The Squeeze - Dr. Judy Ho: The New Rules of Attachment

Episode Date: March 6, 2024

On today’s episode, the two Tays sit down with Dr. Judy Ho to get into all things attachment styles. Dr. Judy is a Board Certified Clinical and Forensic Psychologist, an author, and a TV and podcast host, so you could say she knows a thing or two when it comes to today’s topic. Starting at the beginning for those new to attachment, Dr. Judy explains the four attachment styles: secure attachment, anxious attachment, avoidant attachment, and disorganized attachment. The three then dive into what factors contribute to someone’s style, misconceptions people often have regarding attachment styles, and how someone’s attachment style can affect their mental and physical health. Plus, Dr. Judy provides tips for those who seek to alter their attachment style as well as advice for parents or role models of children to help develop a secure attachment. For more information on Dr. Judy’s work, attachment styles and where to preorder her new book, The New Rules of Attachment, visit her website https://drjudyho.com/! You can follow her on social media @drjudyho.  Thanks to our awesome sponsors for supporting this episode:  Magic Spoon - Go to magicspoon.com/THESQUEEZE and use our promo code THESQUEEZE at checkout to save five dollars off your order!  Daily Harvest - Visit dailyharvest.com/thesqueeze to get $30 off your first box plus free shipping.  Blissy - Get better sleep now with Blissy and use SQUEEZE to get an additional 30% off at blissy.com/SQUEEZE.  Nutrafol - Nutrafol is offering our listeners $10 off your first month’s subscription and free shipping when you go to nutrafol.com and enter the promo code THESQUEEZE.    To email us your questions or share your story, you can reach out to [e-mail]. Be sure to rate, review, and follow the podcast so you don't miss an episode! Plus, follow us on Instagram, @thesqueeze and personally @taylautner and @taylorlautner + on TikTok @thesqueezepodcast    To learn more from The Lemons Foundation, follow @lemonsbytay on Instagram and visit lemonsbytay.com  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

And also I will say this, not only because I'm on the podcast, but I was always team Jacob. Let's go. I could not stand Edward. I could not stand Edward. I was like, Bella, what are you doing? You're ruining your life. My wife made the same mistake as Bella, too. So.

When life gives you lemons, what do you do with them? Over here at the squeeze, we talk about it. Hello, you little lemon drops. Welcome back to another episode of The Squeeze. If you are new here. Hello, my name is Tay, and I am the co-host of The Squeeze. I feel like we have so many new listeners, viewers, however, you are getting your squeeze in. And we're so excited to have you.

If you guys are new or if you've been around and you just haven't followed us yet, be sure to click the follow button if you're listening. And if you can see me right now, go ahead and click that subscribe button so that you guys not miss an episode or any fun little surprises that we have. Don't worry. Taylor is in this episode for you team Jacob fans. He is coming. He is just not here with me at this moment. But I wanted to introduce to you guys, Dr. Judy. This episode is so fascinating. We got a lot of requests from you guys about attachment styles and just kind of how those play into our romantic

relationships, friendships, working relationships, family dynamics, kind of all of that. And Dr. Judy is an expert in attachment styles. And we just kind of dove into it with her. She is great at really breaking down what attachment styles are. And Taylor and I definitely learned a bit about ourselves and each other throughout this episode of what attachment styles we think that we are. But it's just a really fascinating episode. And I think that you guys will learn a lot about yourselves, a lot about your partners, a lot about your family, and just kind of how to approach your relationships to have happy and healthy relationships of all forms. So I hope you guys enjoy this episode. And yeah, enjoy it. Dr. Judy, thank you so, so much for joining us on The Squeeze Today.

We are so excited to have you here. We are. Oh, I'm so excited to talk to you both. Hi, Taylor. Hi, hi, hey. I'm huge fans of your work. Love what you're doing to promote mental health and wellness through your podcast. Love your episodes. And also I will say this, not only because I'm on the podcast, but I was always Team Jacob. Let's go. I could not stand Edward. I could not stand Edward.

I was like, hello, what are you doing? You're ruining your life. Yeah. Yeah. So I watched all the Twilight movies multiple times in the theaters. Oh, wow. And it got really stressful. I had to stop watching it because I was so disappointed with Bella's life choices.

Yeah, I know. I know. She had to learn. Yeah. And where's a sap? Edwards is a sap. I've all I got to say. I know.

I get it. My wife made the same mistake as Bella, too. So. I heard about that. I heard about that. You were Team Edward? Hey, that's so disappointing. My justification in this is I say that I was too young for abs.

So when the movies came out, I just was not into muscles yet. Hey, Jacob was a lot more than muscles. Oh my gosh. Oh, so funny. We'll let it slide. But thank you for the support. That makes me feel better, Dr. Judy. Feel more comfortable going through with this interview.

