Latest / The Dr. Sarah Hensley Show / Episode 32, Season 1: Live Coaching Session with Rozerin

Transcript

Episode 32, Season 1: Live Coaching Session with Rozerin · The Dr. Sarah Hensley Show

0:08
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Love Doc podcast. I'm your co host
0:11
Speaker 1: Raina Butcher here with our host, doctor Sara Hensley, the
0:14
Speaker 1: owner and CEO of the Dating Decoder, soon.
0:18
Speaker 2: To be the Love Doc relationship coaching Services.
0:20
Speaker 1: That's right. So we are in the process of rebranding,
0:23
Speaker 1: which we like to say often so that it is
0:27
Speaker 1: a good reminder that the actual business itself is not
0:30
Speaker 1: going anywhere, right, just the name is going to change.
0:34
Speaker 2: And just expanded my services and clientele and scope where
0:39
Speaker 2: doing what I first started doing and just the Dating
0:41
Speaker 2: Decoder just doesn't work anymore, right.
0:43
Speaker 1: You've outgrown it for sure. So speaking of relationship coaching services,
0:47
Speaker 1: we are so excited today we have our first client, Roserine,
0:54
Speaker 1: on air with us and you guys, this is going
0:56
Speaker 1: to be so awesome and so valuable because doctor Hensley
0:59
Speaker 1: is going to do a live coaching session. So I'm
1:03
Speaker 1: going to hand it over to doctor Hinsley and then
1:06
Speaker 1: she's going to talk here with Rose Rein.
1:08
Speaker 2: Hi.
1:08
Speaker 1: Rose Rein, Hi, you guys, Hie, So I'll just give
1:14
Speaker 1: it over to you doctor Hinsey.
1:15
Speaker 2: Well, welcome, Rose Rein. I'm so glad that you're here today.
1:21
Speaker 2: I would give you a confidentiality statement. But this isn't confidential.
1:24
Speaker 2: You know, you're on a podcast, and so you know,
1:26
Speaker 2: I'll just remind you to share what you're comfortable with.
1:29
Speaker 2: But what I tell all of my clients is the
1:31
Speaker 2: more you can share, the more honest you can be,
1:35
Speaker 2: the better that I can help you. So I do
1:38
Speaker 2: use a modified version of the adult Attachment Interview, and
1:42
Speaker 2: I like my version of it, and I'm getting ready,
1:45
Speaker 2: hopefully to publish a paper to show that it is
1:47
Speaker 2: in fact, a superior method of assessing attachment compared to
1:52
Speaker 2: the the full adult Attachment interview. So if you've seen
1:57
Speaker 2: that measure, you may notice that some of the questions
1:59
Speaker 2: are a little bit different. But I'm hoping to make
2:02
Speaker 2: a dent in the field, in this scientific field to
2:06
Speaker 2: show that this interview actually captures attachment a little bit better.
2:09
Speaker 2: So there's a variety of questions. We're going to talk
2:13
Speaker 2: about your childhood, We're going to talk about some previous relationships.
2:17
Speaker 2: We're going to talk about your levels of emotional vulnerability
2:21
Speaker 2: and how well you feel like you understand your emotions.
2:23
Speaker 2: And then we're going to talk about conflict related behaviors.
2:26
Speaker 2: And that's the question that I always remind people to
2:29
Speaker 2: just please be honest with There's nothing I haven't heard,
2:31
Speaker 2: and there's no judgment here. There are always times in
2:36
Speaker 2: our lives where we haven't acted the best during conflict, right,
2:39
Speaker 2: but we have to be honest about our usual patterns
2:42
Speaker 2: in order to heal them. So tell me a little
2:46
Speaker 2: bit about your childhood, and really what I need to
2:49
Speaker 2: know is how did your parents get along with each other?
2:54
Speaker 2: What was their romantic relationship like? And then what was
2:56
Speaker 2: your relationship like with each parent individually as far back
3:00
Speaker 2: as you can remember in your childhood, what would you
3:03
Speaker 2: describe those relationships to be like.
3:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just want to make really clear that my
3:10
Speaker 3: parents love me very much, but I have honest and
3:15
Speaker 3: you know, they carry their own demons, so I just
3:19
Speaker 3: want to be sure that they did the best that
3:21
Speaker 3: they could. So I actually hadn't noticed my childhood until
3:27
Speaker 3: I started to write on Assignment, and then I started
3:32
Speaker 3: to realize that my childhood wasn't as good as I
3:37
Speaker 3: remember it because I had lots of love, lots of love,
3:42
Speaker 3: but my parents' romantic life was very dysfunctional, characterized by
3:51
Speaker 3: toxic fighting, raising voices, you know, screaming and yelling at
3:56
Speaker 3: each other and not talking to each other for like
3:59
Speaker 3: four months, and then they would use their children for communicating,
4:09
Speaker 3: so my parents could tell me that I have to
4:12
Speaker 3: go and tell the other parents.
4:14
Speaker 2: Something, gotcha. Yeah, so you were sort of put in
4:18
Speaker 2: the middle between your parents to send messages back and
4:22
Speaker 2: forth or to communicate different things.
4:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. And I remember this is something that I've
4:32
Speaker 3: started to remember from now, is that I was actually
4:36
Speaker 3: very scared as a child because when those things would happen,
4:42
Speaker 3: or that my dad would get extremely angry, I would
4:46
Speaker 3: like sort of turn my hyper vigilant on and see
4:49
Speaker 3: if I could be there or if I had to
4:51
Speaker 3: go and hide. And even though I was there, I
4:55
Speaker 3: was trying to be as quiet as possible, almost as
5:01
Speaker 3: I froze, because I was so scared that if they
5:05
Speaker 3: noticed that I'm here, I'm gonna I'm gonna get.
5:09
Speaker 2: It right right. I'm sorry you experienced that. That's difficult.
5:14
Speaker 2: So did your parents end up staying together?
5:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're together, but it has continued for all these years. Yeah.
5:27
Speaker 3: And I actually want to tell you about something in
5:30
Speaker 3: my childhood that's kind of bernable, but I have to
5:35
Speaker 3: tell it, but I can't mention who it is, but
5:39
Speaker 3: to respect that person. But I think that this is
5:41
Speaker 3: going to play a role in its assessment. And that
5:47
Speaker 3: was that I was abused as a child by someone
5:53
Speaker 3: so I really really trusted. Yeah, and it was horrible.
5:57
Speaker 3: And it was that I did something that I wasn't
6:02
Speaker 3: supposed to do, as children do. I would go to
6:06
Speaker 3: a friend and I wasn't allowed to do that. So
6:10
Speaker 3: when I got to this person, this person would actually
6:15
Speaker 3: put me in a room where he would hit me.
6:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm so sorry that you experienced that, Rosarine. I
6:23
Speaker 2: understand that you know that is a definite, significant trauma,
6:29
Speaker 2: and I appreciate you being vulnerable about it and sharing that,
6:32
Speaker 2: even though it's really hard to talk about.
6:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, I try. I tried to think
6:39
Speaker 3: of it because I know that this person, I know
6:45
Speaker 3: that he really loves me and he was doing the
6:49
Speaker 3: best that he could. But he had his own demons,
6:52
Speaker 3: and he came from the Middle Eastern culture where it's
6:57
Speaker 3: normal for at to hate children. So I get that.
7:03
Speaker 3: I'm not trying to excuse behaviors like this. I can see.
7:09
Speaker 3: I can see the other end of this.
7:11
Speaker 2: Spicture, right, I mean, just because we understand things and
7:16
Speaker 2: we empathize with other people's hurt and pain. That doesn't
7:19
Speaker 2: mean that we excuse the behavior. We don't have to
7:22
Speaker 2: conflate those two things for sure. So tell me a
7:26
Speaker 2: little bit about your relationship with your mom. What was
7:29
Speaker 2: your mom like and do you feel like you could
7:33
Speaker 2: go to your mom and childhood for emotional support. Tell
7:36
Speaker 2: me a little bit about that relationship.
7:41
Speaker 3: My mom lives for her children. You know, she has
7:45
Speaker 3: never bought a coke in her life, eating a pizza
7:48
Speaker 3: in her life because she thinks that my children can
7:52
Speaker 3: have this food. So she lives for her children. But
7:58
Speaker 3: as a young child, I was seeing much of her
8:01
Speaker 3: because she had to step up and work because my
8:05
Speaker 3: father was a stay at home dad. So I get that.
