Latest / The Dr. Sarah Hensley Show / Episode 35, Season 1: The Fearful Avoidant

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Episode 35, Season 1: The Fearful Avoidant · The Dr. Sarah Hensley Show

0:08
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Love Doc podcast. I am your co
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Speaker 1: host Raina Butcher here with our host, doctor Sarah Hensley. Hey, hey, hey,
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Speaker 1: today's episode episode thirty five. We are going to cover
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Speaker 1: the most complex of all the attachment styles, the fearful avoidance.
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Speaker 2: Yes, the fearful avoidant is the most complex. They have
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Speaker 2: the most trait variability, meaning that like a dismissive avoidant
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Speaker 2: and an anxious preoccupied all have very similar traits within
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Speaker 2: that attachment style. So they're really easy to spot and
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Speaker 2: they're very easy to describe and to just you know,
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Speaker 2: figure out because they have low trait variability, where as
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Speaker 2: the fearful has high trate variability.
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Speaker 1: Right. And I do notice with a lot of your
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Speaker 1: followers if they're leaning more towards the fearful avoidant or
1:00
Speaker 1: the dismissive avoidant, they're kind of stuck in between where
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Speaker 1: they're like, I'm not really sure.
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Speaker 2: Which right, right, And that is very common because the
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Speaker 2: fearful avoidant has both an anxious side to their attachment
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Speaker 2: and an avoidance side, and they can oscillate between anxiety
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Speaker 2: and avoidance, and anxiety again makes you want to activate,
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Speaker 2: makes you want to pursue connection with people, especially your
1:23
Speaker 2: romantic partner. The avoidance side makes you push your romantic
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Speaker 2: partner away and isolate and shut down and do what
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Speaker 2: this is called deactivating, right, And so they can present
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Speaker 2: in a very disorganized way, which is why the term
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Speaker 2: disorganized attachment is an older term. In the research, we
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Speaker 2: now refer to the fearful avoidant as a fearful avoidant,
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Speaker 2: But disorganization is the hallmark of their approach to intimacy,
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Speaker 2: and so that's where that term came from. Disorganized. You know,
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Speaker 2: like one minute they may be actively chasing you and
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Speaker 2: pursuing connection and wanting intimacy. The next minute they're pushing
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Speaker 2: you away with drawing and isolating, and so it can
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Speaker 2: be quite confusing for the partners of fas to really
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Speaker 2: try to figure them out and pinpoint their behavior because
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Speaker 2: it's kind of ever changing and evolving depending upon the situation.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, so let's start from the beginning, Okay, Like we
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Speaker 1: have with all the other episodes where we've covered the
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Speaker 1: other attachment styles. I'm glad we left the fearful avoidant
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Speaker 1: for the last one because you know, we've covered the
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Speaker 1: anxious preoccupied in detail. We've covered the dismissive avoidant in detail.
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Speaker 1: So go back if you want to listen to those,
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Speaker 1: go back and listen to those, But.
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Speaker 2: Do because it will help you understand the fearful better.
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Speaker 1: It will, agreed, because I feel like the fearful kind
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Speaker 1: of has lots of qualities of both of those.
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Speaker 2: They do, Yeah, they do.
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Speaker 1: So let's start from the beginning. Let's talk about the
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Speaker 1: childhood of the fearful avoidance.
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Speaker 2: Yes, fearful avoidance is absolutely one hundred percent caused by
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Speaker 2: childhood attachment trauma. So a lot of people do not
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Speaker 2: understand or recognize that they experienced attachment trauma because when
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Speaker 2: we think of the word, we think of these big
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Speaker 2: life altering events like a parent passing away. Of course,
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Speaker 2: that's a trauma, right, We're being exposed to some kind
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Speaker 2: of severe abuse, that's a trauma. But we have traumas
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Speaker 2: known as little T traumas, which are usually not experiences
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Speaker 2: that are going to give you PTSD or CPTSD. But
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Speaker 2: when we have a lot of those little T traumas,
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Speaker 2: they start to kind of add up and their impact
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Speaker 2: can really grow the more of them that you have,
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Speaker 2: and usually fearful avoidance have a lot of little T traumas,
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Speaker 2: and then quite a few of them on the more
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Speaker 2: severe fearful avoidance side have some big TA traumas, like
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Speaker 2: they were exposed to abuse, domestic violence. You know, I've
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Speaker 2: never met somebody who has experienced sexual abuse as a
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Speaker 2: child and not had fearful avoidance attachment as a result.
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Speaker 2: I mean, that's the probably the most severe form of
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Speaker 2: abuse somebody can experience. And it's really really, really hot hard,
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Speaker 2: you know, to break that down for people that have
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Speaker 2: had those traumas, because of course it's very painful to
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Speaker 2: confront those things. But I guess my message here is
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Speaker 2: you don't have to look back at your childhood and
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Speaker 2: be like, oh, there was this horrendous thing that happened
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Speaker 2: to me. A lot of fearful avoidance come to me
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Speaker 2: and they're like, I just don't understand how this happened.
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Speaker 2: But then when I dig into the dynamics of their childhood,
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Speaker 2: maybe their parents fought a lot and sometimes you know,
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Speaker 2: they would yell at each other, and just the child,
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Speaker 2: you know, realize, oh, I can't go into the living room.
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Speaker 2: Mom and dad are yelling at each other, right, And
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Speaker 2: that's not something that they look back on and they're like, oh,
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Speaker 2: I have this traumatic childhood, but they don't realize that
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Speaker 2: the nervous system of a young child is going to
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Speaker 2: imprint things from those experiences, like love's really not safe
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Speaker 2: when you get close to people, it hurts because I
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Speaker 2: see mom and dad hurting right now right, Or when
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Speaker 2: you get close to people, they can be mean to
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Speaker 2: you or they you know, or love is chaotic, or
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Speaker 2: love is unsafe, you know. Those are the messages that
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Speaker 2: get imprinted when we have parents that are maybe too
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Speaker 2: emotionally reactive. Maybe we have one parent mixed in there
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Speaker 2: that's quite neglectful emotionally, that's more of a dismissive, avoidant parent, right,
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Speaker 2: But usually the hallmark is there's at least one parent
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Speaker 2: that has some fairly significant level of dysfunction. It's just
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Speaker 2: not always recognized right by the child if it's not
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Speaker 2: or even by the adult right reflecting on their childhood,
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Speaker 2: if it's not just this big traumatic experience of what
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Speaker 2: we would refer to as big T trauma. And so
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Speaker 2: what happens is when we're exposed to either a lot
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Speaker 2: of little T traumas or a lot of little T
5:38
Speaker 2: traumas with some big T trauma in there is that
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Speaker 2: the young child, and so you have to think about
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Speaker 2: attachment years really being from zero to five years old.
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Speaker 2: That is just where that foundation is built. And we
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Speaker 2: don't have great memories. I mean, our memories are pretty sketchy,
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Speaker 2: you know, skewed, yeah, before five years old, and so
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Speaker 2: those imprints took place when we might not be able
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Speaker 2: to look back and map them onto specific experiences, but
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Speaker 2: they imprint the child with this trust issue between themselves
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Speaker 2: and their parents. Like at some point these exposures to
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Speaker 2: these little tea or big t traumas made the child
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Speaker 2: look at one or both of their parents and go, oh, yeah,
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Speaker 2: you can't get it together and love me correctly, Like
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Speaker 2: you can't love me in a way that feels good
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Speaker 2: to me. And children have from a very young age.
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Speaker 2: This is in the science really well formed schemas around
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Speaker 2: the parent child relationship. And a schema is just this
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Speaker 2: idea of how's it supposed to go right, And so
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Speaker 2: the children you have to think about are exposed in school,
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Speaker 2: from television, from watching other families of like I'm supposed
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Speaker 2: to have a mommy and I'm supposed to have a daddy,
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Speaker 2: and they are supposed to love each other, and they're
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Speaker 2: supposed to really love me in sort of this unconditionally
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Speaker 2: supportive way.