Yes, I have a friend. So funny. So I would love to just kind of start off with you kind of going into your background and just explaining to our listeners your extensive background. because just like reading about you before coming on, we're so excited. I mean, I was so excited just to like hear more about you and your background and kind of what got you interested in the topic of attachment. Yeah, definitely.

So I'm a board certified clinical and forensic neuropsychologists. I'm also a tenured professor at Pepperdine University and I'm a researcher and author. And I also do some media work as an expert psychologist. So formerly I was the host of the doctors. before our last season during the pandemic. And it was a lot of fun. It's been great to be on this journey where I can educate more people about mental health

and also to not only destigmatize mental health, but also to really show people that you can take charge of your own mental health and learn the skill sets, no matter what happened in your past, no matter what kind of problems you're dealing with. I really want people to feel empowered to take charge of their mental health the way that most people feel efficacious in their physical health.

Like I think that that link has been more established, but mental health sometimes feels for people like it's more out of control. And so I think that that's a big part of what I want to do with my voice. I got interested in this actually back in high school. I was part of the big brother, big sister club and program. And really, yeah, and really I did that

because I wanted to have good stuff on my college application. I mean, yes, it sounds like a nice idea, but you're also like, okay, that's a great extra to also put on your resume. But I just had no idea how much it was going to impact me. I was assigned this one 10-year-old girl, and her name is Daryon. She was just an amazing little child, but she had been in maybe 12 group homes by the time I started working with her.

And whatever, I was 15 years old. What did I know? All I did was show up every week for her. And we would just, whatever, go get ice cream, go to the park, go to a movie. Like, I had no knowledge then. I wasn't a mental health professional. obviously at 15. We didn't even offer psychology elective classes at my high school. So I knew really nothing about it from an expertise perspective. But I just realized that showing up every week and just

being with her every week for two years, I was the most consistent person in her life. And that caused her to have more faith in herself and to even change her beliefs about other people and what she could accomplish. So really, it really got me thinking about attachment at a very base level then, even if I didn't know what I was talking about and didn't know that it was called attachment. And then what happened was I got my degree, like went through with my career aspirations. And it was always a very pragmatic person. So I wanted just to solve problems in real time. Like let's solve the problem.

Let's get to the bottom of it. Forget about the past. Like that's in the past, right? And of course there's value in that. But I realized that for my patients that I was working with and just people I'm talking to, my family members, my friends, myself, that really, everything still comes up from the past. There's certain baggage that may have been there

that have been created by your past experiences and they keep triggering the same patterns to happen. And so until you actually look at your past honestly, you're not really going to be able to eradicate things that might be getting your way. So that's what got me re-interested in attachment, which is what my latest book is about. And then after I proposed to write the book

and got a book deal from Hachet, I ended up having my first child. So that was very interesting, like the timing of it as I was writing the finalized draft of the book, I was raising my infant. So that brought attachment again, like so much full circle where it's like, okay, now I'm not only talking about my own experiences and work and research and clinical work, but now I'm talking about being a parent and trying to instill secure attachment in my own child. And so anyway, it's been a really, really fun. And at times, arduous journey, I kind of felt like I was back in school because, you know, I wasn't sleeping well anyway as a new mom. But trying to write a manuscript at the same time that you had an infant that you were breastfeeding was an interesting. I mean, I started writing at 3 a.m. in the morning.

Oh, my gosh. And it was just like, I guess I'm back in grad school except I don't have the energy and the wearer to do that anymore. Like, it really affects me the next day. So anyway, so yeah, it's been, it's really a fun and rewarding journey for me. That's incredible. Yeah. We're super excited to dive into this, but I feel like we should start. I'm going to say for our listeners, but really just for myself, can you just in somewhat layman's

terms, explain what exactly attachment styles are and like what the different types are, but just like in its basic form, what are attachment styles? Yeah, definitely. So at the very basic level, attachment theory is just about those first crucial relationships. that you have with adults in your lives in the early years of life, even beginning in infancy. And the reason why that attachment bond or bonds is so important is because as humans, we can't fend for ourselves for many years. It's kind of how mammals are designed. But it's also why mammal babies are so cute. It's like evolutionarily and biologically, they have to be cute so that they can

elicit caretaking from the adults around them. And so attachment theory is all based on those early experiences and especially those attachment bonds to caregivers. So for most of us, it was our parents, but maybe there's other important adults in our lives like family members, extended family members and teachers even. But from that, we start to develop scripts, what I kind of refer to sometimes as operating systems of how you believe the world is going to interact to you and respond to your requests and your needs and your wants. But also, it goes into a lot of what you believe about yourself and whether or not you even deserve good outcomes in your life. And so from that, there are four different attachment styles that have been identified.

