top of that, it's not just about being able to access it. It's about being able to stay regulated with it. So a lot of times people with an anxious attachment, they're flooded with their emotions and they mistake that for emotional availability and emotional awareness. And it's really not, you know, that's not where we're wanting people to be. We want people to have this balance of emotionally engaged while emotionally kind of softened or regulated. And in fact, the names of the stages of the work that I do with the couples is, you know, the first part would be a withdraw or re-engagement, meaning re-engage the partner who's more

avoidant, re-engage them with their emotions, and then pursue or softening, which is soften the pursuing partner, soften their emotional expressions, and, you know, it's both working together. And so other signs of a secure attachment, are you able to reach and respond to each other for emotional comfort and support? Do you have the words to reach? When your partner reaches to you, do you have the words to respond? And not just words, sometimes it's, you know, physical touch, physical co-operative. regulation, but the quality of the reaching and the responding. Both partners need to be able to

reach, both need to be able to respond. And then are we able to co-regulate? Are we able to, you know, when we get into these what I call negative cycles, right? So the classic insecure, you know, problem between two people who have an insecure attachment with each other is the anxious partner comes in and brings up the concern because they're the ones who've been tasked with the responsibility of bringing up all the concerns. Exactly. It's not fair to them. It's not fair to anyone, but that's just they've both contributed to that environment, right? So they bring up the concern with heat because they've been holding it in going, I shouldn't bring it up, I shouldn't bring it up, I shouldn't bring it up, well, I'm going to bring it up. And they come in with heat and then the

avoidant partner now feels attacked and overwhelmed. And even if the anxious partner delivered it in the most perfect way possible. A lot of the time, avoidant partners can't tolerate messages of failing. And so then they get overwhelmed. They freeze up. They don't know how to respond to emotions with emotional health. And so they start to get either defensive or super logical or super reasonable. And now the anxious partner feels wholly invalidated, which is their wound. That's like the worst thing you can do to an anxious attached person is either abandon them or invalidate them emotionally, which is emotional abandonment. And then they get more essential. escalated and the avoidant partner now starts to feel like helpless over the situation and then

they get frustrated and they might go back and forth a few rounds but ultimately the avoidant partner just sort of shuts down at some point just cuts it off shuts down then the anxious partner is panicking and going gosh you know on one hand they're mad and they you know they're going you have no right to shut down and then on the other hand though they feel they feel like well I should have never said anything here we you know this is the reason I should have never said anything to begin with. And so anyway, that's a terrible place for them to be. And so that isn't, that's a way an insecure interaction would go when someone gets triggered.

Is that cycle, right? So what is secure? Well, secure is, you know, let me, do you mind if I give you an example like from the couple from my podcast? Because, okay. I'd love that. Okay. Yeah, sometimes it's easier to bring things to life with examples. So, so they're at a baseball game.

They have three little kids, six and under. And it's the first, their kids' first baseball game. And the kids are being really rowy. They're like on the front row of the game. It's a professional game. And the kids are being rowdy, normal, you know, twin, two-year-old boys. And the husband starts to get really, really overwhelmed. Because for him, you know, he really wants to know he has it together with his family.

He's being a good leader of his family. And so when his kids start to act up, for him, it's like kind of shameful. Like, what are the people around me thinking? Are they thinking I don't have control over the situation or I'm not a good dad or whatever? And so he starts to get really flooded. He has no idea he's flooded, though. He's completely detached from it because he's learned to just stuff that flooding down so far. All he knows is he has an urge to get out of there, right?

So he gets up and leaves and thinks, well, I'm going to go take a breather and gets up goes, right? Well, now what happens to the anxious partner? Now she feels deserted and abandoned and alone. And she doesn't know how to how to deal with those feelings. He doesn't know how to deal with his feelings. And so what does she do? She starts texting, right? Starts the panicked. Where are you? Accusatory? All these things texting. And now what does he do? He gets more messages. Now you're failing on top of failing on top of failing. He gets even more flooded. That makes him less likely to want to come back into the storm, right? And so they ended up, you know, they kind of worked, worked through it, but they were tense. It was a, it was in a good situation for them. And

