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AM S3 New Beginnings · Attachment Matters Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Attachment Matters.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: This podcast is a conversation between two mothers who are passionate about
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: the subject of attachment.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm StoicMom.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_02: And this is Rose.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_02: The two of us found each other amidst the stormy waters of culture,
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_02: politics, and parenting trans-identified children.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_02: Though our paths were different,
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: we each used the lens of attachment as a guide to find our way through.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: Our hope for this podcast is to offer greater insight into how to strengthen
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: the relationship between parents and their trans-identified children,
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: despite all odds.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_02: Hello.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_02: Hi, Rose.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's good to see you.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's so good to see you, too.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: It has been a long time since our last episode
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: of Season 2.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: Of Attachment Matters.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: Of Attachment Matters.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome everyone.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome listeners, new and old.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: Back to Attachment Matters podcast.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, and it matters so much.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: I hope that you and all of our listeners have had You know,
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_02: a summer,
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: we've kind of left everyone off at the beginning of summer and we're regrouping now
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: and starting our launch of our third season of the podcast here sort of in the midst
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_02: of fall.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_02: So I hope all of you have been well and have had a good season of growth of summer.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I think a lot of people see the fall as the beginning of the new year.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they follow the school calendars.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: I know you do.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so, yeah,
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: it's a good season, I think, to start something new.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: And we've got some Fun changes in the works that we're going
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: to spend some time talking about today.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: Some different offerings.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: Season three is going to look a little different than it has the first two seasons.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: Just in case we have brand,
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_02: brand new listeners,
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_02: maybe we can start welcoming people back with a little bit of a who we are
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_02: and why we're here.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_02: The past couple seasons,
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_02: we've shared different parts of how this podcast came to be,
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_02: and
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_02: you and I met in the comments section of the
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: True Believer post on Substack.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes, on the Pit Substack.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Parents with Inconvenient Truths Around Trans, yeah.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_02: Those were intense times.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_02: They still are intense times,
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_02: but that, at least for me, that time in my life was incredibly poignant.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: And that was a very impactful article.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: It caused a lot of buzz, yeah, in that particular community especially, I think.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, it was...
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: Challenging for lots of readers.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_02: But you and I,
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_02: I think,
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_02: came together also not only because of our kind of experiences
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_02: as parents navigating these cultural waters of
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_02: our children's trans identification
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_02: or cross-sex identification in these times culturally.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_02: But also because we connected over a mutual interest and
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_02: I would say
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: commitment to
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: a way forward through such choppy and stormy waters,
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_02: which is that of understanding attachment and relationship and having that be both
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_02: of our North Stars.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: Underlying forces,
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: I think,
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: what really moves us as humans and a fascination with that and attachment,
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: I think, being a compassionate way forward for all involved.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_02: So you invited me to the Stoic Mom.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_02: A little bit about that,
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_02: what you do there,
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: and what you invited me into a couple years ago that started us off as a contract.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: The Stoic Mom Project launched in 2022,
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: and it started out as Substack of articles only, of me navigating as best I could.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: Being the mother of an adolescent trans-identified daughter.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I think figuring out the landscape with that focus on the underlying forces.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what are all the contributing factors?
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: And just where do I have any control?
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: And how do I steady myself in this storm?
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so I could be there for...
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: And that has turned into quite a project now where I have a private community
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: where I support moms and I have since become a certified Jungian coach
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: and work one-on-one with mothers as well
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: who are navigating this particular circumstance.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: And these very choppy cultural waters,
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: that fill very And so it made good sense to me to invite your voice and your wisdom
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: and your
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: expertise, you know, around the Neufeld concepts and how important.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: Understanding or insight as we like to say here, right?
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: Being able to see things a little differently,
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: to understand the drivers and how we can participate in that field,
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: that relational field with our children in such a way that not only supports us,
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: but supports them,
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: you know, and make sure that we are present and available without abandoning ourselves in
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: the process.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, beautifully said.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: So we started having conversations under the title of Attachment Matters,
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: under the StoicMom umbrella to start.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: And it was very supportive with great feedback from the S&P audience
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: about how this content supported their experience
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: and gave them something they could focus on and do that felt productive.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I think when you first invited me,
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_02: you envisioned it as like, let's have three conversations, like a series.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_02: Once we got started, you know, we just, there was so much...
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_02: There was so much.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_02: I'm always shocked when I find,
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_02: let's say, Gordon Neufeld going on a podcast or just doing like a 45-minute talk.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, how on earth can he, what he calls, distill?
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_02: How can he take such...
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_02: It's like when I used to facilitate social justice workshops back in
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: the past chapter of my life.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_02: We used to say like,
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_02: When we do a check-in, you have to go around the circle and say, hi, my name is.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_02: And some people talk very little and some people talk a lot.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_02: So we'd always say, take the ocean and just put it into one drop.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_02: You only have 30 seconds.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_02: So just try to take that huge,
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_02: vast
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_02: sea of experience and ideas and thoughts and just give us a distillation.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_02: My goodness, so many of us cannot do that.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_02: But I think we were...