So this actually goes back to research back in even the 60s where they studied infants and toddlers and how they behaved with their parents, when they were in the room alone with their parents, when there was a stranger and all these different combinations. So the four attachment styles, there's one secure and three insecure. So the secure attachment is essentially what tends to be the best and the most flexible. in most situations. This is a person who generally, when they come up with a challenge, they can still stay connected to important people in their lives and still feel like they have the confidence and competence to go for what they need to do. And generally, they believe

that they deserve good things and they will do things in all the different aspects of their life to create those positive outcomes for themselves. The first insecure attachment style is the anxious attachment style. So this is a person who generally has more difficulty doing things on their own. They need a lot of positive reinforcement from their external environment to feel good about themselves. Oftentimes they end up being people pleasers and they bend over backwards to help people in their lives. They can also sometimes be a little bit more codependent at the extreme where it's like at the

exclusion of their own self-care. And when they're away from important people for too long or haven't gotten that external reinforcement, they start to feel kind of insecure and not so sure about themselves and what they're doing. The avoidant attachment style is somebody who is a proverbial lung wolf. So this is a person who learned from early childhood that they can only depend on themselves. So they've just rolled up their sleeves or always doing things on their own. They tend to struggle more with emotional intimacy because they tend to invest more in their own goals and achievements than these relationships with others because they feel like they might be disappointed anyway. And they often

Sometimes, even when things get really stressful, they don't reach out to people. They actually end up withdrawing even more and just hiding that from other people because maybe there's a part of them that actually thinks it's some kind of characterological weakness to ask for help, which of course, we all need help sometimes. So those are some of the characteristics of the avoidantly attached. And then the last one is disorganized attached. This one, I think, has the most misinformation about it when you read, you know, pop media or articles online, which I think a lot of people think that it's some kind of common.

of anxious and avoided. And it's really not. It's his own attachment style. So people who are disorganized attached, they tend to view a lot of things as if it's life or death. So they're constantly in fight or flight. There's a lot of chaos oftentimes in their lives, maybe because in childhood they lived in chaotic environments. So it's almost like the devil you know. They kind of almost subconsciously create the chaos because they actually feel that familiarity is comforting. But that obviously leads to a lot of emotional dysregulation internally. And then they also generally have more difficulty feeling in power to manage that dysregulation. So it can lead them to fall away from important goals and good relationships because they don't know quite how to get their footing

based on some of those patterns that I just described. If you've been a listener here at the Suis for a while, you guys know how much we'd love to prioritize self-care. Some of our favorite forms are exercising, eating healthy, but most importantly, and my favorite is sleep. And we talk about Blissie a lot on the show. If you guys haven't heard or if you've heard me, you finally need to check out Blissie if you haven't yet. Blissie's award winning 100% Mulberry Silk Pillowcases have been a game changer when it comes to getting a quality night's sleep. Not only are these truly some of the most comfortable pillowcases I've ever used, but it's so nice knowing that Belisi's pillowcases. Not only help me get a good night's sleep, but also are great for my hair

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We'll thank you later. So I'd like to try and keep things a little more positive on this show because our topics can be so heavy. But if I'm being completely honest with you guys, life has truly just. been throwing me some curveballs lately, and I've been feeling the consequences from that. When I experienced stressed, it has a negative effect on not only my mental health, but my physical health as well. One of the side effects that I experience when I have higher the normal stress levels is hair thinning. Hair thinning impacts a lot of us. In fact, over half of us will experience hair thinning at some point in our lives. It's not only common, it is normal. And

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your hair. That's NutraFold.com spelled N-U-T-R-A-F-O-L dot com and use promo code the squeeze. That's NutraFul.com promo code the squeeze. Cheers to some healthier hair. Out of the three, is there one that you would say is most common in people? I mean, I feel like for me, I mean, even when I think about myself and, you know, people that I know, it seems like the anxious one would be the most common. But maybe that's not the case at all. Yeah, you're absolutely right.

So anxious is the most common. And then I think it's followed by avoidant and then disorganized. So depending on the research study you're reading, only about 25% to 30% of people are truly securely attached most of the time. So something that happens too is that people who subscribe to some form of insecure attachment, oftentimes they'll say, well, maybe a combination. And it might be two of these, you know, and that's very common. Or people will say, well, maybe 60 or 70% of the time in my life I am securely attached. But then that 20 to 30%, not so much. That's also very common.

Another thing that I know from working with people is that sometimes it's domains of life. So it's like, hey, I'm super securely attached when it comes to my physical wellness, my friendships, my collegial relationships. But when it comes to romantic relationships, that's where the insecure attachment is. So that's also common. That maybe it's domains of life where you express different kinds of attachment to. Okay. I was going to ask that because I was like, is one person just like one of these four, you know, through and through? Because when you describe them, like, okay, yeah, I get a little bit.

bit of that one. Oh, wait, I do have a bit of that one. When do you start to develop these attachment styles? Like, I imagine it's pretty early, but can you also develop them throughout your entire life? Yeah, that's a great question. So for most of us, our core attachment style develops starting in infancy. Again, this is just when you're starting to learn, you know, how do people respond if I cry, if I say I want something? And of course, you can verbalize that knowledge, but it's still making its way into your operating system. You know, your core self recognizes it even if you can't put language to it for a couple of years, right? But you can develop or shift your attachments out throughout life as well.

