We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - 169. Why We Love the Way We Love: Attachment Styles with Dr. Becky Kennedy

Episode Date: January 17, 2023

Dr. Becky Kennedy is back to help us understand Attachment Styles, how our past comes alive in our present – and how to free ourselves and raise freer kids. 1. Why attachment styles are at the heart of our most intense conflicts (in ourselves and with others).  2. How to rewire our original mental coding (75% of which is complete by age 3), so we can have more peace.  3. How our physical and emotional attractions in adulthood are dictated by childhood attachments. 4. Why it’s never too late to initiate relationship repair, and the warning signs that we’re starved for connection. 5. How we can help our kids trust their instincts, use parenting as a path to grow in the ways we’ve always wanted to grow, and build empathy for our own imperfect parents. About Dr. Becky: Dr. Becky Kennedy is a clinical psychologist, bestselling author, and mom of three, named “The Millennial Parenting Whisperer” by TIME Magazine.Dr. Becky is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be and founder of the Good Inside Membership platform, a hub with Dr. Becky’s complete parenting content collection all in one place. Her podcast “Good Inside with Dr. Becky” – was one of Apple Podcasts “Best Shows of 2021.” TW: @goodinside IG: @drbeckyatgoodinside

Welcome to We can do hard things. It's so exciting. I know. We're really looking forward to today. So as I mentioned on the previous episodes in the beginning of January when I was talking about my new journey back into intensive therapy, I was talking about how interesting and confounding life can be when you are actually. really passionate about figuring out who you are and why you are the way you are.

It feels a little bit like a Scooby-Doo episode where you're the mystery and the detective. Like you're constantly pulling off the hood and it's you. It's me. I'm the problem. It's me. But it's all I want to do is, you know, figure out why I do the things I do and why my people do the things that they do. And I think one of the greatest clues that I have found in this. This journey is attachment theory, that how we were taught to love as kids and as we grew,

really, affects our most intimate relationships that we have even now and even our relationships with ourselves. As Dr. Becky says that the adaptations we made in our childhood become the symptoms we display in our adulthood. But we were just looking out for ourselves. we were just surviving. To help us through this detective game is one of the best people detectives we know, and that is Dr. Becky.

Dr. Becky Kennedy is a clinical psychologist, bestselling author, mom of three, has been named the millennial parenting whisperer by Time Magazine. Dr. Becky is the author of the number one New York Times bestseller, Good Inside, a guide to becoming the parent you want to be, and founder of the Good Inside membership platform, a hub with Dr. Becky's complete parenting content collection all in one place. Her podcast, Good Inside with Dr. Becky, was one of Apple Podcasts's best shows of 2021. And if you want to know what Dr. Becky means to us, us in our family and us on this pod squad,

you must go back to episodes 130 and 131 in which Dr. Becky explains the world and our lives and fixes everything forever. I have relistened to those episodes like five times each. I know she really does. Dr. Becky, thank you so much for being back here. I just couldn't be more excited to be here. So always thrilled to talk to the three of you. One of the things that I adore about Dr. Becky is that she is a parenting expert.

But what Dr. Becky does is help us parent ourselves as adults. She's like a Trojan horse. You come to her and you're like, help me fix my kids. They're all screwed up. Help me fix them. And she's like, okay, sit down. And then she's really there to get you to help heal yourself because it turns out that jacked up people raised jacked up kids.

Even not being jacked up. No. I feel like she refranged that it's not. it's not we're jacked up. It's we have this coding in us. Yeah. Which we come by entirely honestly and we berate the shit out of ourselves for operating based on coding that there's no reason we shouldn't have that. It is correctly grown inside of us. And now we just have to say, like, is that working for me, for my children, for everyone, for my relationships? And if not, helps you track back to the original coding to be like, oh, actually, I can input something

different here. Yeah. And I can operate based on something else. And if everything's about everything, you can't just isolate, oh, I wish I'd parent differently. My whole reaction to the world is X, but I want a parent based on Y. Doesn't make any damn sense. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. It's not jacked up. It's just human. And there's a way that Dr. Beggy can help us all be freer so that we can raise for your kids. So Dr. Becky, would you just like to speak for yourself at all? Or we could keep talking about you. Seriously. I'm enjoying this. I'm just going to get a pedicure. First of all, are we saying that right? Is this correct that you're kind of a Trojan horse? Yeah. I think that the way parenting has been presented to us is just, it's so limiting and it's so

insulting to both parents and children. And that, you know, so often the message of, wait, there must be something going on for you as the parent, or there might be something you could do differently, it gets presented hand in hands with, oh, because it's your fault or because you're a bad parent. And so that doesn't feel enticing. But the idea that you could change the most junior employees in your company without shifting something in the CEO from the top, like I can't imagine any organization would start with the associates. You know, they'd say if culture is off.

