Full Transcript for 142. Pulling Close, Pushing Away, and Saying Things You Regret | The Disorganized Attachment Communication Pattern

will be added into our free Facebook community. 00:02:22.319 --> 00:02:27.039 So it's a place where you get to bring your messy questions, your confusing questions. 00:02:27.120 --> 00:02:27.919 I love questions. 00:02:28.080 --> 00:02:30.080 Ask any of the ladies in my academy. 00:02:30.240 --> 00:02:32.240 Questions are my favorite things in the whole world. 00:02:32.319 --> 00:02:34.719 And nobody is going to be there to judge you for them. 00:02:34.800 --> 00:02:42.159 If anybody in the community ever judges you, if you ever feel unsafe, you tell me, you tell my team, they will not be in that group anymore. 00:02:42.319 --> 00:02:46.800 This is a judgment-free zone for you to heal at your pace. 00:02:46.960 --> 00:02:50.800 So what I want you to do as you're listening today is I want you to think about these three things. 00:02:50.960 --> 00:02:56.319 Number one, the moments you want closeness and distance at the exact same time. 00:02:56.560 --> 00:03:05.439 Number two, how fast a conversation can flip from calm to chaos or from calm to completely blank. 00:03:05.680 --> 00:03:12.080 And number three, where you might be bracing for betrayal before anything has actually happened. 00:03:12.319 --> 00:03:14.560 All right, now let's dive in. 00:03:17.280 --> 00:03:19.840 Alright, so let's start with the push-pull. 00:03:20.000 --> 00:03:25.840 Disorganized attachment is one of the three non-secure attachment stances that we often talk about. 00:03:26.080 --> 00:03:38.080 Researchers Mary Main and Judith Solomon were the first to describe it when they noticed some of the little babies that they were looking at in the strange situation experiment, which we talked about in one of the previous episodes. 00:03:38.319 --> 00:03:44.560 Those babies, those little toddlers, they didn't quite fit the anxious or the avoidant patterning. 00:03:44.719 --> 00:03:50.240 They'd move towards their caregiver and then freeze, or turn away mid-step. 00:03:50.400 --> 00:03:58.639 And that makes heartbreaking sense when the person who was supposed to be your safe place was also, sometimes, your scary place. 00:03:58.800 --> 00:04:01.439 And the body gets two instructions at once. 00:04:01.680 --> 00:04:05.759 Go towards them, they will help you, and get away from them, they will hurt you. 00:04:06.000 --> 00:04:12.319 Now, in adult communication, what this might sound like is something like this I miss you so much, please come over. 00:04:12.560 --> 00:04:16.480 Followed 40 minutes later by actually I'm really tired, never mind. 00:04:16.720 --> 00:04:21.600 Now, it sounds like asking for a deep conversation and then picking a fight the moment it gets deep. 00:04:21.759 --> 00:04:29.519 It sounds like a text you write, then delete, then rewrite, then delete again, then rewrite it, then send it, and then immediately regret having sent it. 00:04:29.759 --> 00:04:31.279 And this makes sense, it really does. 00:04:31.360 --> 00:04:36.240 I don't want you to beat yourself

up over it if this sounds like you as you're listening to today's episode. 00:04:36.480 --> 00:04:38.399 This doesn't come out of nowhere. 00:04:38.560 --> 00:04:39.759 It's not just you. 00:04:40.079 --> 00:04:46.000 Your system learned that closeness and danger could live within the same person. 00:04:46.240 --> 00:04:51.439 So of course, it reaches and retreats at the exact same time. 00:04:51.680 --> 00:04:54.319 Here's where things do get tricky, though. 00:04:54.560 --> 00:04:59.519 Your partner receives both messages and has no idea which one to believe. 00:04:59.759 --> 00:05:05.439 See, they are not the parent that both hurt you and kept shelter over your head at the same time. 00:05:05.600 --> 00:05:12.720 So when you're giving them this push-pull, reaching, retreating messaging, they get really confused. 00:05:12.879 --> 00:05:14.480 They might even get frustrated. 00:05:14.639 --> 00:05:18.800 They start feeling like they're walking on eggshells, and you feel confused too. 00:05:19.040 --> 00:05:24.800 Plus, a big heavy layer of shame on top of all of this, thinking, why am I like this? 00:05:25.040 --> 00:05:26.720 But I want you to think about it this way. 00:05:26.879 --> 00:05:30.639 It's like driving with one foot on the gas and one foot on the brake. 00:05:30.800 --> 00:05:36.399 The engine is roaring and you're burning so much energy, and the car isn't really going anywhere. 00:05:36.639 --> 00:05:40.720 Also, if you're gonna really do this, something might smell like it's on fire. 00:05:40.879 --> 00:05:46.319 So the inward work is naming both parts out loud with compassion. 