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_02: Once we started talking and once we started exploring these concepts together
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_02: and me bringing what I have from just as a mom studying at the Neufeld Institute.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not professional in this area.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not certified by them.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_02: Full disclosure from the very beginning,
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_02: this is me sharing from the heart, from the knowledge base that I have as a student.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_02: I continue to be Sort of a humble student and ideally like in service to parents
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_02: who are going through this experience of having a child of any age.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_02: Whether it's the little ones or adolescents or fully grown adults who are still in
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_02: the home or no longer in the home who have come into a transgender identity.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: How...
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_02: Dr. Neufeld's approach and theory and model can help us,
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: can help us to understand these dynamics.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like what you're saying, what is the underneath, what's going on under the surface?
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_02: The developmental approach, always focusing on the antecedents, like where did this come from?
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_02: Where did it start?
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: How has it unfolded from here?
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_02: All of that's to say,
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_02: I
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_02: feel that
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_02: I can share the best that I can from my heart about these concepts
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_02: in hopes that it offers something of value to this audience,
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_02: this very specific audience of parents who are going through such
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_02: an incredible crucible.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_02: Such a good word.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_02: Being different,
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_02: taking an approach that their children may not understand or want,
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_02: but at the same time trying to maintain a connection, a relationship.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_02: How do you navigate that terrain of holding your integrity while maintaining
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_02: a relationship and hopefully a close relationship?
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_02: Any relationship with your child.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: With your child.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know,
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think something else that we've got really clear on along
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: the way is how much understanding this information or spending time
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: with this information also helps us with our relationship with ourself,
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: to understand a lot of what moves us,
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: and Having that insight,
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: I think,
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: gives us a lot more agency in how we show up in the relationship with our children.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I feel like for you,
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_02: the place that you come from in your work with the Stoic Mom Project is just so
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_02: about taking responsibility,
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: claiming our agency, you know, with the moms that you work with.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's just such a strong and solid container of For moms to ground in and orient from.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it does complement and can interconnect so well with the Neufeld model
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: that really does call parents to grow into our maturity by taking responsibility
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_02: for cultivating relationship with our child.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_02: To not...
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_02: We got to stay in that driver's wheel as we're hopefully tending the soil for them
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_02: to grow into who they are going to become as mature adults as well.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's not easy stuff.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, as we say often.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: Not for the faint of heart.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_02: Not for the faint of heart.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_02: Not for the faint of heart.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: And yet so, so rewarding.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I just want to make sure we recognize that.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: How transformational this can be.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this focus.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_02: So we started,
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_02: as we're sort of going back and telling some of these stories of how we started,
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: you know, we started what we ended up calling season one.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_02: And that first,
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_02: year of conversations started from just understanding what Dr.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_02: Gordon Neufeld means when he talks about attachment and looking at attachment as
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_02: a Developmental process that has stages.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_02: And so some of those initial conversations were really about going
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: through his six-stage model of relationship,
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_02: of deepening attachment developmentally over time.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: We also,
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_02: really kind of talked about this concept of alpha,
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_02: which is something that,
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_02: a construct that Neufeld has also sort of developed Articulated as a framework
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_02: for understanding the hierarchical nature of attachment and what he would call being
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_02: in right relationship parent to a child where a child can lean on and depend upon
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_02: a parent and the parent being kind of that warm alpha provider
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_02: that meets these demands.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_02: Attachment needs of their child,
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: that the child can attach to the parent from that place of seeking for those needs
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_02: to be met and having them be provided.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_02: So that was really kind of, I'm sure we talked about more.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_02: We started talking about growing up and maturation and those themes as well in season one.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: And really applying them to this specific situation with both of us bringing personal stories.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: So we could talk about what it looks like in practice.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, our own mock-ups.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, really giving it context,
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: I think, with what our listeners are grappling with much of the time.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_02: Because,
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_02: and I appreciate you saying that,
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_02: because I think,
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_02: as a student that I've taken many courses with the Neufeld Institute, and,
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: I know people in kind of like the parents of trans-identified children world,
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_02: many of them read Hold On To Your Kids,
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_02: Dr. Neufeld's book that he co-wrote with Dr. Gabor Matei.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_02: And then some will go and look at,
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_02: maybe take a class or look at his lectures or what's available on the internet.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_02: And there is something,
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_02: now I am clearly a Dr.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_02: Neuköll junkie,
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_02: so I could listen to his lectures,
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_02: you know, night and day all the time, depending on my mood.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_02: But historically, it's something that I, you know, the intellectual side of me.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_02: Loves it and thrives in that kind of content and structure.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_02: But what I found is once I started actually going to the live online courses
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_02: where I was either live or listening to recordings of Neufeld faculty,
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_02: that's what they did.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_02: They put stories as moms in there and a lot of reflection about
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas his lectures tend to focus on our child is feeling frustration
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_02: or this is what this looks like for children.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_02: They kind of added this layer of like, when I'm in my frustration, I'm moving from alarm.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_02: And that just for me enriched and it just gave me such a more concrete understanding
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_02: of my own Experiences and reactions and how exactly like you said earlier,
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_02: how I was being moved and how I am being moved.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_02: Even as we start to learn about the Neufeld material,
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_02: we can experience these very primal emotions in reacting
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_02: to what we think we did wrong because we know this in the past.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_02: Have we hurt our child?