and our associates aren't performing well, the leader has to change. Not because it's the leader's fault. It's because it's their responsibility. And then the benefit is that when a parent looks at their triggers or the stuff that they struggle with in relationship to their kid, they change in so many areas outside their parenting, right? Because I think parents often say, like, I don't want to pass on my anxiety to my kid. I know my kid's anxious because I'm anxious. And I often say, wait, don't you just want to be less anxious, like for?

for you? Right? Like, you deserve that. Yes, it's great. And changing that and you will change things with your kids, but also it'll just change your day to day. And, you know, so I think my perspective is let's help and empower parents, not because anything's their fault, just because parenting is such an opportunity for us to grow in all the ways we've probably always kind of wanted to grow. That's good. We laugh because I've been like, Can we just do a show on, why am I the way I am? Why do I do? I just really am so freaking curious why the hell I keep doing the same things over and over.

And this attachment and internal family systems, all of that feels to me like, oh, that's as close as I've heard to like, why the hell am I am? And you know what? That builds empathy in every direction. That's right. My mom was once a daughter. My dad was once a son. Like you look at them and you're like, oh, I get that coding.

It wasn't awesome. But like, I see why you came by all of that honestly, just like I came by all of this honestly. I just think it builds empathy everywhere. Yeah. And I think that, you know, I hear a question that none of you are asking. But, you know, oh, so then it's okay. Like, oh, so, but my parent was awful to me.

Or this thing happened. Does that just mean it's okay? And I think when anything's a struggle, we go right to fault. Like you were saying, like we blame ourselves or we blame someone else. And I think when we really understand something, we just move away from fault. I can still say the way my parent parented me, yeah, like that was horrible or they miss key things. And if I understand their attachment stuff, it doesn't make those things okay. But having that clarity probably stops the story of I was a bad kid or I wasn't enough, right? That's going to be helpful to you to have that clarity. And so not everyone listening to this has children, but every single person listening to this was a child. Yeah. It's true. So you are, you are a, thank you. It is. I'm basically a

scientist. Fact check. Yeah. So we're going to talk about how we were all raised and how it affects us now. Like my therapist is always saying, that's great. Let's keep talking about your childhood. But also how it affects you right now in your relationships right now, which is very much what attachment theory is about how the way that our caregivers showed up and showed us what love was affects how we are now in our relationships. And one of the things I love that, I just want to start by saying is that I think that when we feel unlove, or unseen in our friendships, in our romantic relationships, in our families, even at work, we get a little crazy. And people get crazy.

And women especially are ashamed for that. And one of the things I love in studying attachment theory is this insistence that love is as integral to our survival as food, as water, and as shelter. And in fact, it is a shelter, love. And so attachment, it's not icing on the cake. It's the whole shebang. We panic like we're not going to survive. And so if you are someone who is in a relationship and you feel unseen, you feel unheard,

you feel unknown, you don't feel like the other one is there for you, you are valid in feeling what is called a primal panic, that there's the same thing that arises in people who are starving. Can you talk to us about attachment theory and how it might affect us and why I relate to attachment theory? Because it makes me think of Tabitha the Cheetah. It makes me think of somebody in a cage, whether it's a marriage, a parent, whatever it is. And they're just, everything looks the way it's supposed to. You have a functioning relationship, but you're just like stalking the periphery, just thinking,

wasn't it supposed to be more beautiful than this? And the thing that is missing is real intimacy, real attachment. What is that? So I think we could talk about attachment in a couple ways, but I think at its foundation, it is an evolutionary system that motivates a child to seek proximity to parents and establish a connection with them. So just to break that down a little bit, as you were talking about food, shelter, and water, I think most of us would say, yeah, those are essential. Like, okay, check, right? And to understand the primacy of attachment, we have to realize, wait, how does a little kid get food shelter and water? They literally can't get it on their own. That's right. And they can't get it on their own for so many more years than other animal species,

right? When you really think right now, if you have a kid, or if you, like we were saying, if you were a kid, at what age would you have said, yeah, I'm pretty sure I could have definitely secured food, shelter, and water for myself. Well, my kid is 10 and they can't do it. I was 35. I was 35 when I could probably say that correctly. Exactly. Right? So that's a long time. And during those years, it overlaps with the years that your brain is wiring for what to expect in the world and what is safe. So those things happen at once. You are utterly dependent for the years that your brain is doing the majority of its wiring. We come out 25% wired. Okay. Not in terms of knowledge. Obviously, you don't know 25% of your knowledge, but your brain has a lot of development.

It's why humans are so impacted by their environment, because the environment then actually shapes wiring. And I'm always hesitant to say this, even though it's, you know, been proven by many studies, okay? So as I say it, I want us to keep in mind something else that's equally true, which is, I believe, the brain is always looking to be rewired. It's always looking for repair for things that didn't feel good originally. And we know that by age three, 25% goes to 75%. Holy shit. How old are you when the 25 hits? Zero. You come in with 25%. Okay, got it. And then at three, you're then fully fully. wired.

