Alex Howard┃The Stories That Shape Your Relationships (and How to Rewrite Them)

WEBVTT
1
00:00:00.390 --> 00:00:04.309
The stuff that we learned to do, the beliefs, the stories,
2
00:00:04.349 --> 00:00:08.289
and so on, that allowed us to survive, it's like
3
00:00:09.080 --> 00:00:12.259
the walls of defense that we built to survive our
4
00:00:12.320 --> 00:00:17.239
childhoods often become the walls of the prison that trap
5
00:00:17.320 --> 00:00:18.260
us in our adulthood.
6
00:00:19.199 --> 00:00:21.640
What if the arguments you keep having with your partner
7
00:00:21.800 --> 00:00:25.079
aren't really about what's happening now, but about wounds, beliefs,
8
00:00:25.160 --> 00:00:29.379
and survival strategies formed decades ago? Today I sit down
9
00:00:29.420 --> 00:00:33.460
with author and integrative health expert Alex Howard to decode
10
00:00:33.500 --> 00:00:38.159
the hidden forces shaping our closest relationships. We explore the
11
00:00:38.200 --> 00:00:41.799
three emotional needs that begin shaping us in childhood, why
12
00:00:41.840 --> 00:00:45.060
the stories that once protected us can later become prisons,
13
00:00:45.649 --> 00:00:49.009
and how two people who genuinely love each other can
14
00:00:49.070 --> 00:00:53.329
still find themselves reacting to completely different versions of reality.
15
00:00:54.350 --> 00:00:58.689
Alex also explains how to break the anxious avoidant relationship dance,
16
00:00:59.350 --> 00:01:03.359
why curiosity can be more powerful than defensiveness, and what
17
00:01:03.399 --> 00:01:07.280
it takes to build a relationship where two well-resourced people
18
00:01:07.760 --> 00:01:11.799
come together from choice rather than need. If you've ever
19
00:01:11.879 --> 00:01:16.719
wondered why the same relationship patterns keep repeating, this conversation
20
00:01:16.780 --> 00:01:21.269
may completely change the way you understand love and relationships.
21
00:01:22.030 --> 00:01:24.709
I'm really happy to be here today with longtime friend
22
00:01:24.750 --> 00:01:26.230
and colleague, Alex Howard.
23
00:01:26.250 --> 00:01:26.939
Welcome, Alex.
24
00:01:27.730 --> 00:01:29.420
Hi, Fleet. Thank you for having me. It's always a
25
00:01:29.439 --> 00:01:30.099
joy to be together.
26
00:01:30.659 --> 00:01:32.859
Oh, absolutely. I always look forward to our conversations.
27
00:01:33.379 --> 00:01:36.280
So I'm going to first share a bit of your
28
00:01:36.319 --> 00:01:39.239
background and then.
29
00:01:39.340 --> 00:01:41.359
We'll jump right in. Right.
30
00:01:41.599 --> 00:01:44.019
So Alex Howard is the founder and chairman of the
31
00:01:44.239 --> 00:01:49.900
Optimum Health Clinic and the creator behind the Therapeutic Coaching Methodology.
32
00:01:50.560 --> 00:01:53.609
He's a prominent figure in integrative medicine, serving patients across
33
00:01:53.620 --> 00:01:58.909
50-plus countries with a team of 25 practitioners. Optimum Health Clinic,
34
00:01:58.969 --> 00:02:01.829
or OHC, is distinguished for its unique blend of therapeutic
35
00:02:01.870 --> 00:02:06.329
coaching and functional nutrition, reflecting Alex's commitment to holistic health.
36
00:02:07.049 --> 00:02:10.860
Since March 2020, Alex has been documenting his therapeutic work
37
00:02:10.900 --> 00:02:15.219
with real-life patients via his In Therapy with Alex Howard
38
00:02:15.240 --> 00:02:18.560
YouTube series. His efforts have led to the creation of
39
00:02:18.620 --> 00:02:21.210
some of the largest online conferences in the health and
40
00:02:21.250 --> 00:02:25.550
mind-body markets, including the Trauma Super Conference, reaching over a
41
00:02:25.610 --> 00:02:30.030
million attendees. An accomplished author and researcher, Alex has contributed
42
00:02:30.090 --> 00:02:33.659
to prestigious journals like the British Medical Journal, Open, and
43
00:02:33.719 --> 00:02:37.659
Psychology and Health. His literary works include Decode Your Fatigue,
44
00:02:38.020 --> 00:02:42.439
Why Me? And his latest, It's Not Your Fault, Why
45
00:02:42.520 --> 00:02:45.520
Childhood Trauma Shapes You and How to Break Free. And
46
00:02:45.780 --> 00:02:48.039
his work in these books offer deep insights into the
47
00:02:48.099 --> 00:02:52.509
underlying causes of chronic conditions and the pathways to recovery.
48
00:02:53.750 --> 00:02:59.270
And like Alex, Many influential people in integrated medicine and
49
00:02:59.430 --> 00:03:04.379
mind-body health and so forth, your work began with healing
50
00:03:04.419 --> 00:03:08.599
your own situation. And I think that always lends a
51
00:03:08.639 --> 00:03:12.430
lot of weight and credence to practitioners' work.
52
00:03:12.990 --> 00:03:15.840
And so maybe you can touch on that a little bit.
53
00:03:16.389 --> 00:03:19.650
And your work at the Optimal Health Clinic, as I
54
00:03:19.689 --> 00:03:24.129
said in the bio, includes both therapeutic coaching and functional nutrition,
55
00:03:25.009 --> 00:03:27.090
which is a unique approach to integrated medicine. And I
56
00:03:27.129 --> 00:03:28.930
would imagine this has something to do with how you
57
00:03:28.969 --> 00:03:39.319
healed yourself from sort of chronic fatigue-related issues. immune system challenges.
58
00:03:40.000 --> 00:03:45.969
So how do these elements of therapeutic coaching and nutrition
59
00:03:46.150 --> 00:03:49.509
intersect and interconnect and kind of integrate, or what's the
60
00:03:49.550 --> 00:03:55.949
mutual beneficial relationship there? And so just contextualizing your work
61
00:03:55.990 --> 00:03:57.729
in this whole kind of body-mind spectrum.
62
00:03:59.300 --> 00:04:03.719
Yeah. Well, I think a lot of my realizations around
63
00:04:03.759 --> 00:04:08.310
this were through my own healing journey, which you mentioned.
64
00:04:09.030 --> 00:04:13.069
I had ME or chronic fatigue syndrome for seven years
65
00:04:13.150 --> 00:04:17.110
and spent the first couple of years waiting for someone
66
00:04:17.170 --> 00:04:22.290
else to find answers and saw many different sort of
67
00:04:22.329 --> 00:04:27.610
mainstream medical practitioners and didn't go anywhere with that. And
68
00:04:29.569 --> 00:04:31.410
I can look back now and realize that, of course,
69
00:04:31.589 --> 00:04:35.750
part of the problem that conventional medicine approach has to
70
00:04:36.089 --> 00:04:40.779
really all chronic illnesses is it's still approaching them using
71
00:04:40.980 --> 00:04:44.259
germ theory, like the idea that you're looking for a
72
00:04:44.319 --> 00:04:47.779
single pathogen, like a single cause, where you can find
73
00:04:47.920 --> 00:04:50.589
a single test, like a biomarker, which is going to
74
00:04:51.009 --> 00:04:53.959
define whether or not that someone has that cause, and
75
00:04:54.000 --> 00:04:56.620
then a single intervention, like a thing that you can
76
00:04:56.699 --> 00:05:02.079
do about that pathogen or that issue. The problem with
77
00:05:02.480 --> 00:05:07.850
chronic illnesses is they normally affect multiple systems. There are
78
00:05:08.529 --> 00:05:12.370
often different stages to the illness recovery process, and different
79
00:05:12.410 --> 00:05:15.939
interventions often are helpful or not helpful at those different stages.
80
00:05:17.579 --> 00:05:21.720
there are often multiple factors that cause someone to become
81
00:05:21.860 --> 00:05:25.379
ill in the first place. And so if we're looking
82
00:05:25.480 --> 00:05:30.189
for a single cause, a single test, and a single intervention,
83
00:05:30.959 --> 00:05:34.949
we don't find it. And this is also why you have,
84
00:05:34.970 --> 00:05:39.550
I would argue, often quite a fragmented approach also in
85
00:05:39.610 --> 00:05:43.629
the integrative medicine world, that you have a practitioner which
86
00:05:43.709 --> 00:05:50.029
specializes in a particular intervention, They will likely be, understandably,
87
00:05:50.209 --> 00:05:53.009
very vocal about this is the answer, this is the
88
00:05:53.050 --> 00:05:57.449
thing that helps because practitioners, like all humans, we can
89
00:05:57.509 --> 00:06:01.279
suffer from a confirmation bias where we're looking for a
90
00:06:01.360 --> 00:06:03.839
certain thing to be true and then we gather the
91
00:06:03.920 --> 00:06:10.120
evidence that that thing is true. many, many very well-intentioned, competent,
92
00:06:10.250 --> 00:06:14.209
effective practitioners that do the thing that they do. And
93
00:06:14.889 --> 00:06:18.889
maybe they see, I don't know, 100 patients. Maybe 30
94
00:06:18.889 --> 00:06:22.680
of those patients do really well. Maybe 30 don't have
95
00:06:22.829 --> 00:06:25.839
any benefit. Maybe 30 get worse, maybe not because of intervention,
96
00:06:25.879 --> 00:06:30.420
but are certainly not helped. Inevitably, the 30 that do
97
00:06:30.480 --> 00:06:33.209
well are the ones that keep going back to see
98
00:06:33.230 --> 00:06:36.269
the practitioner. So the practitioner builds the evidence that this
99
00:06:36.350 --> 00:06:39.519
is the approach which is effective and helps people. So
100
00:06:40.439 --> 00:06:45.699
on my own healing journey, initially, I was constantly looking
101
00:06:45.779 --> 00:06:49.540
for the magic pill, like the intervention, like be it
102
00:06:49.579 --> 00:06:52.079
a drug, a supplement, a protocol, whatever it was that
103
00:06:52.120 --> 00:06:55.079
was gonna be the answer. And then along the way,
104
00:06:55.439 --> 00:06:59.050
what I came to realize was there is no one cause,
105
00:06:59.149 --> 00:07:02.269
there is no one test, and there is no one solution.
106
00:07:03.209 --> 00:07:08.189
And for me, what was helpful was both recognizing the
107
00:07:08.230 --> 00:07:11.069
relationship between my mind and my body, to look at
108
00:07:11.110 --> 00:07:14.620
that from another perspective, to understand the impacts of childhood
109
00:07:14.689 --> 00:07:17.240
trauma and things that happened in my kind of early
110
00:07:17.259 --> 00:07:20.240
life and how that was impacting my body at that point.
111
00:07:21.079 --> 00:07:24.740
But also recognizing that a lot of my symptoms were,
112
00:07:24.759 --> 00:07:27.000
I had a lot of gut-related symptoms, I had a
113
00:07:27.040 --> 00:07:28.519
lot of brain fog, I had a lot of kind
114
00:07:28.540 --> 00:07:33.180
of muscle pain-based symptoms, and coming to realize that not
115
00:07:33.240 --> 00:07:36.399
just what we eat, but also looking at the balances
116
00:07:36.480 --> 00:07:40.110
of all kinds of different bodily systems is another piece
117
00:07:40.120 --> 00:07:42.649
of that jigsaw. You can't often just work with a
118
00:07:42.670 --> 00:07:45.910
chronic illness just by cultivating a healing state and calming
119
00:07:45.930 --> 00:07:50.329
the nervous system, although that piece is very important. Along
120
00:07:50.430 --> 00:07:53.410
my own healing journey, I think I saw about 35
121
00:07:53.410 --> 00:07:55.829
different practitioners. I think at one point I was taking
122
00:07:55.829 --> 00:07:58.910
70 supplements a day, which is not something I recommend
123
00:07:58.930 --> 00:08:04.730
anyone does. What I effectively discovered is there is not
124
00:08:04.870 --> 00:08:08.730
one answer, but there are many answers. And really, the
125
00:08:09.449 --> 00:08:12.560
central thrust of my work over the sort of 25
126
00:08:12.560 --> 00:08:18.800
plus years since then has been to decode these complex areas.