8:10
Speaker 3: I remember that I used to miss her so much
8:13
Speaker 3: and I used to sleep with her shirts because I
8:16
Speaker 3: got the scent of her. Yeah, and my mom she's really,
8:22
Speaker 3: really loving, But she can be emotionally reactive, and she's
8:27
Speaker 3: like almost dumping out her reactivity, and she can get
8:31
Speaker 3: quite defensive and tell me that, oh, that wasn't anything,
8:36
Speaker 3: It's okay, you're imagining things. I feel like she wants
8:41
Speaker 3: to understand me. But this is the part of her,
8:45
Speaker 3: that's also shaming me for having emotions that she can understand.
8:52
Speaker 3: But I want to make that very clear that she's
8:56
Speaker 3: really really loving.
8:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, and yeah again, So you know two things
9:01
Speaker 2: can be true at once. Someone can be really loving
9:05
Speaker 2: and someone can also have capacity limitations that make them
9:11
Speaker 2: not always make the best choices that feel good to us. Right,
9:16
Speaker 2: So I appreciate that perspective. Do you feel like your
9:20
Speaker 2: mom talked to you about your emotions at all when
9:23
Speaker 2: you were a child, Like I know you said she
9:26
Speaker 2: kind of could vent emotionally herself. Would she ever inquisitive
9:31
Speaker 2: or would she inquire about your emotional experiences like how
9:35
Speaker 2: you felt about things in your childhood as a child.
9:43
Speaker 3: You know, it's hard to tell because I don't really remember,
9:48
Speaker 3: but as far as I can remember, she didn't have
9:52
Speaker 3: time for that because she was working so so much.
9:58
Speaker 2: Okay, I understand. Tell me a little bit about the
10:02
Speaker 2: relationship with your father and what that was like, and
10:05
Speaker 2: same question. Were you able to talk with your father
10:08
Speaker 2: about emotions? Did he give you any emotional support as
10:11
Speaker 2: a child.
10:14
Speaker 3: No, my father is actually very emotionally unavailable. He would
10:21
Speaker 3: do things like he would go with me to school
10:25
Speaker 3: and figure skating, waking up in the morning to take
10:29
Speaker 3: me to classes and buy me beautiful clothes, grade in
10:35
Speaker 3: my hair. So he showed his way of love in actions.
10:40
Speaker 3: But until this day, I can't even hug my dad
10:44
Speaker 3: before he's throwing me away, like get away. Okay, that's
10:49
Speaker 3: just too.
10:49
Speaker 2: Vulnerable, right, So it sounds like he was just uncomfortable
10:53
Speaker 2: with emotion and vulnerability and showed you a lot of
10:56
Speaker 2: instrumental and physical support, but not necessarily a motional support
11:00
Speaker 2: or emotional attuvement.
11:02
Speaker 3: Yeah. And the thing was also, I want to make
11:07
Speaker 3: this very clear, I love my dad very very much,
11:11
Speaker 3: And he said, but he was actually very emotionally reactive
11:17
Speaker 3: where he would get extremely angry top where I was
11:22
Speaker 3: so so scared.
11:24
Speaker 2: I'm so sorry. I understand that's really hard for a
11:27
Speaker 2: child to understand. It's really hard for a child to understand.
11:32
Speaker 2: So if you had three words to describe your mother
11:37
Speaker 2: and childhood, what do you think those three words would be,
11:44
Speaker 2: and you can take your time in thinking about it.
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Speaker 3: I would I would just describe my mom as I
12:01
Speaker 3: could remember her in childhood, ass loving, absent, and sacrificing
12:09
Speaker 3: if you can use that.
12:11
Speaker 2: Word, absolutely, Yes, and what about your dad? If you
12:15
Speaker 2: had three words to describe your dad, what would they be?
12:33
Speaker 3: I would actually describe him as angry and scary sometimes
12:42
Speaker 3: but also doing his best that he could.
12:49
Speaker 2: It's not a word, but yeah, yeah, I understand. Thank you.
12:54
Speaker 2: How is your relationship with your parents now as an
12:57
Speaker 2: adult with both mom and dad? Talk about mom and
13:00
Speaker 2: then talk about dad.
13:02
Speaker 3: Yeah. You know, since I've been doing the healing work,
13:11
Speaker 3: I can see their relationship from a completely different perspective,
13:19
Speaker 3: and I see the parentification still going on, the toxic
13:24
Speaker 3: fighting is still going on, and I will have super
13:29
Speaker 3: hard and firm boundaries with my parents that hey, I'm
13:32
Speaker 3: not your light get traced or yeah, I'm not here
13:38
Speaker 3: for you to vent about your relationship.
13:41
Speaker 2: Right. Well, good for you for stepping into those boundaries,
13:44
Speaker 2: you know, to protect yourself from, you know, essentially that
13:49
Speaker 2: parentification that's still happening, right, the emotional parentification. So I'm
13:54
Speaker 2: glad that you have stepped into those boundaries and you
13:56
Speaker 2: feel more personal power in that area of your life. Yeah.
14:00
Speaker 1: I think that's an important point, just because I think
14:03
Speaker 1: people just assume that as we get older and we're
14:07
Speaker 1: not children anymore, that the same maybe effects that we
14:11
Speaker 1: felt as a child. Don't bother us now, right, that's
14:13
Speaker 1: not the truth, right, it's not the truth. Like, it
14:16
Speaker 1: doesn't matter how old you are, parentification is still a
14:18
Speaker 1: real thing, and you don't it doesn't feel.
14:21
Speaker 2: Good, right. Children want the ability to love both parents
14:26
Speaker 2: freely and openly, absolutely, no matter your age, No matter
14:30
Speaker 2: your age. Yeah, and when you grow into it an adult,
14:33
Speaker 2: it doesn't change, that's right. Okay, So tell me a
14:40
Speaker 2: little bit about some significant previous relationships, romantic relationships that
14:46
Speaker 2: you've had. Think about maybe two or three of the
14:49
Speaker 2: most significant ones that you've had, and tell me briefly
14:54
Speaker 2: what the core problems were and why those relationships ended.
15:01
Speaker 3: I've actually had two relationships, okay. The first one I
15:07
Speaker 3: had was with a guy that was I'm sure that
15:13
Speaker 3: he's a dismissive avoidance, so he would come in strong
15:18
Speaker 3: in the beginning, and our relationship progressed as normal the
15:26
Speaker 3: first months, but it was some red flags that I
15:30
Speaker 3: was ignoring, And one of the most significant red flags
15:36
Speaker 3: was him following a lot of naked girls on Instagram.
15:42
Speaker 3: You know, he was kind of foreign addicted, and some
15:47
Speaker 3: other red flags that I would ignore in the beginning
15:51
Speaker 3: was that he would go out to party and he
15:56
Speaker 3: would not invite me. He would not invite me to
16:00
Speaker 3: come to party with him and his friends because no
16:03
Speaker 3: girls allowed. But I would find out the same night
16:07
Speaker 3: that it was girls there. He wouldn't let me meet
16:14
Speaker 3: his family. So it was kind of a hush hush relationship.
16:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, it felt like it was secretive almost or kept
16:24
Speaker 2: very private.
16:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I when I think back about it, it
16:30
Speaker 3: wasn't love because my anxiety was just activated. Those red
16:37
Speaker 3: flags activated my anxiety. And I want to make very
16:42
Speaker 3: clear that I in my previous years haven't been a
16:48
Speaker 3: good person either. I've been emotionally reactive. So I would
16:53
Speaker 3: I would come to him being very very triggered about
16:56
Speaker 3: something he would do, and I would probably a bit
17:01
Speaker 3: more critical, and then he would just say something to
17:05
Speaker 3: make it sound nice, and then he would just deactivate
17:08
Speaker 3: and pull away.
17:10
Speaker 2: We see more of the people pleaser, like he would say, Okay,
17:14
Speaker 2: you're right, I'm sorry, or would he more blame shift
17:18
Speaker 2: and get defensive towards you before he deactivated.
17:25
Speaker 3: It's hard to remember. I think I remember that he used.
17:29
Speaker 3: He didn't used to fight with me, but he would
17:31
Speaker 3: deactivate and he would just like deactivate more and more
17:37
Speaker 3: and more with time. He was doing his own thing
17:40
Speaker 3: with time, buying an apartment without telling me, going out,
17:45
Speaker 3: meeting other girls without telling me. He was doing this
17:48
Speaker 3: horrible stuff. Okay, and then he would just like slowly
17:54
Speaker 3: creep away.
17:55
Speaker 2: Until the slow withdrawal. I understand. Okay, why did the
18:01
Speaker 2: relationship ultimately end? How did it end?