And I find that sometimes people will say, well, generally I grew up kind of securely attached. My parents were generally there for me. Like, you know, obviously they're not perfect, but no huge complaints. So generally they felt like they were securely attached. But then they reached those pivotal teenage years and they have that. first slightly traumatic romantic relationship where maybe it was like a terrible person who kept like breaking up with them or acted ashamed of them or like whatever the case was. And that really created its own insecure attachment style at that time, especially in a certain domain of life.

Right. So maybe then from that point forward, romantic relationships for this person was much more reflecting and more insecure attached state. Or maybe somebody has like a huge disappointment in their career early on 18 or 19 or 20 maybe in that when they're in college. And at that time, you know, they developed an insecure attachment style. I would say that generally, attachment self don't develop later in life, like when you're a fully formed adult. Because at that point, when you have a bad experience, not that it doesn't discourage you, not that it can't be even traumatic, but it's more like you've had so much life experience at that point that you realize this might just be the blip. You know, this might just be the outlier

because in general my life doesn't go like this. You know, so I think that attachment style doesn't really become so sticky in the older, older years of your life. Okay. This is my last curiosity question. I'm going completely off script here. This is the whole point that the podcast is to ask questions. Okay. So I'm allowed?

You fire away, baby. So in regards to the anxious one. Literally, Taylor just wanted to have you on today. for a therapy session for him. He's like, so the anxious. Let me ask all my questions. It was a guy and maybe like, you know, 32-ish, he did this and this. He's a little independent.

So for that person, you know, who maybe struggle, you know, people pleasing, bending over backwards for other people, deals with codependency. Like, what are some things that can cause them to be? become that way. Like when you are young, what are some things in your life that could, you know, help you get to where you're at today being the anxious person? Yeah, definitely. So I think sometimes, and again, you know, this is with a caveat that many times our parents and the people around us, the adults that take care of us are trying to do their best, but they're struggling with their own stuff, right? So oftentimes people who develop an anxious attachment, they had parents

who maybe were not necessarily always there. Like it was a little hard for them to be attentive all the time. And sometimes they seemed really distressed about things in their own life, maybe had their own anxious attachment style or just anxious viewpoint towards life where they're just a little bit like, hey, be careful of this, be careful of that, like kind of developing this idea of you need to watch out for a lot of things. And then as a young child, oftentimes you realize two things. One is when you're helping someone else, sometimes including your parents and the adults in your life, you're getting reinforced for it.

So they're like, that was so great. Thank you so much. Maybe you had parents who were always like, oh, like, I had a really bad day. Like, please be nice to me because I had a bad day. So you kind of almost put the responsibility for the parents' emotional wellness on the child, even when you're little. Other times, it's because they learn that when they don't ask for that reinforcement, when they don't say, hey, are you still? here that they don't feel connected to the adults in their lives. So they feel like they've had to develop almost a pattern of checking in more often. Hey, are we still okay here? Are we still good?

You still love me. You're still going to be here for me. And that was a way for them to keep their caregivers close to them when they were younger. So again, as an adult, they became more reliant on that external reinforcement too. Interesting. Okay. Thank you for that. Any other comments? Like, does it feel like it may be. speaks to you a little bit in terms of your own upbringing if you're willing to share. Yeah, in some ways. In some ways, yes. Yeah, in some ways, no. But, yeah, no, that's, it's all very interesting. I can, I feel like I can, you know, relate to bits and pieces of everything. When I was reading about these earlier, I was definitely thinking there was some things that

you and I both could relate to, but I was excited for you to. Listen, because I love when the will start turning in his head. I guess I have a couple questions, too. What, kind of going back a bit, like how pop culture, media can definitely kind of get it wrong. What are some of the misconceptions about attachment styles that, you know, people may think is true, but actually is false? Yeah. Yeah, that's a great question, T.

So I think that in general, pop culture and online media has really focused on attachment styles and impacts on romantic relationships. That's like the main way that it impacts a person. And I get that that feels more juicy and maybe sometimes provocative, but it's not the only way. It's only one of the ways. Attachment styles because they go into your operating system

as a human being can affect all the different areas of your life. It affects your family friendships, your friendships, your collegial relationships, how you approach work in your career, how you set goals for yourselves, how you hold or don't hold healthy boundaries, you know. And most of all, how it relates to yourself concept, what you think about yourself.