127
00:08:19.180 --> 00:08:21.819
Decode Your Fatigue was the title of one of my books.
128
00:08:22.300 --> 00:08:24.759
I have series on Decode Your Nervous System, Decode Your
129
00:08:24.779 --> 00:08:31.079
Attachment Style, Decode Your Trauma. And to help people map
130
00:08:31.160 --> 00:08:35.120
what's happening, what's causing what's happening, but then to have
131
00:08:35.279 --> 00:08:38.460
effective paths to intervention. And that's what the Optimum Health
132
00:08:38.500 --> 00:08:40.299
Clinic does. So as you mentioned, we have a team
133
00:08:40.340 --> 00:08:43.460
of therapeutic coaches, but we also have a team of
134
00:08:44.259 --> 00:08:48.240
functional nutritionists, or practicing what we call therapeutic nutrition, to
135
00:08:48.320 --> 00:08:51.220
make sure we're working with the mind, with the emotions,
136
00:08:51.519 --> 00:08:52.379
and also with the body.
137
00:08:53.919 --> 00:08:54.100
Wow.
138
00:08:55.080 --> 00:09:01.289
So today our theme is rewiring our brains, rewiring our
139
00:09:01.330 --> 00:09:04.730
nervous system for love and relationship to optimize that part
140
00:09:04.769 --> 00:09:10.990
of our life. And as you mentioned, childhood traumas can
141
00:09:11.350 --> 00:09:16.899
impact every aspect of our body-mind system and then can
142
00:09:16.919 --> 00:09:19.600
show up in our relationships in not so helpful ways
143
00:09:20.639 --> 00:09:25.700
or prevent us from developing healthy, nurturing, positive relationships. And,
144
00:09:27.519 --> 00:09:31.549
you know, we develop certain stories and narratives to make
145
00:09:31.590 --> 00:09:34.389
sense of our childhood experiences and the best stories we
146
00:09:34.409 --> 00:09:37.289
can come up with when we're little tykes and having
147
00:09:37.309 --> 00:09:41.850
these very unfortunate experiences of either overt abuse of some
148
00:09:41.889 --> 00:09:44.389
kind or danger or threat or just neglect, not getting
149
00:09:44.409 --> 00:09:45.750
the love and attachment we need.
150
00:09:46.429 --> 00:09:48.419
So, you know, we can.
151
00:09:48.320 --> 00:09:52.320
Talk about this at a neurobiological level and a term
152
00:09:52.379 --> 00:09:54.460
around attachment, which I know you do a lot of
153
00:09:54.500 --> 00:09:58.509
work with. We can talk about it also at the
154
00:09:58.549 --> 00:10:02.389
level of psychology. And I do think, given that this
155
00:10:02.480 --> 00:10:05.620
is about rewiring, changing our beliefs, and of course, when
156
00:10:05.659 --> 00:10:08.139
we change our beliefs, we change our neurobiology. So it's not,
157
00:10:08.539 --> 00:10:11.779
it's all intertwined, but nonetheless, maybe we could talk about
158
00:10:11.820 --> 00:10:14.899
these narratives, and then you could go further into maybe
159
00:10:14.980 --> 00:10:17.340
some of the neurobiology of that, and we'll just see
160
00:10:17.360 --> 00:10:17.960
where this goes.
161
00:10:18.419 --> 00:10:19.399
Yeah, of course, yeah.
162
00:10:20.250 --> 00:10:21.950
One of the ways that I think about this is
163
00:10:22.830 --> 00:10:27.190
that we have all, if we take a broad definition
164
00:10:27.210 --> 00:10:31.149
of trauma, we've all experienced trauma in some way. That
165
00:10:31.190 --> 00:10:34.809
might be, as you say, the more overt traumas, physical abuse,
166
00:10:34.830 --> 00:10:37.929
sexual abuse, or so on. But often for many of us,
167
00:10:38.629 --> 00:10:40.740
it's not the things that happened, it's maybe the things
168
00:10:40.779 --> 00:10:43.320
that didn't happen, like the things that we needed that
169
00:10:43.360 --> 00:10:46.220
we didn't get. I talk in my body of work
170
00:10:46.269 --> 00:10:49.220
around we all have three core emotional needs. These needs
171
00:10:49.379 --> 00:10:52.980
are as important as the physical needs for food, oxygen,
172
00:10:53.019 --> 00:10:56.220
and water. We have a need for safety, to feel
173
00:10:56.360 --> 00:10:59.259
safe in our nervous system, safe in our environment. We
174
00:10:59.279 --> 00:11:02.100
have a need for love, not love for what we
175
00:11:02.700 --> 00:11:04.740
do and what we achieve, but love for who we
176
00:11:04.879 --> 00:11:06.679
are and as we are. We have a need for
177
00:11:07.059 --> 00:11:09.799
healthy boundaries, the ability to say no and that no
178
00:11:09.840 --> 00:11:14.539
to be honored and to be respected. When we don't
179
00:11:14.659 --> 00:11:18.519
get those core emotional needs met in the ways that
180
00:11:18.580 --> 00:11:22.970
we ultimately need them, we have to figure out how
181
00:11:23.000 --> 00:11:25.590
to make meaning out of that and how to navigate
182
00:11:25.669 --> 00:11:31.169
the experiences of our childhood. And so we create a
183
00:11:31.269 --> 00:11:38.330
series of beliefs, defensive strategies, ways of relating to ourselves,
184
00:11:38.409 --> 00:11:40.769
ways of relating to other people, ways of relating to
185
00:11:40.809 --> 00:11:45.940
the world around us. And whatever we did, it worked.
186
00:11:46.980 --> 00:11:49.519
May not have been optimum, maybe causing all kinds of
187
00:11:49.840 --> 00:11:52.879
challenges in our life now, but it ultimately worked because
188
00:11:52.940 --> 00:11:55.940
we're here to tell the story. It might not be
189
00:11:55.960 --> 00:11:58.259
a very pleasant story, but we are here to tell
190
00:11:58.299 --> 00:12:03.679
the story. In a way though, the stuff that we
191
00:12:03.759 --> 00:12:07.090
learned to do, the beliefs, the stories, and so on,
192
00:12:07.799 --> 00:12:11.970
that allowed us to survive, it's like, the walls of
193
00:12:12.049 --> 00:12:16.889
defense that we built to survive our childhoods often become
194
00:12:16.980 --> 00:12:20.440
the walls of the prison that trap us in our adulthood.
195
00:12:21.480 --> 00:12:25.480
And so being able to map and understand what those
196
00:12:25.600 --> 00:12:29.740
beliefs are, what those narratives are, what those stories are,
197
00:12:30.399 --> 00:12:34.659
can allow us to at least begin to question whether
198
00:12:34.700 --> 00:12:37.600
they're really true. I was saying to you just before
199
00:12:37.639 --> 00:12:40.649
we started recording that a way that I'm thinking about
200
00:12:40.690 --> 00:12:43.950
it these days is actually there's three different stories. There's
201
00:12:44.269 --> 00:12:47.889
the stories or the story that we were told. What
202
00:12:47.929 --> 00:12:52.549
were the belief systems, the narratives? What did we learn
203
00:12:52.620 --> 00:12:55.379
from our caregivers and the people that were around us?
204
00:12:55.399 --> 00:12:57.759
What did we learn from culture? What did we learn
205
00:12:57.779 --> 00:13:02.059
from our teachers and from our community? So there's what
206
00:13:02.100 --> 00:13:06.700
we were told. There's what we came to believe. For
207
00:13:06.740 --> 00:13:09.159
some people, that's the same thing. For other people, it
208
00:13:09.210 --> 00:13:11.750
can be completely the opposite. It's like we swing to
209
00:13:11.789 --> 00:13:15.029
another extreme. For other people, it's somewhere on that spectrum.
210
00:13:15.610 --> 00:13:18.230
But there's what we were told. There's what we came
211
00:13:18.289 --> 00:13:24.919
to believe. But then there's what's actually true. Now, we
212
00:13:25.019 --> 00:13:28.879
are a very fortunate and blessed human if what we
213
00:13:28.899 --> 00:13:32.159
were told and what we came to believe is all
214
00:13:32.200 --> 00:13:35.159
totally true. For most of us, we were told a
215
00:13:35.200 --> 00:13:38.519
bunch of narratives and stories, which were basically the ways
216
00:13:38.570 --> 00:13:41.970
that our caregivers, our ancestors and so on, that they'd
217
00:13:42.029 --> 00:13:44.769
figured out to make sense of a super complicated world.
218
00:13:45.970 --> 00:13:49.789
And just like in history, there's all kinds of beliefs,
219
00:13:50.370 --> 00:13:54.350
cultural beliefs and narratives that we'd look back on now
220
00:13:54.750 --> 00:13:57.899
and we sort of realized that they were complete nonsense.
221
00:13:58.419 --> 00:14:01.539
Like for millennia, it was believed that the earth was flat.
222
00:14:02.539 --> 00:14:05.879
completely reasonable at the time. But now, apart from a very, very,
223
00:14:05.960 --> 00:14:09.019
very small pocket of people on YouTube, it's pretty widely
224
00:14:09.090 --> 00:14:13.309
accepted that the world is not flat. And so the
225
00:14:13.429 --> 00:14:16.669
same is true of the things that we come to
226
00:14:16.710 --> 00:14:21.649
believe about ourselves, about what we need, about what is
227
00:14:21.710 --> 00:14:27.039
important to cultivate healthy human relationship. And it's a brave
228
00:14:27.220 --> 00:14:32.320
person that questions the stories and the narratives that they
229
00:14:32.360 --> 00:14:36.179
were told in childhood because to do that we have
230
00:14:36.220 --> 00:14:39.080
to separate like we have to push away and that
231
00:14:39.120 --> 00:14:41.419
can be frightening now sometimes what what we grew up
232
00:14:41.440 --> 00:14:44.039
with was so oppressive and so much suffering that we
233
00:14:44.080 --> 00:14:47.100
couldn't wait to to break free of that but that's
234
00:14:47.139 --> 00:14:49.320
often when we over swing and we often just go
235
00:14:49.379 --> 00:14:51.740
to another extreme in terms of the release that we
236
00:14:51.779 --> 00:14:55.110
have and one of the things that i've come to
237
00:14:55.159 --> 00:14:59.539
realize um working as a clinician now for 20-something years,
238
00:15:00.399 --> 00:15:09.970
is most people's stories about themselves are woefully inaccurate. Most
239
00:15:10.029 --> 00:15:14.070
people's stories about what they're capable of in their life,
240
00:15:14.870 --> 00:15:18.730
most people's stories about what's possible for them in terms
241
00:15:18.769 --> 00:15:22.820
of intimacy and relationship are just not true.
242
00:15:22.840 --> 00:15:24.509
And I'm not a..
243
00:15:26.190 --> 00:15:30.789
I don't particularly believe in positive thinking. Positive thinking is
244
00:15:30.809 --> 00:15:33.700
a little bit like overinflated stocks on the stock market.
245
00:15:33.779 --> 00:15:36.259
What goes up in a way that's not based in reality,
246
00:15:36.600 --> 00:15:38.720
at some point, it's going to come crashing back down again.
247
00:15:39.480 --> 00:15:43.240
When people go and do workshops and programs, they come
248
00:15:43.279 --> 00:15:47.009
out with these overinflated opinions of themselves, and they celebrate
249
00:15:47.029 --> 00:15:50.090
their own narcissism and their sense of self-importance because they've
250
00:15:50.129 --> 00:15:54.519
got these new wonderful positive beliefs. Unless those beliefs are
251
00:15:54.559 --> 00:15:56.899
grounded in fact, at some point the universe is going
252
00:15:56.919 --> 00:15:58.519
to smack us in the face pretty hard and we're
253
00:15:58.539 --> 00:16:00.299
going to come back down to earth of what the
254
00:16:00.340 --> 00:16:06.830
reality is. But most people's story about themselves is far
255
00:16:06.950 --> 00:16:10.289
more negative than the truth about who they are and
256
00:16:10.330 --> 00:16:13.639
what they're capable of. And so a shift from that
257
00:16:13.860 --> 00:16:18.460
negative self-belief to the truth, to the reality might look
258
00:16:18.539 --> 00:16:22.200
like positive thinking. but actually what it is is it's
259
00:16:22.259 --> 00:16:25.399
an embracing and accepting of our actual potential.