18:08
Speaker 3: I'm glad that it ended, but I was very very
18:12
Speaker 3: young at that time. I was twenty one years old.
18:15
Speaker 3: I was dealing with my own attachment wounding, so I
18:20
Speaker 3: wasn't capable of ending it. I wasn't previously. I couldn't
18:25
Speaker 3: end anything because I thought that I would die. So
18:29
Speaker 3: he would just like creep away and then go porrying
18:32
Speaker 3: and ignoring me, and it was like blocking me. So yeah,
18:38
Speaker 3: that's how it ended. And I remember that my biggest
18:40
Speaker 3: fear of abandonment and betrayal activated, and I thought that
18:45
Speaker 3: I would die. I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep. It
18:49
Speaker 3: was the one of the worst periods of my life.
18:52
Speaker 3: But I'm really glad that it happened because now I
18:54
Speaker 3: can look back at it and I see this in
18:58
Speaker 3: a rational situtionuation.
19:01
Speaker 2: And it Yeah, Okay, tell me about another significant relationship.
19:07
Speaker 2: You said you've had two significant relationships, so tell me
19:10
Speaker 2: a little bit about the other one. What have been
19:13
Speaker 2: the issues and why did it end or what is
19:16
Speaker 2: the status of that relationship.
19:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, actually this was a question of mine for you,
19:23
Speaker 3: but I can take it now. My second relationship was
19:28
Speaker 3: with my current boyfriend, and we've been going through a lot.
19:35
Speaker 3: We both we both are on our healing journeys and
19:42
Speaker 3: our relationship. However, I want to make this very very clear,
19:46
Speaker 3: like our relationship in the past and now is like
19:51
Speaker 3: day and night. Because I've taken your hybrid group coaching.
19:55
Speaker 2: Yeah you have. It was a pleasure to have you
19:58
Speaker 2: in there.
20:00
Speaker 3: Thank you. It's been so so helpful. And my boyfriend
20:05
Speaker 3: is taking it as of now. So we're vastly different
20:12
Speaker 3: persons today than we were then, but we're still working
20:17
Speaker 3: on it. So our relationship was actually going down a
20:26
Speaker 3: very predictable rabbit hole. We we developed an insanely deep
20:31
Speaker 3: connection with lots of love and it was like we
20:34
Speaker 3: were meshed together. However, the relationship was actually characterized by
20:43
Speaker 3: frequent breakups and toxic fighting.
20:46
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
20:49
Speaker 3: And it's today. I can see how I played a
20:52
Speaker 3: role in it as well, and you can see how
20:55
Speaker 3: he played a role in it. I can be honest
21:00
Speaker 3: and say that we both acted kind of narcissistic because
21:06
Speaker 3: we got triggered so much. So it's not a question
21:08
Speaker 3: of narcissists itself ingrained too a person. Now that is just.
21:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean absolutely. I mean just because we may
21:19
Speaker 2: engage in some form of manipulation or low blows, or
21:24
Speaker 2: we might be emotionally reactive towards our partner, doesn't necessarily
21:27
Speaker 2: mean we have pathological narcissism, right, It just can mean that.
21:31
Speaker 2: I mean, those are traits of the fearful avoidance sometimes
21:34
Speaker 2: and you know when they're at their worst, and I
21:36
Speaker 2: think that it is the base attachment for narcissism. But
21:40
Speaker 2: it doesn't necessarily mean that somebody's disordered. I mean, there's
21:44
Speaker 2: great healing available for people who engage in those types
21:48
Speaker 2: of conflict related behaviors because they're trauma responses, right, They're
21:53
Speaker 2: trauma responses, and we have to learn how to get
21:55
Speaker 2: a hold of those trauma responses. So I appreciate your
21:57
Speaker 2: vulnerability and just being honest about in the accountability where
22:02
Speaker 2: you're coming forward and saying how you played a role
22:04
Speaker 2: as well.
22:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, it seems like you've done a lot of work.
22:08
Speaker 2: She's a great member of the group.
22:10
Speaker 3: Yeah.
22:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, it seems like the group really helped you because
22:12
Speaker 1: you have a lot of insight, a lot of insight,
22:15
Speaker 1: and a lot of good perspective. And it sounds like
22:18
Speaker 1: you and your boyfriend are currently on the right track.
22:23
Speaker 1: Are y'all in a good space right now?
22:24
Speaker 3: Yeah?
22:24
Speaker 2: Tell us a little bit about how things are going
22:26
Speaker 2: right now in the relationship.
22:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, As I mentioned, things are like day and night.
22:32
Speaker 3: Because our relationship previously looked like that. I was so
22:37
Speaker 3: so triggered by something, and I was so afraid to
22:40
Speaker 3: tell him because I was afraid that it would lead
22:43
Speaker 3: to conflict and that would lead to me being abandon
22:46
Speaker 3: and betrayed. So I kept it in and kept it
22:51
Speaker 3: in in a flight response until I couldn't take it anymore,
22:54
Speaker 3: and then I just let all my emotional reactivity out
22:59
Speaker 3: on him. So I would emotionally dumb. I would be
23:02
Speaker 3: more critical and assumptive than I should have been, and
23:08
Speaker 3: he would get extremely reactive and blame shift them defensive,
23:14
Speaker 3: and then when he got his emotional reactivity out, he
23:18
Speaker 3: would shut down and kind of cut the cord between
23:21
Speaker 3: himself and his feelings.
23:23
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, Tomby, is there ever times in your romantic
23:29
Speaker 2: relationship that you can think of where you shut down,
23:32
Speaker 2: where you maybe felt exasperated, like if you weren't being
23:36
Speaker 2: understood or if something really hurt you. Were there ever
23:39
Speaker 2: times where you would pull away from your partner and
23:43
Speaker 2: maybe isolate or go cold or go quiet.
23:50
Speaker 3: Usually he would be the one doing that, but it
23:54
Speaker 3: was typ that I was doing that. I mean, I
23:58
Speaker 3: wouldn't quiet, but not as for long as team, but
24:02
Speaker 3: I could get quiet too. I can pull away too.
24:05
Speaker 3: And this is something that I discovered with me because
24:07
Speaker 3: I was thinking that I was always activating, but I'm
24:12
Speaker 3: actually pulling away too.
24:14
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, so that you know that is very very
24:20
Speaker 2: typical when we have a too fearful avoidant relationship, which
24:25
Speaker 2: is what this is sounding like to me. I'm going
24:29
Speaker 2: to ask you a couple more questions before I totally
24:31
Speaker 2: make that assessment that you're a fearful avoidant. Tell me
24:36
Speaker 2: about your levels of emotional vulnerability, your ability with your
24:40
Speaker 2: partner to tell them your deepest thoughts, deepest feelings, deepest fears.
24:46
Speaker 2: Is this easy for you? Is it difficult?
24:47
Speaker 3: For you.
24:49
Speaker 2: Does it depend on the person or what's going on.
24:52
Speaker 2: Just give me an overall picture sort of of if
24:56
Speaker 2: that is easy for you or difficult for you and why.
25:01
Speaker 3: I mean, it's different since the class that I took,
25:07
Speaker 3: But I'm going to try to look back on how
25:10
Speaker 3: I used to be. So I'm a person that's definitely
25:16
Speaker 3: connected to my emotions. My emotions run all over the place.
25:21
Speaker 3: I feel like I can't take it anymore, and I
25:24
Speaker 3: can control my emotions. But I was so afraid with
25:30
Speaker 3: my partner to tell him something because I thought that
25:34
Speaker 3: I would be hurt and he would leave me. And
25:38
Speaker 3: I think that regardless of how he should have reacted,
25:45
Speaker 3: I played a role too because I was keeping quiet.
25:50
Speaker 3: So regardless of what he's doing, I should have stayed
25:54
Speaker 3: in my boundaries in telling him how I felt. But
25:57
Speaker 3: I think, on the other hand, he didn't quite give
26:00
Speaker 3: me the chance to experience that, to drop to tell
26:06
Speaker 3: him my boundaries and be tell him how I actually felt,
26:11
Speaker 3: because I was so afraid of the consequences.
26:14
Speaker 2: So if you so, if you would hold back, it
26:17
Speaker 2: was because you were afraid of the reaction of your
26:20
Speaker 2: partner that it would cause a fight, or it would
26:23
Speaker 2: cause him to leave and abandon you. Is that correct?
26:26
Speaker 3: Okay, I understand what had happened before too, right with
26:33
Speaker 3: Clean Force before.