That's a huge part of it because that is the operating system. That is the operating system. It's like, who am I in this world? That's what attachment really feeds into. So I think that that's a big misconception. Another misconception, again, I think, is that people think, okay, well, I had this attachment style developed in the past. So now I just have to learn to manage it, right?

Like, I have anxious attachment. So now it's like, okay, how do I stop it from rearing its ugly head during stressful times? And that's obviously helpful to an extent. But then it also sends a message that insecure attachment can't be healed and you can't develop secure attachment at any point in your life. And it's like a skill. You just have to work at it and you can have secure attachment at any point in your life, even if maybe the adults in your life that possibly contributed to your insecure attachment,

even if they didn't mean to, aren't available or don't want to do the work with you. You know, so you might say, well, I'm 30 and I want to say some things to my mom, but honestly, I just don't think it's going to be taken well because she's just not really into self-development that way. She's also a different generation. But that's all okay. You know, that's all okay because you can do this work on your own. You can heal your attachment as the adult self, who is more competent, has more skills and can learn more skills. You can heal your inner child at any time, any wounds that happened in the past. Okay, so I have the biggest sweet tooth. I am a sucker for sweets. I really just love sugar. And one of my New Year's resolutions was to really try to cut back on my sugar intake. And that is why I love our newest partner, Magic Spoon, because they have not only helped my New Year's resolution, but also made it taste amazing. Magic Spoon has reinvented your favorite childhood cereals with only.

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That's really like reassuring and a great way to look at it that you can change and heal from that. Yeah, that's really inspiring. Is there like certain attachment styles maybe that are compatible and ones that aren't in, you know, in any form of romantic friendships, working relationships? Is there any ones that maybe shouldn't go together or do you go together? Yeah, that's a great question. And I would say that overall, all the attachment styles can be compatible

if you understand yourself and your partner. It's a little bit like the love languages if you know that work too. In that you're going to have different love languages but as long as you understand each other and know what the other person wants and needs and you're motivated to give that to them, then your relationship is going to be great.

I would say though, before you have that self-knowledge or the knowledge of your partner or your friend or your co-worker, it can obviously cause some stresses because oftentimes you'll trigger each other's attachment issues. So one of the most common combinations is anxious and avoidantly attached. It's almost like the opposites attract kind of thing.

So the anxiously attached person wants more reassurance from the person who is avoidantly attached, whether again at work or in a romantic relationship. They want more reinforcement. They want more kudos. They want to know that they're still important to this person. But the avoidantly attached person, they need a lot less of that. And sometimes they might even find that behavior to be slightly clingate.

So they're like, why are you asking me for all of this stuff? But it's interesting because once the avoidantly attached person finds that the anxiously attached person now has started to pull away a little bit because they're saying, well, this is not helpful for me. Then the avoidantly attached person will go chase the anxiously attached person with like just grand gestures of like being kind and like trying to get their attention again. and then the whole cycle starts over. So again, before doing the work and having that self-knowledge, you see that pattern a lot. And I feel like this is a big part of what started that whole of like, he's just not that into you

where people make excuses about why somebody is not talking to them and maybe incompatible attachment styles are at its core, at least before the work is done. Right. Is it possible? I feel like I know the answer to this question, but I'll ask you anyways. Is it possible to have one attachment style in friendships and a completely different attachment style in romantic relationships? Or does somebody usually have a primary one?

Yeah, that's a great question. I think that some people don't have a primary one. Some people will say yes, but other people will say, no, it just kind of shows up in different ways in different situations. Like at work, I'm secure, in friendships, I'm avoiding, in romantic relationships, I'm anxious. I think that that's also pretty common. And again, if you think back to past experiences, there's probably a reason why that happened the way that it did. Maybe it's because at work, you were, you know, you always felt pretty confident. You didn't really need a lot from other people, but you also didn't have a problem connecting

with people that you work with. But then maybe you had a certain type of disappointment in friendships earlier in life. and then you had a different kind of disappointment in a romantic relationship. And so that's what caused all of those different styles to form in the different areas of your life. Yeah. Yeah. Because I would say, I mean, for me personally, I feel like I've, yeah, had different types of attachment styles and romantic relationships and friendships in my life. So attachment styles don't only affect relationships.

but they also can affect your emotional and physical health. Can you explain what that looks like and how our mental health can be affected by your attachment style? Yeah, definitely. I think because your attachment style has so much to do with what you think about yourself and who you think you are and even your self-esteem, it can really affect your approach to even mental and physical wellness.

So if you're somebody who generally has pretty intact, self-esteem, you're going to feel pretty confident setting mental and physical goals for yourself because you're going to say, well, I'm probably going to reach it if I try, right? But if you have a more insecure attachment style and they'll kind of show up in different ways, like if you're disorganized attached, there's a lot of chaos going on. So it may be hard for you to manage that goal and make consistent progress without self-sabotaging parts of it. And if you're avoidantly attached, what I find the most is that whenever they focus on a goal, it's almost like an exclusion of other things.