they kind of threw them off kilter for the whole rest of the day and then to the next day. Okay. So what does a secure couple do with that? Do they just simply not get triggered? No, not at all. There are a few different things that could have gone differently for them had they had more of that secure attachment with them themselves, the ability to, you know, self-regulate, put words to what's going on with them, and a secure relationship between them where they could reach for help from each other. So for Drew, the husband, that could have looked like, okay, this is one of those moments, you know, as the tension starts to build, he's getting triggered. This is one of those moments where I'm starting to get, you know, I feel the pressure

in my body, you know, what's going on with me. I think I'm kind of getting scared, being judged. you know, that's a, that's a shameful place for me to go. I know that place. It's where I might be being judged. And what can I kind of do here? You know, I have this urge to kind of run away and escape, but that's going to leave Melissa feeling alone. That's not going to work for us. So, you know, and that might have been enough for him just to kind of check in with himself, right? And make a new choice instead of just blindly going in to the escape. What's the secure piece there? The secure piece there is that he has the ability to check in and emotionally engage with his own experience, which is totally new for him. He may have, in another situation, reached for co-regulation,

right? Reached for, you know, just reaching to his wife and saying, I'm feeling really overwhelmed by this. And then she is doing her own work, and that would help her show up in a way where she understands and has more empathy with what's happening for him because she's learned about that, because they've been able to talk about their feelings. And then she's able to just take his hand and say, okay, I've got you. I know this is hard for both of us. I mean, that could be enough just to take the edge off the situation, right? But let's say he does get up and leave anyway. Let's say he's not his best self that day. Now what can she do as the anxious partner who's sitting there left alone? Well, that's not fair to her, right? But she still has an

opportunity to react differently. And in that moment, she might check in and go, okay, I'm feeling abandoned. This is the worst place for me. I'm left alone with all this and it feels really bad. And this pressure in my body is wanting to just reach out and get him to change, get him to do it differently, get him to see how much pain I'm in. But you know what? I'm going to do something different. I'm going to keep one foot kind of grounded in my own experience and put one foot in his experience.

And instead of frantically texting, I'm going to say, hey, look, I know this is overwhelming for you. Just validate where he's at. That's reaching to your partner, giving them some support, and saying, you know, we haven't had a lot of success in these moments in the past. But, you know, I'm feeling kind of left alone here, too, at the same time. Like, this doesn't feel good for me. Like, can we just try this in a new way? And that, you know, when couples can really, it does take some work to get to that point. You know, it takes a lot of really learning to check in with yourself, figuring out what will help me in this moment.

there's multiple different things you can do that are healthy besides going into the negative cycle. But it's a matter of partners just really playing around with it and figuring out what works. And sometimes it's just taking the edge off, you know, just taking the edge off of a situation. One partner might be their best self in a moment. The other partner might need to be their best self in a different moment. And they're just kind of learning to work with each other. And so I would say, you know, that's kind of my painted picture of a secure attack. interaction or an emerging secure attachment interaction.

And yeah, so that was a lot. No, thank you for sharing because I think what that story exemplifies is that that misconception of like, one, if I hear this more fucking time that like, I need to be healed to be in a relationship. And I'm like, nothing is going to help you heal quicker and then having the right partner to do that with. And what I learned to like my partner when we met more avoidant, more anxious, but I've been therapy. Like I had been really like, no, no, no, no. And when my dog passed away,

that was it. My whole life, like, flashed before me. And I was like, I don't care about any of this stuff anymore, right? Like, you just, I had a complete 180. And so when I met him, wasn't a big texter, was a bit more standoffish, wasn't as, you know, was a bit more that avoidant would go inwards. And from, I will never forget first date. I ask, what kind of relationship did you want? How did your last relationship end? What did it teach you about yourself? Like, I wanted to make sure that I am dating somebody growth-minded as well. It's so important to me. And I'll never forget, he said one thing. And this truthfully helped us throughout to show how you don't have to meet someone secure it and it comes out of the gate. We could work through this together. He said one thing to

me. And he said, I am tired of dating women that feel like either I fit into their life or they fit into mine. I want to co-create and build one together. That's amazing. Yeah. And when he said that, I was like, panties dropped. I was like, oh, my God, yes. And so, So when we started to date, it challenged every core belief I ever had of like, but he doesn't text me. He doesn't like me. And I was like, or you just saw him last night. You're seeing him in two days.