26:35
Speaker 2: And so I'm guessing part of these conflicts, or I
26:40
Speaker 2: should say the breakups were likely a part or a
26:44
Speaker 2: consequence of some of these toxic fights. Would you guys
26:47
Speaker 2: break up in like the midst of a fight where
26:50
Speaker 2: it would be like, Okay, we're done, We're just sort
26:53
Speaker 2: of like, we can't do this anymore, when one of
26:55
Speaker 2: those toxic fights would happen.
26:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally. I mean I could so just like it
27:01
Speaker 3: could go from being the person that I love the
27:04
Speaker 3: most to being I don't want anything to do with you.
27:07
Speaker 3: And it can be quite a small fight, like he
27:11
Speaker 3: was shutting down and I was feeling like I was
27:14
Speaker 3: being betrayed. So I would be like, you know, I
27:16
Speaker 3: can't deal with this anymore. So we both stay there
27:19
Speaker 3: holding the right. Yeah.
27:21
Speaker 2: Oftentimes, when our partners shut down, if we are in
27:25
Speaker 2: an anxious space, if our attachment anxiety has been activated,
27:29
Speaker 2: the story that we tell ourselves are activating thoughts often
27:33
Speaker 2: are they don't care, you know, I'm going to make
27:36
Speaker 2: them care, right, I'm going to I'm going to force
27:39
Speaker 2: that out of you. I'm going to force you to
27:41
Speaker 2: talk to me. I'm going to force you to love me,
27:44
Speaker 2: or you know, if you're fearful and you have some
27:46
Speaker 2: of the avoidance side, you can deactivate and have deactivating
27:49
Speaker 2: behaviors like final show you, I'm done with you. I'm
27:52
Speaker 2: not gonna even you know, I'm not going to give
27:54
Speaker 2: an ounce more of my energy to this. So we
27:56
Speaker 2: can really oscillate as a fear full avoidant back and
27:58
Speaker 2: forth between those anxious spaces and those avoidance spaces. And
28:04
Speaker 2: so when we have a two FA relationship, which is
28:08
Speaker 2: sounding more and more like, that's what this is. And
28:10
Speaker 2: I'm pretty confident now in saying that you guys are
28:12
Speaker 2: two fas fearful avoidance. It is the best friends slash
28:16
Speaker 2: mortal enemies dynamic where since you guys have a really
28:21
Speaker 2: deep need to be seen, heard and understood, you guys
28:25
Speaker 2: were able to create really deep intimacy because you share
28:29
Speaker 2: that deepest need, and you were able to fulfill that
28:31
Speaker 2: need within each other very well, especially at the beginning.
28:36
Speaker 2: But one of the real difficult parts of being a
28:39
Speaker 2: fearful avoidant is the deep feeling that can lead to
28:44
Speaker 2: the trauma response of fight and elevated emotional reactivity that
28:50
Speaker 2: can also oscillate between that flight that fight state, the
28:55
Speaker 2: flight state, and the free state. So the fearful can
28:57
Speaker 2: really go all over the board and they're trama responding.
29:01
Speaker 2: And it sounds like you guys had a little bit
29:04
Speaker 2: of the anxious avoidant trap going on where you would
29:06
Speaker 2: get very anxious, maybe demanding answers, feeling betrayed when he
29:09
Speaker 2: would shut down, and then when he's shutting down, he
29:13
Speaker 2: feels like you're chasing, smothering, you know, demanding something from
29:21
Speaker 2: him that he couldn't give in those moments when he
29:24
Speaker 2: was sort of dissociating or shutting down, because that's his
29:26
Speaker 2: nervous system's way of trying to cope in that moment.
29:29
Speaker 2: Right But the story in your mind when that was
29:32
Speaker 2: happening was you must not care about me, you must
29:34
Speaker 2: not love me, or you would be talking to me
29:36
Speaker 2: right now, which is really something I see a lot.
29:43
Speaker 3: I think I was good on seeing that. I was.
29:45
Speaker 3: I always knew what was happening to him. He was
29:49
Speaker 3: deactivating because his nervous system decided that for him, and
29:53
Speaker 3: that was true to tell him that he was going
29:56
Speaker 3: into free So I always understood that it was a
30:00
Speaker 3: capacity issue. However I couldn't handle it because I think
30:05
Speaker 3: it's so triggered by okay.
30:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, So you're a little ahead of where most people
30:11
Speaker 2: are then, in that stage of understanding attachment dynamics and
30:15
Speaker 2: understanding the trauma responses of the nervous system. Most people
30:19
Speaker 2: have that story, right, if they don't love me, they
30:21
Speaker 2: don't care about me. When you start to discover attachment,
30:24
Speaker 2: like I know, you've done a lot of deep diving
30:26
Speaker 2: into attachment and that's wonderful. And this is a perfect
30:30
Speaker 2: example about how knowing does not equal healing, right because
30:35
Speaker 2: you know, okay, this is a trauma response from him,
30:37
Speaker 2: This is a nervous system response. He lacks capacity right now.
30:41
Speaker 2: But your attachment anxiety was still out of control, and
30:45
Speaker 2: that was dominating and throwing you into your trauma responses
30:48
Speaker 2: of activation, of chasing, of demanding, of you know, requiring
30:53
Speaker 2: him to give you connection in those moments. So that's
30:59
Speaker 2: just that beautiful example of how knowing doesn't equal healings
31:03
Speaker 2: and it's still painful, and sometimes it's even more painful
31:06
Speaker 2: as somebody who spent many, many many years knowing what
31:10
Speaker 2: my issues were, but not knowing how to fix it.
31:12
Speaker 2: Being in that space is really hard. You have the
31:15
Speaker 2: knowledge of what's happening, but no tools to actually stop it,
31:21
Speaker 2: and that's a painful space to be in. I understand
31:24
Speaker 2: it very well. Okay, So you know, the last question
31:29
Speaker 2: I was going to ask was about your conflict related behaviors,
31:32
Speaker 2: but you kind of already gave that to me, so
31:33
Speaker 2: I didn't need to ask. So I'm very confident that
31:36
Speaker 2: you are a fearful avoidant. It does sound like your
31:41
Speaker 2: partner is as well. He sounds like he leans more
31:44
Speaker 2: to the dismissive side. But I will just speak about you.
31:49
Speaker 2: I know you're probably since you went through my group,
31:51
Speaker 2: you're very familiar with fearful avoidance. But for our audience,
31:55
Speaker 2: I'd like to just dive in a little bit to that. So,
31:59
Speaker 2: fearfull avoidant is created through childhood trauma. And often people
32:04
Speaker 2: have childhood trauma that they don't realize as childhood trauma.
32:06
Speaker 2: So when you said, you know, I always kind of
32:08
Speaker 2: looked back at my childhood and thought, well, I had
32:10
Speaker 2: a goo childhood. I know I was loved right. Sometimes
32:12
Speaker 2: as we get older and we become more knowledgeable, we
32:15
Speaker 2: realize that there were things that happened in our childhood
32:18
Speaker 2: that did negatively affect us, even though yes, we felt loved,
32:21
Speaker 2: even though yes, we know that our parents did the
32:23
Speaker 2: best they could. I know that is certainly the case
32:25
Speaker 2: for me, But it can be true that our parents
32:29
Speaker 2: did the best that they could and they loved us
32:31
Speaker 2: to the capacity they could, but they still made some
32:34
Speaker 2: mistakes that hurt us along the way. And then when
32:38
Speaker 2: we become adults, we become the ones responsible for reparenting
32:42
Speaker 2: ourselves in those ways. So fearful avoidance, like I said,
32:46
Speaker 2: is born from trauma. And really what ends up happening
32:49
Speaker 2: is we have a trust break with one or more
32:52
Speaker 2: of our parents. And that trust break occurs when there
32:56
Speaker 2: are situations. Sometimes it can be one big situation, or
32:59
Speaker 2: it can be several situations where we look at one
33:04
Speaker 2: or more of our parents and we say, you are
33:08
Speaker 2: just not capable. You're not capable of loving me in
33:11
Speaker 2: a way that feels good to me. You're not capable
33:13
Speaker 2: of showing up for me consistently in a way that
33:15
Speaker 2: feels good to me. And I really want to differentiate
33:19
Speaker 2: between abandonment and betrayal because for a lot of fearful
33:24
Speaker 2: avoidance who lean to the anxious side of the fearful
33:26
Speaker 2: avoidance spectrum, which is where you are. Abandonment and betrayal
33:30
Speaker 2: are very competing whoms. I mean, ultimately, betrayal is sort
33:33
Speaker 2: of in the driver's seat, but abandonments right there in
33:36
Speaker 2: the passenger seat for sure. And where I would say
33:39
Speaker 2: that was born out of in your childhood is likely one.
