We Need To Talk with Paul C. Brunson - Can Anxious People Date Avoidants? We're Talking Attachment Styles

Episode Date: April 16, 2026

Dr. Amir Levine dives deeper into the dynamics of attachment styles in relationships. He explains why anxious and avoidant individuals often find themselves stuck in a never-ending cycle, and how these patterns can impact the way we choose and connect with romantic partners. Amir offers insightful tools to help both anxious and avoidant types navigate their relationships more effectively, and shares how being with a secure partner can change the way we experience love. With practical advice and eye-opening truths, this episode uncovers the path to breaking free from destructive patterns and creating healthier, more secure connections. We’re Talking Attachment Styles with Dr. Amir Levine (Part Two) Follow me here: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/needtotalk⁠   ⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@weneedtotalkpod⁠  Take the We Need To Talk quiz to discover your attachment style and get personalised episode recommendations: ⁠https://linkly.link/2g3t4⁠ Support Amir here: Website: ⁠https://linkly.link/2g2xk⁠ My Attachment Topography Calculator: ⁠https://linkly.link/2g2xl⁠ Secure at Waterstones https://linkly.link/2g8vz Enter 'Secure26' for 25% off (00:00) Intro (01:09) What Do Different Attachment Styles Look for in a Partner? (05:01) What Is the Gender Split on the Various Attachment Styles? (06:51) Is It a Problem Being in a Relationship With Someone Who Has the Same Attachment Style as You? (09:05) Dr Amir’s Tools for Changing Your Brain and Attachment Styles (13:41) Not Texting Back and Being Avoidant With Your Friends (15:00) The Myths Surrounding Attachment Styles (17:14) Having Different Attachment Styles With Various People in Your Life (19:29) Saily Ad (20:39) How Does Social Media Affect Attachment Styles? (23:03) Social Exclusion and Its Effect on the Brain (30:06) How to Set Expectations in Your Relationships Sponsored by: Saily - Download from the app store and use code WNTT at checkout for 15% off. For more details: https://saily.com/wntt ⛵ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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The Hilton sale is on now. Book on Hilton.com or the Hilton app and save up to 20% to get the stay you expected. When you want savings, not surprises. It matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay. Dr. Amir Levine, your book Secure, I was privileged enough to read, is also one of the most important books. The whole thing of this book is devising tools to help the anxious and the avoidant.

How to navigate their social world better to create a secure, enriched environment. So this resonates with me. I remember reading that part of the book thinking, this is wow. Really what it looks like, what it really requires is something that I've come to book. Hey there, before we begin the episode, I just want to say, thank you for choosing we need to talk. Doing this podcast is one of the greatest joys of my life. And I want to continue to share it with you. So hit follow and the bell icon. It takes just a second and it helps us to continue to grow this podcast.

Now, you said something also that I agree with, but help everyone with this. so, do avoidance look for other avoidance as romantic partners? If you're anxious, do you look for other people who are anxious? Like, do secures look for secure? How do we, who are we looking for? So I personally believe that, and I know, like, maybe some people are going to have an issue with it, but that's my personal belief. Just from understanding sort of biology, I think that we're going to be.

we choose the people that we're attracted to. And we don't know who they are. And I think a lot of it has to do with much more rudimentary stuff, like how they smell, what they look like. I think it's much more that. And then we find out who they are. That's what I think. But the studies actually show that oftentimes they don't really show who are we attracted to,

but they show what kind of relationships. so they didn't find that many avoidant and avoidant relationship. Although since then, I've had patients who were in avoidant-avortent-reliationships. And also, I've encountered people in avoidant-votent relationships. And again, also, what's important on this questionnaire, you'll see, it's more of a spectrum. Yes. And we can, so it's not like all black or white. And people say, oh, avoidance never care about other people.

