Latest / Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce / 103. The Attachment Series: Fear AND Longing in Close Relationships? Disorganized Attachment Style Explained

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103. The Attachment Series: Fear AND Longing in Close Relationships? Disorganized Attachment Style Explained · Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce

• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Hi love, we are back with our attachment style series and today we are tackling something a little close to home for me, which is a disorganized Attachment style.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Mom, dad, if you're listening, this might be a great time to turn it off.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: In all seriousness, I want you to take a breath for a moment and try to get a felt sense of what I'm going to share.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: This Episode is for the woman or man but woman who has experienced the felt sensation of I hate you, please don't leave me.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: I Hate you, please don't leave me.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: That push and pull, that internal, highly distressing push and pull, is Disorganized attachment and it's what we're unpacking today in the pod.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Hi love, welcome to Dear divorce diary, the podcast helping divorcee's go beyond talk therapy to process your grief, find the healing you crave and build back your confidence.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, dawn Wiggins, a therapist, coach, integrative healer and divorcee.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Join me for a fresh approach to healing grief and building your confidence after divorce.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: In today's episode, we are gonna unpack what a disorganized attachment style is and how it comes to be.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: We're also gonna talk a little bit about my theory that this particular attachment style is is Probably what a lot of our children of divorce experience like maybe Disproportionately right, and and I don't have data to point to other than my clinical experience and what I see out there and so if our kids of divorce are more susceptible to this, the reasons that you have to hope and the things that you can do to mediate that.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: We're also gonna talk about why it's so essential for disorganized detachers to heal in community and and if you've been around, you've heard me talk a good bit about why I think talk therapy doesn't work.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: But I do want to talk a little bit today about why talk therapy can be very effective for disorganized Attachers for certain things.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Right, it is particularly effective For disorganized detachers to get regulated, and we'll talk about why.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: I want to read to you a quote from the book the Attachment Effect, and I'll put the link to the book in the show notes.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: But, as the author, peter Lovenheim, is unpacking so beautifully all the pieces of various attachment styles and their development, he did a lot of interfacing with researchers.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Right, he spoke with researchers, he read a lot of research, and here is one of the things he shared within the book that is so powerful.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: He was talking about the research done by Bert Powell and his colleagues, and this is what they said For the disorganized attacher their fear is insolvable, because the source of their security is also the source of their fear.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: Children have a four million year old instinct to run away from what frightens them and a four million year old instinct to run toward their caregiver when they are frightened.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: When what is frightening them is the caregiver, they are stuck, caught in a bind of wanting to go toward and go away at the same time.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: It's not just overt abuse, such as hitting, that can cause this degree of fright, but there are also other behaviors, especially with infants, that can be frightening and startling.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: That was just such a powerful quote, right.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: I would like to talk today about some of the nuances of how, in particular, my disorganized attachment style came to pass.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: Because it's not just overt abuse, for sure.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: Because I think that we've learned over the years that when there's overt abuse, it's very easy to put that in a category and to know I'm being abused and to know that I'm not safe.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: It's very clear, right, when things are good, they're good, and when they're bad, they're bad.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: But there are a lot of forms of psychological and emotional abuse that can create boatloads of fear that are far more subtle and insidious and hard.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: We call them gaslighting various things, but they're a lot harder to heal from because they're a lot harder to pin down and point out and to defend or be sure of.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: I want to get into some of those today as well because, well, it all connects the disorganized attachment both longs for and craves connection with their loved ones.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: Obviously, we're acknowledging that an attachment style is formed in early childhood, but then we then play it out with our loved ones, primarily our spouses, definitely our children, our best friends, our coworkers, our bosses you name it, god, et cetera.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: So when I'm talking about how it's developed, know that I'm saying that this, then what was developed, becomes what we're drawn to subconsciously down the road right.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: So for a disorganized attachment, there were elements of probably neglect, probably inconsistent responsiveness, like we've talked about.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Right, avoidant attachments have experienced some neglect.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: Disorganized attachments experienced inconsistency.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Disorganized attachments experienced probably both of those things but also a lot of fear from their caregivers, and that fear may have been violence or abuse, but it may also have been psychological or emotional manipulation or abuse that caused the child to both crave and fear at the same time.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: So for a disorganized attachment, they are far more likely to attract a partner down the road who is going to also create fear.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: And so I want to acknowledge up front in this episode that, statistically speaking, if you are listening to this episode and you are feeling all types of ways about it right now, it is more likely that you are a woman not that this doesn't happen to men but that you are a woman who experienced some forms of abuse in your marriage and that then there is trauma to heal from from this marriage and divorce.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: Not every divorce is traumatic.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: Not every negative experience in life created a trauma, but for disorganized attachments there is a strong likelihood that there is very real trauma that needs to be deeply healed, and talk therapy alone is not going to do that deep healing.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: Now let me acknowledge something that I mentioned a few minutes ago at the front of the episode Talk therapy feels really good for disorganized attachments, and that's because disorganized detachers have developed more well-defined what we call in psychology layers or parts of self.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: Now a lot of my clients get really freaked out when I start talking about parts of self, because they start to feel like, oh God, am I crazy?