33:43
Speaker 2: Your dad's emotional unavailability absolutely feels like abandonment. Your mom
33:52
Speaker 2: working all the time in her absence. I mean, you
33:54
Speaker 2: use the word absent to describe your mom, So there's abandonment, right.
34:00
Speaker 2: The emotional reactivity of your parents would feel like betrayal.
34:04
Speaker 2: You can't love me in a way that feels good
34:06
Speaker 2: to me right what you're doing to me right now
34:07
Speaker 2: when you're emotionally reactive, and when what you're doing to
34:10
Speaker 2: me right now, when you're parentifying me and talking poorly
34:13
Speaker 2: about the other parent, is a betrayal. It's not how
34:17
Speaker 2: a parent is quote unquote supposed to love their child, right.
34:21
Speaker 2: Parents are supposed to So even young children, okay, very
34:25
Speaker 2: young children we're talking to three years old, they develop
34:29
Speaker 2: a schema of what parents are supposed to look like.
34:33
Speaker 2: And they develop that schema, and a schema is religious
34:35
Speaker 2: like a mental picture of what something is supposed to
34:38
Speaker 2: be like or how something's supposed to go. And they
34:41
Speaker 2: get that from society, they get it from TV shows,
34:44
Speaker 2: they get it from families and friends that they associate with.
34:49
Speaker 2: But the primary schema that is built in childhood comes
34:54
Speaker 2: from your own family. And then we use our own
34:57
Speaker 2: family schema to kind of compare to what culture is
35:01
Speaker 2: telling us is supposed to happen. Right, so we had
35:04
Speaker 2: we have a lot of sitcom shows where we have
35:06
Speaker 2: the perfect little let's sort of leave it to Beaver
35:08
Speaker 2: family if you've ever heard of that show, And then
35:12
Speaker 2: we look and we compare that to our family. Social
35:14
Speaker 2: comparison is a huge psychological construct that is closely related
35:19
Speaker 2: to attachment, and it plays a role in childhood when
35:22
Speaker 2: we look at our family and we compare it to
35:23
Speaker 2: other families on TV or out there in the world
35:26
Speaker 2: that we're associating with, and when we notice that our
35:30
Speaker 2: family schema is not what it quote should look like,
35:35
Speaker 2: what we believe it should look like because of things
35:40
Speaker 2: that are emotionally hurtful and repetitively emotionally hurtful. Then the
35:47
Speaker 2: trust break occurs, okay, and so I'm curious. I can
35:52
Speaker 2: see definitely why there was a trust break with dad.
35:58
Speaker 2: Dad would get very angry and Dad was emotionally absent.
36:01
Speaker 2: Where I think your level of anxiety comes in was
36:05
Speaker 2: from the intermittent reinforcement from mom. So where Mom was
36:11
Speaker 2: sometimes supportive, but the support couldn't be consistent enough. That
36:16
Speaker 2: was also mixed in with emotional reactivity or simply absence
36:21
Speaker 2: right from work or whatnot. And whenever we have intermittent
36:26
Speaker 2: reinforcement of love, affection and attainment where it doesn't show
36:30
Speaker 2: up as consistently as it should, that creates attachment anxiety
36:34
Speaker 2: and that deep fear of abandonment. So the reason I
36:39
Speaker 2: think you are a fearfull avoidant is because of the
36:43
Speaker 2: abuse trauma that you experienced, your parents' emotional reactivity as
36:50
Speaker 2: well as you know some of the I would say
36:56
Speaker 2: absence of both the emotions of your father, just his
36:59
Speaker 2: emotion unavailability and then your mom being absent, and the
37:03
Speaker 2: intermittent reinforcement that you received from your mother I think
37:07
Speaker 2: was probably is probably the biggest driving force in the
37:10
Speaker 2: attachment anxiety that you had and even may still currently
37:14
Speaker 2: have to some degree that you know you're working on right,
37:17
Speaker 2: and so I would I would land on fearful, avoidant, leaning, anxious, strong,
37:24
Speaker 2: betrayal wound, strong abandonment wound. And then so tell me
37:30
Speaker 2: a little bit about where you currently are and where
37:34
Speaker 2: you would still like to be. Where is the gap
37:37
Speaker 2: between where you are and where you would like to be,
37:40
Speaker 2: and what questions do you have for me on what
37:43
Speaker 2: the road forward looks like? Because I know if you
37:45
Speaker 2: take it, you've taken my group. You have a lot
37:46
Speaker 2: of information, you have a lot of tools that looks
37:48
Speaker 2: like you're using them, which is great, but let's troubleshoot
37:52
Speaker 2: that journey a little bit. Tell me where the gaps
37:55
Speaker 2: still are in the healing process.
37:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I want to thank you so much for
38:01
Speaker 3: the info, for your share, and I want to thank
38:05
Speaker 3: you for your group because it actually saved my life.
38:10
Speaker 3: I need the emotion pain that I endured during all
38:14
Speaker 3: of these years. I mean, I don't know how how
38:18
Speaker 3: long I could have experience that. So I just want
38:22
Speaker 3: to say that if you're thinking about taking is to
38:25
Speaker 3: take it because it's gonna change your life.
38:29
Speaker 2: Thank you.
38:30
Speaker 3: So I'm so glad.
38:32
Speaker 2: I mean, there's just nothing that makes my heart feel
38:34
Speaker 2: happier than when people say this changed my life, because
38:38
Speaker 2: I know that it changed my life when I learned it,
38:42
Speaker 2: and all I want to do is share it. So
38:44
Speaker 2: I'm so glad.
38:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I want you to see that that you're
38:48
Speaker 3: actually saving lives and God is proud of you, and
38:53
Speaker 3: may he bless you.
38:54
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you.
38:56
Speaker 1: Are gonna make me cry.
38:59
Speaker 2: So tell me, give me your questions, Raseine, Let's use
39:02
Speaker 2: this time to really talk about, you know, healing. It's
39:07
Speaker 2: just a journey and there's always there's always things left
39:10
Speaker 2: to do. So tell me what are your questions now?
39:12
Speaker 2: What can I help you with now?
39:16
Speaker 3: So I actually struggled with the negative bias. Although I'm
39:22
Speaker 3: seeing that it has kind of vanished almost, I'm kind
39:27
Speaker 3: of struggling with it sometimes or my brain is trying
39:31
Speaker 3: to trick me subconsciously that takes something is wrong because
39:36
Speaker 3: that was me. I was always hyper focused on the
39:39
Speaker 3: bad things and dealing with crippling anxiety in a generalized way.
39:47
Speaker 3: I've had anxiety for ten years because my negative bias,
39:52
Speaker 3: because I was all trying to find the negative thing. Yes,
39:57
Speaker 3: and I found now that I'm using your tools to
40:00
Speaker 3: regulate my nervous system to check my thought that my
40:04
Speaker 3: brain is sometimes trying to play a game. Yeah, I'm
40:10
Speaker 3: more positive. Now I'm actually happy. And that's a new sensation.
40:16
Speaker 2: New sensation. M And at first, when you experience that
40:21
Speaker 2: new sensation of a felt sense of safety in your
40:24
Speaker 2: nervous system, there's a part of your nervous system that
40:27
Speaker 2: wants to go but wait, hold on, can we really
40:30
Speaker 2: be here? Right? And those pathways in your brain, although
40:34
Speaker 2: they're working hard to sort of disintegrate, right, And those
40:37
Speaker 2: new pathways are getting stronger the more that you're using them.
40:40
Speaker 2: Those old pathways, they don't want to die easily. And
40:43
Speaker 2: so you said something that I think is important. I
40:46
Speaker 2: really want to educate the audience on fearful avoidance and
40:49
Speaker 2: some of the qualities of fearful avoidance. So hypervigilance is
40:53
Speaker 2: probably the most well known quality of fearful avoidant attachment
40:58
Speaker 2: because it kind of applies across the board for fearful avoidance.