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_02: Is it too late?
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_02: Just...
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_02: There's so much that's operating in us from an attachment perspective,
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_02: from an emotion perspective,
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_02: even as we start to learn this material that it just helps so much to also try
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_02: to be aware of that.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_02: Because we're always a part of it.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_02: Whatever we're learning, whatever ideas, I am coming into them as who I am.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_02: So all of this is to say,
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_02: I think we do,
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_02: so that's what we try to offer to you all as listeners,
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_02: is just taking some of these concepts from the abstract
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_02: and really making them concrete through sharing our own examples and stories.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_02: And really curating,
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_02: curating for this audience that is going through such a specific and such
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_02: an intense, what I would call experience of facing separation with your children.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_02: And all that reverberates from there, using this model to understand it.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, existential is the word that comes to mind.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, our listeners are navigating.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, just that existential experience, crisis, you know.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: In a time where separation happens,
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's everywhere, it seems like, you know, and reinforced constantly.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah,
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: that can lead to some ongoing emotional states that are just really,
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: what's the word I'm looking for here?
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, without that insight,
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: I think we can feel very,
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: very lost and And so having a framework to locate ourselves and having
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: a container like the podcast to listen to moms like you and me,
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: sharing our own, because we have both been there, are there.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: So it could be, yeah, I find it orienting, very orienting.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_02: So we kept going after season one into season two,
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_02: and we kind of gave Attachment Matters its own sub-step.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_02: And we had a very long season two,
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_02: which was following the trajectory of one of the courses of the Neufeld Institute,
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_02: and quite an intense one.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_02: It's actually called the Intensive One, which...
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_02: Really lays out
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_02: the structure of Dr. Neufeld's model of reaching our full human potential.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_02: So my goodness, it was a lot.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_02: And it took a lot of episodes to go through.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_02: But for me, I was motivated to provide sort of that theoretical foundation and backdrop.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_02: And for listeners to have that bigger picture.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_02: And where we're hoping to go from here with season three is kind of coming,
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_02: kind of tilting the balance back a little bit more towards the concrete,
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_02: the embodied almost,
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: and really moving into a focus on Talking about facing separation and
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: the primal emotions.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_02: We might also add in a bit around what the defenses
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_02: to those emotions end up looking like, kind of that second layer that can kick in.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_02: But whereas in the past,
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_02: we've At least for me,
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_02: following in the kind of approach of Dr.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_02: Neufeld, focusing on what is attachment, what is maturation for our children?
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_02: And as a secondary,
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like you are always balancing me out with like,
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_02: what does this mean for us as moms?
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_02: What does this mean for us as parents?
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_02: We're thinking that for season three, that might shift a little bit.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_02: And with this discussion of facing separation and the primal emotions,
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_02: we might start from the vantage point of this experience for us as parents.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_02: Specifically, again, when our child adopts a transgender identity at any age.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_02: But we'll be tying it as well to bringing insight to their experiences
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_02: of facing separation as well.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_02: And those primal separation emotions of pursuit, frustration, and alarm.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_02: And we've definitely talked about these throughout the past two seasons,
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_02: but we're really going to dedicate an entire season three to
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_02: moving through them,
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_02: trying to develop more of an insight and awareness about these emotions,
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_02: how they move us, and how we can come alongside them.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_02: Ourselves and our loved ones
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_02: with that greater insight around this phenomenon.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I think part of us,
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_02: at least for me,
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_02: I'll say what I have observed back in season two,
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_02: we did a couple Q&As where people submitted questions.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember a question from a listener that was just focused on frustration.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_02: What do I do when I'm so angry or resentful?
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_02: I can't remember exactly,
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_02: but it was a question about our own emotions,
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_02: how we're being moved, and just really de-pathologizing.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember hearing from you that that particular question was so helpful to people.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think that pointed me in this direction of wanting to focus there for a while.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I hear it from my friends,
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_02: parents and friends all the time,
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_02: relationship with their spouses,
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_02: whatever it may be,
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_02: or children in general,
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_02: parenting children in general, where we're seeing the behavior.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_02: And then we're putting labels on the behavior and it's like,
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_02: how do I help people understand where did it come from?
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_02: Why is it,
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_02: when we see aggression coming out,
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_02: when we see attacking coming out, what is it that's not working for that child?
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_02: What is it that's not working for our spouse?
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_02: And how helpful that can be in navigating our relationships with other people.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's bringing to mind,
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: we've discussed this a little bit,
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: the looking at various frameworks even,
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: speaking of what's working, you know what I mean?
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think that there are lots of different ways
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: to understand our experiences these days and finding,
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: maybe noticing where a framework that we are leaning heavily on,
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: you know, isn't working.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: Is it working to get us where we want to go?
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so I know we talked about that for this season.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: Just exploring that, being real with ourselves about what's working and what isn't.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_02: How do we define what are our underlying assumptions about
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_02: what does it mean?
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_02: Like when we say, is this working or not?
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_02: What is the outcome that we're?