00:05:46.800 --> 00:05:50.079 Because both parts, they're just trying to protect you. 00:05:50.319 --> 00:05:58.319 I would love it if we could get away from thinking of self-sabotaging effects as this terrible thing when really they're just self-protection effects. 00:05:58.560 --> 00:06:04.240 Now, this might sound like saying, okay, a part of me wants to be close to you tonight, and a part of me is scared. 00:06:04.480 --> 00:06:05.519 Can we take this slow? 00:06:06.079 --> 00:06:09.680 That sentence, there's bravery behind it, right? 00:06:09.759 --> 00:06:10.879 There's vulnerability. 00:06:11.120 --> 00:06:16.399 It lets the other person meet both of you instead of chasing whichever one showed up last. 00:06:16.560 --> 00:06:24.160 Key point number two here is that for a lot of women with disorganized attachment, conflict doesn't escalate gradually. 00:06:24.720 --> 00:06:26.720 It flips a switch fast. 00:06:27.199 --> 00:06:43.279 One minute you're having a totally normal conversation about who forgot to call the plumber, and then he says something in just that exact certain tone, maybe his eyebrow furrows just slightly, gives you a kind of look, and suddenly you are either yelling or girl, you are gone. 00:06:43.519 --> 00:06:44.639 You are blank. 00:06:44.879 --> 00:06:46.639 You can't even find a single word. 00:06:46.720 --> 00:06:48.720 You have slammed the door and you have walked out. 00:06:48.879 --> 00:06:53.360 Now you can maybe hear him talking on the other side, but it's like you're underwater. 00:06:53.519 --> 00:07:01.279 Now, for most of the clients inside of my academy, they are actually incredibly capable in nearly all the other aspects of their lives, right? 00:07:01.439 --> 00:07:04.399 I have a client and she can run her own business. 00:07:04.560 --> 00:07:08.079 This other client over here can run meetings like nobody's business. 00:07:08.240 --> 00:07:11.600 Uh, another one handles emergencies at the drop of a hat. 00:07:11.759 --> 00:07:20.160 And then one tone of voice from her husband or her boyfriend or her partner at the kitchen table takes her completely offline. 00:07:20.639 --> 00:07:28.639 But this is how your nervous system works because your body is reacting to an old threat that it recognizes in a new moment. 00:07:28.800 --> 00:07:35.360 Now, a lot of neuroscientists like to use this phrasing where they say the neurons that fire together wire together. 00:07:35.519 --> 00:07:47.279 But basically, what this means is if a raised voice and danger fired together enough times when you were little, that pathway got paved into a superhighway in your mind. 00:07:47.439 --> 00:07:50.879 Your body is taking the fastest road it knows. 00:07:51.199 --> 00:07:52.639 This is learned. 00:07:52.879 --> 00:07:56.000 And anything learned can be relearned. 00:07:56.240 --> 00:07:59.279 But I want us to make sure we understand that there are costs, right? 00:07:59.439 --> 00:08:05.360 Because when conflict flips this fast, nothing ever actually gets resolved. 00:08:05.519 --> 00:08:15.040 The plumber never gets called, the hurt never gets repaired, and both people start to feel like conflict itself is dangerous and going to cause the relationship to end. 00:08:15.199 --> 00:08:20.800 It's a bit like a phone that goes from 40% battery to completely dead with zero warning. 00:08:20.959 --> 00:08:24.399 You'd love to finish the call, but you just can't. 00:08:24.639 --> 00:08:27.680 The battery wasn't built for that load yet. 00:08:27.920 --> 00:08:36.960 So the inner work here is learning your early warning signs, learning when you are about to drop out of battery, learning when you need to plug in. 00:08:37.120 --> 00:08:44.240 Maybe there's a heat in your face, maybe there's a buzzing in your ear or a burning sensation in your hands. 00:08:44.480 --> 00:08:47.840 And then I want you to have a plan ready before you need it. 00:08:48.000 --> 00:08:49.120 This is where you practice. 00:08:49.279 --> 00:08:51.840 Maybe you ground by putting your feet on the floor. 00:08:52.000 --> 00:08:54.240 Maybe you name five things you can see. 00:08:54.399 --> 00:08:56.320 Maybe you do some box breathing. 00:08:56.639 --> 00:09:02.559 You can agree with your partner on a pause word ahead of time when everyone's calm. 00:09:02.720 --> 00:09:07.600 This is how you work together to help