Like it allowed me to work through my own stuff. I was like, huh, well, this isn't what normal, right? And so then when we started to date, then when any time an issue arise, instead of me attacking him, I would always say, hey, can I share something with you, asking to make sure he had the space to receive what it was that I wanted to say to him. And I'll never forget. it was an exact example where I said, hey, do you want to, like, do you want to do you want to do something, right? And he just said no and just walked off. Now to anybody else, they might be like, okay, he's just not in the mood.

For me, I went back to being seven. All of a sudden, I got the heat wave over my body. And it's, I hit me and I was like, okay, what's going on? Like the pinch doesn't match the out. You're so upset because he said, no. And then I sat with me and I was like, that's what my dad used to do. He would just go and walk off. And it felt very dismissed. And so when he came back, I said, can I share something with you? And he was like, yeah, what's up? And I said, I know that you didn't mean anything negative by that. But when you said no and walked off, I felt so dismissed. And it really reminded me of my dad. I'm not saying that you have to change who you are. But moving forward, could you just say not interested?

And that'll at least let me know a little bit more data than just no. And sure enough, he was like, oh, my God, I'm so sorry. I never understood. Thank you for sharing. And we started to share more and more of like when he'd shut down, he would say, you know, this is really hard for me. I hate expressing myself. but I know that this is important.

And he would explain. That way, we both understood each other. We're very curious. Like, when he sees a big emotion, he'll stop and be like, how old are you right now? Where is this coming from? And we support each other to the point where any time there's an issue now, I'll go, hey, remember what you promised me in the beginning

that we were going to co-create together? I don't necessarily feel like we're doing that. Can we regroup and talk about what's going on here? Beautiful. Beautiful. I love it. Thank you. That is secure. You're not, I mean, it's just how you're handling those ruptures. And that's what I want.

And the only reason I share my personal stories, so people like you sharing with Drew and Melissa, that it doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with anybody that doesn't handle situations like this. It just means that we can learn because I'll tell you, I never used to handle situations. I would explode. I would scream. I'd cry. I'd protest.

And that's actually why I'm so glad you shared that because I think the aspect of we have to come out. truthfully speaking, I don't know about you. I've never met. I've met, okay, I lied. I met one person who's like authentically a secure human from the get. Most people I meet have their shit. We're all just trying to navigate towards it. There's not one person I could say confidently in my entire life I've ever met that really just grew up with the super solid secure attachment. I mean, I know one person I might say that, but she lacks, there's like this kind of lack of empathy to it, you know. So it's like secure, but I always, I'm like, is that really secure?

Because, you know, there's that kind of like a little bit of a flavorable lack of empathy. And that's the closest that I've seen. So, yeah, I think we're all a work in progress. And I guess if I had no other message to give people, it would be you absolutely can achieve secure attachment with yourself and, you know, with your partner, given that your partner is willing ultimately to work with you too. I think that's the key, though, it's that ultimately, because I get this every day of like, you know, somebody asked, like, how do you support yourself and your partner when you're healing? And the example they gave was one person needs space, one person wants to talk, how do you make it work?

And I'm sure, I would imagine you see these dynamics often. Yes. It's like, I feel like we kind of answered it, but at the same time I have more questions because I'm like, I know that we need to see the progress, right? We need to be able to see that. But have you seen, I guess, in your professional experience with how many people that, you deal with that commend with this. Is there a good odds that both people can really work through this? Or do you see more often than not that like when somebody is just to that severity of like, I need space and always leaving? What's that kind of road to reconciliation here? Because like you said, with Drew and Melissa, like he left, she felt that abandonment. How can we actually find a middle ground?

I guess starting within us to be able to determine, is this something that's like rude and disrespectful? or is this a valid need that this person's asking me for? Well, it's, you know, it could, it could be both. I mean, I think that for one, you know, I'm always working with blocks, right? So let's just start with the person who wants the space in a given moment. Like, what is blocking them from staying engaged? You know, is it that they're in a red light brain and they know that this isn't going to go anywhere good?