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Speaker 1: Maybe it's imprinted in the womb, My God, it can't,
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Speaker 1: I mean, absolute nature versus nurture.
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Speaker 2: I one hundred percent believe that we are born to
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Speaker 2: love and be loved. We are born for connection. That
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Speaker 2: is wholly proven in the science, and I never use
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Speaker 2: the word prove almost, but when it comes to God,
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Speaker 2: you know, God designed us to love because He loves us,
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Speaker 2: and so every human has this innate built in to
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Speaker 2: their DNA desire for connection. But it's our experiences that
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Speaker 2: mess with that desire or make us incapable of fulfilling
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Speaker 2: those desires in a healthy way.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. My next question is really about relation, So relation
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Speaker 1: to mom and relation to dad, and what those types
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Speaker 1: of relationships can look like like real example.
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Speaker 2: Yes, So, I mean the science kind of shows us
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Speaker 2: that the same sex parent is usually the most influential, which,
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Speaker 2: like in my case, that's a good thing, right because
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Speaker 2: I have two girls, their dad had a lot of issues,
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Speaker 2: dad passed away.
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Speaker 1: That's interesting. See I didn't know that.
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Speaker 2: Mm hmmm. Yeah, just because when you look at modeling
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Speaker 2: and you look at you know, sex roles and the
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Speaker 2: development of sex roles. You know your child is going
8:18
Speaker 2: to look to the same sex parent and go, okay,
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Speaker 2: well what does it mean to be? Like your son
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Speaker 2: looks at his dad and goes, well, what does it
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Speaker 2: mean to be a man? Right? You know, what are
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Speaker 2: the duties of a man? What are the responsibilities of
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Speaker 2: a man? How is a man supposed to act? How
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Speaker 2: is he supposed to be? How is he supposed to
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Speaker 2: treat people? And it's not that you I'm not saying
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Speaker 2: you don't have any influence, Please don't worry about that, right,
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Speaker 2: But what I'm saying is, in terms of matching one's
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Speaker 2: sex role, right, the same sex parent is usually the
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Speaker 2: most influential, right of like what does it mean to
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Speaker 2: be this version? Right? When you're adopting those sex roles.
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Speaker 2: And of course, there's lots of topics and information we
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Speaker 2: could cover around gender and all of those things, but
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Speaker 2: I'm going to kind of skip over that because we
8:59
Speaker 2: could go to on a rabbit hole that would take
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Speaker 2: up a lot of time. So I know that there
9:03
Speaker 2: are exceptions, there are like gender issues that people would
9:06
Speaker 2: want to bring up around that, but I'm just going
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Speaker 2: to say I'm sorry I don't time to address this. Yeah,
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Speaker 2: stay tuned, stay tuned, But what I will say is
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Speaker 2: the schema is just shattered for the young child who
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Speaker 2: is realizing one love can really hurt because they're usually
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Speaker 2: watching not only the dysfunction between their own parents and
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Speaker 2: their romantic relationship, but then because those parents have this
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Speaker 2: dysfunction and their relationship is stressful, they're not able to
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Speaker 2: show up as good parents in a lot of ways.
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Speaker 2: And I'm not saying that these parents are always quote
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Speaker 2: bad parents or don't you know, love their children. They do.
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Speaker 2: My parents wholly loved me, and it can be true
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Speaker 2: that some of the things they did hurt me and
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Speaker 2: it imprinted me in negative ways.
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Speaker 1: In the coaching session with Rosarine Rose that two things
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Speaker 1: can be true.
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Speaker 2: It one, yeah, it can be true at once.
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Speaker 1: You know, she wanted to make sure that she stated
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Speaker 1: before she really opened up about her personal experiences that
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Speaker 1: you know, her parents, she felt like her parents really
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Speaker 1: loved heally, and I think we all felt like my
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Speaker 1: parents really loved me.
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Speaker 2: I know my dad loved me. My dad loved me
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Speaker 2: because there were times he would break down in tears
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Speaker 2: and tell me how much he loved me. But that
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Speaker 2: didn't mean that he had the capacity to override his
10:24
Speaker 2: bipolar disorder and not in like he had that like
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Speaker 2: his nervous system was wrecked. His nervous system was wrecked
10:32
Speaker 2: because he had so much childhood trauma. His mom was
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Speaker 2: very narcissistic, his dad was very narcissistic, and they had
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Speaker 2: this really like complex like narcissistic relationship of like competing
10:46
Speaker 2: with each other, right, like two narcissists together. Yeah, they
10:49
Speaker 2: understand each other in a weird way, but there's also
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Speaker 2: this weird dysfunction and competition. If you have that, and
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Speaker 2: then the child suffers the most because they're always focused
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Speaker 2: on the other person and not focused on the child.
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Speaker 2: If they are focused on the child, it's usually negative interactions. So,
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Speaker 2: you know, he didn't know how to cope with his
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Speaker 2: own childhood trauma. So he definitely had FA attachment. Plus
11:08
Speaker 2: you know, is debatable, but he was diagnosed with the
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Speaker 2: bipolar disorder. So I think sometimes fearful avoidant attachment does
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Speaker 2: get misdiagnosed as very significant mental health issues when it's
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Speaker 2: really an attachment issue, and the attachment issue is at
11:22
Speaker 2: the root of the further developing mental health issues. Right,
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Speaker 2: So if we fix attachment. I have so many people
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Speaker 2: that come back to me and they're like, I don't
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Speaker 2: have anxiety anymore. And that was me. I was a
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Speaker 2: former fearful avoidant. Remember how severe my anxiety used to be.
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Speaker 1: Well, And also it's magnified by your partner based on
11:37
Speaker 1: their attachments.
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Speaker 2: Absolutely right. So going back to childhood, they have childhood trauma.
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Speaker 2: The trauma imprints them with a trust wound. I cannot
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Speaker 2: trust my parents because they don't show up for me
11:49
Speaker 2: in a way that is sort of this unconditional, safe
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Speaker 2: loving place. Love is conditional, and love is hurtful with
11:56
Speaker 2: my parents sometimes right, not all the time, but sometimes,
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Speaker 2: And so those imprints of like love is chaotic, love
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Speaker 2: is unsafe, love is unstable, love can really hurt, really
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Speaker 2: imprints them with just this giant betrayal wound. Everybody will
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Speaker 2: ultimately betray you is a sort of the thing that
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Speaker 2: lives in the subconscious and those yes, even especially those
12:17
Speaker 2: that yeah right, And so you can imagine again this
12:20
Speaker 2: is all subconscious. It's not like these people are going
12:24
Speaker 2: onto the dating market going you know what, I really
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Speaker 2: I will never be able to trust anybody deep down.
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Speaker 2: And when I get with somebody, I'm going to test
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Speaker 2: their trust all the time. I'm going to be hyper
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Speaker 2: vigilant and look for all the ways that they're betraying me.
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Speaker 2: Nobody does that, but essentially that's what fearful of widants do.
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Speaker 2: They grow up and their trust wound creates pretty profound hypervigilants.
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Speaker 2: And when you think about it, it makes sense if
12:47
Speaker 2: you had an overly reactive parent or dysfunctional parents or
12:50
Speaker 2: parents that fought, you had to tune in and read
12:54
Speaker 2: their cues absolutely to determine can I be around mom?
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Speaker 2: Can I be around dad? Is it safe? Whether you
13:00
Speaker 2: understood you were doing that as a child or not,
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Speaker 2: most people don't understand they did that. You will then
13:06
Speaker 2: be supremely hypervigilant with your romantic partner. I mean, oh
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Speaker 2: my gosh, Donald can't even take a deep breath without
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Speaker 2: me being like attue to it, right, And my hypervigilance
13:17
Speaker 2: has never gone away, but I've learned to manage it.