260
00:16:27.480 --> 00:16:29.000
Well, there's a lot to explore there.
261
00:16:29.889 --> 00:16:32.990
So, um, you mentioned these three core needs we have
262
00:16:33.169 --> 00:16:38.789
growing up, um, safety and love and, uh, having healthy boundaries. Um,
263
00:16:38.809 --> 00:16:41.659
so we can have the integrity of our own being
264
00:16:41.720 --> 00:16:45.460
our own space. Um, it, it seems to me there's
265
00:16:45.519 --> 00:16:50.000
another kind of, uh, need of a sorts, uh, And
266
00:16:50.039 --> 00:16:53.559
that's the need for an identity and a self-structure, like
267
00:16:53.860 --> 00:16:56.330
who am I and how do I navigate this crazy
268
00:16:56.370 --> 00:16:59.929
world with these big, powerful people when we're little? And,
269
00:17:00.649 --> 00:17:04.089
you know, the alternative is the actual groundlessness and impermanence
270
00:17:04.170 --> 00:17:07.579
and fluidity of life and consciousness. When we're two years old,
271
00:17:07.599 --> 00:17:09.779
we have no way of relating with that, obviously. So
272
00:17:09.799 --> 00:17:13.890
we need to form some self-structure. And that self-structure... can
273
00:17:13.930 --> 00:17:19.509
be built around these narratives, these adaptations, some necessary adaptations,
274
00:17:19.549 --> 00:17:21.640
some eventually maladaptations.
275
00:17:22.160 --> 00:17:22.880
But we build it.
276
00:17:23.039 --> 00:17:26.400
And depending on how benevolent and secure our childhood is,
277
00:17:27.180 --> 00:17:28.720
we have a relatively.
278
00:17:28.339 --> 00:17:29.440
High functioning self.
279
00:17:30.349 --> 00:17:33.289
It's still, I think, essentially, in some ways, fear-based because
280
00:17:33.329 --> 00:17:35.630
we're trying to ward off the experience of reality as
281
00:17:35.650 --> 00:17:38.500
it is. But if we don't have such a benevolent childhood,
282
00:17:38.539 --> 00:17:40.680
that self-structure can have a lot of gaps and holes
283
00:17:40.740 --> 00:17:44.069
and kinks in it, and we're not so functional as adults.
284
00:17:44.089 --> 00:17:46.970
We can really struggle, and there's everything in between. So
285
00:17:47.029 --> 00:17:49.369
part of that self-structure is identity.
286
00:17:49.529 --> 00:17:53.390
We get very identified with these narratives you're talking about.
287
00:17:54.519 --> 00:17:57.059
Even the narrative we were told, which can be full of.
288
00:17:57.240 --> 00:18:00.799
All kinds of falsehoods, and often has built a lot
289
00:18:00.819 --> 00:18:03.740
of unworthiness into it, a lot of not enoughness, and
290
00:18:03.779 --> 00:18:05.940
a lot of scarcity thinking about the world, a lot
291
00:18:05.960 --> 00:18:10.720
of fear-based beliefs. And then there's the story we told ourselves,
292
00:18:10.779 --> 00:18:14.069
which could be explaining traumas and neglect and all that,
293
00:18:14.109 --> 00:18:16.529
and can be even a more negative, more debilitating, more
294
00:18:16.569 --> 00:18:17.410
disempowering story.
295
00:18:17.789 --> 00:18:21.490
But nonetheless, it's all we got. We really identify with it. And,
296
00:18:22.349 --> 00:18:25.410
and so to move to closer to the truth.
297
00:18:25.470 --> 00:18:27.809
And I liked the way you spoke about that. And
298
00:18:27.829 --> 00:18:30.710
it seems like in the therapeutic process, part of what
299
00:18:30.759 --> 00:18:34.480
would be helpful to people would be being able to
300
00:18:34.539 --> 00:18:37.400
move from seeing the falsehoods and what they were told,
301
00:18:37.440 --> 00:18:39.359
and maybe some of the best stories they could come up.
302
00:18:39.319 --> 00:18:40.240
With when they were young.
303
00:18:41.420 --> 00:18:45.140
But rather than moving to sort of pumped up version
304
00:18:45.160 --> 00:18:48.190
to replace that, to develop an ability to have a
305
00:18:48.250 --> 00:18:52.140
realistic self-assessment of, who they are, how they show up
306
00:18:52.180 --> 00:18:54.339
in the world, and then from there, maybe actually being
307
00:18:54.359 --> 00:18:56.519
willing to improve some of our, you know, the way
308
00:18:56.559 --> 00:18:59.400
we show up in the world. And I'm wondering if
309
00:18:59.480 --> 00:19:04.200
it's helpful along the way there to distinguish between the
310
00:19:04.240 --> 00:19:06.529
truth of who we are on a relative level, you know,
311
00:19:06.569 --> 00:19:08.390
how we show up in the world and the skills
312
00:19:08.430 --> 00:19:11.750
we have are you know, even our ethical principles or,
313
00:19:11.769 --> 00:19:14.109
you know, how we really show up, how much integrity
314
00:19:14.150 --> 00:19:18.910
do we have, how much, you know, and distinguishing that
315
00:19:18.990 --> 00:19:22.259
from maybe some deeper ultimate level, if you will, which
316
00:19:22.339 --> 00:19:25.000
kind of goes into some of the spiritual traditions, or
317
00:19:25.019 --> 00:19:29.160
where there's some kind of innate unconditional goodness, innate worthiness.
318
00:19:29.640 --> 00:19:34.880
So there's the self-worth we can build through developing integrity
319
00:19:35.220 --> 00:19:39.720
and so forth, And then there's this underlying unconditional worthiness
320
00:19:39.740 --> 00:19:42.920
that are being on some levels ultimately worthy. And this
321
00:19:42.960 --> 00:19:47.349
really gets into attachment issues and how we heal all that.
322
00:19:47.670 --> 00:19:51.250
I'm just curious where, I realize it's an elaborate question,
323
00:19:51.289 --> 00:19:54.250
but I'm just wondering where that consideration takes you.
324
00:19:55.430 --> 00:19:56.619
I want to speak to some of that before we
325
00:19:56.650 --> 00:19:59.430
come to the attachment style piece. I think the question
326
00:19:59.470 --> 00:20:04.319
here really is, how do I know myself? How do
327
00:20:04.420 --> 00:20:10.180
I identify who I am? unless we've had a very,
328
00:20:10.259 --> 00:20:13.039
very blessed and privileged childhood, which most people, I don't
329
00:20:13.079 --> 00:20:15.519
mean privileged in terms of sort.
330
00:20:15.440 --> 00:20:17.799
Of, you know what I mean by that?
331
00:20:19.240 --> 00:20:24.180
Or unless we've done significant inner work, the chances are
332
00:20:24.279 --> 00:20:27.779
that we know ourselves as all of the stuff that
333
00:20:27.859 --> 00:20:33.680
we learned, right? Those defensive strategies, the belief systems that
334
00:20:33.720 --> 00:20:36.359
we've created, the stories that we've told ourselves about that.
335
00:20:36.420 --> 00:20:40.430
And that, That becomes our identity. But as you eloquently
336
00:20:40.470 --> 00:20:45.509
made the point, that is quite shaky ground upon which
337
00:20:45.549 --> 00:20:49.579
to build our sense of self. Because it's not built
338
00:20:49.799 --> 00:20:53.960
upon solid foundations of truth. It's built upon stuff that
339
00:20:54.000 --> 00:20:56.619
we figured out when we learn, often at a young
340
00:20:56.740 --> 00:21:01.680
age with a relatively inexperienced kind of understanding of the
341
00:21:01.740 --> 00:21:05.529
world to survive moment to moment the experiences that we
342
00:21:05.549 --> 00:21:12.319
were having. The place that if we do significant inner
343
00:21:12.400 --> 00:21:15.390
work that hopefully we start to get to know and
344
00:21:15.410 --> 00:21:19.789
we start to reach is who we are that isn't
345
00:21:20.170 --> 00:21:23.630
all of that. And to speak to that place a
346
00:21:23.670 --> 00:21:28.799
little bit, that place where our self-worth is not dependent
347
00:21:28.880 --> 00:21:32.109
upon what other people think. When ourself, and I don't
348
00:21:32.130 --> 00:21:33.750
mean that in an avoidant way. I don't care what
349
00:21:33.789 --> 00:21:36.789
anyone thinks. I mean, it's just unhooked from what other
350
00:21:36.950 --> 00:21:45.960
people think. Our sense of morality is not driven by
351
00:21:46.000 --> 00:21:48.799
a fear of consequence of doing the wrong thing. Our
352
00:21:48.839 --> 00:21:52.420
sense of morality is driven by a sense of innate
353
00:21:52.519 --> 00:21:55.400
goodness and a wish to treat other people from a
354
00:21:55.440 --> 00:21:58.930
place of goodness. Again, not because we're hooked onto the
355
00:21:59.009 --> 00:22:01.960
outcome of that, but because we're connected to the place
356
00:22:02.019 --> 00:22:04.940
within us, that that is the right way to live.
357
00:22:05.460 --> 00:22:08.859
And we feel more open and more alive and more
358
00:22:08.920 --> 00:22:11.640
connected when we choose to live our life from that place.
359
00:22:13.400 --> 00:22:17.269
I think it's also, it's an interesting place to make
360
00:22:17.369 --> 00:22:19.289
another point here that I think is important to this,
361
00:22:20.029 --> 00:22:25.789
which is what is the goal of therapeutic work? Because
362
00:22:25.869 --> 00:22:29.329
often the goal of therapeutic work is to try to
363
00:22:29.890 --> 00:22:33.299
simply make those beliefs and narratives and stories work a
364
00:22:33.339 --> 00:22:36.240
little bit better. And there's not that that's wrong. That
365
00:22:36.319 --> 00:22:39.279
does have a place, and I think that can be helpful.
366
00:22:40.980 --> 00:22:43.220
The philosopher Ken Wilber spoke about this very well. I
367
00:22:43.240 --> 00:22:44.559
think you know some of Ken Wilber's work. He spoke
368
00:22:44.579 --> 00:22:46.980
about this very well. He talked about that as translational change,
369
00:22:47.539 --> 00:22:51.970
where you're re-translating the narrative and the story that you have.
370
00:22:52.690 --> 00:22:57.210
But that's different to transformational change, because transformational change is
371
00:22:58.049 --> 00:23:00.589
we're letting go of the whole story in the first place.
372
00:23:00.970 --> 00:23:04.170
We're not trying to change or rewrite the story. We're
373
00:23:04.210 --> 00:23:07.910
no longer needing to identify with having a story because
374
00:23:07.930 --> 00:23:11.990
we're allowing what's actually true to arise often in the
375
00:23:12.069 --> 00:23:20.210
void of that. That kind of change is often terrifying, right?
376
00:23:20.390 --> 00:23:23.630
It's like, who am I? Not who am I if
377
00:23:23.710 --> 00:23:25.710
I change the story, but who am I without having
378
00:23:25.730 --> 00:23:29.869
a story in the first place? You know, and that
379
00:23:29.950 --> 00:23:34.029
kind of work is not work of our brain working
380
00:23:34.170 --> 00:23:38.349
harder to rethink about things. It's actually our brain and
381
00:23:38.390 --> 00:23:41.819
our nervous system relaxing enough that we can actually drop
382
00:23:41.890 --> 00:23:44.940
more fully and more deeply into what may feel like
383
00:23:44.980 --> 00:23:48.259
an absence, a nothingness, a void or whatever. But then
384
00:23:48.380 --> 00:23:51.680
truth can start to arise in that space, not from
385
00:23:51.759 --> 00:23:54.299
our mind, but from somewhere deeper inside of us.
386
00:23:56.119 --> 00:23:56.730
Absolutely.