75. No. No. Up to 75%. You still have 25 Delta. I see. Yeah.

Now that doesn't account for rewiring. All of us, the four of us here have done a lot to rewiring. We know that really matters. Not enough, Becky. Not enough.

Me neither, okay? I talk a good game. Okay? Yeah. Right? But that's a lot. And this is why when people say, oh, they're not going to remember that.

Well, they're wiring. will come up in day-to-day life for many, many, many, many years. The reason why, in my mind, good therapy, both, yes, deals with the present but deals with the past, is because your past comes alive in your present. There's no differentiation. In your worst moments, it's because in the driver's seat is an old attachment system. So it's not like you're waxing poetic about your past.

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dot com slash hard things net suite.com slash hard things. Glenn and I both have very few memories of growing up. So I've been like, how would we even know? And I love what you say about even if you don't remember anything, essentially your receipts that you do are in your coding. If you're like, well, I can't remember. So how could I know? It's look at your reactions to things. That is how that is evidence of what you remember. That's right. And linking that to attachment because it's a lot. I don't remember my earliest relationships, but, you know, I'm thinking about people I've seen my practice back in the day, you know, who were saying like, why am I always attracted to people who, you know, blank? You know, why do I always find myself in relation to people who blank? And then, you know, you don't even have to do a quote inventory of their past. No one's going to produce some like, actually, I do remember my father always invalidating my emotions for the first 10 years. Nobody says that, right? But what we know is, okay, I mean, I believe this. I believe attraction in adulthood is activation of our earliest attachment patterns.

That's all attraction is. Okay, same one. Our body is saying, I know how to be the corresponding puzzle piece to this person. Woof. Oh. Woof. Okay. So this feels like my mother tongue.

Even if it produces discomfort and doesn't work for me, this is comfortable in its discomfort. because I'm used to this. I know this. I'm going to cry. Like, this feels like home. Even if home hurts. Home was home. And you said, I know how to be this person's missing puzzle piece. You didn't even just say, this is my missing puzzle piece. You said, I know how to be useful here. I know how to click, like, like, and this is, like, you know, when I, when I think about some adults who I've worked with for, you know, for years and like amazing, deep, life-changing therapy, they'd come in and it was amazing how the relationship they were in recreated, like the worst parts of their childhood. And we can also see this if you're someone who's thinking, yeah, I didn't have some big T trauma

in my childhood. We still, we see this, right? That, that when we don't intervene differently, that when we don't start to question what attraction means because there are some people who say, I came from a really secure attachment. The fact that my home is actually one I would want to create, in general, it still would work for me, those attachment patterns. And I'm lucky because I can just go with my attraction because I'm like, yeah, cool. That old pattern still would generally work for me.

But most adults would say, yeah, no. Like if attraction on that first date, if what that really is saying. to me is, oh, this has a high likelihood of ending up with you playing the same part as you've always learned to play as you mastered because you adapted to your family home. I know a lot of adults who say, well, maybe attraction's a warning sign then. Is that what you're saying? Is it a warning sign? Like, don't go. And in that case, yeah, it's more of a warning sign. It's anxiety. It's anxiety. So, Dr. Becky, so it's like if you're sitting at a date and your subconscious is calculating this person is distant. This person is cold. I'm having to work hard to get this person's

attention. I am attracted to that shit. It's because home for me is trying hard to get someone's attention who is emotionally distant. That was my mama. That was my first marriage. Yes. And think about that going back to the years before three or, you know, even forget three, eight, whatever. How many times do you think a kid had to work hard to get attention, had to perform, had to be a certain way. I don't know, a million, a million moments. Well, that's a very practice circuit. So when the body as a dull, it's like, wait, I think I see this again. It almost seeks, you know, without intervention what it's learned to be really good at. It makes sense why the body would be attracted to that. It's not going to be great long term, right, if you're

looking to make changes, but it makes sense. This is why attachment in the end is like the rich get richer. Rich get richer in attachment theory because if home to me is I am, oh my God, that person across me at the first day is emotionally available, is lighting up because of me, is interested in me. And that is home for me because that's what I had as a child. Then I gravitate to that. And it's like, why is this one always getting the good people, always having the friends who are good, always have such a good life? It's the rich get richer. It's like general interest. Yes. generational wealth. Generational wealth. Yes. That's exactly right. And I think you've probably all

heard friends say, he, she was so boring. I don't know. Like I know, but it's just there's nothing there. There's nothing there. Right? Too nice. Right. And I think it's so powerful to just start to get a little skeptical in a playful way with yourself. Have a little dissonance around that. Right? And something I used to say to some of my clients was like, look, if you are looking to create something very different with a partner than what you had, there's a real loss you have to process. Yeah. Like, oh, like that, like, I'm on fire with this person feeling. That's an amazing feeling. Like, I think we all get that feeling. There is a loss. I remember a client asked me directly, you know, she said, she's like, the sex I would have with this guy. It was amazing.