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Speaker 2: I've learned to recognize it. Wow, I'm being really hypervigilant
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Speaker 2: right now, and I'm not responsible for his emotional experience.
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Speaker 2: So I need to take a step back and trust
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Speaker 2: that Donald can handle this right now, right, and if
13:31
Speaker 2: he needs me, I'm here. I will be supportive. I
13:33
Speaker 2: will I will lean in and give him what he needs.
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Speaker 2: But at the same time, I'm not going to be
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Speaker 2: so hypervigilant that I make it mean something big and
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Speaker 2: I jump in and try to fix it, and I
13:44
Speaker 2: create a problem from being hypervigilated, right, And so.
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Speaker 1: The layer can be a number of variables, right, I mean,
13:51
Speaker 1: I can think about it. Josh was just tired the
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Speaker 1: other day, and he's tired a lot because he's a
13:54
Speaker 1: police officer, and I just thought and he was edgy,
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Speaker 1: and I'm like, what's wrong? Is something wrong? Is something
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Speaker 1: He's like, It's just one of those days. So I
14:01
Speaker 1: just say, just back off, Just back off for sure,
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Speaker 1: let them breathe, give them some space.
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Speaker 2: That's right, and so fearful avoidance, though there are other
14:09
Speaker 2: they have, I hate to say it, so many challenges.
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Speaker 2: And I love the FA because you were an FA.
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Speaker 2: I'm an FA, I was an FA, my husband was
14:17
Speaker 2: an There's so many beautiful qualities of the FA. But
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Speaker 2: let's go with the downsides, and then let's let's end
14:23
Speaker 2: with the upsides, like okay, because it's like, let's get
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Speaker 2: the bad news out of the waver being positive, that's right.
14:30
Speaker 2: The bad news is one you're hypervigilant, which will mean
14:32
Speaker 2: that you are attuned to cues that you most normal
14:36
Speaker 2: people wouldn't be attuned to. And then two, when you
14:39
Speaker 2: get those cues, you immediately give them deep meaning that
14:42
Speaker 2: has the worst possible interpretation. So fearful avoidance because they're
14:49
Speaker 2: very quick to launch into their trauma responses because they
14:51
Speaker 2: have so many wounds. It's easy to step on a
14:54
Speaker 2: wound when you have a lot of them, right, So
14:57
Speaker 2: the fearful avoidance is very sensitive and very you easily
15:00
Speaker 2: triggered into their attachment traumas. And of course what are
15:04
Speaker 2: the attachment trauma responses fight flight, freezer, fun right, And
15:07
Speaker 2: so when you're triggered, you launch into one of those.
15:10
Speaker 2: And when you launch into those trauma responses, you lose
15:14
Speaker 2: your ability to be rational, to be empathetic, to be compassionate,
15:18
Speaker 2: to be mindful, and to desire true safe connection. When
15:23
Speaker 2: you're in a trauma response, it is a self defensive,
15:26
Speaker 2: self protective response, which means you lose your capacity to
15:32
Speaker 2: be that good partner. And so if you are someone
15:35
Speaker 2: who is very easily triggered, all the time. You are
15:38
Speaker 2: in a state of low capacity all the time. So
15:41
Speaker 2: fearful avoidance are always launching into irritation and frustration or
15:46
Speaker 2: bottling it up into a flight response and sort of
15:48
Speaker 2: panicking on the inside. Or the more avoidant ones will
15:53
Speaker 2: associate and push their partners away. So this can look
15:58
Speaker 2: a lot like being easily over sensitive and easily reactive,
16:03
Speaker 2: especially for the more anxious.
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Speaker 1: Water right, how I would describe the feld.
16:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they can be I always say there's a boiler,
16:11
Speaker 2: there's like this pressure cooker which is like the boiling pot,
16:15
Speaker 2: which is more me and you. We can identify with that,
16:18
Speaker 2: and then we have more of the deflated balloon. So
16:22
Speaker 2: the more anxious fearful avoidant can really launch into that
16:26
Speaker 2: fight response, because a fight response is a connection response.
16:30
Speaker 2: Even if it's a negative connection, it's still connection. It's
16:33
Speaker 2: still talking to your partner, right, even if you're angry, frustrated, irritated,
16:37
Speaker 2: and you're being reactive, it's still trying to seek connection. Sure,
16:42
Speaker 2: And so that comes from anxiety, right, And so what
16:47
Speaker 2: I call more anxious fearful avoidant who leans into the
16:50
Speaker 2: more anxious side of their attachment because they have more
16:52
Speaker 2: anxious wounds will often be like the deflated balloon. Like
16:56
Speaker 2: they're fighting, fighting, fighting, fighting, fighting, fighting, fighting, and then
16:59
Speaker 2: there comes a point where their biggest need to be seen,
17:02
Speaker 2: heard and understood, because that's the biggest need of the
17:04
Speaker 2: FA is not being met. Their partner is getting defensive
17:08
Speaker 2: or shutting down and not giving them any cues of
17:10
Speaker 2: attunement of I hear you, I see you, I understand you,
17:14
Speaker 2: which is where they feel like trust is right. And
17:17
Speaker 2: so then when they don't get that, they feel betrayed
17:19
Speaker 2: and they go into that fight fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight,
17:22
Speaker 2: and they will bring something up twenty times, thirty times,
17:26
Speaker 2: nailing it into the ground. I always say it's like
17:28
Speaker 2: those are the people that beat the dead horse and
17:29
Speaker 2: be read their partners, and then they give up. They
17:34
Speaker 2: have like a breaking point where they're like, this is hopeless.
17:36
Speaker 2: I'm not being heard, I'm not being seen no matter
17:39
Speaker 2: how many times I say it, You're just deflecting or
17:41
Speaker 2: blame shifting or shutting down. So I give up. And
17:44
Speaker 2: then that's when they move into their avoidant side. That's
17:46
Speaker 2: when they shut down and push the partner away. Then
17:49
Speaker 2: we have the pressure cooker, which tends to be a
17:52
Speaker 2: little bit more of the avoidant FA and I think
17:55
Speaker 2: that you know, we can sort of align with that
17:58
Speaker 2: sometimes where you take it in into a flight response,
18:02
Speaker 2: and a flight response is it can be an anxious
18:06
Speaker 2: response or or an avoidant response. It's a very mixed
18:09
Speaker 2: state because the flight response can have this tipping point
18:13
Speaker 2: where you are actually not saying anything because you're so
18:16
Speaker 2: anxious right that you're holding it in, holding it and
18:19
Speaker 2: holding it in, and you're so scared of how your
18:21
Speaker 2: partner is going to respond, or it can be a
18:24
Speaker 2: quick way to move up into dissociation. So it can
18:27
Speaker 2: just be this quick route into dissociation where I'm not
18:29
Speaker 2: going to start a fight, and I feel anxiety for
18:31
Speaker 2: a minute, and then I go and I start going
18:33
Speaker 2: up into freeze, which is dissociation. So that's more of
18:36
Speaker 2: like what the fearful that leans dismissive can kind of
18:40
Speaker 2: do sometimes. But other times what happens before they dissociate
18:45
Speaker 2: is they switch into their anxious side, which is the
18:47
Speaker 2: fight response. So they're the pressure cooker. I take it,
18:49
Speaker 2: I take it, I take it. I don't say anything.