387
00:23:57.890 --> 00:24:02.500
And ideally, I think therapeutic work would sort of work
388
00:24:02.519 --> 00:24:04.880
with both of those in some ways. It may be about,
389
00:24:05.200 --> 00:24:07.180
it may be translational and that can be very helpful,
390
00:24:07.220 --> 00:24:09.559
but at least be open to. And I mean, even
391
00:24:09.619 --> 00:24:13.680
Carl Rogers' work of just providing that unconditional positive regard
392
00:24:13.829 --> 00:24:17.230
as the space in which therapy happens, I think can
393
00:24:17.250 --> 00:24:20.369
be that maybe lighting the pilot flame or something of
394
00:24:21.029 --> 00:24:25.369
that kind of deeper transformational work. So let's begin to
395
00:24:25.430 --> 00:24:30.920
talk about how this shows up in relationships. So obviously
396
00:24:31.039 --> 00:24:34.269
our level of healthy attachment, you know, the early bonding
397
00:24:34.309 --> 00:24:37.470
we form with our caregivers, our lack of health, our
398
00:24:37.509 --> 00:24:40.700
healthy attachment or lack thereof really influences our ability.
399
00:24:40.380 --> 00:24:41.859
To form healthy relationships.
400
00:24:42.480 --> 00:24:46.359
And often, the unmet needs of our childhood, we seek
401
00:24:46.460 --> 00:24:50.430
out partners that we idealize and project the perfect parent onto,
402
00:24:50.490 --> 00:24:53.269
and we set them up to fail, and we set
403
00:24:53.309 --> 00:24:57.690
ourselves up for disappointment, right? And so, you know, it's
404
00:24:57.730 --> 00:25:00.950
kind of amazing what the... In some ways, there's some
405
00:25:01.049 --> 00:25:03.640
simplicity in these things, but there's a lot of complexity.
406
00:25:04.079 --> 00:25:06.700
And it's amazing that as many of us succeed as
407
00:25:06.720 --> 00:25:07.519
well as we do in the.
408
00:25:07.500 --> 00:25:08.710
Relational field, because..
409
00:25:09.500 --> 00:25:12.339
Without really doing some deep work, some inner work and
410
00:25:12.420 --> 00:25:15.339
some therapy work, some psychological work, we're kind of walking
411
00:25:15.359 --> 00:25:17.740
through a minefield with a blindfold.
412
00:25:17.420 --> 00:25:20.940
On and stumbling into other people and hoping for the best, right?
413
00:25:22.700 --> 00:25:25.079
And probably the extent to which that does work out
414
00:25:25.700 --> 00:25:28.079
more or less okay sometimes probably has to do with
415
00:25:28.119 --> 00:25:30.779
having healthy attachment to begin with. So I wonder if
416
00:25:30.819 --> 00:25:33.180
you could maybe talk a little bit about the attachment
417
00:25:33.220 --> 00:25:35.609
issues and then let's talk about how this moves in
418
00:25:35.640 --> 00:25:38.289
a relationship and how those of us who would like
419
00:25:40.519 --> 00:25:45.099
more love in our life of, you know, healthy love
420
00:25:45.319 --> 00:25:48.170
in primary relationships, but just in general with the world,
421
00:25:48.210 --> 00:25:52.009
but also have, you know, positive nurturing primary relationships, as
422
00:25:52.049 --> 00:25:57.269
well as good familial relationships, social relationships, professional relationships. Let's
423
00:25:57.289 --> 00:25:59.450
talk about, you know, how do we get there? And
424
00:25:59.890 --> 00:26:01.460
what are, what's the pathway?
425
00:26:01.819 --> 00:26:01.960
Yeah.
426
00:26:02.460 --> 00:26:04.240
Yeah, I'm still sat with your statement.
427
00:26:04.259 --> 00:26:05.000
I really like it.
428
00:26:05.200 --> 00:26:10.059
Relationships are like walking into a minefield with a blindfold on.
429
00:26:10.079 --> 00:26:11.779
That's going to make me chuckle into the evening. So
430
00:26:11.809 --> 00:26:16.950
thanks for that. In terms of answering your question, let's
431
00:26:17.029 --> 00:26:21.710
take attachment styles back to childhood trauma, because one of
432
00:26:21.730 --> 00:26:25.410
the things that I feel quite heavy hearted about is
433
00:26:25.470 --> 00:26:29.529
that I feel like The original work on attachment styles
434
00:26:30.410 --> 00:26:35.950
is a little misused in popular psychology because it seems
435
00:26:35.970 --> 00:26:38.730
to have become a set of labels that people use
436
00:26:38.990 --> 00:26:44.160
to victimhood themselves. Like, oh, well, I'm an anxious attachment style,
437
00:26:44.180 --> 00:26:46.900
so that means this, or I'm an avoidant attachment style,
438
00:26:46.920 --> 00:26:50.680
so that means this. Actually, the original research on attachment
439
00:26:50.720 --> 00:26:55.799
styles is that we can change our attachment style. It's
440
00:26:55.859 --> 00:27:01.619
not a defined thing. And the ultimate work on attachment
441
00:27:01.660 --> 00:27:04.619
styles shouldn't just, yes, it can be this, but it
442
00:27:04.660 --> 00:27:09.339
shouldn't be limited to just learning to adapt relationship dynamics
443
00:27:09.380 --> 00:27:13.920
to accommodate someone's attachment style. It should be working to
444
00:27:13.980 --> 00:27:17.220
cultivate a healthier and more secure attachment style. So I
445
00:27:17.240 --> 00:27:21.930
want to make this connection between how childhood trauma effectively
446
00:27:21.990 --> 00:27:24.119
shapes our attachment style, but also how that then I
447
00:27:24.170 --> 00:27:29.160
think becomes a pathway towards healing. So let's firstly, let's
448
00:27:29.180 --> 00:27:32.339
just talk about four basic attachment styles. I'm going to
449
00:27:32.359 --> 00:27:34.920
make this a bit overly simple, but I think that's
450
00:27:35.119 --> 00:27:39.029
important to make this land. So four attachment styles. We
451
00:27:39.049 --> 00:27:44.750
can have secure attachment. Secure attachment is when we feel
452
00:27:45.250 --> 00:27:49.309
well-regulated in our nervous system in contact with another or
453
00:27:49.329 --> 00:27:52.720
with other people We also feel well regulated by ourselves.
454
00:27:53.480 --> 00:27:56.039
And the early research on attachment styles, you'd see this
455
00:27:56.079 --> 00:27:59.440
with children sort of two, three years old. They'd be
456
00:27:59.599 --> 00:28:03.380
around other people, other children. They'd be with mom or
457
00:28:03.420 --> 00:28:05.809
dad or whoever the caregiver is. Typically in that research,
458
00:28:05.869 --> 00:28:08.490
it was mom. And they'd go off and they'd play.
459
00:28:08.809 --> 00:28:10.529
They'd hang out with the other kids a little bit.
460
00:28:11.009 --> 00:28:13.329
And then maybe one of the kids would snatch a
461
00:28:13.369 --> 00:28:16.049
toy or they'd kind of bump their toe or something.
462
00:28:16.089 --> 00:28:19.769
They'd be upset. They'd look for mom. They'd run towards mom,
463
00:28:19.809 --> 00:28:22.269
they'd get nurturing, they'd get love, they'd get safety, they'd
464
00:28:22.289 --> 00:28:25.619
get holding, they'd become okay again, then they would be
465
00:28:25.660 --> 00:28:28.140
happy to go off and play. So they were secure
466
00:28:28.319 --> 00:28:33.039
with mom, but they were also secure by themselves. That healthy,
467
00:28:33.119 --> 00:28:38.019
secure attachment in adulthood, what that looks like is when
468
00:28:38.059 --> 00:28:41.680
we're with an intimate other, assuming it's the right intimate other,
469
00:28:42.200 --> 00:28:46.049
we are able to feel open, we can be vulnerable,
470
00:28:46.210 --> 00:28:50.450
we can be connected, We feel secure with them. But
471
00:28:50.490 --> 00:28:54.329
also when we're not together, we're also okay. It's not
472
00:28:54.369 --> 00:28:56.829
that something's missing and we have this sort of neurotic
473
00:28:56.869 --> 00:28:59.880
need to be with them, but we're happy with ourselves
474
00:29:00.079 --> 00:29:02.940
and we're happy in relationships. That's what secure attachment looks like.
475
00:29:04.039 --> 00:29:06.900
If we go to anxious attachment, the second of the four,
476
00:29:06.920 --> 00:29:12.079
we've got secure, anxious, avoidant, and disorganized. So anxious attachment
477
00:29:12.779 --> 00:29:16.950
is when that child is clingy. It doesn't want to
478
00:29:17.009 --> 00:29:21.569
separate from mom. When it's away from mom, it's distressed
479
00:29:21.730 --> 00:29:25.440
and it's needy of mom. How does that manifest in
480
00:29:25.579 --> 00:29:30.240
adult life? That manifests in someone that is anxious in relationship.
481
00:29:30.559 --> 00:29:33.640
When that person's away, they're constantly thinking about what are
482
00:29:33.660 --> 00:29:36.650
they doing? Are they being disloyal to me? When they're
483
00:29:36.690 --> 00:29:37.829
with that person, they need a.
484
00:29:37.849 --> 00:29:38.890
Lot of reassurance.
485
00:29:39.269 --> 00:29:41.640
The other person often feel a bit suffocated and a
486
00:29:41.700 --> 00:29:47.059
bit overwhelmed by the neediness of that person. How this
487
00:29:47.140 --> 00:29:49.700
relates to the nervous system, which I think is the
488
00:29:49.740 --> 00:29:54.470
really important piece here, is the secure attachment. Nervous system
489
00:29:54.529 --> 00:29:58.809
is well regulated by oneself. and it's well regulated in
490
00:29:59.269 --> 00:30:05.829
relational connection. The anxious attachment is looking to the other
491
00:30:05.930 --> 00:30:11.109
person to provide the safety for their nervous system to regulate.
492
00:30:12.289 --> 00:30:15.130
If we look at the opposite of an anxious attachment style,
493
00:30:15.410 --> 00:30:19.740
it's our third style, it's an avoidant attachment style. Avoidant
494
00:30:19.779 --> 00:30:23.539
attachment style in those childhood studies doesn't wanna be close
495
00:30:23.559 --> 00:30:27.599
to mum. Mum comes in, they push mum away. And
496
00:30:27.980 --> 00:30:29.920
I don't mean in the sort of typical sort of
497
00:30:29.980 --> 00:30:32.700
two-ish thing where one's starting to separate, but that becomes
498
00:30:32.740 --> 00:30:35.259
like the default that they're pushing away. How does that
499
00:30:35.299 --> 00:30:38.180
show up in adulthood? That shows up as someone who's
500
00:30:38.220 --> 00:30:41.529
always a bit distant, always a bit aloof in relationship,
501
00:30:41.950 --> 00:30:46.750
that they struggle to commit to intimate relationship. What they've
502
00:30:46.809 --> 00:30:51.410
learned is being close to the other, they don't feel safe,
503
00:30:51.470 --> 00:30:55.490
their nervous system's not well-regulated, They've learned to find that
504
00:30:55.599 --> 00:31:01.019
nervous system regulation through isolation and through separation. So for
505
00:31:01.059 --> 00:31:05.240
the avoidant attachment style, their work, so the anxious attachment
506
00:31:05.259 --> 00:31:08.299
style is to learn to regulate their nervous system away
507
00:31:08.380 --> 00:31:13.940
from contact. For the avoidant attachment style, it's to learn
508
00:31:13.980 --> 00:31:18.400
to regulate their nervous system whilst in contact. Our fourth
509
00:31:18.440 --> 00:31:22.680
attachment style, which is the disorganized attachment style, oscillates between
510
00:31:22.700 --> 00:31:25.609
the two. So it can be anxious and needy and
511
00:31:25.670 --> 00:31:27.650
clingy and then it starts to get its need and
512
00:31:27.670 --> 00:31:29.710
then it pushes away and it becomes avoidant and it's
513
00:31:29.730 --> 00:31:35.619
a constant movement between those two places. So to balance
514
00:31:35.680 --> 00:31:39.599
or to heal one's attachment, to cultivate a secure attachment,
515
00:31:40.920 --> 00:31:46.119
it's learning how to regulate one's nervous system. It's learning
516
00:31:46.160 --> 00:31:48.759
how to regulate one's nervous system if you're anxious when
517
00:31:48.779 --> 00:31:52.150
you're away from that other person And when you're avoidant,
518
00:31:52.230 --> 00:31:55.150
when you're in close proximity to the other person, and
519
00:31:55.190 --> 00:31:59.049
if you're disorganized, it's actually working on both of those pieces.