this part of you that is still there. 00:09:07.759 --> 00:09:11.120 We don't want to shame that part of you that goes from zero to 60. 00:09:11.279 --> 00:09:13.360 We do want to ease it over time, yes. 00:09:13.679 --> 00:09:19.759 But with you can't change your zero to 60 mentality from zero to 60, right? 00:09:19.919 --> 00:09:21.360 It's gonna take time. 00:09:21.440 --> 00:09:23.360 And this looks like working with your partner. 00:09:23.679 --> 00:09:26.320 This looks like proactively working with yourself. 00:09:26.480 --> 00:09:31.600 And of course, you can always come inside of the Speak Honest Academy if you need help with grounding techniques. 00:09:31.759 --> 00:09:37.840 But in this moment, when you're grounded, maybe you can say something like, Okay, listen, I'm starting to go blank. 00:09:38.000 --> 00:09:39.919 I'm starting to feel the heat rise in my face. 00:09:40.080 --> 00:09:45.919 This conversation matters a lot to me, but my body needs 20 minutes to come back to it. 00:09:46.080 --> 00:09:47.440 Can we pick this up later? 00:09:47.600 --> 00:09:54.879 But that's how you communicate when you need space when you're in the middle of a trigger and you want to pause before you react. 00:09:55.519 --> 00:10:00.879 Now let's talk about key point number three, which is bracing for betrayal. 00:10:01.120 --> 00:10:11.120 See, when your system learned that people you love can also be the very people who hurt you, it gets very, very good at bracing. 00:10:11.360 --> 00:10:21.440 So you might read threat into something usually pretty neutral, or he's quiet at dinner, and your brain goes straight into there's something wrong. 00:10:21.679 --> 00:10:26.720 I did something to mess up, he doesn't like the dinner I have, I didn't clean up well enough, oh no, he's done with me. 00:10:26.960 --> 00:10:30.080 Now, you might test people to see if they'll stay. 00:10:30.240 --> 00:10:38.000 This is a very classic, disorganized, attached way of communicating, which is protest behavior. 00:10:38.159 --> 00:10:48.320 You might even end things first because leaving hurts less than being left, but sometimes when you end things, what you're really doing is hoping that they chase you and thus this big cycle continues. 00:10:48.480 --> 00:10:54.240 And then often comes the whiplash, the shame, the big apology, the desperate repair. 00:10:54.399 --> 00:10:59.840 And this makes sense because bracing was your protection strategy. 00:11:00.240 --> 00:11:04.080 If you expect the worse, at least it can't surprise you. 00:11:04.240 --> 00:11:11.120 All right, but and that makes a lot of sense, but bracing for betrayal can accidentally create the very distance that you're afraid of in the first place. 00:11:11.279 --> 00:11:20.399 If you're afraid that people are gonna get tired of you, and then you keep testing them in a way to see if they get tired of you, girl, they're gonna get tired of you. 00:11:20.559 --> 00:11:22.000 Like that's just how this works. 00:11:22.159 --> 00:11:27.039 The prophecy starts fulfilling itself, and then your nervous system says, see, I told you so. 00:11:27.360 --> 00:11:29.519 That's your body just looking for certainty. 00:11:29.759 --> 00:11:32.080 That's your body bracing for the familiar. 00:11:32.240 --> 00:11:35.519 But think about it like reading the last page of a book first. 00:11:35.679 --> 00:11:39.759 Uh it's horrif, horrible, horrible people who do this, but some people out there do do this. 00:11:39.919 --> 00:11:42.399 They read the last page of the book first. 00:11:42.639 --> 00:11:44.639 So the ending can't catch you off guard. 00:11:44.879 --> 00:11:52.320 Sure, you're protected from the surprise at the end, but you also don't get to enjoy the story. 00:11:52.480 --> 00:12:07.200 And what I love teaching the women in my academy is how to enjoy their story, how to enjoy their life, how to enjoy the relationship and stop looking and bracing so much as to oh no, when is the other shoe going to drop? 00:12:07.440 --> 00:12:12.720 So the inner work here is one powerful tiny little question. 00:12:12.879 --> 00:12:16.240 But is this happening now or is this old? 00:12:16.799 --> 00:12:18.399 I love asking this question. 00:12:18.480 --> 00:12:23.200 I I love it when I'm getting triggered that instead of asking myself, oh my god, what's wrong with me? 00:12:23.279 --> 00:12:26.799 I'd love to ask myself, what does this remind me of? 00:12:27.200 --> 00:12:30.559 What am I noticing that I'm expecting the worst right now? 00:12:30.720 --> 00:12:33.840 And then checking the actual evidence in front of you. 00:12:34.000 --> 00:12:41.919 This is where we can start poking holes in the stories that come up in our minds where we are afraid he doesn't love me, he doesn't care about me, I'm not important to him. 00:12:42.000 --> 00:12:46.320 And we stop ourselves, we say, wait a second, whoa, what does this remind me of? 00:12:46.399 --> 00:12:47.279 And is it true? 00:12:47.519 --> 00:12:48.960 No, I do know he loves me. 00:12:49.120 --> 00:12:50.639 I do know I'm very important to him. 00:12:50.799 --> 00:12:51.519 Okay, great. 