I need to kind of regulate myself, but I'm willing to come back into that when I am more, you know, down to a yellow light. brain or a green light brain where I'm more open, in which case that's a protective strategy. That's a good thing. I mean, we don't want people going in engaging from red light brains where they're not taking in anything anyone's saying and they're protective and they're probably saying mean things and damaging the relationship. Or is that person blocked because they don't know how to successfully stay engaged? Staying engaged, they never experienced that being successful. they don't know that they got they don't know the skills they don't know how to show up they don't know how to talk about their feelings and i think that's one of drew's things is that he hasn't had a lot of success with the engagement and so i need to help him learn how to stay engaged in a way that actually ends up feeling really good and a lot better than just having to disconnect to order in order to keep things from getting worse i'm going to give you a new way to keep things from getting worse right if that's your goal you want to keep things from getting worse here's another option um and

then, you know, there could be, you know, a number of other different kind of flavors of those two things. They might have an association with if we get into a conflict and, you know, something goes wrong. That's the end of our relationship. Conflict means that, you know, that we're not meant for each other and all of these meetings that people can have. But I think that, you know, then on the flip side of it, what's going on with the person who is desperate to stay engaged in that moment, right? Are they actually in a red light brain? And they're trying to avoid feeling alone and abandoned. And they're just kind of in a panic.

And it's really not healthy for them to necessarily stay engaged in the conversation. What they're needing is either self-regulation or co-regulation, meaning we need to kind of take a break from trying to go forward with this conversation and instead just co-regulate, get each other, you know, help each other, hold each other, or anything that can kind of soothe each other's nervous systems or one partner can help soothe the other. If they're both in a red light brain, it might make more sense for them to self-regulate.

There's no one there to co-regulate. You know, that's not what I love. I like it. I think when couples can co-regulation is 20 times more effective than self-regulation, but we don't always have that. You know, especially when couples are new to this work. They're going to be in red light brain a lot more of the time. Or are they wanting to stay engaged?

because it's a healthy need to work through a problem, in which case, you know, we want to look at the other partner, you know, what's your block to staying engaged here? So it's really, again, it's just a matter of each interaction really needs to have its own unique flavor taken into account and worked with. And the couple's being able to work with each other and being able to communicate like, hey, listen, I get, you know,

I'm going to validate where you're coming from. You want to stay in this. Like, of course you do. You don't want dangling conflicts all around. our relationship where we're not resolving anything. But at the same time, if we keep going in this negative cycle, we're just going to keep piling on problems. And I'd rather protect us right now. You know, that's attachment-friendly language saying instead of, I don't want to talk about this with you or I don't want to fight with you. It's, I want to protect us from going down this road. And, you know,

then the other partner might need to say, like, look, I know you get overwhelmed. I know you have very good reasons for wanting to detach right now from this. We haven't had a lot of success with this topic. But at the same time, if we don't address it at some point now or in 20 minutes or tomorrow at this time, I'm going to end up feeling alone with it. So again, it's just a matter of really having the words to work together on all of this stuff. A lot of people want really clear-cut answers on what do you do when one partner wants to talk and the other partner doesn't. And I wish that I could give, you know, formulas, but a lot of it depends on on the situation and what's going on that's blocking it from happening to begin with. But as a rule of thumb, I think that, you know,

how long should you not, you know, if one person does need to take a break, how long should that break be? A rule of thumb is anywhere from 20 minutes to one day. Okay, so no more than that 24 hours. That's kind of my thing. I'm like any more than 24 hours, like especially, obviously if you live with somebody, it's a very different circumstance. But to me, what I see here is like life is only going to get hard and worse, like as we grow, as we develop as we continue.

So if something is small as when we want to get groceries, causes a huge disruption and you can't, you can't fix that rupture, you know, try to come together, then my concern here is like, what's going to happen when there's death, when there's grief, when there's major. loss. Yeah. That person's just going to up and out all the time. Like, it's just not feasible. But I am curious, because you've been married, you said 24 years, right? Yep. Is there just what have, and maybe clinically, maybe personally, what is something, I kind of have a sneaking suspicion. I might know the answer, but I'm curious. What have you seen to help you

stay in that secure partnership together for so long? Like, how do we start to add those years together? Is there anything that you're like, oh, without this, it's not going to happen. I'm curious. your thoughts, professionally and personally? Well, yeah, I mean, we had so much stress in our lives. I mean, we had, you know, six kids in 10 years and we had, you know, twins and hospitalizations and all sorts. His mom got hit by a car and killed when our twins were five months old. And so it's just like, it was just like 10 years of like trauma after trauma after trauma. So I think that there's something to be said for recognizing, like, when you're going through stuff like that together, there's only so much you're going to be able to grow as a couple. You're just, you're too busy. You know, you can't,