There's nothing like it. You know, yeah, because when you are having sex, you feel like the guy was giving you essentially your life's vitality in that moment. He was making you feel like you are finally a real worthy person. Yeah, no sex is going to feel like that sex if you're in a different type of relationship. Not for time until, right? It won't be as, quote, natural. Just like I know from her childhood, though once in a blue moon times. when she really felt connected in her family

and validated and seen. Those moments did feel extra high because the majority of the moments were so low. Whoa. This is none of the shit I thought we were going to talk about today, and my mind is actually exploding. Me too. And can I say something that I will all get in trouble for later?

This is why every time people talk to me about sex. or attraction only in terms of gender. Are you attracted to that gender or this gender? I'm like, we have to have a bigger conversation than this. Attraction to this kind of masculinity, not because it's necessarily inherent in you, but because what does that masculinity represent to you about your original family that you were either getting or not getting? Even what's inside gender is what we're attracted to has lots to do with how we were programmed

in our family. It's not just about something that is a spectrum of gender. A hundred percent. And sexuality and sex and what that means can't be separated from any other aspect of how you connect to people and relate to people. So ferocious, high-level, intense sex might feel like home to you because you're starved of connection in other parts of the relationship and you're only used to those highs every once. in a while, and that's what home feels like to you. Yes, and for anyone who's like, I have amazing, great, high, ferocious sex, and I actually feel really safe and secure at my partner.

Well, good for you. No one wants to hear from you. Yeah. There's other podcasts for you, all right? You can do easy things. Right. But when I think about the client I was used to talk about this with, this was someone who is extremely emotionally abusive to her.

Like, extremely, like, never available. Very gaslighting. very, very verbally abusive. And the moment that always was like the reunion. And think about a kid. Think about the distance and the invalidation or the punishment or the physical abuse. And then think about the moment that kid gets a hug. I don't think my kid's getting a hug from me feels as extremely good to them as it would to that kid.

That's right. So that plays out in our lives. And I'm not saying that like it's destiny. That's actually not what I mean. We have so much agency. But I mean it in a disshaming way. Like it's not my fault that I find myself in this relationship. And again, I really think there's such power to understanding or at least I always feel like insight doesn't inherently lead to change.

But insight is definitely a foundation for change. I grew up in a big family. So none of us really got the kind of attention, I think, that we probably needed from our parents. And I've done a lot of work on that personally. And I sought after relationships, I think, was attracted to people who, quote, unquote, kept me grounded and were a little aloof at times and a little bit mean. And I thought, that's home to me, right? And so then I met Glennon, like the polar opposite. And I will say that there was probably a little grief inside of me because I think that,

all along I was trying to win over these people's affection my whole life to to somehow prove that I was worthy and good enough. And so when I met Glennon, she was just like, so love all the time and always reminding me like, you know, positivity and love can go further than the opposite. I had to give up on the goal of winning it over. You're like, this is boring as shit. you're just going to love me forever? I'm a girl who likes a competition and nothing to fight for here. But I've had to rework my brain.

My brain has had to rewire itself in a way that's like, oh, no, this is real love. Like, this is the way I want to be. This is my best self. And what I want to double down on there is like, I think even just as an adult saying, like, this is what works for me now. This is what's best for me now, especially if you are an adult who says, yeah, like, I really did get through some stuff, whether I remember it in a coherent way or not. Like, I know it wasn't so great.

There's a kid inside me who figured out how to survive that. They literally figured out how to adapt that and survive and be the version of themselves, the majority of the time that their family system needed them to be. That is amazing. And I and my adulthood hopefully will never stop acknowledging. The importance of that kid in me, the craftiness, right? And then, yes, that kid does need acknowledgement around that loss. Because she's kind of like, I figured it out.

I figured it out for you. And now you're telling me, like, you don't need me. Like any friend in our group, we'd be like, yeah, they really helped you through a hard time. And then you were like, I don't need you anymore. I'd understand why that friend would be, you know, a little upset. They would need a lot of constant acknowledgement. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

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So for the people who are listening right now who are like, this is amazing. Also, what the hell are you talking about? Can we just give a little primer? So Freud is like, all of our problems are unconscious and then we're, and then, Bulby comes around and he's like, actually, our problems are relational. They're from actual experiences that we have with humans. That's right. And Bulby in the 70s, right? Really, attachment theory is just such a big wave in psychology. It was so different. It looked really at humans, starting from infancy as relational species. They develop, right? At that point,

they didn't know about wiring, right? There wasn't as many kind of much focus on biology in our brain. But he said, yeah, there's a relationship. And it's very concrete and actually very visual. This idea that attachment is a system of proximity, he actually studied this, or Mary Ainsworth, who was able to kind of put Bulby's ideas into action. Thank you for saying her name. She gets cut out of everything. Mary Innsworth, yes, amazing, important researcher and thought leader in the field of attachment and psychology. So what she did, and there's actually still videos of this, It's amazing. She would study infants.