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: And people know I'm crazy, and they start thinking of things like multiple personality disorder and schizophrenia, right.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: And so when I start talking about parts, people get real skittish, right.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: So let me tell you that if you're a disorganized tatcher, well, we all have parts of self, right.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: Part psychology is a modern concept that was developed in the 70s, you know, and that research has been going on and on.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: So we all have parts of self young parts, you know, angry parts, you name it.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: But really getting to understand those parts and understand how abuse and attachment trauma and having a disorganized attachment style means that for you to become familiar with this language about parts is going to be essential to your healing process.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: So I will map out for you how parts and internal family systems, aka parts, works as we talk today.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: But let me say a little bit about talk therapy and why it feels so good.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: So, when we have parts of self where one feels scared and one feels mad and one feels hopeful and one feels defeated, each of those layers of our self needs a different acknowledgement, needs a different validation and maybe has a different strategy for how to deal with the situation, right?
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: I often use this example, like, on the one hand, I want to eat the cookie dough and on the other hand, I don't want the calories, right?
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: That's literally, I think, one of the least threatening examples of parts of self right, where we have inside of us two conflicting thoughts, feelings or beliefs about how to handle what comes next.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: And so when you're in talk therapy and you're talking about what was going on with your ex and your kids and all the things, and you have a cacophony of voices inside of you right, where one of you wants to slash his tires and one of you just wants to cry and one of you just wants to run away with your children and one of you right.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: And there's all these different parts going on inside of you.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: When you're sitting in a talk therapy session with a really compassionate, intuitive therapist, that therapist is going to acknowledge each of those parts of you and is going to validate it.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: And by the time that session is over, you're going to feel more grounded, more integrated, and every part of you will have felt seen, heard and like they matter.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: And that's why, oftentimes disorganized attachments who have had a lot of fear and insecurity really feel very good participating in talk therapy because it helps them really untangle the ball of tangled up thoughts, feelings and beliefs.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: And, that said, I still stand by that talk therapy doesn't actually heal the underlying wounds that are driving the disorganized attachment style.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: And so we're going to, you know, go deep and wide about some nuanced ways to do that, but just know that if you're somebody who goes into a therapy session feeling very internally disorganized and you're leaving feeling much more stable, you know that's maybe just another clue that this is an attachment style that is very real for you.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: And I do find, when I start doing EMDR with my clients, that there is a transition period of them having to adjust to not doing straight up and down talk therapy, because that is a stabilizing tool.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: Right, they are used to experiencing stabilization via talk therapy and we have to start adding it in and getting creative, doing it other ways.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: Okay, so back to how disorganized attachment unfolds.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: So it is this kind of lived experience of both craving and fearing the people you're closest to.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: So, thinking about how that might have looked in your marriage, you both loved your ex deeply and were attached to them, but also feared them in some way, whether it was fearing their criticism or their judgment, or fearing a particular tone of voice, or actually fearing violence, or fearing something like financial violence or control or manipulation or gaslighting, or not even quite knowing why you're fearing them, but feeling afraid probably some of that more subtle psychological abuse that is harder to nail down.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: So let's talk a little bit.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: I'm going to share some really vulnerable, so like trigger warning stuff about how this developed for me.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: So in my childhood my dad had a pretty strong violent streak and there were a number of times that the police were at our house for domestic violence calls and it kind of didn't matter if it was a birthday or a holiday or what it was right, like things could pop off.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: And so that you know those times I would like hide under my bed, right, kind of no brainer, like okay, this isn't safe, I'm afraid.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: Right, don't go near the caregivers, they're dangerous, got it.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: But then some of the things that would unfold down the road are when my parents were locked in a deadlock fight.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: My mom would sometimes leave for nights at a time and just leave a note and not tell me where she was going or when she would be back and wouldn't call and check on me while she was away.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: And so obviously this was before cell phones and all those things, right, and I'm sure you're all gasping right now about my mom's choices.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: This is not to blame her.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: I truly believe she was doing the best she could at the time 100%.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: But this is just to be able to see that this fearing ones caregiver while also longing for them and this is also going to tie into why I want to reassure you about your children, right.