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I think, you know, next episode, I hope to dive more into that really specifically.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_02: Kind of comparing and contrasting the kind of attachment-based developmental model
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_02: and those assumptions with the medical model,
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_02: with the learning and behavioral model.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_02: We've had this conversation in past episodes,
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_02: but I think it's a really important starting place.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: And you bring up, oh, sorry.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: No, go ahead.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you brought up that phrase underlying assumptions, which I think is so very important.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so often our underlying assumptions are unconscious.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where we need to go and what we need to look
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: at is our underlying assumptions and what it means to be human
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: and what does move us.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the more we understand that, the more agency we have.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_02: So as we're getting ready to embark kind of on this new,
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_02: I would say,
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_02: content focus for Season 3,
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_02: because we are starting off a new season,
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_02: we're also setting out sort of a new programming,
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_02: a new programming model,
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_02: perhaps, we could say, or structure for the Attachment Matters platform and podcast.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_02: So we'll go over this just right now and maybe come back to it again at the end of the episode.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_02: But we are very much hoping that we can generate a little bit more financially
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_02: from
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_02: the podcast, just to be totally direct.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_02: Both you and I are here pretty much 100% as a labor of love.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_02: And because we value our time and the effort and the intention
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_02: behind taking this material,
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_02: curating it for a larger audience and a very specific audience,
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_02: we are hoping that we'll be able to be more sustainable financially.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_02: So starting off for Season 3, we will still be posting all of our podcasts publicly on Substack.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_02: So if you're a longtime listener,
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_02: consider maybe sharing with people who would be able to start listening for
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_02: the first time for free.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_02: And we're going to be having two other tiers.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_02: The paid subscription tier,
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_02: just the regular paid subscription,
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_02: will now be required to listen to archived podcast episodes.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_02: So that whole...
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_02: You know,
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_02: very detailed trajectory of Season 2 that lays out that foundational model of Dr.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_02: Neufeld's around maturation,
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_02: vulnerability,
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_02: and attachment,
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_02: and this concept of developmental stuckness and what can be done to help Ourselves
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_02: or our children get unstuck in the maturation process.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_02: That is going to go behind a paywall.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_02: And that will be,
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_02: signing up for a paid subscription will get you full access to all
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_02: of those past episodes, as well as all written posts, both past and upcoming.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_02: Now we may have some written posts that stay public.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_02: Whether from the past or the future,
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_02: but the paid subscription will guarantee access to all of the written posts,
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_02: including the ones that are going to be private.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: And just for clarification, season three episodes will be free and available.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: Season 1 and Season 2 will go behind a paywall.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: The Season 1 links currently live on the Substack in a menu tab.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: And essentially when you go in there, that will be paywalled for paid subscribers.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_02: And the archive will also be from Season 2.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_02: And then we have a new, go ahead.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I just want to also say, and every subscription matters, you know.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: So along that line, I'm also going to stop cross-posting.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: We might have listeners right now that just clicked into here because
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_01: of me cross-posting on the Stoic Mom project.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's It's going to end.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to be doing that any longer.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to be notified of the episodes,
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_01: it's going to be important to be a subscriber at any level in order to know
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: when new episodes are coming
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_02: out.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_02: We will also have a new third subscription tier.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_02: And on Substack,
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_02: you may have seen this called being a founder level subscription or
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_02: a founding member subscription.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_02: And we are going to be calling it the Attachment Matters Community Member Subscription.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_02: So this is a brand new offering.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_02: We're very, very excited about it.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_02: If you sign up as a community member,
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_02: you will get all the same perks as a paid monthly subscriber,
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_02: but you will have an additional perk of being invited onto an exclusive
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_02: and private Attachment Matters community on Mighty Networks,
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_02: where we are going to host monthly live Q&A sessions about the podcast content.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_02: Session replays will be available of those live sessions for those
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_02: who can't attend live or who just want to listen to them again.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_02: And there will also be sort of a space for sharing insights
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_02: and hopefully success stories for ways that this whole,
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_02: for our longtime listeners, you've heard us say again and again, Dr. Neufeld's
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_02: You know, motto or, you know, philosophy of what we see shapes what we do.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_02: And so we're hoping that this space will provide a place for listeners
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_02: to share new things that they're seeing.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_02: An understanding that they didn't necessarily see or understand before.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_02: So insights as well as little moments of breakthrough.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_02: Whether it's with your relationship to yourself,
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_02: with your spouse or with your child or your children or other family members
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_02: where you can say, wow, I saw this differently.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_02: I tried this instead and here's what the result was.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yes.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_01: And we've had some stories like that shared in the past,
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: and I can speak for myself at how Just exciting it is to try the thing and
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_01: to see it work, you know.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so this will be a place to share that.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: And we're so excited to offer this through Mighty Networks,
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: which is the platform where the tapestry community lives as well,
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_01: the S&P community of the Stoic Mom Project.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_01: So it will be hosted under that.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: This is a wonderful platform that is private.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know,
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_01: being able to Be in the room with you,
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_01: so to speak,
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_01: to have these live sessions and to get to engage with you on these concepts.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we're both really looking forward to that.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: And speaking as two moms who show up here anonymously, you know, this is...