41:01
Speaker 2: It doesn't matter if you're anxious or avoidant. Fearful avoidance
41:04
Speaker 2: because they had childhood trauma or hypervigilant. People like you
41:07
Speaker 2: said you had to walk into the living room. Notice
41:09
Speaker 2: is dad Okay, right now, can I stay or do
41:11
Speaker 2: I need to go hide? Right? So, fearful avoidance learned
41:14
Speaker 2: very very early on to adapt to their environment by
41:17
Speaker 2: being hyper aware of people's moods, people's expressions, people's behavior
41:23
Speaker 2: pattern recognition. We're very good pattern at pattern recognition. And
41:28
Speaker 2: that was the way that we kept ourselves safe as
41:30
Speaker 2: children when we had an emotionally dysfunctional parent. And I
41:33
Speaker 2: did too. And I would love to tell you that
41:37
Speaker 2: the hypervigilance completely goes away, but it often doesn't for
41:41
Speaker 2: people because it's a deeply ingrained pattern. But there is
41:45
Speaker 2: always our ability to catch and correct, and that's what
41:47
Speaker 2: earned security is. So usually hypervigilance comes with the negative bias,
41:54
Speaker 2: and you've talked about the negative bias, So fearful avoidance
41:57
Speaker 2: also not only are they putting their partner under a
42:00
Speaker 2: microscope extremely hypervigilant, but then their brain tends to go,
42:04
Speaker 2: but look at all of what's wrong here instead of
42:06
Speaker 2: look at all of what's right here. Right, So we
42:08
Speaker 2: have sort of this pessimistic bias, right because and that's
42:13
Speaker 2: born out of something called defensive pessimism, which I've talked
42:15
Speaker 2: about on this podcast. But if we can try to
42:18
Speaker 2: predict what is wrong or what could go wrong, or
42:21
Speaker 2: we focus on what is wrong, then we can get
42:23
Speaker 2: a plan to fix it and we can stay safe.
42:25
Speaker 2: And if we can predict it, then we can prevent it,
42:27
Speaker 2: then we can be safe. So it's all about focusing
42:30
Speaker 2: on the negative so that we can stay safe, because
42:33
Speaker 2: we had so many negative experiences in childhood, right, and
42:37
Speaker 2: so oftentimes when we do the healing work, our nervous
42:42
Speaker 2: system is not used to this shift into safety. It's
42:47
Speaker 2: not used into this shift towards more optimistic states and
42:51
Speaker 2: traits that we start to develop as we reach attachment security,
42:56
Speaker 2: where we can essentially look at the whole of our
42:59
Speaker 2: relationship not just go oh, those there's that thing, and
43:01
Speaker 2: there's that thing, and there's that thing, but we also
43:04
Speaker 2: now see it more in balance with the positive aspects
43:07
Speaker 2: of the relationship and the positive attributes of our partner,
43:11
Speaker 2: and so we're getting a more objective look at the
43:14
Speaker 2: relationship when we become more secure. But that doesn't mean
43:19
Speaker 2: that your nervous system is always going to feel settled
43:22
Speaker 2: with that when it has spent a lifetime being hyper
43:25
Speaker 2: vigilant and focused on what could cause you pain or
43:29
Speaker 2: what is causing you pain. So I want you to
43:31
Speaker 2: really make sure that you're really not letting shame creep
43:35
Speaker 2: in in those moments where you slip back into the
43:39
Speaker 2: negative bias, or you slip back into too much hypervigilance,
43:42
Speaker 2: and maybe you tell yourself a negative story. I want
43:45
Speaker 2: you to focus on catch and correct and forgiving yourself
43:51
Speaker 2: and letting that go and just saying these were things
43:54
Speaker 2: that my brain tried to do to keep me safe.
43:57
Speaker 2: That doesn't make me a bad person. It makes me
44:00
Speaker 2: someone who had to survive in a situation where you
44:06
Speaker 2: were exposed to things you shouldn't have been exposed to
44:10
Speaker 2: because your parents had those capacity limitations. So I really
44:14
Speaker 2: want you to make sure that there is not shame
44:18
Speaker 2: that is creeping in. That is hugely important. And what
44:23
Speaker 2: I would say is for the hypervigilance, use the tools
44:27
Speaker 2: that you know that work right, and you mentioned some
44:30
Speaker 2: of those. We have to correct the stories around people's behavior.
44:36
Speaker 2: As you know, fearful avoidance use a lot of cognitive distortions.
44:40
Speaker 2: We catastrophize. We think in black and white, like it's
44:43
Speaker 2: always like this or you never do that right, So
44:47
Speaker 2: always and never are part of our vocabulary as fearful avoidance,
44:51
Speaker 2: we tend to really always again go to that negative
44:58
Speaker 2: bias where this must mean that our partner doesn't love us,
45:02
Speaker 2: or how dare they do this to us? So that
45:06
Speaker 2: betrayal wound can really speak to us in a way
45:10
Speaker 2: that's like, you are just not somebody that I thought
45:13
Speaker 2: you were. You were not somebody that can be trusted.
45:16
Speaker 2: You are clearly demonstrating to me that you are not
45:19
Speaker 2: who I think you should be or who I thought
45:21
Speaker 2: you were, and that is a betrayal. Right, So that's
45:24
Speaker 2: the inner dialogue of the fearful avoidant. But when we
45:27
Speaker 2: shift our thoughts and we don't have to shift radically,
45:31
Speaker 2: we can make smaller shifts, right too, That really didn't
45:36
Speaker 2: feel good to me what he just said right now?
45:38
Speaker 2: I don't like what he just said right now. They
45:39
Speaker 2: didn't feel good to me. But then the reframe has
45:44
Speaker 2: to come with okay, but what do I want to
45:46
Speaker 2: do about that? Instead of he's such a jerk, he
45:50
Speaker 2: always does this, he doesn't care about me. Hold on
45:52
Speaker 2: a second, it's not always yes, this moment didn't feel good,
45:56
Speaker 2: I don't love it, And what do I need to do? Right?
46:01
Speaker 2: Is there a conversation that needs to be had, is
46:03
Speaker 2: a boundary that needs to be set. And when we're
46:05
Speaker 2: processing emotion, remember that we have to pair our emotion
46:11
Speaker 2: with safety. So we use our self neurofeedback for that.
46:15
Speaker 2: And that's not something I'm gonna go all into today
46:20
Speaker 2: because you've been through my course and it's way too
46:23
Speaker 2: much for one podcast. But essentially what neurofeedback does, and
46:27
Speaker 2: it used to be something you had to go to
46:29
Speaker 2: a psychologists office and be hooked up to an EG
46:32
Speaker 2: machine and have your brain waves mapped out. We no
46:35
Speaker 2: longer have to do that. In fact, we know that
46:37
Speaker 2: the brain responds to its own cues and wants to
46:40
Speaker 2: self correct by and so we can give our brain
46:42
Speaker 2: lots of cues to self correct. And what you learned
46:46
Speaker 2: in the group was to be able to feel your
46:48
Speaker 2: emotions while cultivating that felt sense of safety and sending
46:52
Speaker 2: those safety signals to the body. So how is that
46:55
Speaker 2: going for you?
46:57
Speaker 3: Actually, the neurofeedback is working so great. And you said
47:03
Speaker 3: actually that it could take up to forty five minutes
47:06
Speaker 3: in the beginning, which is but now the anxiety and
47:11
Speaker 3: the sensations in the body body goes away in about
47:15
Speaker 3: three minutes, so it's amazing.
47:18
Speaker 2: Yes, it's amazing. Yeah, our brains are so adaptable and
47:23
Speaker 2: they're so easily conditioned. You know, all that neuro feedback
47:28
Speaker 2: is is emotional processing plus neuroregulation, which is classical conditioning.
47:33
Speaker 2: It's it's if you've ever heard of Pavlov's Dog, which
47:36
Speaker 2: a lot of people have, it's very you know, famous
47:40
Speaker 2: first set of of psychological studies on classical conditioning and
47:43
Speaker 2: the principles of classical conditioning. That's exactly what we're doing
47:46
Speaker 2: with the brain. We're conditioning the brain to see our
47:48
Speaker 2: emotions as safe because when we're anxious, we are desperately
47:53
Speaker 2: trying to connect to get somebody to soothe. What really
47:56
Speaker 2: is the difficult sensation of emotion, the feeling aspect of emotion.
48:00
Speaker 2: We have distorted cognition. So let me just back up
48:03
Speaker 2: and say, emotion is the feelings and the body plus
48:07
Speaker 2: our thoughts about what's happening. That's all that emotion is.