And I think it was always their mothers, I think, at that time. So she noticed what would happen with a baby and a mom in a room with a lot of toys. So kind of a baby was able to crawl, maybe explore. And she noticed what would happen when the two of them were in room. She noticed what would happen when a stranger came into the room. And we'll notice what would happen when the stranger would stay and the mom would leave. And then when the mom would come back. And this idea of proximity, right?

So you picture a one-year-old, okay, and then there's a mom, and then a stranger comes in. What might a baby do? So let's say a baby looks back at her mom or crawls back, right? The idea even then, oh, there's something new. I need to go back, and this is a big attachment term, to my secure base. It's really very physical. I have a secure base. My job in the world, starting from day one, is to explore, but it's not safe to explore.

when there's potential danger. And once I have assurance from my secure base, I can go back and explore. This is the same thing in adults. When you feel your home is a secure base and your partnership is a secure base, you can do a lot of creative, kind of risky, experimental things in the world because you know there's someone to come back to, right? And so then they notice, okay, well, what happens when the mom leaves? Interestingly enough, right, when we think about secure attachment, which is one form of attachment that we're all like, we're all gunning for that with our kids, right? It's like secure attachment, predicts, and then like any positive outcome in life. You're like, okay, I guess we definitely want that. It wasn't whether a baby cried

or didn't cry. What they really looked at is whether so poignant, so genius, when the mom came back, did the baby go to the mom for comfort? Did they literally crawl over? And later, after Ainsworth Day, one of the interesting things is they measured kind of cortisol stress response in the babies. And even the babies who weren't crying, who seemingly appeared unimpacted by their mother's departure, their cortisol level skyrocketed no differently than the kids who expressed their emotions. So even though those babies didn't cry and a lot of them didn't go to their parent for comfort, that on the surface was not representative of what their true psychological need was. And through watching these patterns of interactions, they figured out there's a number of

attachment styles. I'm not one for such like rigid black or white thinking. So, you know, take it for what it's worth. And there's a lot of people who have told me, and I think it's true. I feel like I'm mostly secure attached with these people, but with these type of people, something else happens. And essentially with secure attachment, a child felt like their signals were noticed and that they knew to expect comfort from a parent at reunion. They felt like they could go to their secure base for comfort and then go back and explore the world again. We've got secure. Those are the ones who generally feel like they will be loved and taken care of. So if you're a person who has secure attachment, this is the rich get richer people. They tend to

trust people. They tend to be able to take risks because they feel safe in their own skin and with other people, there's a self-fulfilling prophecy there because when we tend to trust people, people suddenly become trustworthy because they feel our trust in them. So I think all of attachment is just self-fulfilling. If we are not securely attached, we have anxious attachment and avoidant. So tell us about anxious attachment. Essentially, anxious attachment, the child doesn't get comforted by the parents' return. It's like they don't trust that they are then safe again to, they don't trust the reunion. So they don't feel secure in their base in that way. They really then what happens over time,

they don't feel secure in themselves. So when we think about adulthood, someone more, who has a more anxious attachment style, they're the ones they need so much constant reassurance from their partner. This is right when like the person didn't text me back. And it's like I lost any sense of self. I am gone. And so even when, it's like, wait, I just texted you five minutes ago. And I said, I love you. We're fine. Five minutes later, that has gone. It's a vessel. It is gone. So that, as much as we can pathologize that in adulthood, it's kind of cruel given early on. There was a reason. A child could not trust themselves because they never had that security in the environment. Right. And so there's this moment. We're an adult now. All right? We were somewhere in the Bulby-Ainsworth study as an infant, but now we're an adult. We're in a relationship. There's some kind of threat to our attachment with our person, whether it's something that happens on the outside, whether it's something that comes up from the inside. And this alarm bell rings in us that is a primal panic, that our survival is now being threatened because our attachment is being threatened. And in that moment, we can't think we just feel. And we immediately go back to our attachment style. So Abby and I have talked about in our relationship, because I don't think it's black and white either,

but in our relationship, Abby tends toward an anxious attachment. So we get in an argument about anything. And it's never about the thing. It's immediately, am I loved? Am I loved? Do you see me? Do you see me? And so Abby goes to this desperate thing for comfort.

It almost can feel like nagging or like stay here with me or like it's clingy. so that would be anxious. And she, which I didn't notice until I started reading this stuff, she will say, why do you go cold? Like you immediately turn to ice. We don't even love each other anymore. Like the second there's a threat, you are just shut down completely. And sometimes I will leave.

And so if that is your attachment, then that is called avoidant attachment. And what you're doing is saying, I will leave before you leave me. You cannot hurt me. I will control this situation by disappearing. That's exactly right. And that's the baby who doesn't cry. I don't need you. I don't need anyone.