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's just going to be a different experience to be able to hang out with you
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: a live Zoom call where we can tackle these topics with you.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I know for myself and for so many of you who are our listeners,
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_02: who are parents,
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_02: knowing that it's private, that it's confidential is of the utmost importance.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_02: Anyone joining at that membership level,
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_02: that is part of the commitment that we ask of all of you is to just maintain a deep
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_02: and steadfast commitment to privacy and confidentiality for everyone to be able
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_02: to feel that they can participate.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: We take that very seriously and know that it's important for you to be able to come
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_01: and be vulnerable and bring your whole self and engage.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: So just know that we take that very seriously and make that a top priority.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_02: Now the Attachment Matters community level,
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_02: one thing to be kind of specific about Is because these experiences of parents
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_02: of trans-identified children are so unique,
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_02: we are going to limit that community space to parents and or family members
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_02: of children of any age who have a trans-identification.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_02: And if you do not fall in that category,
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_02: but you're like, oh, darn it, I really wanted to support at that founder's level.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_02: I want to support this project.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_02: It's important.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's valuable.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_02: We absolutely invite and would be so deeply grateful for any listeners who want
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_02: to subscribe at that level,
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_02: but who would not necessarily be interested In that definition
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_02: who would be participating in the community space itself.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know,
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_02: we welcome folks to sign up at that level,
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_02: even if you are not a family member of a person who is trans-identified.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_02: But we would just welcome your support at that level with much gratitude.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_01: it is a great way to support the project and make sure that it's sustainable and
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_01: that Rose and I can keep showing up and offering this content.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm also really excited to be offering something where dads are welcome
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: in this private community.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_01: Couples are welcome in this private community.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: We're excited to be able to offer this.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we love dads.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_02: Go dads.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_02: So that's what we have on deck.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_02: So if you're listening to this today and you're not yet a free subscriber,
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_02: subscribe as a free subscriber.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_02: That's a great way to start.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_02: Just getting the emails in your inbox from Substack whenever we publish
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_02: a new episode.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_02: If you're already a free subscriber, please consider signing up as paid.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_02: And if you are already a paid subscriber,
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_02: please And or you're a free subscriber,
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_02: you haven't taken the leap to being paid yet and you just want to say,
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_02: hey, wow, I'm excited for this live opportunity.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_02: I'm excited for more of a community around these concepts and supporting one another.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_02: We welcome you to sign up for that community membership.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_02: We're just really excited and looking forward to that connection.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we're excited about these new offerings.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_01: And being able to create a space,
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: offer a space like this for parents,
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_01: which is likely to have a very different feel,
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_01: I think, than a lot of the spaces that parents find themselves in.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_01: Which is also something that we take very seriously.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: Did you have
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_01: a story you wanted to tell, Rose?
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_02: I did.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_02: You know,
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_02: I wrote down a lot of notes
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_02: because I was hoping our episode today was welcoming everyone back.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_02: Announcing and describing our new subscription offerings,
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_02: which we've done, so we can check those two off the list.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_02: I also wrote down a lot of notes as a review of Season 2 and just a reminder of some
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_02: of those concepts covered.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_02: And then I thought, wow, that would be a lot to talk about.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_02: You know, because it's... We covered a lot.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Season 2.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_02: You know,
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_02: we really dove in very deeply into exploring,
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_02: you know, these three sides of reaching full human potential.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_02: The concepts and constructs of Dr. Neufeld of maturation, vulnerability, and attachment.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_02: Those we're going to continue to talk about and reference throughout Season 3.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_02: And for those who can remember,
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_02: everything is in threes from season two and from the Neufeld model in that sense.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_02: That model had three sides and then each of those
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_01: had three sides.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_01: My notes are full of triangles.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, exactly, exactly, exactly.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_02: So just to speak to those,
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_02: I will speak to those quickly, and then I do want to kind of share a little story.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_02: So when we talk about the maturation process,
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_02: the three sides of that we talked about were emergent,
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_02: so this idea of growing into a separate sense of self,
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_02: The adaptive process,
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_02: which is the experience of futility,
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_02: hitting a wall of something that we cannot change and grieving it,
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_02: having our tears when we accept the futility of the situation and therefore
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_02: the brain coming up with a workaround.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_02: That's what he calls the adaptive process.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_02: The integrative process, which is having feelings of inner dissonance.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_02: What many of us hear in a more popular conversation around prefrontal cortex development.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_02: So being able to mix two perspectives,
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_02: two perspectives, two emotions, two feelings at the same time.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_02: Hold two truths at the same time.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_02: Those are the three.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_02: That's the integrative process again.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_02: Three sides of maturation.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_02: And then looking at vulnerability and the defenses and that also having three sides.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_02: So the three different types of defenses that can kick in when our fragility,
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_02: our vulnerability, our tenderness is too wounded.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_02: The wounding becomes too much to bear.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_02: That our brains are designed to kick in defenses to protect us like a shield of armor.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_02: And those three different forms of defenses are perceptual.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_02: So what we can see and perceive around us, we become defended against it if it's too wounding.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_02: The emotions.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_02: So no longer feeling our feelings, we can still be moved by emotions.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_02: And boy, we're going to talk about this a lot in season three.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_02: We can still be moved,
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_02: but we can become defended against the feedback internally that allows us to feel
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_02: the emotion itself, even though it's impelling us to act in certain ways.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_02: And then last but not least, the third set of defenses would be the attachment defenses.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_02: And this is what we started to talk about in Season 2 in terms
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_02: of Attachment defenses can be shyness.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_02: They can be counter will when we are experiencing more coercion than attachment.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_02: And so we do the opposite of what we're being coerced into doing.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_02: And it can also be what's called defensive detachment where we...