you're trying to keep your kids alive. You're trying to keep everything float. And I think just kind of like recognizing those limitations can be very helpful for people. I mean, I have couples who are really in the thick of a lot of really hard, hard stuff. And sometimes it's like, I give you permission to not be in the best place with each other for a while, right? But with that said, I think that going through those experiences and just surviving them one is extremely bonding. And just learning how to work with each other, I think for me, one thing that has really been a game changer is just being able to put words to what's happening in the moment, right? And so for me, that looks like, you know, if I'm really sensitive to invalidation, right? If I say, you know, I'm frustrated because I don't have enough

oven racks. This happened yesterday. I can't find my third oven rack. I have no idea what happened in my third oven rack. Well, that was really cramping my style because I couldn't fit all the food in the oven that I needed. I had on, you know, these beautiful like roasting trays that I needed to cook. And so I'm like, well, like opening the oven while, you know, while it's hot, while it's 350 degrees, trying to snap a picture of the model number on the inside of the oven door so I can immediately go order another oven rack. And my husband's like, you don't need another oven rack. And it was just like, I was like, you're describing that moment when your, you know, husband just said no and walked away. It's, that's, it hit me. I was like, wait a minute. I'm like in actual distress right now

because I can't cook my chicken and vegetables at the same time. And like, you're telling me, Like, you're not even, like, stepping in to be curious about that. You're just, like, telling me, I don't need another oven rack. And I mean, I was just like, and so I was able to check in and go, okay, that's, that's a lot of old stuff from my childhood coming up, right? That's his intention was not just to wholly invalidate me, but it feels like that. And so when the pressure is like that for me and it feels like harder to contain, when I go to him and he's learned to respond to this, like in the past, let's say, you know,

a decade ago. It may have been like, how dare you tell me I don't need an oven rack, you know? Why don't you even be curious about my, you don't care about my needs. It was just like, okay, this is so silly, but it works for us. I was like, there's this pressure in my chest and like, I just need to be heard right now, right? Like, I just need to be heard. Like, this pressure is so big. And he's like, okay, what would happen? I was like, I just, I want to be understood about the oven rack. Like, I really want you to know that, you know, this. is something that, you know, really is frustrating for me when I don't. And he was like, okay, I'm, you know, I totally get that. I totally get that. He was like, I'm sorry. You know,

it wasn't even, did he even necessarily need to apologize for it? No, on his hand, it was just kind of an offhanded comment. I don't really care if he apologizes or not. I just wanted to know he understood where I was coming from. And so that pressure in my body was my body saying, I need to be understood. I desperately need to be understood about what I, you know, as silly as it is, the oven rack. And then for him, being able to kind of do the same thing. But with his stuff, which is, you know what, I want to help you right now, but I just, I don't know what, I don't know what to say, you know, I'm just, I feel kind of frozen.

And there's this part of me that's afraid if I don't say the right thing, you're going to end up being dropped. And, you know, so just that, just that kind of dialogue, which is really talking about, you know, our fears and moments and being more clear about what we're really truly needing. I think when couples aren't clear about what they're needing because they don't know their inner world well enough, then it's extremely hard to know what you need from another person if you don't really know what you need from yourself. 100%. It's so, it's such a beautiful exploration as well, because like if you, for a lot of people go, well, I don't know how to express my needs. It's like, well, yeah, this is that beautiful place to start to explore that of like I was never to me anytime you

express your needs as a child you'd get hit or left like that was one of the two options was like some kind of abuse or some kind of abandonment and so as an adult it felt of course I'm too much and I'm to this until I stopped and was like I need to validate that this need is normal I want to validate within myself that I have every right to say hey turn the fucking water off when you walk away because guess who's to pay for that bill uh-huh I do you know and exactly it's interesting because I had a similar kind of small experience and what I learned as well that really helped us at least in our relationship is I started to in the moment clarify if it helps me or not so like when the cease and desist happened everybody by now the time they're listening this yeah they know and I had a

mental breakdown like when I say mental breakdown I saw that was my father that was the biggest tiger was you're taking everything I worked so hard away from me yeah and I went and I had to work through it and I was like, whoa, I had the heaviness in my chest. I saw it in the marble. It was this whole moment I had where I went in. It was a memory and I was able to connect. And Ryan, God bless him, in that moment, tried his hardest, right? Like he's somebody who's looking at me being like, I don't know what to do. She's having a breakdown. And after at night, I looked at him and all I said was, thank you for tonight. And he was like, what are you talking about? Thank you for what. And I said, the way you supported me tonight was exactly what I needed.