But I've had many, like, I've had patients, and I know people who are very caring but are still avoidant. So the way that they will translate, it will be, remember one patient, he said, oh, I was, like, he started dating someone and he was great, and he was really great. And then, but his back was hurting and they were on a plane. So he moved forward to the seat in front because they're like room so he can stretch out. And then he just stayed there until the end of the flight. And then when they got, when they landed, like his sort of new girlfriend was like so hurt and upset. it's like because he didn't go back to sit next to her. Yes.

But he didn't even occur to him. It's not like he didn't care about her. It's like it was like downfounded by why was she upset. And I find that to be more the case with avoidance. They don't really know. No. Oftentimes. Yes. There's a movie that I like that I love that really shows you a lot about attachment styles.

It's 500 days of summer. Okay. Because in there, the woman is the avoidant. And they have, there's a bar scene. where she talks about and said, no, I don't want to run a relationship. I don't actually believe in love. And I'm fine being on my own.

I'm happy being on my own. And the guy who's actually anxious and kind of falling for her, he's like, well, what do you mean you don't believe in love? It's not like Santa Claus. And then his friends tell her, oh, wow, you're a dude.

You sound like a dude. So that's why I say, oh, the blind leading the blind. They don't understand, no. She's not a dude. She has an avoidant attachment styles. Women have avoided attachment styles, too. not only men, so many women that I talk to, they'll quietly say, yeah, I'm avoidant.

I just don't like too much clothing. I'm that way. But once you explain to avoidance, your response is not everyone else's response. You are the minority. Like the fact that when something bad happens to you, you don't reach out to someone for help, that you solve it yourself. That doesn't mean that other people don't need help. Yes, this is true. You just said something that, also, I'm not sure if I've seen stats on this, are do, because the media, I feel like, pop culture presents women as predominantly secure or anxious and men as predominantly avoidant, I think.

So wrong. Yeah. If you're looking at gender splits, if you will, do you have any data on that? I think that the majority are, it's really hard to gather these data in the population, and especially not because we know that it's more of a, spectrum and they don't really look at it more in categories, which is also something that

has changed a lot. And it was important for me to mention in the book and really explain about that more what it means because it gives us a chance to shift and change. But I think the way that I like to answer that is that there's plenty of men that are anxious, plenty of them. And then like even I can think about a father of a friend who's like this really big, tough surgeon and like every few hours he's calling his wife, what's happening, what's happening. And the wife, everything is still the same.

Nothing has changed since five minutes ago when he called last. The good news is the majority. Like there's a good chunk of secure people out there. And actually, I use that fact in part of that secure priming therapy to help people insecure. The way that you were helped to help people that who are insecure to teach them how to navigate their social world better so to create what I like to call a secure enriched environment because that's how our brain changes okay okay if I can ask just one more on the choosing or any in the in the attaching oh yeah yeah I love yeah because I don't

I love talking about that yeah this is I know this is your area too yeah yeah is so you're saying okay we first are attracted by physical right consent yeah and I'm with you I I feel that's the same way and then we either get lucky he liked me and say, oh my gosh, I'm in a partnership with someone who's secure or not. What happens if you are either anxious or you are avoidant or fearful avoidant and you're in a relationship with someone just like you? Is that cause for leaving the relationship? When you're a fearful avoidant or you're avoidant and your relationship with someone just like

you? Yes. And then there's also the anxious anxious and the anxious avoidant. Okay. So what they find is sometimes with avoidance, like when they try to get together, because they're both, I'll do my own thing, and then I'll do my own thing. And then sometimes, okay, they're both doing their own thing. And there's no glue that puts them together.