18:52
Speaker 2: I don't say anything, I don't say an inside I'm
18:54
Speaker 2: like and you're seving on the inside, right, you're seving, yeah,
18:58
Speaker 2: and then it just explodes the straw that breaks the
19:01
Speaker 2: camel's back, the top blows off the pressure cooker, and
19:03
Speaker 2: then you just unleash into that fighters that's me into
19:08
Speaker 2: every potential negative thing that has been on your mind
19:12
Speaker 2: will then be put on the table. Right, So it
19:14
Speaker 2: can seem like to your partner, it can seem like, wow,
19:17
Speaker 2: I didn't even know all these things were going on,
19:20
Speaker 2: but you've just unleashed all these problems, right, And it
19:24
Speaker 2: can feel to the non FA partner, especially if you
19:27
Speaker 2: have a DA just like what your bro right, like
19:30
Speaker 2: completely overwhelmed. Andy're critical and fas are the most critical,
19:36
Speaker 2: so and that comes from their negativity bias. So think
19:40
Speaker 2: about it. It makes sense if you deep down believe
19:42
Speaker 2: everybody's going to betray you, you're always going to and
19:45
Speaker 2: you're hypervigilant. What do you think you're looking for in
19:47
Speaker 2: that hypervigilance, the bad everything, everything that you could consider
19:50
Speaker 2: a betrayal. Right, So for the fearful avoidance, it's always
19:54
Speaker 2: glass half empty, and their outlook on their relationship maybe
19:57
Speaker 2: not in life. They might have high optimst and like
20:00
Speaker 2: high trite optimism in real life, but inside of their
20:03
Speaker 2: relationship they have high trait pessimism. Right, and optimism and
20:09
Speaker 2: pessimism are actually two separate constructs. You can be highly
20:12
Speaker 2: optimistic in one area of life and highly pessimistic in
20:15
Speaker 2: another area of life because they're two separate constructs. So
20:19
Speaker 2: in the relationship, fearful avoidants are very pessimistic.
20:22
Speaker 1: Makes sense.
20:24
Speaker 2: It's like one bad interaction really really affects them, where
20:28
Speaker 2: there could be ten, twenty thirty positive things going on
20:31
Speaker 2: the relationship, but then there's this one bad area and
20:34
Speaker 2: the fearful of what it will just zoom in on
20:36
Speaker 2: it and really make it mean something big to them,
20:39
Speaker 2: because again, if you're searching for any evidence of betrayal,
20:42
Speaker 2: you're going to find it, and then you're going to
20:44
Speaker 2: latch onto it. But then to make matters worse, to
20:49
Speaker 2: make worse. Sorry, sorry, to be the breaker of bad news.
20:58
Speaker 2: Their strategies for trying to correct or approach those things
21:05
Speaker 2: that are hurting them are usually pretty dysfunctional and harder
21:11
Speaker 2: to take. So they do come at situations with high
21:15
Speaker 2: levels of criticism because they feel really justified in their
21:18
Speaker 2: pain to criticize because their pain feels so big. We
21:22
Speaker 2: said that the fearful of woitant is the deepest feeler.
21:25
Speaker 2: They feel so deeply, but they have high empathy, but
21:30
Speaker 2: it's almost dysfunctional empathy, like not all empathy is healthy empathy.
21:34
Speaker 2: And a lot of people don't know this. When you
21:37
Speaker 2: are so high empathy that you are feeling someone else's
21:40
Speaker 2: emotional experience intensely in your own body, you are in codependence.
21:46
Speaker 2: Because then again, remember what codependence is. I'm not okay
21:50
Speaker 2: unless you're okay. Well, that's really true if someone else's
21:53
Speaker 2: emotions are elictening physical sensations in your body and aren't
21:58
Speaker 2: sures enough right, and then the fearful is like, okay,
22:01
Speaker 2: my own emotions are not now, I'm feeling your emotions right.
22:04
Speaker 2: And then and then that's why they struggle so much
22:07
Speaker 2: with their own just emotional regulation. They're either actively feeling
22:12
Speaker 2: tons of anxiety or they're shutting down and pushing people away,
22:17
Speaker 2: and they're just living in these oscillating states of fight
22:21
Speaker 2: flight or freeze, and so it's exhausting, and they're exhausting, exhausted,
22:27
Speaker 2: and over time and again, I hate to say one
22:31
Speaker 2: more thing that's gonna be a breaker of bad news
22:33
Speaker 2: about the FA because I'm making them just sound like hopeless.
22:36
Speaker 2: They're not hopeless. I was a former raging FA and
22:39
Speaker 2: I am a success story too, so were you. And
22:41
Speaker 2: my goodness, we've grown, you know, light years into secure attachment.
22:45
Speaker 2: But they tend to choose really poor partners because remember again,
22:49
Speaker 2: our attachment blueprints are a self fulfilling prophecy. So if
22:53
Speaker 2: you believe that everybody will betray you, you are sure
22:56
Speaker 2: as hick going to find someone and be attracted to
23:00
Speaker 2: someone that will eventually betray you to confirm that that
23:02
Speaker 2: is in fact true. And what we really try to
23:05
Speaker 2: do is find somebody that confirms those wounds, but try
23:07
Speaker 2: to make it where we'll get a different ending to
23:10
Speaker 2: validate our own worth as lovable and worthy of love.
23:14
Speaker 2: And then what do we do. We just get betrayed
23:18
Speaker 2: again and it just reinforces all the wounds and we
23:21
Speaker 2: just repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, So fearful avoidance will pick
23:24
Speaker 2: other highly reactive fays or highly avoidant fays, very severe
23:29
Speaker 2: dismissive avoidance or narcissists, or people with mental health and
23:32
Speaker 2: substance abuse issues, so like pretty much the worst part
23:36
Speaker 2: of the worst pool of partners like they are fishing
23:38
Speaker 2: in the sewage pond. I hate to say it. I'm
23:41
Speaker 2: so sorry for your fALS It used to be me too.
23:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, and does it. I mean, it doesn't mean that
23:46
Speaker 1: you you have to heal fully in order to find
23:49
Speaker 1: a good partner. And I can think of a few
23:51
Speaker 1: fearful avoidance that I know that have good partners.
23:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, but but the thing of it is
23:56
Speaker 2: is like they were on the journey and their partner
23:59
Speaker 2: they found someone secure, and their partner just kind of
24:01
Speaker 2: helped usher the rest of them the rest of the
24:04
Speaker 2: way there.
24:04
Speaker 1: Yes, right, because I think that happens with Josh and Mere.
24:08
Speaker 2: And I think that was my husband, you know, like
24:11
Speaker 2: I think my husband if I would have been very
24:14
Speaker 2: messed up, I could have seen him taking a different path.
24:18
Speaker 2: But I think he worked so hard on himself and
24:20
Speaker 2: then he found like someone who can And I'm not
24:23
Speaker 2: giving myself all the credit and the relationship. My husband
24:26
Speaker 2: is a wonderful partner and he holds me accountable for
24:29
Speaker 2: the areas in which I still have to grow, because
24:32
Speaker 2: healing is a forever journey. It is not a like
24:34
Speaker 2: here's your certificate, you're done healed, like you're done, He'll
24:38
Speaker 2: go off and have that. Right. It is an ever learning,
24:42
Speaker 2: lifelong journey of awakening and acknowledgment and accountability and correction
24:48
Speaker 2: and decisive actions and grace and mercy for yourself and
24:52
Speaker 2: for your partner and figuring out more of what your
24:56
Speaker 2: boundaries are. It's just ever evolving, right. But I think
25:00
Speaker 2: my own marriage my husband came from two very toxic marriages,
25:07
Speaker 2: one with a DA partner, one with a narcissistic individual
25:11
Speaker 2: well who I personally believe is not a professional opinion,
25:13
Speaker 2: it's a personal viewpoint that this person is a covert narcissist.