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_02: The attachment instinct goes in reverse,
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_02: and we push away and reject and repel those who we are meant to be in attachment to.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_02: So those are those three sides of attachment,
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_02: or no, vulnerability, sorry, the defenses, the three sets of defenses.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_02: And then last but not least,
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_02: the three sides of attachment that we covered were the fact
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_02: that attachment is developmental and goes in stages,
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_02: which we went in depth into in Season 1.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_02: The hierarchical nature of attachment,
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_02: which is what Neufeld talks about being the alpha,
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_02: the provider,
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_02: the seeker and the provider,
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_02: that attachment naturally occurs in a hierarchical relationship.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_02: And then the polarization.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_02: And what he speaks to is that without what he calls a physics background or
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_02: a science background,
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_02: we miss this piece of our attachment instincts that for every force there is
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_02: an equal and opposite force.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_02: And so if our positive side of the magnet,
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_02: let's say,
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_02: moves from a parent to a peer and they're in competition with one another, Then,
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_02: the positive polarity is going to be pointing at that peer and
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_02: the negative polarity is going to be pushing that parent away,
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_02: alienating, rejecting, insulting, attacking.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_02: It can manifest in all kinds of ways on that negative polarity.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_02: So, that is...
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_02: A very detailed but brief summary,
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's the terrain we traversed in Season 2, along with, you know, more.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_01: We talked about it as a map,
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_01: and I just,
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_01: you know, I want to encourage listeners, especially those who haven't listened.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_01: But even if you have,
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_01: you might be really surprised at what you would take away from a second lesson.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so there's a lot of really incredible content, I think, in Season 2.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I think as we go through Season 3...
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_02: In the show notes, you know, we'll be linking to past episodes.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_02: You know, in this episode, we referenced this construct.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_02: Go back to this past episode or go back to this written piece because in season two,
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_02: I also did written summaries of these concepts.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_02: And so, you know,
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_02: going back to reference those,
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_02: what is that again,
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_02: the polarity concept or defensive detachment,
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_02: being able to go back and reference that content, I think will be very helpful.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's very foundational information.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, as Rose is saying, we're going to be referencing.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_01: So
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_01: it's very helpful to understand the framework from which we are talking, discussing.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly, exactly.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_02: So I did what I do often, which is you said, do you have a story?
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, yes, but let me just say all this other stuff for a second back.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_02: We love the stories.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_02: Come back to the story.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_02: So I was coming into this episode with a story from a friend on my heart.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_02: And as I was listening to some Dr.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_02: Neufeld's content driving this morning,
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_02: and one thing that he said really stood out to me.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_02: And it's something that,
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_02: what I find with his lectures is like,
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_02: Every two minutes,
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_02: there's like one thing that is so dense and so rich
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_02: that I could spend hours just pulling it apart and its application
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_02: and its implications.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_02: And so a lot of those statements just go right past me.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_02: I just can't take them all in.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_02: So going back and listening a second or third time, I hear things that I didn't hear before.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_02: They stay in me.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_02: So, for whatever reason, this morning, overtired, you know, driving, this just landed.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_02: And it was him saying,
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_02: when he's talking about his theoretical model,
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_02: he said,
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_02: if you can distill something to its essence,
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_02: a phenomenon to its essence, it should become universal.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_02: And that just, it just stood out.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_02: And it connected back to my friend sharing with me.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_02: Just very recently, I had a friend visit for dinner.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_02: And she was from out of town, you know, and had come into town and was coming over for dinner.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_02: And she shared with me, she has two young boys.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_02: And when I mean young, I mean maybe fourth grade and first grade.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_02: And she was sharing with me that she had to have a session
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_02: with her older son's therapist and was going to be late for dinner because of it.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_02: And when she came over and we were able to talk one-on-one,
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_02: she said how much her older son had been struggling,
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_02: that he was going through a very hard time.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_02: And she started to describe that he was showing a lot of aggression.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_02: So threatening his younger brother,
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_02: threatening to hurt his younger brother with violence,
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_02: saying that he was going to take his own life.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_02: And here my friend is trying to deal with,
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_02: she was divorced in the past year and,
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_02: so is now solo parenting and how to navigate,
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_02: this older,
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_02: bigger son kind of just taking out this attacking energy and this aggression on
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_02: the younger son and on her.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_02: And, um,
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_02: As we were talking,
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_02: she started to say, like,
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like I'm in a domestic violence situation,
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_02: you know, and that my younger son is two.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_02: And then we're kind of talking that her son had had an injury.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_02: And then also,
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_02: in the course of the conversation,
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_02: she said, well,
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_02: I have, you know, the other thing that's going on is I've taken Minecraft away.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_02: I've taken Minecraft away.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_02: And because I know her and I know her son,
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_02: I also know that,
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_02: you know, in the past year or so, he has gotten an autism diagnosis.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_02: Now, he's extremely high-functioning.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_02: You know, maybe he has...