Like they become really extreme with it. And so that obviously can have not so great effects if you're taking it to the extreme. Like I've worked with people who have avoidant attachment and they set a physical goal for themselves. So they went to the doctor and the doctor's like, you're pre-diabetic. You need to work on this. But then they take it so much to the extreme that they end up to the point of almost even developing like an over-exercising syndrome or like an eating disorder because they like focus on it so much and they can't and then anytime anybody's saying hey you know what like maybe you need

to check this they're like you're just jealous like they just kind of ignore you know the the kinds of pleas that people have in their lives because avoidantly attach people they tend to take less from their environment anyway and sometimes not in the best ways and then when you're anxiously attached. I think that sometimes these goals can be hard to do completely independently. Like, you need more reinforcement from your environment to be able to keep going. So, like, in some ways, if you have a buddy system, that could be great. But what if that buddy drops off or they're not as consistent? They will have a harder time independently going after that themselves. And also, they tend to have a harder time with setting boundaries. Like, they just keep letting other people into

their mental and physical boundaries in a way that maybe isn't the most emotionally secure and helpful for them. But in their mind, they're thinking, well, I'm helping this person. I need to do it, right? But they can overcommit a lot to other people's goals as opposed to their own. So that kind of derails them from their own mental and physical goals. Yep. Makes sense. Yeah, well. We kind of touched on it earlier, but I want to know more about, like, we talked about how you can change your attachment style. What exactly does that look like?

How does one go about being like, I don't like that I'm avoided. I really like want to work on this and change it. Yeah, where would you even start with that? Yeah, yeah. That's an excellent question. You know, the first thing I think is the self-knowledge piece. And so in my book, I have a quiz that helps you to find out which attachment styles

are most affecting you and what you're most like. And so you can also access this quiz for free. my website. But it's the first step of the book, essentially. It's like, let's find out. Maybe you already have some ideas, but let's just find out for sure what's going on. And maybe you have a secondary style you weren't sure about. Literally jumping on your website after this interview. I don't think I need to. But taking the quiz would be fascinating. We'll leave it linked down below too for everyone. Yeah. Everyone loves a good quiz. Everyone loves a good quiz.

Yeah, so you take the quiz and then you find out what your primary attachment styles are. And then you learn about what each style's impact is. So you learn about how each style is affecting you in the different areas of life, but also like the positive of the style. That's another thing that people never talk about, I feel like in what you see in pop culture about attachment. It's like all about the terrible things. Like every attachment style is just so terrible, all the problems. But no one never talks about the good parts. It's like insecure attachment has its benefits too.

They have like an upside. And so we talk about that also. And then the next piece is learning what your operating system is. So for each of the different attachment styles, there's four self-statements. There's four rules of life, you know, that you generally abide by. And so I go over each of these four rules. And then for you, maybe it might not be all four of them resonate. It could be that one of them resonate or three of them resonate.

or three of them reside, and that's totally fine. But then the next piece of the program is to actually look at the pieces, the rules that operate most for you, and then find the solves for them, find the fixes for them, so that you can have more balanced rules as opposed to these more lopsided rules that aren't serving your life in different ways. Yeah. So what? Why do you just look at me throughout this whole thing and just laugh?

Yes, it's a sweet giggle. It's more of I'm watching the wheels turn in your head and you're like, oh, processing. But I do know that you normally have questions that fall. So that is why I normally look at you. I can feel. No. You're the star of the show, baby. I can, I can feel the ones building.

But I do have a question. Okay. That's what I thought. Thank you. You just proved a point. So if you are, if you are trying to work on, you know, changing your attachment style. Do you typically have to do that work independently?

Or is it possible for someone else to help? You know, perhaps a romantic partner or a friend? Yeah, I definitely think that it's possible for someone else to help. So obviously you can do the work on your own, but I think it's great when you can involve at least one or two other trusted people, at least in the conversations. You know, one, it makes you not feel alone because oftentimes, we think that we're just going through this all by ourselves and we're not.

You know, that's the great thing about our common humanity. There's that feeling of, well, somebody somewhere in the world, at some point in all of humans existence, somebody must have felt similar to me at some point. And usually that person who feels similarly to you is already in your circle. Like, they already know, you know. Yeah. So I just think that even having a conversation without necessarily trying to be each other's therapist, which is not what I'm recommending, is helpful.

And then I think the other piece is, you know, if you want to go a step further and you want to work through the exercises together, I think that that's also really powerful because people have different insights from you. People have different results. And that's kind of cool to see what the exercise brings up for somebody else versus yourself. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure. You shared how you were pregnant and, you know, had your baby writing this book. And I think it's really cool that timing is just awesome that you were pregnant. writing about something, a book that actually is super helpful for current and future parents, because you offer like a lot of advice on, you know, raising children with secure attachment styles. What are some of the top things, a parent or role model someone in their life like you were to that young girl, due for a child to help with them, like develop the secure attachment?