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: So this became a situation where not only was I afraid of the violent person, but I was afraid that the nonviolent person wasn't protecting me from the violent person, right, but was leaving me with the violent person.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: And then there were other examples.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: You know we were a very strong my mom has a very strong faith and she would spend a lot of time raising me in biblical spaces and with the Bible, and so oftentimes I would question things that didn't make sense to me about the Bible, like, for instance, as a very young child I asked her if my father and I were both hanging from a cliff, who she would save and this is definitely a kid trying to figure out whether or not they're secure right and who their secure provider is, and she definitely said she would save my dad first, because she felt like that was a biblically sound answer, and so this is where we can see that a disorganized attachment style would have really gotten its roots into me, because even though my mom was not the violent caregiver, she also did not position herself as a safe or abiding caregiver, and so then looking for a sense of security became a very confusing experience.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: Right, that kind of I hate, you don't leave me felt sense.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: I noticed something just this week.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: Actually this has been a big already 2024 has been a massive like healing year, and today is this is releasing in February, but today is the 29th of January and, oh my goodness, so much healing has happened already this year.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: I had this experience with my husband this week where I was very flooded with emotion, which is good.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: It was a solid, positive experience, because emotion is not bad.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: I have historically intellectualized emotion, so the fact that I can be in my body and feel emotion is a wonderful progress.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: And he wanted to soothe me, which many, many years ago that's what I would have wanted.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: I would want to shrink and just say like, be an anxious, attache right and click into that that part, just like, yes, just tell me I'm going to be okay and all is going to be well right, but I was not clicked into that part.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: I was clicked into a different part that was pretty wound up and he wanted to hug me and soothe me and I was like please don't touch me, I might punch you.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: And I wasn't mad at him.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: It wasn't him that I was feeling the feelings about, but it was interesting his desire to embrace me While I needed, while I was craving reassurance and a sense of security.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: I felt like if he hugged me I would have felt like a caged animal, and so I think that sensation is my way of conveying to you, as an adult woman, what a disorganized attachment style feels.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: I'm desperate to be close and to connected, but I'm so insecure that I am not sure I feel safe reaching out for that connection.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: And so this is what I'm still healing from right, and it's it's not predominant anymore and I can talk through it and I can stay pre regulated and I can really work through it.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: All right, it's beautiful, but it's just like getting those last few tendrils of the things out while I continue to shore up a secure environment for myself.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: I want you to have all the hope about it.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: And so let's talk for a moment about children of divorce, because I think that, while we certainly get divorced for a whole myriad of reasons, I think women who divorce when they have children tend to divorce for more reasons, like addiction and abuse, and so I think that there's a higher probability again, this is anecdotal, you're right, I'm not, I can't prove this but I think that it's more likely that we're going to see a generation of children of divorce that have disorganized attachment styles, and so I want to point something out in contrast to my story as a disorganized attacher If you, mama, are the mama who is abiding with her children, who is not putting their kids in the middle of conflict, who is practicing gray rock or whatever, using apps to do communication, who's not taking the bait, not putting you know, not doing those things, and you are in tune with your kiddos and when they're with you, you are nurturing those seeds of I love you, I see you, I know what you're experiencing, I'm having deep, meaningful conversations with you, I'm unpacking with you what you need.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: I'm still setting boundaries when right, but you're creating that felt sense of security with them.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: When they're with you, they're exponentially less likely to have a disorganized attachment style, despite there being the high potential for having experienced abuse in their lives, and so I want to strongly reassure you, mama, that you the one who is listening to the podcast to stand in her personal power and to heal you love, are so ahead in ensuring that your children do not have this type of attachment style.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: Now, that doesn't mean that they're going to get out on skates, but I also want to reassure you that the fact that your children experience hardship is not your fault.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: You may have contributed to it, as I have contributed to my children.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: My child's struggle right, but there is no human that is getting out of the human experience without going through several dark nights of the soul.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: It is part of the human experience.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: Love, it is the path that I was called to walk.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: It is the path that you were called to walk, it is the path that my child and your children are called to walk, and the fact that your children are walking a hard path is not single-handedly your fault.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: It is a fact of life and you being attuned to them is the thing that they need.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: And I frequently tell my clients and my own child and myself that the amount of hardship a person experiences is not what dictates whether or not they are they quote unquote turn out or are successful people right?