So sometimes that doesn't work out because of that. Like if everybody, like if one does, like, but not always because if they're very attracted to one another, in a way it can work. No one expects anything of the other. So if it may not be working because they might be going off and doing like sort of like But sometimes even that works I'm going to say oh cheating in one another But if they're in agreement and they have an open relationship I mean or they have like pulling out There's so many different there's more and more now people accepting different types of

sort of clouticement and I'm not again because I stay I love this whole way of looking from the attachment perspective, is it working for them? That's fine. If it's not, let's find a way to fix it. The whole thing of this book is devising tools to help the anxious, the fearful avoidant,

and the avoidant. And they each, it's the same tools, but each attachment style has to learn to use it differently. And you can use it from, actually, from your dating profile. You can start there, and like from the first date,

you can use some of those tools. Okay, so let's talk about the tools and the practicality. So let's start with anxious, because I think there's a lot of people who place themselves in that category for some reason. If you are anxious, you are single, or you're in a relationship with someone who's not secure, but you're anxious, practically, what should you be doing? Right. So I think it's not that they're the vocal minority, right? Yes. Because they're the vocal minority because they're suffering.

It's like, I need help. A voter's like, I don't need anyone. Don't help me. I'm finding my own way. And then like securers are just busy having their own like good relationships. You don't hear about them. And that's why like in fact they exist in our life. And we just like don't even pay attention to them because they think we think that they're kind of boring.

They always text us back. There's never any drama. So we barely notice them. And that's part of the big shift that I help people do is like, no. these are like the sort of the gemstones in your life. Instead of like really, which anxious really tend to do is pay a lot of attention to those who haven't texted back. Those like shift your attention.

Don't look there, even though your brain wants you to look there, but we can control it. Shift it. And instead of like, why aren't you texting me? Well, like question mark, are you there? Then text the person who will text you back and sort of really create, like shift your social milieu. So I'll talk about the tools. Really, what it really requires is something that I've come to call the five pillars of secure attachment,

which consists of you have to learn to be consistent, available, responsive, and then it's not enough to think, oh, I'm consistent, available, responsive, I'm so good, I'm so great. It's also important, it's like a two-factor authentication. You have to make sure that the other person experiences you as reliable and predictable. And this is the acronym, I call it carp, consistent, available, responsive, reliable, predictable. And if you can learn how to do that and you can also teach others how to be that way with you, then you've created yourself a secure environment. Interesting. Okay. So this is, if you are avoiding as well, you should be,

using carp. Yes, but in a different way than anxious. Ah, okay. Yes. Okay. So another very important part. So this is the part from the attachment sort of world that I sort of created that tool there. But then I married it together with something that I took from my, from the lab, from my, from my bench work, which is really understanding how to bring changes on the most fundamental way. And you know, when people go to therapy, they think the change will come from talking by my childhood events and drawing sort of inferences from childhood to adulthood. Yes. Which I question and there's a chapter about that.

But or talking about the really big, difficult things that have happened to me over my life. But from the brain's perspective, we often miss what I've come to call the seemingly insignificant minor interactions of everyday life. Those are little things like my interaction here with you now. Like if I said hello, I didn't say hello to the person in the elevator this morning. Did I communicate? Did I create a bond? Did I even just a little bit of an interaction with the person that brought me here? So those seemingly insignificant minor interactions of everyday life as an epigenetic neuroscientists

who learned how the brain changes really on the structural level, these are instrumental in actually changing the brain. molecular structure on the brain. And in fact, if you remember any of this conversation tomorrow, or if the listeners remember any of this conversation tomorrow, there's been some structural changes in your brain and either brain. It's not enough to be consistent, available, and responsive in those big gestures. You have to make sure that your carp in all of those semis. And that helps you. That is like the key to becoming carp. And avoidance and anxious have to deal differently, like a boy and have to learn to, they're like the mother in the strange

situation test. They're the ones who leave in the room and then the child is there like, what's happening? Save me, help me. And it's like, what do you want? I was just there with you for like a long time. Now I need my time alone. Well, you can't just leave the room like that. That's kind of like, that's from our nervous system hates it. It's just like we have like this thing that constantly, you have to, even a small text, you have to, you have to. You have to. You have to learn to do these little things, that will give you your space. What you're doing now is the opposite of what you want to do. Yes.