25:17
Speaker 2: AnyWho can Neither of those relationships as an FA are
25:22
Speaker 2: going to work out. Well, the FA with the DA
25:25
Speaker 2: is just a perpetual cycle of pain and the lack
25:28
Speaker 2: of attunement, right, so complete abandonment wounds are going to
25:31
Speaker 2: come up in that relationship for the FA, and then
25:33
Speaker 2: with the narcissist, it's just going to be that fight
25:36
Speaker 2: to show your worry with and that toxic fighting, right,
25:39
Speaker 2: and just that toxic no. I want you, no, I
25:42
Speaker 2: can't take this. No, I want you know, I can't
25:43
Speaker 2: take this, And you know I think it took me
25:47
Speaker 2: just being able to really be willing to see here
25:52
Speaker 2: and understand him, and really be willing to take accountability
25:56
Speaker 2: on my pieces so that he did feel seen, heard,
25:58
Speaker 2: and understood when he brings something to the Because but
26:01
Speaker 2: what makes our relationship so beautiful as to heat relatively
26:04
Speaker 2: healed fas is that we still have the good parts
26:09
Speaker 2: of our attachment and it's really beautiful. Yeah, so I
26:12
Speaker 2: would like to talk about the good parts.
26:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, we know there's lots of them.
26:16
Speaker 2: Right, So, although your empathy may in some ways be dysfunctional,
26:21
Speaker 2: it also can be really beautiful, right because not everybody
26:24
Speaker 2: has the capacity to put themselves in someone else's shoes
26:28
Speaker 2: in the deep way that you do, and that brings
26:31
Speaker 2: beautiful love and understanding if you can utilize it and
26:34
Speaker 2: channel it in the right way where you can learn
26:36
Speaker 2: where your boundaries are with it, right Like, it can
26:40
Speaker 2: be beautiful if you if you don't self abandon when
26:45
Speaker 2: it gets to the point of dysfunction.
26:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're talking about this on the way here. Yes,
26:49
Speaker 1: boundaries with your empathy.
26:50
Speaker 2: Boundaries with your empathy, right like, empathy should come with boundaries.
26:54
Speaker 2: And I think where the fearful can get lost is
26:56
Speaker 2: like no I can I can't. I choose these really
27:00
Speaker 2: for partners, and then I can really put up with
27:02
Speaker 2: their bad behavior because I'm always like, well they had trauma,
27:05
Speaker 2: or well they have this in their lives or have
27:07
Speaker 2: they had that in that life? And I can love
27:09
Speaker 2: them out of it. And the FA always wants to
27:11
Speaker 2: be the fixer because a lot of times they would
27:13
Speaker 2: try to be the fixer with their parents.
27:15
Speaker 1: I'd be the superhero.
27:16
Speaker 2: They want to intervene and be like, don't fight parents,
27:18
Speaker 2: don't fight, guys, you love each other, or like let's
27:20
Speaker 2: smooth it over. They often intervened and were emotionally parentified.
27:25
Speaker 2: We've talked about emotional parentification before, where your parents. Emotional
27:31
Speaker 2: parentification is essentially when your parent brings you into adult
27:33
Speaker 2: conflict or adult emotions, right, and so a lot of
27:37
Speaker 2: FA's parents use them as a therapist. I know, minded
27:40
Speaker 2: check whether they understood or not inventing about the other
27:44
Speaker 2: parent as using your child as therapists.
27:46
Speaker 1: My mom never knew she was doing it.
27:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, my dad didn't either. My dad was the worst offender,
27:50
Speaker 2: my mom not as much. My dad very much would
27:56
Speaker 2: parentify me and use me as a therapist because my
27:59
Speaker 2: mom was da and so he didn't understand my mom,
28:01
Speaker 2: so he would be trying to like get some connection
28:03
Speaker 2: through me, some emotional connection through me that he couldn't
28:06
Speaker 2: get through my mom. That's right, So he you know,
28:10
Speaker 2: PRINDI fed me. But then that leads a child to
28:14
Speaker 2: grow up and feel very responsible for other people's emotions,
28:17
Speaker 2: and then that dysfunctional empathy that they have really brings
28:20
Speaker 2: them into a bad place because they're trying so hard
28:22
Speaker 2: to fix somebody else's emotions, and then their own emotional
28:25
Speaker 2: experience is so tied up in the other person's emotional experiences.
28:28
Speaker 2: Then they're completely overloaded with emotions. Right, And when you
28:31
Speaker 2: think about self regulation being a limited resource, your own
28:35
Speaker 2: emotions are taking from your bucket. Now someone else's emotions
28:38
Speaker 2: are kind of equally taking from the bucket, and then
28:40
Speaker 2: you have nothing. You're empty, and you're just going to
28:42
Speaker 2: be reactive. You're going to be living in those trauma responses.
28:45
Speaker 1: Empathy is only beautiful when you can set boundaries.
28:47
Speaker 2: To it with it, right, and when you know, like, Okay,
28:50
Speaker 2: I can see why you feel this way, and I
28:52
Speaker 2: feel it too, but at the same time, like I
28:54
Speaker 2: have to draw a line between where you where I
28:57
Speaker 2: end and you begin.
28:58
Speaker 1: Right, and your accountability, your.
29:00
Speaker 2: Accountability for regulating through your own troubles and emotional experiences. Right,
29:04
Speaker 2: And that's a hard thing to navigate, and you love
29:06
Speaker 2: someone very difficult, so fas deep feelers, big reactors. Now,
29:13
Speaker 2: I will say the more an FA is pushed into avoidance.
29:18
Speaker 2: And they will be pushed into avoidance for two reasons. One,
29:21
Speaker 2: if their partner is highly anxious. They tend to react
29:24
Speaker 2: in opposition to partner, So if partner's being highly anxious,
29:27
Speaker 2: they will go highly avoidant. Or if hopelessness has started
29:30
Speaker 2: to creep in the relationship, hopelessness for the FA will
29:33
Speaker 2: shut them down into an avoidance space and they will
29:35
Speaker 2: start associating more. Right. And I got to that place
29:39
Speaker 2: in my marriage where I was just like I don't care.
29:41
Speaker 2: I did too, I don't care.
29:42
Speaker 1: That's how I knew.
29:43
Speaker 2: It was like done, Yeah, don't care anymore. You're gonna
29:46
Speaker 2: cheat on me whatever, do whatever you want.
29:48
Speaker 1: It's like, I don't care. I just want you to
29:49
Speaker 1: leave me alone.
29:49
Speaker 2: Right. If you are at that space, it's hopelessness, it's
29:52
Speaker 2: creamed up, and it's time to go. Yeah, it's time.
29:54
Speaker 2: It's for sure, time to go. But then what happens
29:56
Speaker 2: to the fearful when the relationship starts to really disintegrate
30:00
Speaker 2: and their partner starts to go away. Guess what happens?
30:02
Speaker 1: They get anxious.
30:02
Speaker 2: They get anxious as soon as someone starts to disconnect
30:05
Speaker 2: or pull away, maybe even because the fearful of when
30:09
Speaker 2: it chosen and said I want you to go away, right,
30:10
Speaker 2: they'll push somebody away and then regret it. And what
30:12
Speaker 2: did I do? Oh my gosh, I need them back.
30:14
Speaker 1: Wait, you're not chasing after me?
30:15
Speaker 2: No, oh my gosh. And that's what I did with
30:17
Speaker 2: my DA boyfriend was I broke up with them several
30:20
Speaker 2: different times, just as a protest of like, no, you
30:25
Speaker 2: need to get it together. And maybe if I break
30:27
Speaker 2: up with you, you'll see how much you're missing out on
30:30
Speaker 2: and you'll want to come back and chase me. And
30:32
Speaker 2: then when he didn't, I would be like, because das
30:35
Speaker 2: don't really chase.
30:36
Speaker 1: So let's talk about that, because I think that's really important.
30:38
Speaker 1: The difference between boundaries setting and protest behavior.
30:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a confusing one.