520
00:31:59.829 --> 00:32:03.380
And when we learn to do that, when we learn
521
00:32:03.920 --> 00:32:07.920
how to regulate the nervous system, our attachment style can
522
00:32:07.960 --> 00:32:11.559
start to change. We may still have some underlying tendencies
523
00:32:11.640 --> 00:32:14.779
maybe that are there, but it is a changeable thing
524
00:32:17.059 --> 00:32:21.369
But it's not changed just by habit or behavioral change.
525
00:32:22.029 --> 00:32:26.410
It's changed by learning how to cultivate that sense of safety,
526
00:32:26.869 --> 00:32:31.900
which may have been missing within ourself. Because ultimately, our
527
00:32:32.000 --> 00:32:37.269
intimate partner should be the icing on the cake of
528
00:32:37.289 --> 00:32:38.869
the joy of our life or the cherry on the
529
00:32:38.910 --> 00:32:42.990
top of our life. It shouldn't be the building block
530
00:32:43.089 --> 00:32:46.170
upon which our psychological structures are built. Because if it is,
531
00:32:46.690 --> 00:32:51.920
that is the absolute definition of a codependent relationship, that
532
00:32:52.200 --> 00:32:59.049
we are dependent upon another person to be psychologically well-functioning. So..
533
00:33:00.059 --> 00:33:04.019
This is really incredibly helpful to see those four attachment
534
00:33:04.039 --> 00:33:08.160
styles and then how that can show up in a relationship.
535
00:33:08.220 --> 00:33:12.859
And imagining the healing work that... You know, a couple,
536
00:33:12.880 --> 00:33:15.279
for example, could do in their relationship with support a
537
00:33:15.420 --> 00:33:19.420
person understanding something about each other's attachment styles. And then,
538
00:33:20.220 --> 00:33:25.049
you know, having the intentionality to do the self-regulation and
539
00:33:25.089 --> 00:33:26.630
co-regulation work to heal that.
540
00:33:26.690 --> 00:33:29.970
So it's not just adapting, but actually transforming relationships.
541
00:33:30.289 --> 00:33:32.990
And just to put this in kind of common sense language,
542
00:33:33.029 --> 00:33:35.309
I think what a lot of people experience in relationship
543
00:33:35.990 --> 00:33:38.349
is this dance that goes back and forth of like,
544
00:33:38.809 --> 00:33:41.470
I want more connection when the other person's go, no,
545
00:33:41.730 --> 00:33:43.829
I need more space. And then the other person, no,
546
00:33:43.950 --> 00:33:45.670
I want more connection on the other person.
547
00:33:45.710 --> 00:33:46.430
I want more space.
548
00:33:46.490 --> 00:33:49.190
And you get this dance back and forth between this
549
00:33:49.490 --> 00:33:52.920
desire and need for. And that could, you know, I mean,
550
00:33:52.940 --> 00:33:56.880
that could happen. Even with people with secure attachment, I think,
551
00:33:56.920 --> 00:33:59.509
just in the needs of our life and things going
552
00:33:59.569 --> 00:34:02.529
back and forth, sometimes we may need a little more space.
553
00:34:02.750 --> 00:34:06.910
But if you imagine that anxious asthmatiles, or one has
554
00:34:07.039 --> 00:34:07.930
anxious and the other has..
555
00:34:09.900 --> 00:34:12.599
Avoidance, or two people with.
556
00:34:14.199 --> 00:34:18.739
Confused or disorganized attachment styles. That dance is going to
557
00:34:18.780 --> 00:34:22.860
be all over the map and incredibly confusing for people.
558
00:34:23.000 --> 00:34:25.699
The signals we're going to be sending to each other. Interesting,
559
00:34:25.980 --> 00:34:29.900
in Stephen Porge's work, I know you've interviewed him and
560
00:34:30.469 --> 00:34:33.559
polyvagal theory to talk about the way that what we're
561
00:34:33.599 --> 00:34:37.360
signaling can invite others to have their social engagement system online.
562
00:34:37.400 --> 00:34:41.000
We're signaling safety. We're signaling connection. But if you can
563
00:34:41.059 --> 00:34:44.739
imagine some of these mixed attachment styles in a relationship, the.
564
00:34:44.639 --> 00:34:47.510
Signaling is just all over the place. It's really noise.
565
00:34:47.860 --> 00:34:49.570
And so how do you navigate that?
566
00:34:50.409 --> 00:34:52.429
Well, I think if we take that back to what
567
00:34:52.449 --> 00:34:54.769
you were saying a little bit earlier about these different stories,
568
00:34:55.769 --> 00:34:58.730
like what's the story we were told? What's the story
569
00:34:58.750 --> 00:35:03.469
we've become to believe? but what's actually true, right? And so,
570
00:35:04.150 --> 00:35:07.969
so much of what we react to in the other
571
00:35:08.050 --> 00:35:13.389
person in relationship is not their intention. It's the story
572
00:35:13.469 --> 00:35:18.590
we've told ourselves about what their actions mean. So if
573
00:35:18.670 --> 00:35:24.690
we are with someone in relationship, who fundamentally does not
574
00:35:24.809 --> 00:35:28.449
love us and does not wish good for us, we
575
00:35:28.469 --> 00:35:32.289
should leave that relationship. That's a pretty clear definition of
576
00:35:32.309 --> 00:35:35.230
a relationship we should leave. So let's make the assumption
577
00:35:35.289 --> 00:35:37.590
that the folks we're talking to, that's not the case,
578
00:35:37.610 --> 00:35:38.809
because if it is the case, what they need to
579
00:35:38.849 --> 00:35:40.590
do is actually run it. The path to it might
580
00:35:40.610 --> 00:35:44.719
be very difficult, but the actual direction is clear. But
581
00:35:44.780 --> 00:35:49.360
normally what's happening is... We are, I'm going back to,
582
00:35:49.380 --> 00:35:51.969
because I'm still tickled by it, to your analogy about
583
00:35:52.050 --> 00:35:55.269
walking into a minefield with a blindfold on. In a way,
584
00:35:55.329 --> 00:35:57.630
that's part of what's happening here, that we've got a
585
00:35:57.690 --> 00:36:00.389
blindfold on, or to mix metaphors a little bit, or
586
00:36:00.409 --> 00:36:05.090
to change the metaphor, we're seeing their behavior through the
587
00:36:05.159 --> 00:36:09.260
lens of our past, through the story that we're telling ourselves.
588
00:36:09.780 --> 00:36:12.079
And so to bring that to life a little bit,
589
00:36:12.119 --> 00:36:17.630
let's say that we, let's say it's, I don't we've
590
00:36:17.650 --> 00:36:21.070
got kids, kids are in bed, and we think it
591
00:36:21.110 --> 00:36:23.469
might be time for a little bit of sexual intimacy.
592
00:36:24.130 --> 00:36:27.280
And we reach out and we initiate that with our partner.
593
00:36:27.960 --> 00:36:31.699
And for some reason, they don't reciprocate or they reject.
594
00:36:32.440 --> 00:36:34.480
That reason could be one of a hundred different things.
595
00:36:34.980 --> 00:36:39.690
But our story is that people reject us, that we're
596
00:36:39.730 --> 00:36:44.320
not lovable, that we're not enough. So what Their reason
597
00:36:44.420 --> 00:36:46.840
for not wanting to be intimate with us in that
598
00:36:46.900 --> 00:36:51.619
moment likely has actually nothing to do with whether or
599
00:36:51.679 --> 00:36:54.280
not they love us or they care about us. It's
600
00:36:54.400 --> 00:36:56.400
likely something else, and it could be one of 100
601
00:36:56.400 --> 00:36:58.809
different things that are going on. It could be they're
602
00:36:58.829 --> 00:37:00.829
just really tired. It could be they have a headache.
603
00:37:00.989 --> 00:37:03.889
It could be they have low libido that evening. It
604
00:37:03.949 --> 00:37:05.630
could be they've got to be up early for a meeting.
605
00:37:05.650 --> 00:37:07.730
There could be 100 different reasons why that may be
606
00:37:07.769 --> 00:37:12.349
going on. Then the way that we respond... is maybe
607
00:37:12.530 --> 00:37:15.789
our sort of emotional immune system comes up and we
608
00:37:15.829 --> 00:37:18.849
start to try to defend ourselves. And maybe we make
609
00:37:18.889 --> 00:37:22.309
an unkind comment towards them because we're trying to protect
610
00:37:22.369 --> 00:37:25.030
the fact that that really fragile part of us just
611
00:37:25.070 --> 00:37:29.050
got poked. And then we say something towards them. And
612
00:37:29.090 --> 00:37:32.340
what we're really saying is, I feel rejected and that hurts.
613
00:37:33.159 --> 00:37:37.400
But what they hear is the story that they have
614
00:37:37.639 --> 00:37:41.570
about their history and maybe their story is that, Their
615
00:37:41.630 --> 00:37:44.150
needs are never acknowledged and other people always kind of
616
00:37:44.550 --> 00:37:47.030
push them around to get what they want. So now
617
00:37:47.070 --> 00:37:49.449
we've got a situation where we've got two people that
618
00:37:49.489 --> 00:37:53.130
love each other with two completely different stories, not based
619
00:37:53.170 --> 00:37:56.630
upon facts of what's happening. And here's the real rub.
620
00:37:57.630 --> 00:38:00.889
They're now both responding to the story they've told themselves
621
00:38:00.909 --> 00:38:06.250
that isn't true. So neither party feels seen. Neither party
622
00:38:06.389 --> 00:38:09.599
is getting what they need relationally in that moment. All
623
00:38:09.639 --> 00:38:11.960
they're doing is it's like when someone throws a punch,
624
00:38:12.320 --> 00:38:15.739
you really have two choices. You can block the punch
625
00:38:16.400 --> 00:38:19.039
or you can throw a counter punch. So they're both
626
00:38:19.119 --> 00:38:23.900
being defensive and they're both also then being potentially threatening
627
00:38:24.260 --> 00:38:26.760
in the way that they're, either their words or whatever.
628
00:38:29.099 --> 00:38:32.980
So to really, to break free of all of this,
629
00:38:36.000 --> 00:38:39.349
my experience clinically is, is that first of all, we
630
00:38:39.409 --> 00:38:44.150
have to really decode what's happening. Like, what are the stories?
631
00:38:44.829 --> 00:38:47.650
What are the patterns? What are the reactions that are happening?
632
00:38:48.369 --> 00:38:54.909
And are they actually true? Now, we are in those situations.
633
00:38:55.429 --> 00:38:58.980
It's much easier to decode the other person's story than
634
00:38:59.019 --> 00:39:01.539
it is to decode our own story, right? I'm trying
635
00:39:01.559 --> 00:39:03.559
to remember who it was, but I was interviewing a
636
00:39:03.579 --> 00:39:06.900
couples therapist at some point. And their point basically was
637
00:39:06.940 --> 00:39:11.380
that that no one decides to go to couples therapy
638
00:39:11.760 --> 00:39:14.679
because they think they are the problem. Everyone goes to
639
00:39:14.719 --> 00:39:16.920
couples therapy because they are the half is the problem.
640
00:39:17.440 --> 00:39:20.239
And they need the therapist to help them to realize
641
00:39:20.280 --> 00:39:24.510
that they are the problem, right? And so almost inevitably,
642
00:39:24.670 --> 00:39:29.889
when we're in conflict in relationship, we are not our...