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_02: I'm hypersensitive in the Neufeld construct,
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_02: which is not a perfect overlap with how our medical system diagnoses,
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_02: like autism spectrum.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_02: But the idea that he's highly, highly sensitive, right?
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_02: And so...
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_02: Here I am,
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_02: I'm taking all this in and I hear my friend go straight to,
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_02: because she is a doctor,
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_00: I hear her go straight to, we're gonna end up putting them on medication.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_00: And
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_02: here is where this idea of distillation and universal applicability It comes in
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_02: for me because I'm taking in the story and I'm listening and I'm listening
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_02: and I'm thinking, what is the root causes?
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_02: What's going on underneath?
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_02: All of her older sons attacking energy.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_02: So in the course of the conversation, it became clear, well, there was a divorce.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_02: I already knew about that.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_02: There was an injury.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_02: So here's another thing that's not working.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_02: And there was a taking away, potentially cold turkey, of an attachment.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_02: In the Minecraft.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_02: And so I'm seeing all the reasons why this child is exploding.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_02: And he is finding a way to, you know, to get it out.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_02: And what you said earlier when you were talking about The parents with
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_02: the existential experience of facing separation.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_02: I am like going back to the basics of the distillation of Neufeld
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_02: and thinking this is a hypersensitive kid who has had a structuring attachment.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_02: Neufeld talks about the hypersensitive and the role
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_02: of depersonalized attachment is essentially a filter of You know,
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_02: a structure to hold on to,
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_02: to filter out the sensory overwhelm or the emotional overwhelm of going through life
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_02: without a skin.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_02: And so here was a structure and routine and scaffolding for him to hold on to
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_02: through Minecraft for months.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_02: You know, my friend was like, it's my fault.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_02: I got way too lax about it over the summer.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know this because she didn't say this,
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_02: but I wonder if she just panicked and said, I've given him too much screen time.
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_02: This is now kind of the driving force of his life.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_02: I have to do something about it.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I've got to change it.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_02: And I think her construct for understanding it was, it's like a heroin addiction.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_02: And now I've had it going through withdrawal.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_02: But yet, it was still clear that she...
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_02: You know,
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_02: that she had these frameworks like domestic violence and he needs a whole solution
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_02: and, you know, that these were her go-tos.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_02: Based on some underlying assumptions that maybe are, yeah.
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_02: Correct.
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_02: And so it was good.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_02: We stayed up late and there was just this one moment where I saw an opportunity
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_02: to say like, You may know this already, but it's not just the dopamine.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_02: This is his attachment.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_02: This is his survival instinct.
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_02: And so what he's reacting to with you taking it away from him is life or death to him.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_02: This is like life or death.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_02: How his internal experience of this is.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_02: And we just talked about that.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_02: And...
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, and it was, you know, this does not always happen in talking to friends.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_02: It's much easier for me to talk on a podcast than to try to get my friends to see
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_02: the new felt perspective.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_02: It's almost impossible.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_02: Lots of futility in this.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_02: But I was able to just listen and just imagine how scary and how challenging
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_02: and just share what I could.
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_02: And it was amazing because as we talked,
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_02: she started to say,
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_02: well, I went from this one moment to the next where he was screaming and attacking.
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_02: And then I said, come sit down and read this book with me.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_02: And then he just like melted into her arms.
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_02: And then she was like, I said, you got to give him something else.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_02: You can't just take the attachment.
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_02: You got to replace it with something.
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_02: And then she shared with me that now he's getting into beekeeping.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_02: And that playfully the other night, she was like, I'm the queen bee.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_02: And he's like, you're my queen.
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_02: So then it was like, oh my gosh, she's like working this alpha.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_02: So now she's the queen.
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_02: And she's like, yeah, that just felt intuitively.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_02: She doesn't know Neufeld material at all,
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_02: but it was like all of a sudden there was this baseline intuition that her assuming
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_02: the queen bee Was balancing something out that needed to be there.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_02: And it wasn't until later that my partner shared with me that in
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_02: a different side conversation,
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_02: this friend had shared that she had in one of these aggressive episodes
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_02: that she cowered in the corner.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_02: So you can imagine a little nine-year-old and your mom is cowering.
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_02: And how terrifying it must be for the person who's supposed to be keeping you safe
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_02: to be scared of you.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_02: And so all of this is to say is that it just, I don't know if my friend will medicate her child.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_02: And that is my own futility to face that I can't do anything about.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_02: But Neufeld's words this morning resonated so deeply because I thought,
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_02: this is this idea of this universal application.
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_02: If something can be distilled to its essence,
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_02: I can take it and we can see these underlying factors,
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_02: these underlying dynamics that come out in sometimes very scary ways.
• 58:25
  SPEAKER_02: Very challenging and very scary ways that we
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_02: then put these other underlying assumptions on top.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_02: yeah, yeah.