Yeah. So it's obviously so top of mind for me whenever I'm interacting with. my son. It's like, okay, like, what's going on here? You know, but I do find that there is something to be said about the experience going through it versus being an expert in helping other parents before I was a parent. It's just different, like kind of going through it and kind of having different kinds of insight. And I would say that now with both the experience of the professional knowledge and also being a parent to a toddler, that really the 80-20 rule really applies. Like people sometimes get so worked up and so stressed out about being the best parent. It's like, well, nobody is going to be the best parent all the time.

There's so many parenting blogs and parenting books to tell you like how to do things. And it doesn't really matter until you have a child because they have their own temperament, they have their own personality and you're going to come up with your own unique experiences with them. And so I think the 80 20 rule of, hey, are you present 80% of the time? Like, are you trying to do the right thing 80% of the time? Generally, that's going to be great for your child to have secure attachment. I also think that it requires so much less than we might think. Like there's one thing about like trying to do everything right and like how should I act in

the situation. They're having a tantrum. What's the best way to do it? You know, so much of it is trial and error that you just have to be a mindful parent. You just have to say like I'm looking at my child now. What does my child need now? Like it might be different from yesterday. It might even be different from this afternoon.

But as I'm looking at them right now, what is it that they need? And then just giving that to them, you know? I think to the best of your ability. Sometimes you're going to be distracted. Sometimes you're going to have your own issues that you're trying to manage. But in general, if you can be a mindful parent and just look at them and say, like, what is it that they're trying to communicate with me? And then is there a way that I can provide that for them right now,

even if it's not like a complete picture and even if it's a work day for me, so I can't do everything that I want, but like I can do like one small part. That's really important. And then I think the last part is just being consistent. So if you're your child's something, you have to make sure you find. follow through on that. And then if you don't follow through, apologize and explain why. Just that level of consistency helps them to feel safety. You know, like, oh, okay, like either it's going to happen or if it doesn't happen, they apologize and tell me why it didn't. So that I don't feel like I'm getting these

promises and then like nothing comes of them because my mom or my dad doesn't take me seriously enough to actually follow through because they think that I don't really know what's going on. Right. So I think that those are probably the three most important rules. And I will say even just in my, you know, a couple of years as being a parent, some of the ideas that I maybe had beforehand, like they went out the window immediately when my child was just a different child. You know, it's like, I remember, again, reading all the parenting books or like, okay, like every child needs to get this many hours of sleep at these ages and parts of development. But my child is a low sleep needs child. Like he is like, he's horrible fomo, you guys. He always is afraid of missing out.

And I can see him like nodding off and he'll like wake himself up and like start playing again. I'm like, oh my gosh. Like I can't just go to bed. No, I'm not missing out on this. Oh my gosh. Yeah, he's like, oh, I'm like having a great. I can tell you guys are about to have fun. Right.

So I just had to adjust. You know, it's like, hey, you know, you can try to force him to go to sleep and he's not going to anyway. So you have to like find some way to find what's the right normal for this kid, you know. But I think if you were to talk to some more judgmental parents are like, oh my gosh. he sleeps less than 12 hours a night at age two, that's not good. It's like, well, you try putting him to sleep for more than 12 hours a night. Like literally there'll be time. It's like wrestling with him in bed. He's like, like, go to sleep. He's like, la, la, la. He's like seeing at the top of his lungs.

I'm like, all right. So this is clearly not happening in the next 10 minutes. Oh, my gosh. That's, I mean, that that's very reassuring to hear because we obviously, we do not have kids yet, but a lot of our friends are having kids. And it's, actually just crazy how there's, there's so many books and there's so many things and there's so many ways to do things. And it's truly just what every, it's true. Every human is different. Every baby is different. Yeah. If you take in all of those opinions and, you know, it's just you're never going to, you're never going to please anyone. You're never going to please yourself. Yeah. It's not a linear thing for sure. Yeah. Yeah, that's something that we've been learning. So it's nice. It's nice to hear

it from you as well. Someone that, you know, knows a lot about these things. Then you're like, oh, well, my kid's not even cooperating here. So he's not following the sleeping rules. Oh, no. He's not following the sleeping rules. We actually had our friend, it's kind of funny that we're talking about this, the timing,

but our friends, they have two kids and their older one is, I mean, he's almost two. Yeah, now he's almost two in a couple months. But she recently shared on her Instagram, just like a video of him kind of having a tantrum and just like, you know, crying, being frustrated because he like couldn't, he wasn't able to explain what he was needing. And so she was just kind of like sitting with him and letting him

just like cry it out and like figure out. It was like less crying. It wasn't like a crying screaming. He wasn't even crying or screaming. He really. He really. It was just like, just like, you could just see in his body. He was just like moving around and just like you could just see frustration through his blood. Yeah. And he just like, he wasn't even like really screaming or crying or anything. He just was like so frustrated. Yeah, that, you know, that he wasn't able to express how he was feeling, what he was wanting, whatever it was.