And it backfires. So this resonates with me. And this actually even supports, because, you know, it's so fascinating what you're saying to me because looking at my, you know, my data from the topography calculator, hearing what you're saying is I realize that I show up as an avoidant with my friends. I have a high level of avoidance with my, even though these are my friends. Yeah. I am notoriously the one who doesn't message.

I won't send a message. I won't even respond back sometimes. And some people get highly upset, and I'll apologize three weeks later. Right. So it sounds like what you're saying I need to do is I need to be carp with my semis. Yes. So if you could. And you even have stayed yourself.

people get upset. Yes, they do. And I'll wait for weeks and then I'll apologize. But my something, I don't know what it is, but in my brain it's just that I don't need to respond right now. I really, I love that you gave that example of yourself because in the book, I actually start the chapter about avoidance, about like the, and I think I even call it being comfortably close with a measure of distance, something like that. Like, I really tried to normalize it because there's this myth that avoidance are the way they are because they were not giving enough emotional support as children. But I've had patients who were, like, loved and coddled as children.

And I was. Yeah, beyond belief. Yeah. And it's just like, and we've done so much sort of blame the parents in psychology. Like gay people are gay because they've had, like, distant fathers. You know how many gay people I know that have, like, loving, doty? Slaughter's. Yes.

It's just like we've made those connections. And I don't blame people. Our human brain is built. And that's why I wrote a whole chapter about causality. Our human brain is built to make those connections. And actually, when I became a scientist, I discovered how hard it is. It's like the holy grail of science is to find causality. And it's so hard.

And look at all the papers that are recently getting retracted or redacted because it's just so hard to prove these claims. Yes. And so many times we failed and blamed the whole generation. of mothers for causing schizophrenia, whole generations of mothers, like it was called the refrigerator mothers, for always the mother. For somebody did the father get a break? For causing autism, like horrible things that people have to carry.

And even this whole thing about it, then you start looking at your past in a certain way. And that actually is a form of insecure priming because oftentimes secure people are able to look at their past, not just from an idealized way, but in more measured way. Some bad things happened. Also some good things happened. So I got sort of, you see, I went over there because I'm very passionate about that. But to tell you, I find there's what is supported about avoidance is that some animals, even you can start with, and I give an example, like some dogs love closeness.

They're going to be, you can see on TikTok, they're like having their face in your face all the time. Like so clingy. And then some dogs, they still love you, but they'll stay at the edge of the bed. Yes. So this whole negotiating distance and closeness, it's part of our biology. And we do that with different members of our being, right? So are you saying that we could be secure maybe with a partner, avoidant with a coworker? Yeah, I mean, remember, you're still fall under the secure sort of like sort of box there.

But you can also be avoidant with a coworker or even one particular person. Maybe someone who's, for some reason, whatever Jill did, she was able to kind of like draw you in. And I often say that avoidance are like straight cats. You have to put the milk out and then they come on their own terms to drink the milk. And I don't know if that's what happened with you or not. That's funny. But whatever she did, she was able to draw you in and make you feel comfortable with whatever closeness she offered you.

So you were able to, like, okay, this is safe. No one is trying to sort of like, how come you're not answering? How come you're not? I can, I can, I can live with this. This feels comfortable. And you can potentially come and go with less drama and like this just feels more comfortable. But with friends,

you still may not want all that huge closeness. But what I'm trying to, what I'm trying to teach avoidant, it's like there's a way that you can do it, you can say, hey, sorry, really busy a couple of days, we'll get back to in a week. Because it's not just about responding right away.

That's what people have to understand. And they're really going to great lengths of exit. Because it's not, it's a little bit more nuanced than that. It's all about a, we form something I call an attachment homeostasis. It's like a baseline. We all have an idea of a baseline. If you call me once a

a week, I'm not going to expect you to call every day and it's not going to trip my alarm that you're not calling, well, like, in the middle, because I expect you to call once a week. If they're learned that you're going to text them, and some of your friends, I'm sure, have learned, and don't take issue with it. Yes, yes, they have. They're like, this is Paul.