We know now from these markers that that baby is just distressed. But their defense, which, again, people say defensive. Defensive comes from a really adaptive term. Like, we all need defenses if we were unguarded, right? And feel unsafe. So that defense was, okay, I shut down. I don't need anyone. That is a cold response. And very, very commonly, someone on the more anxious side is familiar. One of the reason they were on the more anxious side from the beginning is because they probably had, and you were saying this, Abby, exactly, a coldness. There was a coldness to what was there originally. That's why that type of child who might have been crying, might have needed some comfort for a million different reasons, never got it. Well, they're still trying. They're still trying. They're still trying. They're still trying.

Okay, so if proximity equals survival, in order for me to survive, I need to get myself in a position where closeness to this person is tolerated by them. Mm-hmm. Isn't there also a piece of it that I as a baby am constantly evaluating whether this thing that is shown by me, is it crying? Is it acting cool and aloof? Is it refusing to cry? Whether this thing I'm doing is met with closeness or is that thing met with distance so that we are learning. Okay, it's not whether I'm going to get proximity. I need proximity. I need to know that I can count on this person. So I am learning very quickly what I'm allowed to show and what I'm not allowed to show to get myself that proximity to survive. Is that right? That's exactly right. And so I think we can ground that in a specific example,

right? Because I know often people are like, what does that mean? So we have these moment to moment interactions with our kids about specific things. But if attachment, right, is this evolutionary system that drives everything else. The way I term is like, kids are drawing attachment lessons from these moments. Not one, right? An attachment lesson would be formed after like a pattern. So example, all. Your kid is really, really upset at like a gymnastics birthday party. They don't want to join the party. And you're, oh, I'm the only kid who isn't joining the second great gymnastics party, even though all their best friends are there. So this is the situation. So let's talk about two different responses. All right. Parent response one, you're being so ridiculous. These are all of your best friends. Go. Or maybe even, and I've said these words myself, by the way. You're embarrassing. How am I going to show? I'm a good mom raising a well-a-old.

Justin kid unless you get her ass out there. I'm Dr. Becky, for God's sakes. Get your ass on the mat. Exactly. Right. So what my kid learns, right, what the attachment lesson is, is I'm not allowed to feel hesitant about things. I'm not allowed to scope out a situation before I jump in. Because that's met with what's another form of distance, judgment. We all know when you're judging someone, whenever I think about my body motion when I judge someone, I literally move away and then have these like judgey eyes. It's distance. Our body. still reacts that way. It's shame. It's shame. It's shame. This part of you is not attachable to me. My kid won't remember anything about the gymnastics birthday party. P.S., I know we've talked about this before. You have an incredibly confident self-aware kid to know they're not ready to do something while all the other sheep in their class are joining the birthday party with random strangers over there. Flipping themselves backwards with people they've never met. 100%. What is that? Right? So versus, same. Same.

situation you say to your kid, there's something about this that doesn't feel right to you. That's okay. I believe you. You can join whenever you're ready. Something like that. What does my kid learn there from an attachment perspective? Because again, the gymnastics party doesn't matter.

Is the part of me that can feel hesitant, that isn't sure, that's noticing things and taking in data before I jump in, that part is safe. That part gets closeness. That part gets acceptance. Right. So fast forward, I don't know, to, you know, your high school kids at a party. Probably a different type of party than a gymnastics party. And there's a lot of kids they don't know, probably some alcohol, a lot of different things. And, you know, I don't know, group of their friends are all, who knows what they're doing? They're doing keg stands. They're all going to, like, hook up with people they don't really know. They're doing something. And your kid has a hesitation.

I don't know. Okay, well, what's the attachment lesson they've learned around closeness, around distance, around judgment, around what's okay? And those lessons, not from one moment at a birthday party, let me be clear. I'm not saying how you intervene at the second grade birthday party predicts directly. But if this is a pattern, then those attachment lessons play out. It might even play out in when someone says to them, hey, you're making such a big deal out of this. You know everyone here. come on. Their body's going to say, oh, I know what to do. I know what's expected of me. I know what's allowed. And then we say, why did you do that? You should have known that was wrong. I don't care what your friends are doing. Why don't you think for yourself, right? And a kid's not going to say, well,

I've kind of, you know, formed attachment around this. So I don't know what you expect of me, mom or dad. You know, they're definitely not going to say that. But in some ways, the reason kids are kind of confused and rude, is because their body's like, I just like did what I was, like, what I was programmed to do. Yes. It's just so interesting because when we say we don't remember a childhood, what we're saying is we don't remember the gymnastics party, but we remember in our body every single energy that was sent our way by our parent or not.

We do remember that. Yes. And the reason we'd remember the gymnastics party and actually be able to not repeat those patterns is if we had things that most of us, I think, no, we didn't have. Hey, you know what I'm thinking about? There were times that you didn't want to join things. And I think I used to say things like, come on, that's making such a big deal. And that probably led you to not trust your instincts. That was always a me thing and not a you thing. And I know it won't change everything right now, but I want to tell you, of course, you're allowed to take your time. Only you know when

you're ready. Like anyone listening to this, it's like, oh, I've done stuff like that. A few of those moments of repair, and let's start looking out for other times, you might not be ready. Let's start bringing back that signal and making it safe for it to be louder to you. That really matters. That is the most hopeful, powerful thing about the whole study for me because each one of those mothers in that study was leaving the room. It wasn't whether they were not going to leave the room. the whole shebang, the entire study, revolved around what happened when the mother came back. So it's not, are we going to fuck up at the birthday party? It's what is going to happen when we come back in the room.