And she just kind of like just sat there with him and like, you know, gave him a comfortable space to do that, but also sat with him. and then, you know, helped and through it. And I was telling Taylor that, you know, that's such a great reminder that, you know, I feel like we can be so quick to like, you know, shush kids because they're fussy or whatever. We're like, you're fine. Like, you don't need anything. You're fine. Calm down.

And it's true. Like that, you know, giving them that safe environment to let it out and knowing that you're there with them to comfort them. It was just a really cool reminder. Yeah. To see, you know, our friend doing that. And I was like, oh, like, I've never, I haven't thought about that. But it's so true and it's such a good reminder. Yeah, though.

That's such a great example. I've talked to some parents. And I remember one experience I had with one of the parents in my parenting group, like we're all part of this like breastfeeding parenting group. It's called the Leche League. And so it's great. I was like, yeah, it was like really helpful in the beginning where you're like, what's breastfeeding?

Like, you have no idea. But there's so much pressure from the medical condition. you're like, you must breastfeed. Like, I remember like literally the minute after, literally the minute after my baby was born, they're like, get him on your boob right away. I'm like, oh, yeah. Oh, my God. I'm like, am I okay here?

Like, are we? They're on there real quick. They just go out. And here you go. Yeah, exactly. And like, yeah, and I know that, um, okay, you're a nurse. So it's like, these nurses have like, they really don't have any shame. They'll just like take out your boob and just be like, give it to your baby, like,

massaging your boob, like pushing in the baby's mouth. I'm like, all right. That's cool. because I had no idea what to do. So I'm actually very thankful for that. But yeah, I was just talking to one of these parents in my group. And she was saying, you know, sometimes even on like my busiest days or like when I'm like feeling like I'm going through something, she's like, the craziest thing is like all my baby wants is for me to sit with them. Like I don't have any other ideas.

Like I'm frustrated myself. I'm tired. I'm like overworked. And I'm just sitting with them. And like that's all they wanted. They didn't need like big ideas from me. They didn't need a new toy. They didn't need like some fancy things.

they just needed me to sit with them. And I just thought that that was so interesting and powerful that that's kind of what kids need, right? Just to like have your presence and be able to be themselves. Like you were saying their example, TAY, like we so often, like you said, like tell kids right away like, well, don't say that or, you know, well, don't do that. And, you know, it's so important for them to have that space to be a kid.

It's like you also have to remember, like you were just alluding to Tate that like, well, they, they don't have a lot of communication tools. They certainly don't have as much as most adults. Yeah. So they can't tell you exactly what they want. Maybe they don't even know. But they just know that they're upset.

So you've got to let them just express it and have it out, you know? Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So your new book, the new rules of attachment, what are you most excited for readers to gain from reading this book? I'm really excited for people just to know that whatever their operating system, if it's not working for them, that there's concrete steps they can take to change it, and that the influence of that in their life is just going to be

tremendous, that it's not just in one area, that they're going to see it in a lot of different areas, and it's going to impact the way that they think about themselves, just like, how they envision their life unfolding. I just think that sometimes people, because of various types of insecure attachment holding them back will almost limit some of their own dreams at times. It's like, okay, well, if I can achieve this, that's great. But they're almost, for some of them, afraid to dream even bigger. And I think when you have a secure attachment style that's operating most of the time, you're going to make the most out of the time that we have on this earth. And that's what I'm most excited about. That's great. I love that. Well, we will leave a link for

the book and also a link to that quiz. Yeah, as soon as we finish this, getting on that quiz. But thank you so, so much for sharing all of that and being honest in your journey. And I think, I think this is, I mean, this clearly has very much helped us. So I think our, I think our lemon drops are really going to gain a lot from it. And you've made the world of attachment styles sound a lot less scary than they are. and made it a lot more digestible than it sometimes can be. So thank you for that.

And I'm so excited to read your book. Oh, thank you so much. I really appreciate your support. And thank you so much for this great conversation. Of course. We appreciate you, Dr. Chudy. Oh, thank you. Thank you so, so much, Dr. Judy for joining us on The Squeeze.

I feel like Taylor and I learned so much. And I hope these lemon drops it as well. We'll leave a link down below for you guys to pre-order. Dr. Judy's book, The New Rules of Attachment, which goes on sale March 26th. I hope you guys just have an amazing rest of your week. Take a moment, smile at yourself in the mirror, give yourself a little affirmation to carry on throughout your day. And we'll see you right back here next Wednesday.

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