Yeah, exactly. So you've created a baseline. Yes. So you can, and I have an example in the book about a mother whose kids went off to college, and whenever she called them, like, they were very dismissive, and he was painful for her. And the way that she found a way to connect with them and keep that attachment thread is by their share fitness apps. And so they saw each other. They do it for her when she exercises. She does it to them. And there's that, again, that connection keeps like it kept alive.

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And if you want 15% off your first purchase, make sure you use my code, WNTT at checkout. Details are in the episode description. Oftentimes what I read is that as a result of social media, it's actually driving this loneliness epidemic. and loneliness is connected with avoidance somehow. How much of that is myth or fact? So I think it really depends on how you use social media. If you use it to connect with people and meet up more and do more things, and I think the whole loneliness thing is also,

it's more from what I understand. I'm not a big loneliness expert, but from what I understand is it's more of an inner feeling because sometimes the same people can have the same amount of connection, but some feel, I'm all alone in the world, and others will feel, no, I'm connected to others. So that actually is very important. I'm glad that you're actually mentioning that because I really start the book secure

about something that our brain really loads. Our brain really, and that's like one of the most important things to understand, our brain hates being excluded or it hates that disconnect. So it's something that's called the soluble, I call it the soluble effect. It's actually based on the soluble experiments. And that's when basically it's this amazing body of research where they had like you basically, you're playing very rudimentary video game when you're like you're like one of the characters.

And then you play with two other people. You play in game of catch. And all of a sudden they stop throwing the ball in your direction. And what they find is, like they find both a psychological, really profound psychological effect, but also like the brain effect. And the brain effects are that areas that are associated with pain and distress and self-scrutiny really come online in a huge way. And then psychologically, it makes you feel less in control of your life.

It makes you have less self-esteem and that life is less meaningful. The things that you think are specifically related to how you feel about yourself are actually related to how you connect with others. And the other thing that they found is that it's almost impossible to mitigate. So in one experiment, they gave people money. It's like whenever they're not going to throw it in your direction, we're going to give you a prize. No, you still have the same horrible effects of exclusion. And then in one, I don't know how they even approved that study, but they had like minority students.

like they were told that the other two are members of the KKK. Yes, I remember reading this in the book. And it's like crazy because still like despicable people are playing with you and they're stopping, why would you care? Their brain still cares. No, it does. I've actually, I remember reading that part of the book thinking, this is wild. However, I understand.

I recall being in spaces where I felt dismissed, just by someone looking at me and I cared about that because I saw them connect with someone else. And is this, in the book, is it still facing? So the solvable effect

is when you're like there's two other, like this exclusion by more, and then still facing, I'm glad you brought that up. It's like, so you can be also soluble with only one person when all of a sudden they disconnect and that's based on the still face experiment.

And it's kind of like the same idea It's looking at the same neurosacritory, that surveillance system, and what happens when we disrupt it? Basically, what happens when you don't text your friend back and you get, like, that you disrupt that connection that they feel with you and how horrible it feels to them. Sorry to bring that up. I'm seeing it. Yes. Yeah, yeah. But the thing is, so in the still face experiment, they ask the, again, those poor mothers and they're taught their infants to come in, and they sit them.