You listened to me, you validated me. You showed up for me. And he was like, giving me chill. things. He felt so good about it because he was like, I was hoping you'd see that I'd been trying really hard. And then vice versa. Yesterday, I woke up and I said, I got a very mean comment to somebody left. And I said, man, I'm really hurting. And he ignored it. And I finally said, I stopped him and I said, babe, can I just say one thing? I understand that it's early. You don't want to deal with this. And that this is not something that you want to entertain. And I understand that. And I said, but I was looking just for a little validation that I was going to be okay. I don't need an apology. moving forward, just let me know that you hear me and that you saw what I said. Yeah.

And he tried. At first, he was going to get defensive and he goes, I'm sorry. And I said, it's not an apology. Kind of like what you said. I was like, it's not that you did anything wrong. Right. I said, but if you want to know how to support me, this is what I need from you in order to feel supported in this relationship.

And he was like, thanks for the clear roadmap. I know what I need to do. Yes, I love it. I love it. Clear. That way there's no guessing. Yeah. So true.

Clear signals. I think you and I operate very similarly in our relationships. When it's like, I was going to ask you, did you, did your, like, were you having like that anxiety? Where would you say that you kind of fell? I don't need to self-identify, but more just, were you somebody that had more anxiety entering into your relationship and were able to work through that? For sure. For sure.

Yeah. I mean, it, like when I was first with him before we had kids, I was just a very clear-cut, like, anxious attachment, you know, didn't want him. leaving. I mean, it was really hard for me if he was like out with friends and stuff. I didn't want him to not have friends, but I just didn't, I felt so empty. You know, it's like I jumped into him and he became my world and then it was like, I just felt so empty without him. And so I definitely had that. That went away. That flavor of anxious attachment went away when we had kids because I think you just kind of, I don't know, I shifted out of that into more like I need help. I need help.

need support, you know, emotionally and with the kids. And I was just like drowning and, you know, overwhelmed by, because all that anxious energy was also showing up in the way I was parenting. And, you know, my anxiety was bleeding off into the kids. And it was just this huge chaotic, blah, emotional dysfunction, toxic thing. And so then my anxious energy started looking more like a lot of protests and a lot of, why aren't you here for me? And I really. did like you, I really did believe, like, he's the problem. He's all the problem, right? And I look back and like, oh, my God, like there's so many things I could have been doing on my end. But the narrative truly was, I feel yucky. And it's because he's not showing up for me in the right way. And it's so

easy to write that narrative, especially when you grew up an environment where you did feel yucky because somebody wasn't showing up for you in the right way. So, yeah, definitely anxious. Okay. Awesome. 100%. That's like, Welcome to the family. I think we all belong here. But all right, one last question that, I didn't even a fucking question, but I think something we need to debunk that somebody asked that, I guess to me, I mentioned it earlier, but somebody asked, is a secure relationship supposed to be easier? And I'm curious to hear your thoughts, because to me, I'm like, I don't know what in life

is easy. Honestly, even putting my shoes on sometimes it's hard for me. But I'd love to know, I have my own thoughts, but on your perspective, just hearing that, Yeah. What are your thoughts? I say 100% it's supposed to be easier. And I don't know if easy is the right word, but more comfortable is the right word. I mean, it is really hard. When you're in an insecurely attached relationship, you're constantly fielding feelings of anxiety and loneliness and helplessness and powerlessness and demoralization and overwhelm and inner conflict. And, you know, if that's, you know, if someone isn't feeling those things, they're probably not in an

insecurely attached relationship or emptiness or whatever. And to me, that's way harder than doing what we're describing, which is putting the work in to have healthy communication that ultimately ends up feeling really good and keeps us sustained for, you know, I don't know, like my husband and I might have to have one of those conversations once a week or twice a week or something, like, that's fine. You know, most of the vast majority of the time, I feel good and cared for and seen and understood and supported. So I do think it should be a lot, lot, lot more comfortable than the alternative.