00:12:51.679 --> 00:12:52.799 Now let's start there. 00:12:53.120 --> 00:12:58.080 Because then once you get to that space, you can bring this to your partner in that process. 00:12:58.159 --> 00:13:02.399 So you can say something to him like, hey, I'm noticing I'm expecting the worst right now. 00:13:02.879 --> 00:13:05.840 Can you help me check what's actually going on between us? 00:13:05.919 --> 00:13:07.120 Can you please reassure me? 00:13:07.759 --> 00:13:10.960 That's an okay question to ask your safe partner. 00:13:11.200 --> 00:13:17.120 That's an invitation to be on the same team against the old fear together. 00:13:17.360 --> 00:13:23.120 So disorganized attachment communicates in this push-pull type dynamic. 00:13:23.200 --> 00:13:31.519 It's fast and it's flips and it's bracing because your body learned that love and fear

could come from the same place. 00:13:31.679 --> 00:13:35.440 And that's a really sad thing when you really stop and think about it. 00:13:35.600 --> 00:13:44.720 And it also makes so much sense why, as adults, we still have that same love and that same fear, that same push, that same pull, and so much to carry. 00:13:44.879 --> 00:13:50.240 But I want to encourage you that it's not a life sentence, it's not a forever thing that has to keep happening. 00:13:50.480 --> 00:13:53.679 Researchers call it earned security. 00:13:53.919 --> 00:14:03.600 When someone moves from an adapted pattern towards a secure pattern, and I see it happen with women all of the time inside of the Speak Honest Academy. 00:14:03.759 --> 00:14:07.759 Hell, it happened to me before I even created the Academy. 00:14:07.919 --> 00:14:11.279 It's why my passion is in helping you now. 00:14:11.600 --> 00:14:16.240 We do this slowly, we do this gently, one regulated moment at a time. 00:14:16.559 --> 00:14:19.919 We're going to name both parts in our body as they show up. 00:14:20.159 --> 00:14:28.080 We're going to know your warning signs, and we're going to be able to ask now, what does this remind me of? 00:14:28.320 --> 00:14:32.720 Is this a now feeling or is this an old feeling? 00:14:33.039 --> 00:14:35.519 Because here's the thing I want you to remember. 00:14:35.840 --> 00:14:41.840 Your body learned to brace, but it can also learn to rest. 00:14:44.639 --> 00:14:50.480 All right, ladies, thank you so much for being here this week with us and for listening to today's episode. 00:14:50.720 --> 00:15:01.759 Next week is our series finale, where we will be talking about secure attachment and what it actually sounds like when two people communicate from a safe, secure space. 00:15:02.000 --> 00:15:06.879 And if you have any questions, remember to head over to our free Facebook community. 00:15:07.039 --> 00:15:14.639 You can just click on the link in the show notes right now, or you can go to the little search engine on Facebook and type in speak on us, secure communication for women. 00:15:14.799 --> 00:15:19.679 In that group, we get together, we spend time together, I answer your questions. 00:15:19.840 --> 00:15:25.600 You can ask me anything in there, you can ask the other ladies' questions in there, you can find out more information about the academy. 00:15:25.840 --> 00:15:31.279 You can even learn more information on how you can be coached right here live on the podcast with me. 00:15:31.360 --> 00:15:38.559 If that is something you are interested in, if you're listening to today's episode and you're thinking, Jen, this sounds great, but my situation is unique. 00:15:38.720 --> 00:15:39.919 I love unique. 00:15:40.080 --> 00:15:40.799 Reach out to me. 00:15:40.960 --> 00:15:42.080 I have a form you fill out. 00:15:42.159 --> 00:15:46.559 We see if you're a good fit, and then you can get some coaching right here on the podcast. 00:15:46.799 --> 00:15:49.440 All right, ladies, I hope you all have a beautiful day. 00:15:49.519 --> 00:15:51.600 I will speak with you all next week. 00:15:51.840 --> 00:15:52.720 Take care. 00:15:53.120 --> 00:15:59.200 As we wrap up today's conversation, always remember that healing is a journey, not a destination. 00:15:59.360 --> 00:16:02.720 And it is an honor to be a part of your healing journey. 00:16:02.960 --> 00:16:12.320 If you want to dig deeper into the topics we cover today, be sure to head over to our show notes where you can find all of the valuable information mentioned in today's episode right there. 00:16:12.399 --> 00:16:17.279 And please remember to rate, review, and subscribe if you enjoyed today's podcast. 00:16:17.440 --> 00:16:22.159 Your feedback means the world to us and helps others discover our podcast. 00:16:22.320 --> 00:16:26.399 Until next time, remember to speak up and speak honest.