across from each other. And they say, oh, you do what you do with a child, and you babble with them, and the child, oh, you can see it on YouTube. It points the things, and they're having a great time. And then they ask you, okay, look back and look back and just have completely blank face. And the child immediately reacts to sort of the change

of the disruption in the connection. And it tries to get the, it's actually hard to see that video. I have to say, every time I see that, I kind of like, but it's fine. It's really important because you get it, you understand how this neuroscientic. circuitry works also in adults. The child, hey, look at this, look at this. It tries to grab her attention, back her attention. And when she keeps going, they start to get upset. They look away

and they withdraw. And then they start really like crying and get really upset. That's the part that's hard to watch. But then quickly the mother re-engages and they start smiling again. There's a happy ending, but it's good. But it just showed to me, I also, I always show this still facing experiment to patients because I want to explain to them, and especially to, you know, avoidance, what happens, it's like when you are, when you sort of like cut off that attachment thread, and especially people avoidance when they fight, they're like, okay, I'm not responding anymore, I can't do it anymore, and then they'll just say, but what do you want, I'm not saying anything, what do you want for me? Not from a place, but they're not realizing that

they're actually engaging in it really, from the point of view of the brain, they're engaging in an incredibly aggressive act. It's like no less, it's painful. It's no, it's like, it's like, I mean, I don't know, maybe it's like it's just like from the point of view of the brain, like it's almost like you're slapping someone across the face. It's hard. If you cut off human connection, seems like that is one of the worst things you can do to the brain. I really, really understood it when I was like several years ago, I went in a safari in South Africa and they took us on a little walk out in the wild. Usually you don't know the scar, you feel protected. No, we were walking outside.

Yes. And we had one person with a rifle behind us and one person with a rifle in front of us, but they told us to sort of really make sure we walked in a single file, and they told us to make sure that we don't open up spaces between us. Because, and then whenever someone, like, stole for a moment, they was looking to open up a space, they would sort of like call out, close the gap, close the gap. And I realized how, like what that brain nerve circuitry was designed to do and how it was designed to protect us

during, in that era, not where we live now. Not where like, and so not being noticed and even a momentary lapse of being noticed could have made the difference between survival or being prey. It's almost like a basic instinct that our brain has.

It's a social instinct that our brain has. Isn't that interesting? Yeah, it's fascinating. It is better to be noticed by despicable people. So we still want the connection. Because we, our brain still believes that we're in the middle of the food chain.

What I try to do with this book is tell them to sort of like to teach the brain, you're not in the middle of the food chain anymore. And so for someone anxious, for someone avoidant, you have to learn if you actually do a little bit of carp will get you a lot more space than you think because then you're not going to have to apologize

and all like you take like, no, it's just like so much better. You get your space by being carp. For someone who's anxious, you are more sensitive to picking up a non-carp stuff. stuff, sort of non-carpsomies. And what you really want, for someone anxious to transform, to become more secure,

you want to encircle yourself in a secure environment. So I call it like the carp intervention. You're like when someone is not, then if I were your friend, sorry, I don't know if it's okay for me to go back to that example, but. Yes. If I were your friend, I would say, hey, I even, but it's like really, not to, oh, I'm so upset that you didn't text me, and you don't care about me.

It's like, you know, to me, it's really important that people respond to me in time. So even if you just send me a little emoji, that will be fine for me. It'll show me that you're there, that you care, and that's enough for me. And then the next time when you're ready, you can sort of, like, engage with me again.

Yes. And I would do that. That would be my carbon intervention with you. I see it. So I teach people how to do, like, carp intervention, and then I give them other tools of what happens when that carp intervention. intervention doesn't work. And it's really basically about shifting your focus from people to the people

who are more secure in your life because I told you, we all have them. And but oftentimes we more like notice those who aren't and engage more with that because that's where our brain takes our attention to. Yes. And he said like, look, we have this treasure chest here. And I teach people to kind of like shift their attention to that. Yeah, which is why I've always heard stories of people who are anxious, chasing people who are avoidant. Yeah. It's just never ending. Never ending.

Never ending. No. There's no pleasure in that. No, it's more even more than that. Before we even know the person, say, because then it's not even personal. It's like from date number one. Hey, I, like for me, it's just in general with my friends, even with people that I'm dating. It's really important for me that people are carp in my life.