30:43
Speaker 1: It is very confusing because it's more of a feeling,
30:47
Speaker 1: right yes, of knowing like, hey, I'm gonna be okay
30:50
Speaker 1: if I set this boundary right and they don't react
30:52
Speaker 1: the way that I want them to the boundary, And
30:54
Speaker 1: that's just more of an answer, right, It's not a okay.
30:58
Speaker 1: I needed you to do this and stay right.
31:00
Speaker 2: So the difference between a protest and a boundary is
31:02
Speaker 2: a protest. You're doing it in order to get your
31:07
Speaker 2: partner to do something right. So when I would break
31:10
Speaker 2: up with my ex boyfriend, I would break up with
31:13
Speaker 2: him because I wanted him to feel lost and wanted
31:16
Speaker 2: him to go No, I really want to be with you.
31:19
Speaker 2: Don't leave me. I'll change my behavior. Right, But then
31:23
Speaker 2: I didn't like I even knew breaking up with the
31:27
Speaker 2: DA was like the bad idea, right. I even had
31:29
Speaker 2: that knowledge, But I couldn't stop myself right because my
31:31
Speaker 2: dysfunctional attachment just overrode all of my knowledge, which is
31:35
Speaker 2: why knowledge isn't enough. A boundary is saying you know what,
31:39
Speaker 2: I'm done with the relationship, and whether you chase me
31:41
Speaker 2: or not, I'm still done because this isn't serving me,
31:44
Speaker 2: it's not meeting my needs, it's not healthy for me.
31:48
Speaker 2: And so it's like whatever you decide to do is fine,
31:51
Speaker 2: because I'm going to do this right. It's like you
31:53
Speaker 2: do this, you do A. I'm going to do B,
31:55
Speaker 2: but I'm not doing B to get you to somehow
31:58
Speaker 2: come around and do C.
32:00
Speaker 1: And if you do, see, I don't immediately just drop
32:02
Speaker 1: that boundary, right, You kind of have to prove it.
32:04
Speaker 2: To me, right, exactly, Like the boundary has got to
32:07
Speaker 2: stand firm and there has to be more than words
32:10
Speaker 2: to get me to renegotiate that boundary. I always don't.
32:13
Speaker 2: I don't even like to say drop a boundary. I
32:15
Speaker 2: don't want people to drop a boundary. You renegotiate based
32:18
Speaker 2: on your partner's commitment and willingness to engage in repair
32:24
Speaker 2: and fulfillment of your own needs and the relationship.
32:26
Speaker 1: It's a big one.
32:28
Speaker 2: Yeah. So the fays they just they, I mean, okay,
32:34
Speaker 2: good things. Empathy, high emotional intelligence, high EQ, which again
32:42
Speaker 2: that comes from their empathy, but it also helps them
32:45
Speaker 2: become successful in complex ways. So I see a lot
32:50
Speaker 2: of fays that are killing it in industries that require
32:55
Speaker 2: high people skills because they're hyper vigilant, they study people,
32:59
Speaker 2: they understand people, they understand their own emotions, fearful avoidance,
33:02
Speaker 2: tend to as long as they haven't been pushed into dismissive,
33:06
Speaker 2: the dismissive side from like a really early age. The
33:09
Speaker 2: majority of fays high EQ, which makes them navigate complex
33:14
Speaker 2: social situations well right, and that can really bring you
33:19
Speaker 2: far in a lot of different careers. Look at us,
33:23
Speaker 2: Look at us. It is I mean, my dysfunction finally
33:29
Speaker 2: got me somewhere right. No, but I had to heal
33:32
Speaker 2: that dysfunction because I had to learn to be able
33:34
Speaker 2: to not take the hits, not take the rejections so personally,
33:41
Speaker 2: or catastrophize things. Right, So, fearful avoidance. They can go
33:46
Speaker 2: out and be superstars, but they come home and suffer
33:48
Speaker 2: silently because they will they will harp on say one
33:51
Speaker 2: negative interaction or something that didn't go well or a
33:53
Speaker 2: piece of critical feedback. They'll take it so hard. Well,
33:56
Speaker 2: I'm think about I mean, they have a lot of shame.
33:58
Speaker 1: It's called fear full avoidance. Yes, you know there's there
34:02
Speaker 1: can be a lot of fear monging from them.
34:04
Speaker 2: Yeah mongering, yeah for sure. Like, and you bring up
34:07
Speaker 2: such a good point because with it, we really need
34:12
Speaker 2: to point this out. And this is I'm really glad
34:14
Speaker 2: you brought that up. The dismissive avoidant avoids due to overwhelm,
34:20
Speaker 2: and the fearful avoidant avoids to fear right right, So
34:24
Speaker 2: think about like I'm gonna the dismissive is like I'm overwhelmed,
34:28
Speaker 2: so I'm going to dismiss it right like, I'm just
34:30
Speaker 2: not even going to think about it. I can't even
34:31
Speaker 2: think about this right now. I'm just gonna compartmentalize. I'm
34:33
Speaker 2: just gonna push it away, like I just don't have
34:35
Speaker 2: time for this right now. That's the dismissive avoidant. That's
34:38
Speaker 2: why they back away, because their wounds around intimacy, commitment, conflict, resolution, meeting,
34:45
Speaker 2: people's expectations just get so high, so attached to the partner,
34:48
Speaker 2: so they associate, they push it away. I can't deal
34:50
Speaker 2: with this right now. The fearful desperately wants connection, but
34:54
Speaker 2: they're competing with their real fear of being betrayed, and
34:58
Speaker 2: they find reasons to feel but all the time, and
35:01
Speaker 2: to feel hurt all the time. They're over sensitive to
35:04
Speaker 2: cues of space or misattunement or rejection, and so then
35:09
Speaker 2: they take that and even though in the moment they
35:11
Speaker 2: may be able to navigate it beautifully, like in a
35:14
Speaker 2: work situation or something. But then they come home and
35:16
Speaker 2: they just beat themselves to death over maybe where they
35:19
Speaker 2: misstepped or on some negative comment or feedback they got.
35:23
Speaker 2: Their shame will just overtake.
35:25
Speaker 1: They create narratives where the narrative doesn't even exist.
35:28
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, absolutely, And I've been very guilty of that.
35:31
Speaker 2: My husband lovingly pointed out to me the other day
35:34
Speaker 2: that I still have a fearful avoidant trait that comes
35:37
Speaker 2: out when I read into text messages. So text messages
35:41
Speaker 2: should be kind of inherently unless the words are very congrete,
35:44
Speaker 2: inherently neutral in tone. Yeah, because you can't read a tone. Yeah,
35:47
Speaker 2: I will always give the most negative and I'll be
35:52
Speaker 2: like this text me and said okay, you know, as
35:55
Speaker 2: I was like, well maybe it was just okay, and
35:57
Speaker 2: I'm like no, it felt like okay, shall I do this?
36:01
Speaker 2: I know, and I'm and my husband's like, girl, like
36:05
Speaker 2: I think you your your your FA hypervigilance and like
36:08
Speaker 2: misattunement of the message is a little bit there when
36:11
Speaker 2: it comes to texting. Fearful avoidant partners are very sensitive
36:16
Speaker 2: to perceived misattunement, which is like maybe perceived rejection or
36:21
Speaker 2: perceived negative you know, vibes from their partner were perceived
36:29
Speaker 2: like space that their partner's creating, and they always give
36:34
Speaker 2: it the worst meaning, meaning like you did this intentionally
36:38
Speaker 2: to hurt me, You are being a hurtful person. It's
36:41
Speaker 2: really they are the kings and queens of the fundamental
36:43
Speaker 2: attribution error, which is taking somebody's negative behavior and attributing
36:49
Speaker 2: it to their character versus a situation. Right, Like, your
36:52
Speaker 2: partner may come in and have had a really stressful
36:54
Speaker 2: day and they may say something that sounds kind of rude.