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_02: How that shapes then what our experiences have been.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_02: What we do in response.
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, so much there.
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_01: when you talk about the distillation,
• 58:47
  SPEAKER_01: what comes to my mind is how often we've talked about attachment is everything.
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_01: That once you start understanding these concepts,
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_01: you can look around and you can see those underlying forces driving the behaviors
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_01: that we then, yes, attach these other frameworks to.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_01: And often we take action that just makes things...
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_01: Work less, right?
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, work less.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_01: We also talked last season often about becoming agents of attachment.
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that once we shift our focus in this way and we start looking
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_01: for those attachment forces at play,
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_01: we can reduce a whole lot of separation.
• 59:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_01: And again, transformational.
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 59:55
  SPEAKER_01: It can become our purpose.
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe it's meant to be.
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_01: I know that's a bold claim.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_01: And it feels right.
• 1:00:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_02: I appreciate you saying that.
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_02: And that brings me to this whole other,
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_02: I think, experience that I'm living right now as, you know, I'm 49.
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I have aging parents, which I think many of our listeners maybe, you know, do.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_02: And we recently celebrated my father's 75th birthday.
• 1:00:40
  SPEAKER_02: And my wife's mother's 75th birthday is coming up this month.
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know,
• 1:00:48
  SPEAKER_02: Just navigating the different family dynamics and it kind of,
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 1:00:55
  SPEAKER_02: there's some places where,
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_02: even jealousy between the two different sets of parents on different sides of
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_02: the family.
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_02: If we travel to see my parents, then how does my wife's parents feel?
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_02: And just different things like that.
• 1:01:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember
• 1:01:11
  SPEAKER_02: walking along with my wife and talking about just At this time,
• 1:01:21
  SPEAKER_02: talking about bringing something down to the essence,
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_02: but the time that we have, I just so yearn to focus on our connection.
• 1:01:33
  SPEAKER_02: And there's going to not get so hung up in the drama or
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_02: the reactions that,
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_02: let's say,
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_02: my mother-in-law may have these different Things that she's carried on
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_02: from her childhood that she's kind of putting out on us that can be frustrating
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_02: or difficult.
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_02: But it's like, okay, but I don't want to hold on to that stuff either.
• 1:02:01
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to get stuck in what I'm upset with what she's doing.
• 1:02:06
  SPEAKER_02: How do I, with the time that we have, cultivate the beauty that we can still have in connection?
• 1:02:16
  SPEAKER_02: Like focusing my energy in that way.
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_01: As an agent of attachment.
• 1:02:26
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 1:02:27
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 1:02:28
  SPEAKER_02: And something about the fall,
• 1:02:29
  SPEAKER_02: like you started the conversation here a bit about how it feels like the beginning
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_02: of a new year,
• 1:02:34
  SPEAKER_02: the new school year,
• 1:02:34
  SPEAKER_02: but there's something about the fall that also,
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know,
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_02: there's almost this like ability to Dial back a lot of noise and just settle in.
• 1:02:49
  SPEAKER_02: How am I going to cultivate these connections that are so important to me
• 1:02:57
  SPEAKER_02: during this next season, this next cycle of the year?
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:03:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's lovely.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_00: My mind goes straight to including that connection with myself.
• 1:03:14
  SPEAKER_00: Which these colder months, I think, also invite.
• 1:03:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:03:19
  SPEAKER_01: And it is that connection that I think allows us to cultivate the others.
• 1:03:26
  SPEAKER_00: The other connections.
• 1:03:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:03:34
  SPEAKER_00: So what can we do for ourselves?
• 1:03:44
  SPEAKER_01: And some Attachment Matters community might be good medicine.
• 1:03:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:03:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 1:03:52
  SPEAKER_02: I sincerely hope so.
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_02: We're inviting you,
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_02: inviting all of you listeners,
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_02: you know, please accept our invitation to join us for cultivating more connection.
• 1:04:06
  SPEAKER_02: That's really the goal.
• 1:04:08
  SPEAKER_02: At the end of the day, that's the goal.
• 1:04:11
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you all for listening.
• 1:04:13
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you all for being here.
• 1:04:15
  SPEAKER_00: And we hope to see you soon.
• 1:04:19
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for listening.
• 1:04:21
  SPEAKER_02: We hope you take something of value from our conversation today.
• 1:04:25
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• 1:04:41
  SPEAKER_01: If you are the family member of a trans-identified child,
• 1:04:44
  SPEAKER_01: you might find yourself craving more ways to understand
• 1:04:47
  SPEAKER_01: and apply attachment concepts within your family.
• 1:04:50
  SPEAKER_01: If so, consider becoming an Attachment Matters community member for access to
• 1:04:54
  SPEAKER_01: a private platform with live Q&A sessions with the two of us and a place
• 1:04:58
  SPEAKER_01: to share insights and breakthroughs with one another.
• 1:05:03
  SPEAKER_02: As always,
• 1:05:03
  SPEAKER_02: we encourage you to share your feedback and takeaways in the comments
• 1:05:07
  SPEAKER_02: and hope you will join us for the next episode of Attachment Matters.