And that is the moment of repair. Also, there were studies done that showed that if you were too perfect, the good enough parent study, like if you're aligned with your kid, 100% of the time, which by the way is impossible, it's worse for your kid because they learn to accept. that love looks like perfection, which is a fucking joke they'll never be able to replicate. But if you are misaligned 70% of the time, if you are misaligned 70% of the time with your kid, but you are coming back and repairing what they learn that love looks like is you're with imperfect people who are going to screw up and what you should learn to expect of people that love you

is that when they screw up, they're going to come to you and say, hey, that felt bad. That was about me. That wasn't about you. That's in friendship and in relationships too. This is not just about parenting. This is like missing each other in relationship and romantic and friendship at work. We're always going to miss each other, but what happens next? So Dr. Becky, what do you have to say to us about repair? Like if we're just, we're just starting today with all this. Repair is everything. It's like without a doubt, I feel like I have hard time answering questions without like having

some nuance. But if someone's like, well, what's the most important parenting strategy? I feel like there's no nuance. It's like repair, done. Next question. Like, it is the most important thing. And repair, it allows us to go back to the original memory in the body. I always feel like if you picture a circuit and that wiring, I always picture it as a marble run. I don't know why. That's just how my brain imagines it. It's like I go back to the parts that didn't feel good. And I actually start to reshape them by surrounding those moments that didn't feel good with moments. that do feel good. And I think thinking about memory also as events and then all the other times you've remembered those events, right? That's why therapy is like so powerful. It's like you don't

change the events. But if memories in part the event and every other time you remember it, well, if every other time you kind of remember it, it feels safer and more understanding. And right, then the memory of course changes its impact and the way it even lives in your body. That's so powerful for parents to know. Oh, I can change memory? Like, That's, that's pretty magical. That's pretty cool. And we do the opposite. We're like, maybe they won't remember that.

Like, let's just skip over that. Or we're not going to bring it up because it was so upsetting to them. I don't want to upset them. As opposed to we're going to bring it up and we're going to attach muscle memory around it. That's going to include me hugging you when we talk about it. That's including me saying it's me. It's not you. You never make me do anything.

It was my thing. That's exactly right. And like that's what, you know, when parents say, but what if they don't bring it up? My kid doesn't bring this up. Would you bring up? I'm like, oh my goodness. I would, yes. I'm not going to miss that opportunity. I can go into a chapter of their life from the past and rewrite the ending. Why would I not do that? That's amazing. I'm not going to wait for them to open up that chapter. I know it happened. Their body knows it happened. I have the words. They don't have the words because they can't understand it coherently if I'm not the one giving coherence to that moment. And so, yes, this is this amazing power responsibility. opportunity we have and we have it also with ourselves in our own day to day, in our own childhood, because I know there are probably people listening. We're like, my parents, my own parents, like they're never going to do this. And they might not. They might not. Like, I'm a pragmatist. It's true. If you think that they really might not, maybe they're listening to this. Maybe you'll

get a call, you know, but maybe they're not. And my guess is everyone listening to this, though, is old enough that there's a differentiation between your age now and your age when some really, really hard things happened that weren't your fault, but might have been stored as your fault in your body. And you really can go back, like in a way. You can, as the adult today, talk to that part of you, that kid in you. And it can be really powerful. How impactful that really can be. This show is brought to you by Alma. When I first tried to find a therapist, it felt like a scavenger hunt with no map,

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hard things listeners can get an exclusive 20% off I-Exel membership when they sign up today at www. Ixl.com slash we can. Visit Ixel. com slash we can to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. Okay, so the thing happened where we talked to Dr. Becky and then I feel like we've been talking for five seconds. But can we hear from Chelsea right now?

Uh-huh. Hey, friends. My name is Chelsea. I am a single mom of a almost seven-year-old little girl, and I just love everything about her. I not only allow, but encourage her to pick out her own outfit. And, I mean, the girl is very fashionable. Like, she just gets wild.

We're talking all tie-dye one day, all teeth at the next day, and overalls over shorts, over pants, with skirts, and she'll go to school like that. And I love it and we have so much fun, her just doing her things. I also encourage her to do her hair, but I don't make her do her hair how I want to see it. So about how she wants to look. And before she goes to school, I ask her if she feels cool. And if the answer is yes, then we're good to go. My issue is I recently had a family member, they feel I am setting her up for failure by allowing her to do this.