36:57
Speaker 2: The fearful avoidan will be like, you're a jerk, right, yeah,
37:01
Speaker 2: instead of being like, oh, I'm curious what happened, Like
37:05
Speaker 2: what could be going on with you? Right? And so
37:08
Speaker 2: when we get into that secure attachment and we have
37:10
Speaker 2: that felt sense of safety, our nervous system allows us
37:13
Speaker 2: to be curious versus assumptive, and the fearful is very,
37:17
Speaker 2: very assumptive, and those assumptions are horribly negative about their party.
37:21
Speaker 1: To whole text thread like this, I'll read my part
37:23
Speaker 1: and I already like very calm and collective, and then
37:25
Speaker 1: I'll read the other person's part and it's like.
37:31
Speaker 2: I mean, that's just again, when you become securely attached.
37:35
Speaker 2: Not all of your attachment behaviors go away. It's learning
37:39
Speaker 2: to have the accountability and the self awareness to be like, oh,
37:43
Speaker 2: there it is. Let me back down from that one.
37:46
Speaker 2: Let me take a step back from that one.
37:48
Speaker 1: Let me think about that other person's perspective. Right.
37:50
Speaker 2: Let me again cultivate my sense felt sense of safety
37:54
Speaker 2: in my body and rationalize my thinking. Here. Let me
37:58
Speaker 2: turn my frontal low bond and take a step back
38:01
Speaker 2: and put that pause there. Yeah, the insecure attachments, there's
38:04
Speaker 2: no pause. It's right into trauma responding for all of them,
38:07
Speaker 2: the anxious, preoccupied, the dismissive, and the fearful. It's all
38:10
Speaker 2: launched straight into trauma response and then secure it's the
38:14
Speaker 2: space to go hold on, let me ground myself. Like
38:18
Speaker 2: it's I don't know what show or movie it's from,
38:21
Speaker 2: but there was one where Jennifer Aniston's like, I'm going
38:26
Speaker 2: to step out of the puddle, Like my anger is
38:28
Speaker 2: a puddle, let me step out of it, like and
38:30
Speaker 2: where she cultivates that pause, she interrupts her own negative
38:33
Speaker 2: like anger and she's like hold up, no, and she
38:37
Speaker 2: actually like has this moment of awareness that she may
38:41
Speaker 2: be overreacting, and she just calms herself down and she
38:44
Speaker 2: regrounds herself, and then she makes herself of it, and
38:47
Speaker 2: that inherently makes you more available for connection.
38:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, and compassion and compassion.
38:51
Speaker 2: Yes, the prefrontal cortex, when your nervous system is safe,
38:55
Speaker 2: turns on to compassion, empathy, mindfulness, openness, all of the
38:59
Speaker 2: beautiful things. If you don't believe me, go to Google.
39:02
Speaker 2: Type in Steve Porges p O r ges poly vaguel
39:07
Speaker 2: theory and it will come up with the nervous system chart,
39:10
Speaker 2: which is this is the theory that is pretty much
39:12
Speaker 2: most accepted in nervous science, nervous system science, or i
39:15
Speaker 2: should say neuroscience, around how the nervous system responds to attachment, trauma,
39:20
Speaker 2: threats and triggers. And so you can see the fight,
39:23
Speaker 2: the fight, the fleet, the freeze. I'm tripping over my
39:26
Speaker 2: words today. I apologize everyone. It's been Christmas break Okay.
39:32
Speaker 2: So there, you know, when you're launched into fight flight freeze, fawn,
39:37
Speaker 2: you just lose the capacity for connection, You lose the
39:39
Speaker 2: capacity to be open, you lose the capacity for patients,
39:42
Speaker 2: You lose your capacity for empathy, you lose your capacity
39:46
Speaker 2: for connectiveness, mindfulness, et cetera. That's why secure attachment is
39:51
Speaker 2: all about learning to train your nervous system towards safety
39:54
Speaker 2: so that you can insert the pause right and be like, oh,
39:58
Speaker 2: let me switch out of my emotional brain and into
40:02
Speaker 2: my rational, controlled, executive function brain, right that can hold
40:07
Speaker 2: two perspectives at the same time without freaking out right.
40:11
Speaker 2: Whereas the fearful avoidant is like where their biggest need
40:14
Speaker 2: is to be seen, heard and understood. Man, if they
40:16
Speaker 2: aren't getting that feedback, it just feels like a knife
40:19
Speaker 2: in their betrayal wound, and they will just double and
40:23
Speaker 2: triple down on their reaction to that because you're trampling
40:28
Speaker 2: on literally their biggest need. And of course they're with
40:30
Speaker 2: partners that can't see here and understand them, because they
40:33
Speaker 2: pick the most insecure of all the insecure people. And
40:36
Speaker 2: then it just reinforces the.
40:38
Speaker 1: Snowballs yet again. I would say that the majority of
40:41
Speaker 1: the people that come to you and your practice are our.
40:44
Speaker 2: FA because they have the most pain. So it's you know,
40:47
Speaker 2: there is science, new science. It's showing that we have
40:50
Speaker 2: an increase of fearful avoidant attachment by like fifty to
40:54
Speaker 2: sixty percent. Really in the population.
40:57
Speaker 1: What do you think that is.
40:58
Speaker 2: I think we had a lot of das, Like the
41:04
Speaker 2: Greatest Generation very DA, right. The Greatest Generation raised the
41:09
Speaker 2: Boomers Boomers very DA. Then the Boomers started raising Gen xers.
41:17
Speaker 2: Gen Xers were latch key kids. They were very emotionally neglected,
41:21
Speaker 2: but they were pissed about it. They were so mad
41:25
Speaker 2: about the neglect, right. So I think then we started
41:29
Speaker 2: seeing some fearfuls in the Gen X well.
41:31
Speaker 1: And I think the divorce rates.
41:33
Speaker 2: Yes, Another thing is the Boomers had higher divorce rates.
41:37
Speaker 2: Women in the workforce, women were more independent, so there
41:40
Speaker 2: was more divorce. Divorce is a trauma, attachment trauma. You know,
41:45
Speaker 2: not to say that you shouldn't divorce, Listen. I'm all
41:48
Speaker 2: about saving a marriage if we can save it, but
41:50
Speaker 2: sometimes divorce is the best step. It's a well handled divorce, though,
41:55
Speaker 2: that needs to be your goal. We have poorly handled
41:58
Speaker 2: divorces between parents who just I hate to say this,
42:03
Speaker 2: but there's a lot of emotionally immature Boomers. Yeah, because
42:06
Speaker 2: they were just raised by people who just didn't deal
42:08
Speaker 2: with emotions at all, and then they were raising these
42:11
Speaker 2: Gen X kids that they were then pushing back. You know,
42:14
Speaker 2: the gen X was the angry generation, like the forgotten,
42:17
Speaker 2: like you forgot about us, you're neglecting us, Like this
42:19
Speaker 2: is crap. And then the gen xers started having the
42:23
Speaker 2: millennials or like the older like the younger boomers started
42:28
Speaker 2: having millennials, and then we had this huge pendulum swing
42:31
Speaker 2: towards self esteem building. And unfortunately we did that all wrong,
42:37
Speaker 2: where we thought just telling the kids how great they
42:40
Speaker 2: were and hovering over them was going to fix the
42:42
Speaker 2: anger problem of the Gen xers, which it didn't. It
42:45
Speaker 2: just made them narcissistic because what we really were missing
42:50
Speaker 2: was true emotional regulation and true attachment security and attunement.