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: What dictates success inside any one of us love you, me, our children or anyone is whether or not they choose to become a victor or choose to remain a victim.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: And that, right there is why you hear me preach yes, I know I get preachy about codependency and victim consciousness because love you and I have to continue to model for our children fidelity, abiding, attunement, boundaries, accountability, accountability, accountability.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: You know, I think for a very long time I validated that my kid can feel whatever she wants whenever she wants to.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: And that's true.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: But more and more and more I'm teaching her that, yes, she can feel whatever she wants whenever she wants to, but she's accountable for what she does with those feelings and how long she sits in them and whether or not she transmutes them.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: It is not enough to just validate our children's emotions.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: We must teach them how to work with them, yes, how to be able to sit with them, but also how to transmute them, because too much sitting and justifying negative emotion means we are not transmuting, we are not rising above, we are not becoming victors, we are not mastering empowerment and embodiment.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: I want you to be on the lookout, certainly for this.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: I hate you, don't leave me dynamic inside of yourself and for your children.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: This is the rarest of the attachment styles, so statistically it is likely that far less of our listeners are disorganized.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: But because disorganized attachment goes up exponentially when there is some sort of abuse involved, right, like just the topic of divorce makes it more statistically probable that a lot of our listeners that you love may be a disorganized attach her.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: Now let's talk about some of those powerful ways to heal a disorganized attachment style.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: I cannot emphasize enough how healing in community is essential essential to healing a disorganized attachment style.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: Now, you've heard me talk about all the things that I dove into post-divorce right group therapy, individual therapy, al-an-han yoga.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: I went back to church.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: I went to personal development workshops that were vulnerable group healing spaces, right, I did all of that at once while being a practicing therapist.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: Immersion doesn't even begin to describe it.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: But because my parents were where the attachment wounds happened, they weren't safe places for me to heal from that disorganized attachment style and clearly dating was not the place that I was going to heal from that disorganized attachment style.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: But we heal attachment wounds in relationship love.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: So what's that leave If you can't do that work with your family and you can't do that work with romantic partners at first right, that's like an advanced move down the road.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: I definitely, obviously, am working on healing attachment wounds with my current husband.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: We work on that all the time, but there has to be a certain amount of stabilization and mastery before a relationship can become viable, right, and so what that leaves us with is healing in community and finding really safe, powerful, empowering communities that are trauma-informed right, that are trauma-informed communities that can handle the complexity of a disorganized attachment and their particular needs, because it can get really tricky.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: This is one of the reasons why I've always had a passion about community Group therapy, allen on those things.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: They were where I found my first tastes of true security and feeling radical acceptance right, feeling radically accepted for who I was, in the midst of my lowest moments and my probably, like, least sexy behaviors.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: So if you're already finding communities to heal in, like I am so proud of you, and if you know that this is something that is missing from your healing journey and you're feeling kind of like, oh, she's calling me out right now, like just take this as a call right as a call to like find a community.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: You know, I firmly believe that one of the reasons 2024 has already been so healing is because we made a decision to go back to church this year Shocking to some, but we found a church that really, so far, just feels really like a really safe community.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: There's lots of accountability, there's lots of transparency, there's lots of really loud drum music, which I love personally.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: I don't care what the pain is that you've walked through love.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: There is an answer and, despite me telling you some stories about my parents' marriage and how it impacted me, I have relationships with both of them today and we celebrate families, celebrate families.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: Well, we celebrate families too.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: We celebrate holidays together as a group right, my mom and stepdad and dad and stepmom and you know, producer Joy and I were right like we celebrate families together and they gather all the parents gather to celebrate their granddaughter together, and so there has been massive healing in all of those relationships.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: Does that mean that it's all holding hands in kumbaya?
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: Absolutely not, but there are a lot of those moments and I think that well so teaser our next series is going to be on boundaries, and I will tell you that one of the reasons that I believe that so much of that healing has happened has been because I have stayed steadfast and committed to healing me, and I have really effectively said a lot of boundaries along the way, and so I want you to walk out of this episode feeling seen, knowing that there are answers In our next episode this week.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: Our hidden healing gem is going to be a powerful tool for really working with a disorganized attachment style.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: It is one that I cannot say enough about.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: So in this episode, I want you to feel hope and I want you to feel like you know the thing to focus on with your own kiddos, and I want you to feel like you can do this and just be patient with the process over time.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: I love you so much peace.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: Okay, now we are into our segment called Getting Unstocked, where a listener writes in with their particular struggle and we unpack it Loves.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: You know that I need you to send me your Getting Unstocks, so hop onto the gram and send me a DM and PS like we can chat in the DMs.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: It's like one of my favorite things when I'm talking with you.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: You know how Taylor Swift says that she loves talking with her people and that's how she her community right like and that's how she stays so in touch like that's how I feel about it, like I want us to be connected and I want to be able to have a felt sense of where you are and what's up.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: So come to the gram or email me, send a carrier, pigeon, I don't care, but I need your sickness Right.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: Okay, enough of that.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: So today we have Jennifer who writes in and says my husband told me about his affair in November.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: Gosh, that was only a minute ago.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: He ended it.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: I have been extremely jealous and overprotective ever since.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: He is now telling me he wants a divorce.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: He sees me as a sister or a dear family member.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: He says intimate moments are awkward.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: I cannot let him go.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: I do still love him.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: I cannot give up on the dream of having a wonderful family in a stress-free environment and having confidence in each other's love and commitment.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: We have been married five years and have a three year old boy who's the most wonderful thing in my life.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: I'm destroyed on the inside.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: I keep waiting for him to wake up and realizing how amazing this dream could have been.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: Oh, my goodness, jennifer, come sit on my sofa with me.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: I love you so much.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: What a painful season.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: So two things Giving up on the dream, right?