They think that students and other people will devalue her based on her style and start to really look down on her and judge her. And they're saying this with kindness, even though it really pissed me the fuck off. But I like to think this person is coming from a good place. And I want to know your thoughts. Should I teach my daughter what matching clothes is and encourage her to have some type of guideline with her style? Or should I just follow my heart and encourage her to follow her? I mean, Chelsea, when can we have coffee? Because you sound amazing.

And your daughter sounds amazing. Oh, my goodness. What I think you're doing, Chelsea, from an attachment lens, is something really profound and it's long term. You're actually protecting her from ever feeling devalued based on her style or what people have to think about her. That's what you're doing. Because what you're saying to her is you seem to know who you are and you seem to know how you want to show up in the world. I don't know anything more valuable than instilling that in our kids. And Yeah, there might be people in childhood down the line who, you know, don't like that or disagree. Kids, comments, right? But what you're saying to your daughter is this way of getting to know yourself and figuring out who you are in your individuality, that brings closeness and safety and love and acceptance. And so fast forward, I don't know, to her being 20, 40, however old she is. and she expresses who she is.

She lives her life in a way that feels right to her, which might include her clothes or at that point in life. Who knows? Maybe it's the job she picks or where she wants to live in the world. You have set her up to feel empowered to do that and to surround herself with the type of people who love that. Yes. This brings up a big question.

So if, for example, Chelsea's daughter is getting the feedback from her that this part of her is lovable and brings closeness with her, her authenticity to herself, and what she exclusively views as cool for her. Great, approximately, great feedback. She goes to school and out in the world, and she receives from 100 people the opposite of that. Your uniqueness creates distance. We don't like that. Are you saying that the attachment theory, the one trumps the 100?

that when we know that attachment theory at one year old directly predicts how socially competent a child will be in elementary school and in adolescence, which in turn forecasts the quality of love relationships they will have at 25. Are you saying that the attachment to Chelsea mom is what's dictating that? And it doesn't matter the distance with everybody else. I think I'd add a little bit of nuance there to feel comfortable with my answer. And what I'd say is if you have a kid like this, right? And there's a lot of extensions of having a kid like this. I think it's important if they get certain feedback to say, wow, the answer isn't to say to your kid, well, you know who you are and that's amazing.

Like I would say to this kid, that must feel really tricky. Where were you when that happened? Or there are times when I think parents say to kids like, it's so amazing. You know whatever it is about yourself. And in the course of today or tomorrow, people might say something. And if they do, then it doesn't feel right to you and doesn't feel good, I want you to hear me. That's not you, it's them. And, and you can still come home to me and cry about it and I'll understand.

You're really acknowledging the range of emotions and the range of actually difficult situations that happen in the world when you do allow yourself to be who you want to be. Exactly. Like that does happen. But what it doesn't lead to is self-alienation. Right. I've saw this so much as a teacher, and I feel like I see it at the risk of overgeneralizing with people struggling with coming out and their sexuality. The people who struggle the most are the people who had homophobia at home.

I used to see this with my students. Kids can seem to handle the whole world telling them that they're weird and different. If their parents at home or their family say, you're all right. You're all right. You're right. If you allow both, then you are showing your kid what actually is true in the world. Because like for me, like, okay, Glenn, you're going to come out as queer. And now everyone's going to love you.

And no one's going to say anything. And no, that's not the way it goes. I'm okay because of what you said before because I have a secure home. So I can go out into the world and experience whatever the world says about me. I can explore. I can have the stranger experiment. I can do whatever. They can say whatever they want to say about me

because I know when I come home, I am loved and I am safe and I am okay. And if we don't give our kids that because we're afraid of what's going to happen out there, then they have it both places. That's exactly right. And it reminds me of the thing I wrote about and untamed with the touch tree.

It's like the way you don't get too lost in the world is you have a solid thing that is unmoving recognizable that you can come back to over and over again that is secure, which is the touch tree. And the reason why you have that is so that you can go out and explore and gather everything you need in that forest and keep coming back and keep coming back. But what Chelsea's doing is giving her girl that touch tree at home. And you don't let the fear of what's going to happen outside poison the tree at home. That's exactly right. In an attachment language, that's the secure base. And the coming back, right, the language that often is so pointed. It's a

recharging. That's what you recharge and you go out into the world. And then you come back and adults and kids, you have to come back to a secure base and get that recharging so you can go back out. And yeah, if kids grow up without a secure base, it's very understandable that they go about the world, never feeling safe. Never. Yeah. Okay, we're going to stop there. We're going to come back on Thursday with a whole other key to the mystery of who we are called Internal Family Systems. You are not going to want to miss it. Dr. Becky, thank you.

Pod Squad, don't miss the next one. We love you. Catch you next time. I give you Tishmilton and Brandy Carlisle. I came out the other side. I chase desire. I made sure. I got was mine

And I continued to believe that as I'm a Because we're adventurers and heart breaks I'll map A final destination They've stopped asking directions They've never had to be late to We'll find Can do a heart, a brand new star

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