643
00:39:30.039 --> 00:39:33.860
grown-up self taking responsibility for our own stories and our
644
00:39:33.920 --> 00:39:37.239
own narratives and our own reactions. We are wanting to
645
00:39:37.300 --> 00:39:40.690
point out to our beloved, which is ironic because this
646
00:39:40.730 --> 00:39:42.969
is the person that we supposedly love most in the world,
647
00:39:43.469 --> 00:39:45.909
all the reasons why they're wrong and all the reasons
648
00:39:45.969 --> 00:39:50.110
why they're flawed. If we can decode that and we
649
00:39:50.150 --> 00:39:53.250
can start to map some of what's happening, that's an
650
00:39:53.309 --> 00:39:57.369
important first step. Now, it's not enough because you could
651
00:39:57.409 --> 00:39:59.969
do that and it all still is happening, but if
652
00:40:00.010 --> 00:40:03.739
we can do that and we can start to bring
653
00:40:03.800 --> 00:40:08.000
some nervous system regulation on both sides into what's happening,
654
00:40:09.059 --> 00:40:13.039
to use Stephen Porges' framework, as you mentioned, a polyvagal theory,
655
00:40:13.460 --> 00:40:15.900
if we can both come back down to safe and social,
656
00:40:16.480 --> 00:40:20.340
and we can actually find a place of regulation we've
657
00:40:20.360 --> 00:40:23.860
got a chance of starting to actually write a different
658
00:40:23.900 --> 00:40:27.659
story together and to start to build some different dynamics
659
00:40:27.719 --> 00:40:34.949
of what's happening. But that takes a certain courage, takes
660
00:40:34.989 --> 00:40:39.130
a certain willingness, and it takes a certain humility. And
661
00:40:40.230 --> 00:40:43.610
it's not an easy thing to learn initially that when
662
00:40:43.670 --> 00:40:46.820
we feel defended and we feel we want to attack,
663
00:40:47.539 --> 00:40:50.920
to not go with that impulse but to actually look
664
00:40:50.940 --> 00:40:55.639
for what's missing in us and to take responsibility for that,
665
00:40:56.059 --> 00:40:59.199
not to make it the other person's responsibility to give
666
00:40:59.239 --> 00:40:59.969
us what we need.
667
00:41:03.610 --> 00:41:07.929
What if transformation isn't just about thinking differently, but feeling differently?
668
00:41:08.429 --> 00:41:11.190
Science shows us that true change happens when we align
669
00:41:11.230 --> 00:41:14.619
not just our minds, but also the neural networks in
670
00:41:14.679 --> 00:41:18.360
our hearts and guts. This heart-mind connection is the key
671
00:41:18.400 --> 00:41:22.300
to deeper healing, resilience, and expanded awareness. That's why I
672
00:41:22.380 --> 00:41:26.239
created the HeartMind All Access Membership and Community, a space
673
00:41:26.300 --> 00:41:30.340
designed to help you rewire your nervous system, cultivate heart intelligence,
674
00:41:30.699 --> 00:41:34.559
and live with greater clarity and purpose. With over 1,000
675
00:41:34.559 --> 00:41:39.340
hours of transformational teachings specifically curated to meet your needs,
676
00:41:39.840 --> 00:41:45.949
you'll learn, from world-renowned meditation teachers, neuroscientists, and experts in neuroplasticity,
677
00:41:46.389 --> 00:41:49.849
all sharing powerful tools to help you shift your mindset
678
00:41:50.289 --> 00:41:54.610
and heart set, regulate your emotions, and unlock your full potential.
679
00:41:55.429 --> 00:41:58.750
You'll also gain unlimited access to every summit and course
680
00:41:58.789 --> 00:42:04.070
we've ever produced, a treasure trove of wisdom worth over $ 10, 000
681
00:42:02.550 --> 00:42:06.769
and growing, plus live gatherings and an inspiring global community
682
00:42:07.050 --> 00:42:09.920
to support your journey. If you're ready to step into
683
00:42:09.960 --> 00:42:13.219
a more heart-centered, connected, and conscious life, I invite you
684
00:42:13.260 --> 00:42:15.860
to join us. Click the link to learn more and
685
00:42:15.920 --> 00:42:21.949
start your journey today. Yeah, and what you're describing there,
686
00:42:21.989 --> 00:42:23.809
I mean, it seems like if we want to be
687
00:42:23.869 --> 00:42:27.349
successful in a relationship and we really want to optimize
688
00:42:27.389 --> 00:42:29.750
our relationship, not just kind of cope and hope for
689
00:42:29.769 --> 00:42:33.780
the best and, you know, deal with our disappointments and everything,
690
00:42:34.739 --> 00:42:36.780
I mean, there's always going to be disappointment, but I mean,
691
00:42:36.800 --> 00:42:39.559
you know, just settling, not settling for kind of sort
692
00:42:39.599 --> 00:42:42.030
of mediocrity in our relationship, but we really want to.
693
00:42:42.030 --> 00:42:45.699
Optimize our relationship. There's a kind of self-education and co-education
694
00:42:45.719 --> 00:42:48.510
that needs to happen. We need to learn about all this, right?
695
00:42:49.010 --> 00:42:50.510
And, you know, we could be in therapy with a
696
00:42:50.550 --> 00:42:52.469
skilled therapist and they could help us get a start,
697
00:42:52.489 --> 00:42:54.329
but ultimately we're going to have to learn about this so.
698
00:42:54.210 --> 00:42:56.369
That we can do the work together.
699
00:42:56.389 --> 00:42:59.829
And just stepping back for a moment and really understanding
700
00:42:59.869 --> 00:43:01.429
what we're up against, you know, we've been talking about
701
00:43:01.449 --> 00:43:06.369
these stories, these different attachment styles. I imagine you're familiar
702
00:43:06.409 --> 00:43:09.889
with Virginia Satir's work, you know, around sculpting and what,
703
00:43:10.050 --> 00:43:13.980
you know, they'll often find that couples often find themselves
704
00:43:14.000 --> 00:43:16.559
getting in the same conflict.
705
00:43:16.199 --> 00:43:19.400
Again and again, or, you know, chronic arguments, chronic conflicts.
706
00:43:19.969 --> 00:43:22.469
And so Virginia Satir would work with them and others
707
00:43:22.570 --> 00:43:26.150
using her methodologies and get clear with one person, like
708
00:43:26.190 --> 00:43:28.199
when you're in that conflict, what's your posture?
709
00:43:28.239 --> 00:43:30.340
What are you doing? What are you saying? What's your frame?
710
00:43:30.760 --> 00:43:32.480
And then work with that one person. Once they get
711
00:43:32.559 --> 00:43:35.199
really clear, both people agree that, yeah, that's the positive,
712
00:43:35.239 --> 00:43:39.019
that's exactly the energy, the therapist would then turn to them, okay,
713
00:43:39.219 --> 00:43:42.059
where are you? And almost immediately the person will have,
714
00:43:42.099 --> 00:43:44.059
maybe they ask them to close their eyes, but almost
715
00:43:44.099 --> 00:43:48.480
immediately they say, I'm with my father. He's yelling at me. I'm,
716
00:43:48.659 --> 00:43:51.019
you know, four years old or whatever. And they do
717
00:43:51.079 --> 00:43:53.579
with both. And the sense you get is that a
718
00:43:53.659 --> 00:43:56.679
lot of the conflict that's going on in our relationships
719
00:43:56.739 --> 00:43:59.530
is like the ghosts of our parents and the ghosts
720
00:43:59.610 --> 00:44:03.449
of our interactions with our parents being played out. A
721
00:44:03.510 --> 00:44:05.530
lot of the things our parents weren't able to resolve,
722
00:44:05.570 --> 00:44:07.739
so they got passed on to us. And then we
723
00:44:07.760 --> 00:44:09.579
have all these, whether we look at it in terms
724
00:44:09.639 --> 00:44:14.440
of stories or energies or even epigenetic environments, if we
725
00:44:14.460 --> 00:44:16.400
want to get down into the neurobiology of it, we
726
00:44:16.420 --> 00:44:19.320
could talk about that in a moment. But we're up
727
00:44:19.340 --> 00:44:21.929
against all this stuff playing out, and it requires a certain...
728
00:44:22.409 --> 00:44:25.070
as you said, humility and benevolence, but I think some
729
00:44:25.110 --> 00:44:28.530
kind of self-education and like a real curiosity. It seems
730
00:44:28.550 --> 00:44:32.230
like curiosity, you know, when things are not working well,
731
00:44:32.309 --> 00:44:34.510
I always think it's usually to blame the other person,
732
00:44:34.570 --> 00:44:38.099
as you're saying, but have a really curiosity about, okay,
733
00:44:38.119 --> 00:44:40.099
I'm curious about what's going on for them, but I'm
734
00:44:40.139 --> 00:44:42.280
also curious about what, what am I doing here and
735
00:44:42.320 --> 00:44:45.260
curious about how the whole dynamic is interesting. It requires
736
00:44:45.300 --> 00:44:50.949
some real curiosity and sort of a, an interest in becoming, um,
737
00:44:51.840 --> 00:44:55.940
better educated and even an interesting kind of self-mastery and
738
00:44:55.960 --> 00:44:59.889
relational mastery if we really want to have good relationships.
739
00:45:00.320 --> 00:45:01.789
I think a lot of us have a sense of
740
00:45:01.849 --> 00:45:05.489
entitlement that it's just supposed to happen. You're supposed to
741
00:45:05.530 --> 00:45:06.570
fall in love and then you're supposed to have a
742
00:45:06.610 --> 00:45:08.469
great relationship and live happily ever after.
743
00:45:08.489 --> 00:45:09.570
And that's just not the case.
744
00:45:10.710 --> 00:45:13.849
A couple of therapists once said to me when my
745
00:45:13.889 --> 00:45:17.420
wife and I were doing some work together, she actually,
746
00:45:17.579 --> 00:45:19.320
she looked at me and she said, she said, okay,
747
00:45:19.340 --> 00:45:21.500
you've got, you've got, you can have two choices here.
748
00:45:21.920 --> 00:45:23.639
You can only have one of them. You depict which
749
00:45:23.739 --> 00:45:26.960
one it is. Do you want to be right? Or
750
00:45:27.000 --> 00:45:29.179
do you want to be happy? It's like, cause you
751
00:45:29.219 --> 00:45:31.949
can't have them both because one of, one of my
752
00:45:32.150 --> 00:45:35.349
sort of defensive strategies is, is I like to, I
753
00:45:35.369 --> 00:45:37.170
don't like to argue. My wife, I don't particularly argue,
754
00:45:37.210 --> 00:45:39.750
but I like to, I like to be right because
755
00:45:39.789 --> 00:45:41.230
I can stack it all up and I can figure
756
00:45:41.269 --> 00:45:43.130
out what's happening and I can decode this and this
757
00:45:43.190 --> 00:45:46.119
and that and that and that and that. Um, But
758
00:45:46.179 --> 00:45:49.219
all that does is in that moment, push my wife away.
759
00:45:49.300 --> 00:45:51.860
He's like, you're analyzing. I don't feel connected to you.
760
00:45:51.880 --> 00:45:53.619
You're just being defensive and doing the thing that you
761
00:45:53.659 --> 00:45:56.360
did to survive your childhood, which was to try and
762
00:45:56.400 --> 00:45:59.449
make sense of the whole thing, right? It's like, and
763
00:45:59.510 --> 00:46:02.710
that is the, I think that's the courage. That's the humility.
764
00:46:02.730 --> 00:46:07.610
That's the curiosity, to use your word, that you can't
765
00:46:07.650 --> 00:46:11.090
have it both ways. You know, we can't hang on
766
00:46:11.219 --> 00:46:14.940
to the old story and hang on to our defensive
767
00:46:14.960 --> 00:46:19.199
structures and And expect to be in a connected, loving,
768
00:46:19.360 --> 00:46:22.780
intimate relationship with somebody else. Because the only person we're
769
00:46:22.800 --> 00:46:25.019
going to be in any kind of connected, loving, intimate
770
00:46:25.039 --> 00:46:28.619
relationship there is, is someone that has no sense of
771
00:46:28.679 --> 00:46:31.360
self and someone that's just going to completely acquiesce to
772
00:46:31.400 --> 00:46:33.800
everything that we say is true. But if we actually
773
00:46:33.840 --> 00:46:37.940
want to be in a reciprocal power balanced relationship. then
774
00:46:38.460 --> 00:46:41.920
we can't have control. We can't have it the way
775
00:46:41.960 --> 00:46:44.059
that we want it all of the time. We can
776
00:46:44.099 --> 00:46:46.239
some of the time because that should be part of
777
00:46:46.260 --> 00:46:50.010
the balance. But I think it's also one of the
778
00:46:50.050 --> 00:46:53.110
things that I'm sort of pondering out loud a little
779
00:46:53.130 --> 00:46:54.789
bit in the moment, maybe try to get your thoughts
780
00:46:54.829 --> 00:46:56.269
on this. One of the things that I've certainly seen
781
00:46:56.329 --> 00:46:59.829
over the years is I remember when my wife and
782
00:46:59.869 --> 00:47:04.590
I met in a spiritual sort of meditation group that
783
00:47:04.610 --> 00:47:07.429
we were both very, very committed to at that time.