I like comfortable because to me, I'm like, it should flow, right? Like, to me, it's hard for me to communicate sometimes. It was. It was now. Please, Lord, it's easy now. But you know what I mean? I think, and that's that common misconception. I don't want people to look at this and be like, well, but we had to.

another issue. Okay, this isn't easy. And it's like, well, no, no, no, no, no, no. You're going to have stuff. Let me say, let me say this. You know, there's, there's this trajectory of healing, right? And when you first start out, it's just all, you know, most couples are in a really bad spot, like I described, like just feeling yucky all the time. And then, yeah, there is a period of time where you're having to put in a lot more effort because you're learning, you're growing, you're learning how to do this, your trial and error, things fall apart. You have another rupture. It's two steps forward, one step back. But I think over time, definitely the goal is that we get to the point where it all starts to, you know, sort of like work itself out of a job.

The better you get at repairing, the least, the less often you need to do it. But we need to balance that out with, you're always going to need to do it, always. You know, there's always going to be plenty of opportunities for some ruptures along the way. Yeah, because I think like for me, at least when I used to see, like, what a healthy relationship was, it was foreign. I've never been, I never had that example. So I thought, oh my God, I don't even know how you could have that. And I will, and I do, you know what you mean? It's easier than I thought it was going to be because it just requires different skill sets and tools for me in order to how you show up.

I think that's the differentiating factor is like it's really dependent upon like what are you showing up with. That's how hard or easy this is going to feel for you. Just like anything else. If I started school tomorrow with no background versus 10 years of it. Totally. Right. You still have to work. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, yeah, formerly known on the show. Yes. You have to start doing the work. Oh, I just hit your wound. Sorry. Oh, don't worry about it. It's been hit all week. But anyways, Julie, thank you so much for being on the show. Please, please, plug your amazing book. It's going to be linked in the show notes. But share with us. Where can people find you? And where can they listen to your podcast? Okay, well, so I wrote Secure Love again as like a self-help book for those who are really wanting to do this kind of deeper level, emotional self-work plus relationship work on top of that. I think one of the things I think that makes it stand out is there's just a lot of skills and scripts in it that, you know, I'm putting out a lot of verbiage right now just in my conversation with you that, you know, nobody knows how to say those things because if you don't grow up in a home,

And if you're not a couple's therapist for a very long time, learning how to say these words over and over and over all day long. So I really want to give people not just the philosophy here and not just the way to analyze for a bodied felt sense of connection, but also the words to help you get there. So that's why I wrote Secure Love. And then again, my podcast with Melissa and Drew, which is called The Secure Love Podcast, is meant to just bring it all to life. You know, we do 20 sessions.

There are, you know, there are a couple just like what you and I are describing. you know, female, anxious, male avoid it, which isn't always the case, but it is a lot of the time. And so, yeah, so I'm just kind of bringing it to life. And, you know, you're going to see, I mean, the podcast, episode three is released tomorrow. I'm five or six sessions in with them on the flip side. But there's just no doubt in my mind. This is going to be successful, you know, so I'm really excited to just help everybody relate to them and see how it all. out. And I also provide homework, like free PDFs on my website for people who are listening. If they want to kind of do some of the work that I did in the session with Melissa and Drew, they can go download that.

And so really, really wanting to say, hey, look, you know, I realize that there are a lot of people out there that just don't have access to couples therapy or quality couples therapy. How can I bring this to you, you know, in the most helpful way possible without actually having you in my office? So that's what kind of the whole package is of the book and the podcast. I love it, especially because, like, people hearing it is so important. Like, oh, wow, I say things like that. Oh, this is what I think. And then being able to hear you challenge or hear other perspectives,

to me, it just gets us out of that black and white, right? It brings us into, instead of it being good or bad, it's like, oh, we have nuance and we can start to understand other people and hopefully ourselves. So thank you so much for everything you do. And thank you so much for. And so great. Yeah. Thanks again, Julie. You're very welcome. Thank you.