48:09
Speaker 2: And it's emotion, it's energy and motion and so like
48:13
Speaker 2: you said, that energy and motion would run all over you, right,
48:15
Speaker 2: And that's what it feels like for attachment anxiety to
48:18
Speaker 2: be activated. And when it is, we go into this
48:21
Speaker 2: trauma response a fight oftentimes or flee, And when we're
48:27
Speaker 2: in that fight response, we desperately want to seek connection
48:31
Speaker 2: with our partners. Or even when we're in the fawn response,
48:35
Speaker 2: which is essentially a softer fight response of overapologizing or
48:38
Speaker 2: falling on the sword, we are desperately seeking someone else
48:43
Speaker 2: to soothe our own emotions. Right, Because what we are
48:45
Speaker 2: truly afraid of deep down is not the abandonment and
48:50
Speaker 2: not the betrayal. We're afraid of the emotional experience that
48:53
Speaker 2: results from the abandonment or the betrayal. We're afraid of
48:57
Speaker 2: going through that hurt and that pain. But when we
48:59
Speaker 2: can start to condition our brain that the sensations of
49:02
Speaker 2: emotion are in fact okay and we are still safe
49:07
Speaker 2: when we experience them, we will stop forcing someone to
49:12
Speaker 2: connect with to try to soothe ourselves. The same way,
49:15
Speaker 2: when we go into the avoidance space, avoidant individuals deeply
49:19
Speaker 2: afraid of emotion. They've used emotional suppression all of their lives.
49:23
Speaker 2: If we're talking about the dismissive avoidant, the fearful avoidant
49:26
Speaker 2: uses it intermittently throughout life to cope with difficult things.
49:30
Speaker 2: It's pushing someone away, right, in order to try to
49:34
Speaker 2: avoid the difficult sensations of emotion that being in the
49:38
Speaker 2: presence of that person would bring. And so we're not
49:41
Speaker 2: really afraid of being abandoned or betrayed or whatever it is.
49:47
Speaker 2: We're afraid of how we feel when that happens. And
49:50
Speaker 2: when we learn to tolerate our own emotional experiences, we
49:54
Speaker 2: can then tolerate the emotions and perspectives of other people.
49:59
Speaker 2: And that makes for a securely attached person. And so
50:03
Speaker 2: congratulations on doing the work and really training your brain
50:09
Speaker 2: to recognize that you are still safe even when you're
50:12
Speaker 2: in discomfort. Even when the emotional discomfort happens, you can
50:15
Speaker 2: acknowledge it, you can realize it, you can feel it.
50:19
Speaker 2: But then you know that you can still use your
50:22
Speaker 2: tools right that we've taught during the group of using
50:26
Speaker 2: that neurofeedback and some of the other nervous system regulation
50:29
Speaker 2: tools to cultivate that felt sense of safety in the
50:32
Speaker 2: body and show your brain, hey, thank you for this.
50:36
Speaker 2: I'm going to take the signal value from the emotion
50:38
Speaker 2: or the lesson from the emotion that tells me maybe
50:41
Speaker 2: I need to have a conversation, maybe I need to
50:43
Speaker 2: set a boundary maybe I need to take a little
50:47
Speaker 2: bit of space for myself, maybe I need to do whatever.
50:49
Speaker 2: The emotions are the signals, but you can't get the
50:52
Speaker 2: signal value from your emotion when you're running to try
50:56
Speaker 2: to get someone else to fix it, and that's all
50:58
Speaker 2: you can think about, or when you're pushing somebody away
51:00
Speaker 2: to distract from it or associate from it, which is
51:02
Speaker 2: the avoidance.
51:03
Speaker 3: Right.
51:04
Speaker 2: So you're doing wonderful. What can I still help with?
51:08
Speaker 2: What can I still help? But just keep going on that,
51:11
Speaker 2: just keep going.
51:13
Speaker 3: I have a lot of questions, but two questions that
51:15
Speaker 3: I want. So I figured out that my boyfriend is
51:21
Speaker 3: a fearful avoidance that and he's doing the work and
51:26
Speaker 3: he's fantastic, and he's a deep feeler, yes of this
51:30
Speaker 3: because he has he has so much empathy and he's
51:34
Speaker 3: a deep feeler. He kind of feels responsible for me
51:38
Speaker 3: when I'm telling him about the negative bias mm hmmm.
51:43
Speaker 3: And I'm kind of yeah, I'm kind of afraid to
51:46
Speaker 3: tell him because I don't want him to think that
51:48
Speaker 3: it's anything now because life is great. But I want
51:52
Speaker 3: to I want to be honest with him. I want
51:54
Speaker 3: to be elearnly. So what advice would you give for
51:59
Speaker 3: him to not feel responsible?
52:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I would. I First of all, let me
52:06
Speaker 2: say that is a really common fearful of widant tendency
52:08
Speaker 2: to feel fearful avoidance, feel so deeply and they have
52:12
Speaker 2: so much empathy that their empathy can be calm dysfunctional,
52:15
Speaker 2: whereas they feel other people's pain so deeply inside of them,
52:19
Speaker 2: and then they do feel very responsible for the emotions
52:22
Speaker 2: of other people. Maybe not when conflict comes and we
52:25
Speaker 2: launch into our trauma responses, right, but in outside situations,
52:28
Speaker 2: when maybe you're upset about something else or even you
52:31
Speaker 2: know something minor in the relationship, you might feel super responsible.
52:35
Speaker 2: That is also tied into the hypervigilance.
52:37
Speaker 3: Right.
52:37
Speaker 2: So you're noticing and he's noticing that maybe you took
52:41
Speaker 2: a deep sigh or that your facial expression changed or something,
52:44
Speaker 2: and that tendency a fearful avoidance to give that deep
52:47
Speaker 2: meaning that that must mean something about me is very
52:51
Speaker 2: very strong. So I would talk, you know, I would
52:54
Speaker 2: want to encourage him and thank him for his care
52:57
Speaker 2: and concern. Right, So instead of saying you shouldn't be
53:00
Speaker 2: so hyper visulant towards me or stop putting me under
53:02
Speaker 2: a microscope, which is what sometimes we want to do
53:05
Speaker 2: if you have a fearful avoidant partner, because it can
53:07
Speaker 2: feel like that, just flip it to say thank you
53:10
Speaker 2: for caring so much, right, but allow him to know
53:15
Speaker 2: that you are okay, right, that you appreciate his care
53:18
Speaker 2: and concern, but that you are okay, and remind him that, hey,
53:22
Speaker 2: you're not responsible for this right now, What would feel
53:25
Speaker 2: best to me is to just maybe be with me,
53:28
Speaker 2: sit with me, right, just hold space instead of feeling
53:32
Speaker 2: like you have to jump into action, right, Let's just
53:34
Speaker 2: hold space together, right, And then encourage him that he's
53:38
Speaker 2: a good partner and that he's really loved, right, because
53:42
Speaker 2: it's especially I think for men who feel greatly responsible
53:45
Speaker 2: for female emotions, and that's so typical for a malefa
53:51
Speaker 2: and I have to do this with my husband too.
53:53
Speaker 2: Just encourage and remind them that I love that protective
53:56
Speaker 2: part of you. I love that part of you right
54:01
Speaker 2: that cares so deeply about me, that the best thing
54:04
Speaker 2: you can do right now is just give me your presence, right,
54:08
Speaker 2: And then that brings both of you into the present moment,
54:10
Speaker 2: which is regulating to the nervous system as well, and
54:14
Speaker 2: So although it can be challenging if you feel like
54:17
Speaker 2: you're put under a microscope, when you flip that thought right,
54:21
Speaker 2: when we reframe that thought to but it comes from
54:26
Speaker 2: the empathetic place. It comes from the care and concern
54:29
Speaker 2: and gently let them know that the best thing that
54:31
Speaker 2: they could do for you to meet that need for
54:32
Speaker 2: you is to just hold space. That goes over so
54:36
Speaker 2: much better than stop putting me under a microscope, you know,
54:39
Speaker 2: stop picking me apart, stop criticizing me or or giving
54:44
Speaker 2: meaning to every little thing I do, because I'm in
54:47
Speaker 2: a two healed fa relationship and those tiny things still
54:51
Speaker 2: leak out sometimes, right, And so come at it with
54:56
Speaker 2: encouragement and with stating what your need is clearly. If
55:00
Speaker 2: it's not holding space, if it's something else. If you
55:01
Speaker 2: need true space right like you need to move away
55:04
Speaker 2: from his presence, then just reassure him that you're going
55:07
Speaker 2: to return and that you're moving away so that you
55:09
Speaker 2: can show up as the best version of yourself for
55:11
Speaker 2: him in a few minutes or a half hour or
55:14
Speaker 2: whatever it may be. So it's okay to take space
55:18
Speaker 2: as long as you reassure your partner that you will
55:22
Speaker 2: return and you're in that the relationship stability has not
55:26
Speaker 2: changed because you're taking this space. Those are the best
55:29
Speaker 2: things you can do.