So what you've done there, you've kind of like planted a seed. Now there's an expectation. You told them what you want. And now you can see, are they going to be able to live up to it or not. And I have an example of that, like one of my patients, she dated someone who is actually more of an avoidant. It's like maybe similar to your story with Jill. Yeah. But she's like, she's like, so I think after a few times that he didn't respond to her, then she said, you know, really, hey, look, I really like you.

But for me, it's very important that people respond to me in time. And if you're not going to respond, actually, I'm going to hit up your phone. and so and eventually it's just not going to work so I'm just letting you know right there and then he said you know I never really respond to people and it's true all of his friend he doesn't really respond to

things I'm like he does and he's me and he's not. And everybody knows all of his friends know no one even like most of his sons don't even expect him to respond because they know he's just not going to respond but he said you know I hear you and I'm going to try and with her

he does respond and then times when he doesn't respond she's hitting up his She'll go on like 10 times and he's fine. Like he accepted it. It's like, okay, yeah. It's just like, hey, what's up? Yes. Like it's fine.

And then, and they've been together for like over a decade now and it's like really work. And he still doesn't respond to his friends. But you know the inspiration in that is you could be anxious and be in a relationship with someone who's avoiding. You can make it work. Yeah. If you use these tools.

Yeah. It's incredible. That's why it's so gratifying that whole like the, the, coaching and I give examples of how I do it like in real time when people have fights. Yes. Like how you can do it in real time. I give this whole last part of the last chapter is about sort of real time secure sort of secure priming. Like when you, but but also even sometimes people come in.

I've had couples like I like they bring in their like a boy and partner. They're starting off the beginning of the relationship. There's one particular example that I'm thinking about. and she like she like he's again and it's not always sometimes they for whatever reason I'm thinking about an aborted man and a more anxious woman but sometimes it's the other way around I have to make sure I have to sort of clear that out yes but the guy came in and it said look when you don't respond to her in the morning like you like and then she also needs a text at night and I explained about the neuros circuitry and the surveillance everything that we

talked about here I explained it all out because I think he really helps her understand how our brain works. It's not personal. It's like our brain really needs that. And it's like, oh, yeah, I can do that. Yeah, I can send a text in the morning. I can text and say it's a night. A single session, like maybe one or two sessions, like just like did the trick. Like I never, I never saw them again, which is good to me. Which is beautiful. Yeah, I was going to say. I'm glad. That's beautiful. You know, that, so, so they got to a place where it's, they've created a secure environment. Yeah, but it was easy. It's like, it's like, it's like this. It's, it's, it's, because it's not like, oh, I have to talk to her, like call her and talk to her for hours each day.

That's not what the system is about. Remember, in that strange situation where I told you the child was playing with all the toys and every once in a while he was looking back to see if the mom is there. And then he doesn't care about the mom. And actually good relationships are where you actually don't really think about your partner, hardly at all. Because it really, and that's a very important thing to understand about attachment and how it relates to the exploratory drive. There's a direct link. Okay. Because it's a way for us to feel safe. And once our attachment, your circuitry is calm, then, like, we engage in exploration.

Like you see in this straight situation, he plays with all the toys. So as adults, we don't play with those kind of toys anymore, but we work. We have careers. We parent. We have hobbies. We have friends. So it gives us permission to sort, to spread our wings and fly when we have that secure. It's called an attachment lingo, that secure base.

So actually, secure relationships are often. boring. Yes, they are incredibly boring. Yes. To the point where that's why I always joke is I say that they never work on TV. Exactly. They never work on TV because there's no drama. There's no drama at all.

Join me and Dr. Amir Levine next week for the last episode in our series about attachment styles. Hey, Mama, thanks for making all my favorite recipes. Hi, Ma. Thanks for your unfiltered advice. Hi, Mom. Thanks for always being by the phone. Hey, Mom. Happy Mother's Day. When you ship UPS Air at the UPS Store, your items arrive on time or your money back.

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