784
00:47:08.050 --> 00:47:10.159
And so a lot of our mutual friends early on
785
00:47:10.179 --> 00:47:12.179
in our relationship were all doing a lot of inner
786
00:47:12.219 --> 00:47:14.800
work and all in therapy and all, you know, a
787
00:47:15.059 --> 00:47:16.960
lot of them doing couples work, a lot of very
788
00:47:17.019 --> 00:47:20.389
sincere commitment to that. And I remember thinking at the time,
789
00:47:20.409 --> 00:47:22.650
I was in my kind of, I was in my
790
00:47:22.670 --> 00:47:25.269
sort of around 30 at the time and thinking, well,
791
00:47:25.289 --> 00:47:27.530
you know, we're all so lucky that we're doing all
792
00:47:27.550 --> 00:47:29.590
this work so young and we're going to have a
793
00:47:29.610 --> 00:47:33.690
much better shot at a loving, lasting relationship than others.
794
00:47:34.699 --> 00:47:37.559
And if I track back now, so what's that, 14
795
00:47:37.559 --> 00:47:41.619
years later, I would say the divorce rate amongst my
796
00:47:41.659 --> 00:47:44.679
spiritual friends is higher than the divorce rate amongst my
797
00:47:44.760 --> 00:47:49.380
non-spiritual friends. I'm interested in your thoughts on that. But
798
00:47:49.460 --> 00:47:55.320
part of my conclusion of this has been that A
799
00:47:55.360 --> 00:47:58.789
lot of those folks have done a lot of inner work,
800
00:47:59.789 --> 00:48:05.110
which potentially has actually made them a little more narcissistic,
801
00:48:05.829 --> 00:48:09.349
and a little more, I figured out what my needs are,
802
00:48:09.670 --> 00:48:16.250
I figured out, and actually has almost enabled a more,
803
00:48:17.110 --> 00:48:19.789
I don't know if childlike's fair, that's probably slightly unfair.
804
00:48:20.840 --> 00:48:23.820
If I put it slightly differently, we have a number
805
00:48:23.840 --> 00:48:26.159
of our friends in recent years have been people we've
806
00:48:26.179 --> 00:48:28.159
met through the kids' schools and so on. And so
807
00:48:28.579 --> 00:48:30.840
we've more become friends because of mutual interests and because
808
00:48:30.880 --> 00:48:33.179
of kids, not necessarily because of that sort of spiritual
809
00:48:33.420 --> 00:48:37.949
and psychological work. And actually those friends often seem more
810
00:48:38.030 --> 00:48:41.590
willing to compromise and more of a recognition that actually
811
00:48:41.630 --> 00:48:43.849
relationships do sort of take work and they're hard. And
812
00:48:43.909 --> 00:48:46.369
actually you do have to, you know, you have to
813
00:48:46.389 --> 00:48:48.659
find the path that works for both of you. So
814
00:48:48.699 --> 00:48:52.059
it's just an interesting reflection that Yeah, I'm curious as
815
00:48:52.079 --> 00:48:54.440
to your thoughts, Fleet, because you've been around the block
816
00:48:54.460 --> 00:48:55.239
plenty of times as well.
817
00:48:55.739 --> 00:48:58.599
Yeah, no, it's a really important insight on many levels.
818
00:48:58.780 --> 00:49:01.679
Just to say that you talked about that couples therapist.
819
00:49:02.440 --> 00:49:04.940
I've been leading a very intense kind of group process
820
00:49:04.980 --> 00:49:07.539
training for many years, not since the pandemic started. We
821
00:49:07.579 --> 00:49:12.030
haven't gotten back to it. And people doing individual work,
822
00:49:12.050 --> 00:49:13.949
but sometimes there will be a couple come to the
823
00:49:13.969 --> 00:49:17.730
training or sometimes someone with their adult child. And they'll
824
00:49:17.750 --> 00:49:19.739
be in there and they just be locked in combat.
825
00:49:19.780 --> 00:49:21.519
You know, neither one of them wanted to give an inch.
826
00:49:22.000 --> 00:49:24.300
And very often myself or my co-trainer would say to
827
00:49:24.429 --> 00:49:26.250
one of them, what do you want?
828
00:49:26.789 --> 00:49:28.389
Do you want to be right? Or do you want
829
00:49:28.409 --> 00:49:31.090
to have a relationship? Choose. You can't have both, right?
830
00:49:31.150 --> 00:49:33.329
The same distinction. It's really important distinction.
831
00:49:34.170 --> 00:49:35.769
And another thing that came up for me around this
832
00:49:35.809 --> 00:49:42.920
curiosity piece is once interviewing, um, I believe it was
833
00:49:42.980 --> 00:49:47.199
either Gay and Katie Hendricks, or the other really famous
834
00:49:47.659 --> 00:49:57.610
couple who are in couples therapy, Harville Hendricks, and his
835
00:49:57.650 --> 00:50:00.969
wife has a different last name. But it was one
836
00:50:00.989 --> 00:50:04.119
of those two couples, and they talked about what they've
837
00:50:04.139 --> 00:50:07.579
developed together. And when one of them voices some kind
838
00:50:07.619 --> 00:50:14.340
of displeasure or discomfort or anything like that, they've really
839
00:50:14.389 --> 00:50:17.230
trained themselves to have their first response be, tell me
840
00:50:17.269 --> 00:50:17.929
more about that.
841
00:50:19.429 --> 00:50:20.590
Which seems pretty.
842
00:50:20.429 --> 00:50:26.050
Enlightened, because often we're so naturally defensive, and being right
843
00:50:26.110 --> 00:50:29.340
is a really kind of addictive emotional payoff. but to
844
00:50:29.360 --> 00:50:32.670
be able to, you know, relax around somebody's voicing something, maybe,
845
00:50:33.190 --> 00:50:35.690
maybe just that they're struggling with. Sometimes we can take
846
00:50:35.730 --> 00:50:37.389
personally just the fact the other, but even if they
847
00:50:37.409 --> 00:50:40.250
haven't made it about us, or maybe they are saying
848
00:50:40.309 --> 00:50:43.030
something about us and how we're showing up and, and
849
00:50:43.150 --> 00:50:45.820
to have our first reaction instead of being to defend ourselves,
850
00:50:45.860 --> 00:50:48.760
to invite them to share more, right? That, that kind
851
00:50:48.780 --> 00:50:52.480
of curiosity seems to be a very necessary structure, but
852
00:50:52.679 --> 00:50:54.860
to what you were just referencing, you know, one of
853
00:50:54.900 --> 00:51:00.920
the shadow sides of spiritual work is this, um, potential
854
00:51:01.360 --> 00:51:05.079
wrong turn in a greater narcissism. And, you know, we
855
00:51:05.159 --> 00:51:08.420
all have these deep identity needs and self, you know,
856
00:51:08.440 --> 00:51:10.409
kind of what I spoke about before. We start off
857
00:51:10.449 --> 00:51:12.650
in this very fragile circumstance. We have to build some
858
00:51:12.690 --> 00:51:13.570
kind of self-structure.
859
00:51:13.969 --> 00:51:14.989
So we're all a little.
860
00:51:14.789 --> 00:51:17.730
Bit inherently narcissistic on some of these on a relative level.
861
00:51:18.570 --> 00:51:21.320
And so then when we're suffering and we want to
862
00:51:21.360 --> 00:51:24.000
begin doing spiritual work, so we suffer less or whatever
863
00:51:24.019 --> 00:51:26.530
we're doing, the pathway is always focused on.
864
00:51:26.489 --> 00:51:28.070
Yourself to do the work, right?
865
00:51:28.210 --> 00:51:31.610
And so that can tend to exacerbate the narcissism. And
866
00:51:31.670 --> 00:51:33.489
I think it's one of the great challenges of.
867
00:51:33.340 --> 00:51:35.889
Spiritual work, not to get lost in that, that actually..
868
00:51:36.579 --> 00:51:38.889
Overcome that which is why i think the importance of
869
00:51:39.449 --> 00:51:43.550
in spiritual communities of sangha and relationship and being challenged
870
00:51:43.630 --> 00:51:45.670
and all this kind of things and get a lot
871
00:51:45.710 --> 00:51:48.519
of feedback and so forth so it doesn't take us
872
00:51:48.599 --> 00:51:52.960
into greater um narcissism and it's really interesting that among
873
00:51:53.000 --> 00:51:56.440
your your earlier peers in these spiritual groups, you're seeing
874
00:51:56.460 --> 00:51:57.320
a higher divorce rate.
875
00:51:57.699 --> 00:52:00.900
I mean, on some level, they may be developing, you know, there.
876
00:52:00.780 --> 00:52:03.239
Could be a problem with narcissism and it could be
877
00:52:03.280 --> 00:52:04.960
a higher expectation.
878
00:52:04.320 --> 00:52:06.300
In terms of the quality of relationship. That's true. Which
879
00:52:06.340 --> 00:52:08.829
you could call narcissistic or you could call healthy. It
880
00:52:08.869 --> 00:52:10.030
could be either way, right?
881
00:52:10.530 --> 00:52:12.349
And there's a lot of folks in the world that
882
00:52:12.389 --> 00:52:15.550
probably stay together and accept the kind of mediocrity in
883
00:52:15.570 --> 00:52:18.670
relationship because they just don't think it gets better than this, right?
884
00:52:18.809 --> 00:52:19.809
That's as good as it gets.
885
00:52:20.329 --> 00:52:23.070
Or people that stay together who probably really would be
886
00:52:23.090 --> 00:52:26.269
best not staying together in some cases. Or like you're saying,
887
00:52:27.170 --> 00:52:29.820
people who haven't developed that, you know, there may just
888
00:52:29.860 --> 00:52:33.079
be a more willingness to compromise. It's a bigger question
889
00:52:33.119 --> 00:52:36.360
in spiritual work because I've been involved in spiritual.
890
00:52:36.000 --> 00:52:38.739
Work in communities for a long time. And I've also thought.
891
00:52:38.539 --> 00:52:41.099
Those ordinary people out there just living their lives look
892
00:52:41.139 --> 00:52:42.000
saner than the.
893
00:52:44.559 --> 00:52:49.210
People. You and I could go deep on this one.
894
00:52:49.230 --> 00:52:52.250
It's an interesting one because I, in a way, you know,
895
00:52:52.269 --> 00:52:55.250
the very reason that, you know, I speak for myself here,
896
00:52:55.909 --> 00:52:58.809
that one can end up doing a lot of sincere
897
00:52:58.869 --> 00:53:01.530
inner work is because one is probably more dysfunctional than
898
00:53:01.739 --> 00:53:06.400
the average population. I think that there's some truth to that.
899
00:53:07.059 --> 00:53:08.820
What is also true, I would say, is that when
900
00:53:08.860 --> 00:53:12.920
I see those more... Someone once described it as wizards
901
00:53:13.000 --> 00:53:16.760
and muggles, if people know Harry Potter, more muggle focus.
902
00:53:16.900 --> 00:53:18.820
What is true is that when they hit those big
903
00:53:18.900 --> 00:53:21.610
life crisis moments, They may find they have a lot
904
00:53:21.650 --> 00:53:23.789
less resources to meet them. And certainly one of the
905
00:53:23.809 --> 00:53:25.570
things that I feel has been a great blessing, certainly
906
00:53:25.710 --> 00:53:29.050
in my life, has been going through some very hard times,
907
00:53:29.670 --> 00:53:32.630
a number of times, and having to figure out how
908
00:53:32.670 --> 00:53:36.389
to navigate through hard times and develop the resilience to
909
00:53:36.429 --> 00:53:39.289
do that, but also the resourcefulness and to know when
910
00:53:39.329 --> 00:53:40.989
to ask for help, to where to go to ask
911
00:53:41.010 --> 00:53:44.150
for help. And that's, of course, the blessing of doing
912
00:53:44.269 --> 00:53:47.269
inner work. That, you know, one... One might go down
913
00:53:47.349 --> 00:53:50.070
some deep holes that they might, some points which they
914
00:53:50.110 --> 00:53:53.050
hadn't started going down. But once you really go down
915
00:53:53.090 --> 00:53:55.699
those holes, of course, there's an enormous payoff and there's
916
00:53:55.719 --> 00:53:58.900
an enormous, there's great blessings that come from that too.
917
00:53:59.360 --> 00:53:59.900
Absolutely.