55:32
Speaker 3: Okay, thank you sir.
55:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, yeah.
55:36
Speaker 3: The second question I have for you is, actually, I'm
55:40
Speaker 3: a healing fee My boyfriend is taking your course right now.
55:48
Speaker 3: Do you think that our relationship would change if we
55:52
Speaker 3: are both committed to working on ourselves and becoming secure?
55:58
Speaker 2: But absolutely absolutely, and in fact, my favorite relationship in
56:02
Speaker 2: the whole world, because it's my current relationship are two
56:05
Speaker 2: healed fas. You know why, because fas feel man and
56:10
Speaker 2: there is something about being able to be a deep
56:13
Speaker 2: feeler that allows you to experience the full spectrum of life,
56:18
Speaker 2: and that is a super power that you, guys, will
56:20
Speaker 2: not lose. But you will also be able to correct
56:24
Speaker 2: the dysfunctional part of the empathy, right, that makes you
56:26
Speaker 2: feel responsible for each other, that makes you cling to
56:29
Speaker 2: the hypervigilance and give it deep meaning. Right, somebody gave
56:34
Speaker 2: a sigh and you gave a deep meaning that maybe
56:35
Speaker 2: they're annoyed with you. Right, That part of it will
56:39
Speaker 2: start to go away because you're going to use the
56:41
Speaker 2: tools to challenge those stories, and you know how to
56:44
Speaker 2: regulate your nervous system when it starts to feel disregulated,
56:46
Speaker 2: and the more just regulated you are, the more hyper
56:48
Speaker 2: vigilant and you be calm right, and the more subjective
56:53
Speaker 2: your thoughts become, and distorted your thoughts become, But you
56:58
Speaker 2: get to keep the superpower that doesn't go away. And
57:02
Speaker 2: the fact that when you have two people of the
57:04
Speaker 2: same attachment style, two fas are the only two insecure
57:08
Speaker 2: styles that really match up together. Like we rarely see
57:12
Speaker 2: two das together. It almost never gets off the ground,
57:16
Speaker 2: right because they both are so so autonomous and independent
57:21
Speaker 2: that they just never make time for each other, and
57:23
Speaker 2: it almost just never takes off. Two aps aps aren't
57:28
Speaker 2: necessarily attracted to each other because in the beginning, another
57:31
Speaker 2: AP is not going to give them attachment anxiety to
57:35
Speaker 2: want to chase and pursue and connect. Right, So two
57:37
Speaker 2: aps are generally turned off with each other in the beginning.
57:40
Speaker 2: But two fas man where their biggest need is to
57:44
Speaker 2: be seen, heard and understood. You guys know each other
57:47
Speaker 2: at the soul level, right, You bury your souls to
57:51
Speaker 2: each other, and that's a beautiful, beautiful thing. But becoming
57:54
Speaker 2: secure doesn't mean you're going to lose that. You're only
57:57
Speaker 2: going to improve the bad thing, You're not going to
58:01
Speaker 2: lose the great stuff. So I'm gonna say absolutely yes.
58:04
Speaker 2: And in fact, it's the best relationship ever because there's
58:07
Speaker 2: something really really beautiful about having deep empathy and when
58:11
Speaker 2: two people have it and they can cultivate it in
58:13
Speaker 2: a healthy way and get rid of the parts of
58:15
Speaker 2: it that's dysfunctional, which you have the tools to do
58:17
Speaker 2: now right, it's it can be really amazing. And I mean,
58:22
Speaker 2: I'll speak for my relationship on that. It's pretty great. Well, Roserine,
58:30
Speaker 2: I think we're gonna have to wrap up, but it
58:32
Speaker 2: was so wonderful to see your face again. I really
58:36
Speaker 2: appreciated how you contributed to the group. I always thought
58:38
Speaker 2: you had really thoughtful questions that helped a lot of people,
58:42
Speaker 2: because a lot of people would comment and say I
58:44
Speaker 2: was thinking that too, I, you know, thank you, and
58:46
Speaker 2: so thank you for being an active member just in
58:49
Speaker 2: that group. In my group, you can participate anonymously or
58:52
Speaker 2: you can be active and make friends. And it was
58:55
Speaker 2: I appreciated you, you know, showing your face and saying
58:58
Speaker 2: hello and making people feel comfortable and welcome as a
59:01
Speaker 2: member of the group. But for some people, if that's
59:03
Speaker 2: not your style. Just know you can join my group
59:05
Speaker 2: and you can be a blank black screen and you
59:07
Speaker 2: can send your questions about the course that you're working
59:11
Speaker 2: through independently through private chat. So thank you. It was
59:16
Speaker 2: so great to see you again and I was wonderful,
59:18
Speaker 2: so so many blessings on your journey.
59:21
Speaker 3: Yes, thank you so much for having me. It's such
59:26
Speaker 3: a blessing and I want to wish both of you
59:28
Speaker 3: the best of luck and happiness. So thank you from
59:32
Speaker 3: the bottom of my heart.
59:33
Speaker 2: I'm welcome right back at you for sure.
59:36
Speaker 1: You're precious.
59:37
Speaker 2: You are.
59:39
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, and listen if you guys, I mean,
59:43
Speaker 1: I got a lot from that. I'm not gonna lie
59:45
Speaker 1: like that was profound. I always say, though, when I'm
59:48
Speaker 1: talking to your clients, I'm like, I'll sit in sometimes
59:51
Speaker 1: on group, even though I've heard it and I've gone
59:54
Speaker 1: through the course and I used to coach, I feel
59:56
Speaker 1: like every time I sit in on something like this,
59:59
Speaker 1: I learned something new and like new light bulbs go
1:00:02
Speaker 1: off and it's just a really really beautiful experience, and
1:00:06
Speaker 1: so I.
1:00:07
Speaker 2: Don't think for just sorry to interrupt you, but you know,
1:00:10
Speaker 2: Roserine obviously went through the group so she has a
1:00:12
Speaker 2: lot of knowledge. Right, I start people. I meet people
1:00:15
Speaker 2: where they are, right, So we start from square one
1:00:18
Speaker 2: at the group. So if you're like, oh my gosh,
1:00:19
Speaker 2: I don't know any of this stuff, Am I going
1:00:21
Speaker 2: to be able to keep up?
1:00:21
Speaker 3: Yes?
1:00:22
Speaker 2: I start as if you know nothing. If you work
1:00:25
Speaker 2: with me individually, I'll start you know where you are.
1:00:27
Speaker 2: I'll meet you where you're at in your healing journey. Yeah.
1:00:30
Speaker 1: And that's a valid point. And so if you're looking
1:00:34
Speaker 1: to get as much insight that I feel like Rosarine
1:00:37
Speaker 1: has gained, please go visit doctor Hinsley at her website,
1:00:40
Speaker 1: The Datingdecoder dot com. And of course we cannot leave
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Speaker 2: Website and a happy relationship.
1:02:23
Speaker 1: Yes, healing and a happy relationship. And I think Rose
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Speaker 1: Rein has proven that here you just gave her. She
1:02:28
Speaker 1: just gave you so much credibility.
1:02:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I had no idea that you were going
1:02:33
Speaker 2: to come in here and be like the tools worked,
1:02:35
Speaker 2: you know, like I hadn't heard from you since you know,
1:02:37
Speaker 2: the group was over, and I just I know when
1:02:40
Speaker 2: you started the group how much you were hurting. I
1:02:44
Speaker 2: could see that, right, But I also saw you know
1:02:49
Speaker 2: that you were super invested in it. And that's what
1:02:51
Speaker 2: I tell my clients. It's not the knowledge. Knowledge doesn't
1:02:54
Speaker 2: heal you. It's the practicing of the tools that leads
1:02:56
Speaker 2: to the healing. And so when you're dedicated like you are,
1:03:00
Speaker 2: that's why you're seeing the fruits of this, because you're
1:03:02
Speaker 2: actually using the tools, using the tools, using the tools,
1:03:05
Speaker 2: and that's what it takes.
1:03:06
Speaker 1: So congratulations again to you, Rosarine, Thank you so much
1:03:08
Speaker 1: for being here, Thank you all for listening. We hope
1:03:11
Speaker 1: that you gained something from this today. Please continue to like, listen, subscribe,
1:03:17
Speaker 1: and leave us a review, and until next time, peace, love,
1:03:22
Speaker 1: and perspective,