42:55
Speaker 2: So I think the angry gen X kids raised a
42:57
Speaker 2: lot of fearful avoidance, and fearful avoidance are raising a
43:02
Speaker 2: generation that they are so handicapped by technology. Yes, like
43:10
Speaker 2: we even see in twenty ten. Twenty eleven was the
43:15
Speaker 2: last group of little babies and toddlers that didn't have
43:18
Speaker 2: iPhones after like twenty eleven. See, my kid was a
43:22
Speaker 2: toddler with an iPhone. I mean she's never own iPhone, right,
43:25
Speaker 2: but she'd be like, I wanna pay mommy's phone, like
43:28
Speaker 2: play games or like and even though they were like
43:31
Speaker 2: learning games and learning ABC's and mouth games and stuff,
43:34
Speaker 2: and I thought I was doing right.
43:35
Speaker 1: With this level of disassociation.
43:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was still dissociating, right, And like we just
43:40
Speaker 2: were hit. We had no warning of what the smartphone
43:44
Speaker 2: generation was going to do to our kids.
43:45
Speaker 1: And it is just so, what about the gen z ors,
43:47
Speaker 1: what's gonna.
43:48
Speaker 2: Oh, their mental health is in the garbage can. It
43:51
Speaker 2: is in the absolute and there is study after study
43:53
Speaker 2: after study after study that they're they are the most
43:58
Speaker 2: connected generation through technology, but the most anxious and depressed
44:01
Speaker 2: generation because they did not have a play based childhood.
44:04
Speaker 2: It a technology based childhood and play based childhoods. We've
44:08
Speaker 2: got to start implementing play based childhoods again because that
44:10
Speaker 2: is how we learn social interaction. That's how we learn
44:12
Speaker 2: problem solving with other people. It's how we learn how
44:15
Speaker 2: to navigate social situations. And it builds our social self
44:19
Speaker 2: concept and our social self esteem I should say, actually
44:21
Speaker 2: not self concept, but.
44:23
Speaker 1: And community is one thing that community is hu reach
44:26
Speaker 1: to longevity.
44:26
Speaker 2: And it leads to your nervous system feeling safe because
44:30
Speaker 2: at the heart of our nervous system feeling safe is
44:32
Speaker 2: this parent knowing that we need to be connected to survive. Yeah,
44:37
Speaker 2: there's actually a theory called need to belong and need.
44:40
Speaker 2: The need to belong theory suggests that self esteem is
44:42
Speaker 2: sort of a barometer for how safe we are in
44:45
Speaker 2: our social situations in our social group, right, And so
44:51
Speaker 2: having this low self esteem is really a barometer for
44:54
Speaker 2: not feeling safe in community or in connection to others.
44:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the favoral struggles. Look at the work that
45:00
Speaker 1: you're doing. You're changing the trajectory of this for so
45:05
Speaker 1: many people. And again I say it all the time,
45:08
Speaker 1: but you're saving the world and I'm so happy to
45:11
Speaker 1: be a small part of it.
45:12
Speaker 2: So the very last thing that I want to say,
45:13
Speaker 2: because I know this will go over a little bit,
45:16
Speaker 2: is just that another really beautiful thing about the fearful avoidant,
45:20
Speaker 2: besides their empathy and their high EQ and they navigate
45:23
Speaker 2: social situations well, is that they are fighters. They're resilient. Man.
45:28
Speaker 2: These are the people that have had trauma since childhood,
45:31
Speaker 2: and they are used to clawing their way out of
45:33
Speaker 2: the depths of hell, and they may continue to perpetuate
45:37
Speaker 2: their own negative cycles, but they also tend to find
45:40
Speaker 2: a way to still keep.
45:41
Speaker 1: Going yeah, you know Atful, it.
45:45
Speaker 2: Is a beautiful thing. They have a lot of grit.
45:47
Speaker 1: That's why they're so successful.
45:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, they have a lot of grit, but unfortunately their
45:53
Speaker 2: grit wasn't given to them in a way that was
45:57
Speaker 2: this gift of like, hey, I'm this loving, attuned parent,
46:00
Speaker 2: but let me also help you solve your own problems
46:03
Speaker 2: in a way that promotes your grit. It was let
46:06
Speaker 2: me throw you into the.
46:07
Speaker 1: Fire right and into the line.
46:08
Speaker 2: You just had to, out of desperation, find the grit
46:12
Speaker 2: and call your way out right.
46:14
Speaker 1: We want to think a new affiliate of our podcast Armor.
46:18
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46:23
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46:34
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46:37
Speaker 2: Yeah. I've just got on board with it because I
46:40
Speaker 2: noticed that your hair was growing in so nicely, and
46:44
Speaker 2: I was like, what are you using And You're like,
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Speaker 2: you turned me onto Armor clostrum and I started reading
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46:54
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Speaker 2: benefits of colost And your second brain is in your gut.
47:02
Speaker 2: You have actually more nurow transmitters in your gut than
47:05
Speaker 2: you do just about anywhere else, and so a healthy
47:08
Speaker 2: gut is a healthy brain. And so if you are
47:11
Speaker 2: experiencing growth and healing from attachment trauma, a great, great,
47:18
Speaker 2: great adjunct will be to do some gut healing work
47:21
Speaker 2: alongside of that. And I think Arma's is just a
47:22
Speaker 2: great product. I've noticed that the tummy issues I did
47:26
Speaker 2: have left over from my trauma, which were fewer and
47:28
Speaker 2: far between, but they're non existent now. Yeah, since I've
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47:33
Speaker 2: So we just want to thank Armor. And if you
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47:43
Speaker 1: Well, I think that this episode is really going to
47:47
Speaker 1: touch a lot of people, and I'm so glad that
47:49
Speaker 1: we talked about the fearful avoidance. Yeah, because honestly, the
47:53
Speaker 1: whole time you were talking ABO was I felt like
47:54
Speaker 1: you were talking about me.
47:56
Speaker 2: You've come along way. I've known you long enough to
47:58
Speaker 2: see the change.
48:00
Speaker 1: Definitely have. But like you said, you know, we all
48:02
Speaker 1: there's nothing. There's no such thing as one hundred percent secure.
48:05
Speaker 2: There isn't I'm not one hundred percent. Yeah, nobody is
48:07
Speaker 2: only Jesus. That's right, only Jesus.
48:10
Speaker 1: And so grace is a big part of what you
48:12
Speaker 1: have to show yourself as you're on your journey to heal.
48:15
Speaker 1: And if you are on your journey to heal, please
48:18
Speaker 1: go visit doctor Hensley's website at the Datingdecoder dot com.
48:22
Speaker 1: Check out all of her services there. Of course, it
48:25
Speaker 1: is the new year we are willing to We are
48:27
Speaker 1: somewhat into twenty twenty five, and if you are looking
48:30
Speaker 1: for this year to be your year to truly heal,
48:35
Speaker 1: then there is no better time than to go to
48:37
Speaker 1: her website, check out her services, check out her hybrid
48:40
Speaker 1: group program or her one on ones check out Coach Elizabeth.
48:44
Speaker 1: We also have you know a new course that's about
48:47
Speaker 1: to launch. We promise, Okay, we promise. Yes, we're launching
48:51
Speaker 1: lots of new things merch we'll be launched this year.
48:54
Speaker 2: Yes, and we're rebranding. The Dating Decoder name is going
48:57
Speaker 2: to be phasing out, so don't freak out if you
49:00
Speaker 2: don't see that name. Look for the Love Doc Relationship
49:03
Speaker 2: Coaching because that just is more of a true title
49:06
Speaker 2: of what I do now and so we're excited about
49:09
Speaker 2: the rebrand. So thank you guys so much for listening.
49:11
Speaker 2: We love you all so too.
49:12
Speaker 1: And please continue to listen, like leave a review. We
49:15
Speaker 1: really take your reviews into consideration. We appreciate that, Yes
49:17
Speaker 1: we love each open, yes we absolutely are, and we
49:21
Speaker 1: just appreciate each and every one of you so much,
49:23
Speaker 1: and please, until next time, peace, love, and perspective