918
00:53:59.920 --> 00:54:04.260
And I think one of the antidotes to, you know,
919
00:54:04.280 --> 00:54:08.340
narcissistic tendencies or just kind of selfishness, self-focus at the
920
00:54:08.400 --> 00:54:13.639
expense of relationship for whatever motivations is really beginning to
921
00:54:13.739 --> 00:54:14.860
value kindness.
922
00:54:15.599 --> 00:54:16.360
And compassion.
923
00:54:17.119 --> 00:54:18.920
And, you know, I think that's been part of my
924
00:54:18.980 --> 00:54:23.369
path of maturity in relationships. It's just to really value
925
00:54:23.510 --> 00:54:27.300
and really want to train myself to be kinder. Be
926
00:54:27.320 --> 00:54:29.820
kinder to myself, but also really be kinder to the
927
00:54:29.860 --> 00:54:32.670
people I'm in a relationship with. And realizing early on
928
00:54:32.690 --> 00:54:35.670
in my life that for whatever reason, it kind of
929
00:54:35.690 --> 00:54:41.369
wasn't my instinct. My natural tendency was to be acquisitional
930
00:54:41.409 --> 00:54:43.050
and defensive and combative.
931
00:54:43.150 --> 00:54:49.280
And my first instinct wasn't kindness. Um, and, um, and
932
00:54:49.300 --> 00:54:50.440
so I really, you know.
933
00:54:50.460 --> 00:54:53.480
I've worked hard at that and kindness goes a long
934
00:54:53.539 --> 00:54:56.809
way in relationships. I mean, if I think when people,
935
00:54:56.889 --> 00:54:59.530
even if they haven't figured out all these, all this
936
00:54:59.550 --> 00:55:01.690
shadow stuff and all the ghosts of their parents and
937
00:55:01.730 --> 00:55:04.070
all the rest of it, if, if they, if they
938
00:55:04.110 --> 00:55:06.989
really value kindness and kindness with each other, that can
939
00:55:07.429 --> 00:55:10.150
go a long way to soften the environment.
940
00:55:10.230 --> 00:55:13.820
I think, and, and, and really, uh, uh, support people.
941
00:55:13.840 --> 00:55:18.670
I'm curious about, since your work integrates, um, both therapeutic
942
00:55:18.690 --> 00:55:24.929
coaching and the nutritional work. Optimizing our relationships. If we're
943
00:55:24.949 --> 00:55:27.969
really interested in really optimizing our relationships and showing up
944
00:55:28.050 --> 00:55:30.550
in relationship with a lot of kindness and compassion and
945
00:55:30.610 --> 00:55:34.329
skill and resilience and having done a lot of our
946
00:55:34.369 --> 00:55:37.510
own healing work around our traumas and holding space for
947
00:55:37.570 --> 00:55:41.510
others to do the same requires a lot of energy. And,
948
00:55:41.710 --> 00:55:43.690
you know, your nutritional work, I mean, even at the
949
00:55:43.730 --> 00:55:45.929
level of today, we're learning a lot about even just
950
00:55:46.010 --> 00:55:49.940
fundamental mitochondrial health at the cellular level. And we're also
951
00:55:49.960 --> 00:55:54.739
learning about how various meditative practices and various body mind
952
00:55:54.780 --> 00:55:59.449
practices can also improve mitochondrial health at the basic level
953
00:55:59.489 --> 00:56:02.510
so that we have the energy to show up in
954
00:56:02.550 --> 00:56:07.010
relationship as our best self. Because often people, with all
955
00:56:07.050 --> 00:56:09.550
the challenges of life, some of the conflicts that arise
956
00:56:09.949 --> 00:56:12.420
in relationships have to do with people being exhausted and
957
00:56:12.460 --> 00:56:16.840
not at their best and really reactive because they're not
958
00:56:16.960 --> 00:56:17.579
at their best.
959
00:56:18.119 --> 00:56:18.599
Yeah.
960
00:56:18.659 --> 00:56:21.780
I'm going to give a live example of that. I
961
00:56:23.840 --> 00:56:27.300
would now argue that any man past the age of
962
00:56:27.300 --> 00:56:30.519
40 should get their testosterone levels checked. It's something that
963
00:56:30.960 --> 00:56:33.389
I did around the time I hit 40, was a
964
00:56:33.429 --> 00:56:36.559
bit reluctant to take, I mean, when I talk about
965
00:56:36.599 --> 00:56:39.420
taking testosterone, I don't mean like injecting, like trying to
966
00:56:39.440 --> 00:56:41.760
become like some big kind of like gym monster. I mean,
967
00:56:42.219 --> 00:56:46.739
people have low normal or low levels of testosterone to
968
00:56:46.780 --> 00:56:50.699
bring that into normal balance can have an enormous impact
969
00:56:50.960 --> 00:56:54.360
on one's energy, one's vitality, and so on. And I
970
00:56:54.420 --> 00:56:57.179
found in my, I'm 44 now, I found in my
971
00:56:57.239 --> 00:57:00.260
early 40s that, and I work very hard in the week,
972
00:57:01.199 --> 00:57:03.260
doing my sort of kind of work, work job, and
973
00:57:03.300 --> 00:57:07.059
I'd get to weekends, I was just tired. Like, you know,
974
00:57:07.079 --> 00:57:10.599
I got three kids currently between seven and 13, three girls,
975
00:57:11.139 --> 00:57:12.699
and they'd want to go off and do stuff and
976
00:57:12.739 --> 00:57:15.110
do this. And my wife would, you know, been sort
977
00:57:15.139 --> 00:57:16.730
of doing a lot of the carrying all the weight
978
00:57:16.750 --> 00:57:18.750
of the parenting through the week. And at the weekend
979
00:57:18.789 --> 00:57:20.309
was like, you know, come on, like we need you.
980
00:57:20.329 --> 00:57:22.269
You'd been, you'd be, haven't been around much in the week.
981
00:57:23.289 --> 00:57:26.690
And I've just, it was an effort, you know, since I,
982
00:57:26.710 --> 00:57:29.590
a couple of years ago now started taking a low
983
00:57:29.630 --> 00:57:33.000
dose of, of testosterone to, to come back into normal,
984
00:57:33.159 --> 00:57:36.000
normal range. because I should say that testosterone for men
985
00:57:36.679 --> 00:57:40.590
diminishes every year after the age of 40. That was
986
00:57:40.630 --> 00:57:43.690
a game changer. It's probably the single biggest impact in
987
00:57:43.849 --> 00:57:48.260
recent years of my, well, I would argue my goodness
988
00:57:48.380 --> 00:57:50.820
as being a husband and a father. which is that
989
00:57:51.079 --> 00:57:52.639
I get home from a long day at work and
990
00:57:52.659 --> 00:57:55.179
I'm not knackered. I get to the weekend and I
991
00:57:55.239 --> 00:57:57.539
want to go off with the kids and let's get
992
00:57:57.559 --> 00:57:59.579
the kayaks out and go kayaking down the canal. Let's
993
00:57:59.619 --> 00:58:01.360
go on a bike ride. Let's go and do this.
994
00:58:01.380 --> 00:58:04.800
I've got the vitality and the energy that I want,
995
00:58:05.199 --> 00:58:07.019
not that I'm sort of dragging myself to because I
996
00:58:07.039 --> 00:58:10.219
don't want to let everyone down, but actually having the
997
00:58:10.260 --> 00:58:14.389
vitality to do that. And I think people often normalize
998
00:58:14.650 --> 00:58:19.119
to energy states that are not their optimum. And they
999
00:58:19.159 --> 00:58:20.739
get used to kind of going, well, all my friends
1000
00:58:20.800 --> 00:58:24.059
are tired all the time as well. I'm like, there's
1001
00:58:24.099 --> 00:58:27.760
no reason that one should not have optimal health and vitality.
1002
00:58:27.780 --> 00:58:29.360
There's lots of reasons why they may not have it,
1003
00:58:29.739 --> 00:58:32.280
but there's no reason why they can't address those things.
1004
00:58:32.579 --> 00:58:33.699
And I was fortunate because I had a lot of
1005
00:58:33.760 --> 00:58:36.460
other pieces well lined up. And so just correcting that
1006
00:58:36.599 --> 00:58:40.909
one piece had a big and significant impact. But if
1007
00:58:40.949 --> 00:58:45.179
we want to have healthy, vital relationships, We need to
1008
00:58:45.219 --> 00:58:48.780
have the energy to bring to that relationship. Otherwise, if
1009
00:58:48.820 --> 00:58:52.900
you've got two deficient people looking to the other person
1010
00:58:52.920 --> 00:58:55.780
to fill them up, you've got a recipe for conflict.
1011
00:58:56.440 --> 00:59:00.949
If you've got two well-resourced people that are coming together
1012
00:59:01.349 --> 00:59:04.670
because they want to be together, you've got a recipe
1013
00:59:04.690 --> 00:59:05.969
for love and joy and connection.
1014
00:59:07.389 --> 00:59:07.969
Absolutely.
1015
00:59:08.449 --> 00:59:11.809
Well, this has been illuminating as I And we could
1016
00:59:12.210 --> 00:59:12.909
just keep going.
1017
00:59:12.929 --> 00:59:15.260
There's so much to explore here. I always so enjoy
1018
00:59:15.320 --> 00:59:16.099
our conversations.
1019
00:59:16.139 --> 00:59:18.579
But I think this has really been illuminating and I
1020
00:59:18.639 --> 00:59:21.059
think points in a lot of directions that all of
1021
00:59:21.159 --> 00:59:26.010
us can explore and continue educating ourselves to.
1022
00:59:27.469 --> 00:59:29.769
Really optimize this really important part of our life.
1023
00:59:29.849 --> 00:59:33.869
And it's a The importance of this is that the,
1024
00:59:34.690 --> 00:59:36.469
at least one marker, I mean, this.
1025
00:59:36.429 --> 00:59:39.269
Is kind of, we know this, but the Harvard.
1026
00:59:39.190 --> 00:59:41.710
Study of adult development that's been going on for almost
1027
00:59:41.710 --> 00:59:45.690
90 years now, you know, and tracking initially a group
1028
00:59:45.750 --> 00:59:47.730
of men, both a group of privileged men and a
1029
00:59:47.769 --> 00:59:51.760
group of underprivileged men, and most of them who are gone,
1030
00:59:51.800 --> 00:59:53.219
I think there's a couple who are still alive, but
1031
00:59:53.239 --> 00:59:56.079
eventually started tracking the spouses and the children and so forth.
1032
00:59:56.460 --> 00:59:58.679
But they really determined beyond the shadow of a doubt
1033
00:59:58.719 --> 01:00:04.800
that the leading determinant of health and longevity and healthy lifespan,
1034
01:00:04.840 --> 01:00:06.900
health span, and all these kind of things is the
1035
01:00:06.920 --> 01:00:10.860
quality of our relationships. And having relationships we count on.
1036
01:00:10.880 --> 01:00:13.900
They don't have to be perfect, but relationships where we
1037
01:00:13.940 --> 01:00:16.199
know they're there, they have our back, ultimately we have,
1038
01:00:16.260 --> 01:00:19.119
you know, and it's so important, such an important part
1039
01:00:19.139 --> 01:00:22.360
of our overall resilience and so worth investing in. And
1040
01:00:22.409 --> 01:00:24.409
I think this conversation has pointed in a lot of
1041
01:00:24.429 --> 01:00:25.929
good directions for people to explore.
1042
01:00:27.460 --> 01:00:30.000
Well, it's always a joy. I always have fun together.
1043
01:00:30.039 --> 01:00:31.860
And thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
1044
01:00:32.570 --> 01:00:32.949
Thank you.
1045
01:00:35.349 --> 01:00:38.730
Thank you for joining me on the Radical Responsibility Podcast. Remember,
1046
01:00:38.949 --> 01:00:42.150
real change happens when we commit to our growth, face
1047
01:00:42.210 --> 01:00:46.010
our challenges with compassion, and stay open to transformation. If
1048
01:00:46.030 --> 01:00:48.710
you found this episode helpful, I encourage you to subscribe
1049
01:00:48.769 --> 01:00:51.730
and help us spread the message of healing and personal empowerment.
1050
01:00:52.050 --> 01:00:55.429
Until next time, stay grounded, stay present, and stay true
1051
01:00:55.449 --> 01:01:00.699
to yourself. Take care. Thank you.