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: The dream, that's the real thing to unpack here, so I'm gonna come back to that.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: The first thing is love.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: Is that, as a scientist, I want you to start to wrap your head around.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: It is most likely that your husband has an avoidant attachment style.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: That is what is most likely, and so that's what makes this particular getting unstuck appropriate for our attachment series.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: Right, but avoidant attachments who are untreated have less capacity for intimacy.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: So when he says he feels like your best friends are a sister, that's what that's about, and I have heard from so many clients over the year and I know what I'm saying isn't helping.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: It's hurting, right.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: I am very clear that what I'm saying to you is making you feel more pain, not less.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: But when I've worked with clients over the years who have ended up in marriages and divorces like this, they didn't know how to spot the avoidant attachment style stuff before they got married and that's ultimately what led to this particular moment.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: And if you were listening to our last episode where we talked about the anxious avoidant trap, that is a thing People with a more anxious attachment style are drawn to people with a more avoidant attachment style.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: So, love, I want you to really hear me when I say it's not you.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: Yes, there are things that we all do to contribute to marriages that end up ending.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: I have no doubt that you have contri that you have a part in this love.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: But you, who you are, how you show up your core, your essence, not just the things that make you magical, but also the obnoxious things that you do it's not you, it's none of that, it's not your pros, it's not your cons.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: It's his genuine affected brain that does not have the same capacity for attachment that yours does love, and he has a tendency to push away.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: Now is there a chance?
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: I'm wrong?
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: Yes, but highly unlikely.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: So feel free to you know, hit me back and give me more context if you want.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: But that is my first and foremost answer is it's not you.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: And so now let's go to that dream.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: You know, the reason I started this podcast in the first place is because divorce and self-discovery is my testimony.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: Right, like, yes, I've always been a therapist.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: Right, I was born a therapist.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: Into my parents' crappy marriage, but, but.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: But, besides the fact that I've always been a therapist.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: Divorce was the moment, for all intents and purposes, that propelled me onto a path to living my most best magical life.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: And when I tell you today that my life is magical, like it is freaking magical.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: The life that I had before that was absolutely a dream.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: It was an illusion.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: It was an absolute illusion.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: And so, love, I don't want you to give up on your dream, but I want you to give up on your illusion, and that is what we're here to do.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: Loves is to tease out your dreams and your manifestations from your illusions, and a number of months ago, I was doing some journaling where these words came out of my pen about I was thanking my past self for being willing to give it all up in order to receive everything.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: And those were some of the most powerful words, right, because when we're in the process of having to let go of things, it's incredibly painful and it can be very, very hard to trust that what comes next is better.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: But that is what soothes me every time.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: Just because I have a magical life does not mean it's not hard.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: It's like it's hard all the time not all the time, right, but a lot.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: It is often hard.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: Life is hard at times, but every time I experience a hard thing when I am able to click into the capital T truth that when I shed the illusion and I open myself to the abundance that has been promised to me and by promise to me I mean by God, she, him, her, it, whatever they you know, whatever religion, whatever spiritual practice, it doesn't matter right, but that there are many places, whether it's in AA or the Bible or wherever it is, there are promises to do with living in faith and an optimism right With positive expectation, law of attraction, like you name it.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: They all have messages that when we live in positive anticipation and faith, with an open heart and gratitude, it gets better.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: And so, love, don't give up on your dream, but let the illusion go and make a choice that this is not the end.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: This is the crazy roller coaster that you get on that's taking you to the actual dream minus the illusion.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: It's not going to be easy.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: It's going to be a crucible, a gauntlet, a dark night of the soul, the whatever you want to call it.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to sugarcoat it for you, but it's going to be great and super magical, and thank you for including me in this part of your journey.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: I love you so much.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: Peace.