Welcome to Gay Men Going Deeper, a podcast series by the Gay Men's Brotherhood, where we talk about personal development, mental health, and sexuality. I am your host, Matt Lansadal, I am a counselor and facilitator specializing in healing and empowerment. I love working with highly sensitive people, empaths, and gay men, helping them to develop a stronger
sense of self-worth. Today's topic is Attachment Styles in Dating. So how the attachment styles influence monogamous and non-monogamous relationships, and we're joined by Ken Reed again for the second time on this podcast. Good to have you back. Thank you. I feel like I've been recurring guests, whether it be on this podcast or others that you've invited me on. So thank you very much. I'm glad to be back. Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking, well, we talked about this at the end of our narcissistic,
or I think it was narcissism in the gay community. We did that episode, and we talked about this when we were off air, and we thought this would be a great next topic to talk about. So I'm glad to have you back on, and I'm sure the listeners are as well. And for those of you who are just meeting Ken for the first time, he's an attachment and trauma-informed counselor who specializes in grief, recovery, relationship, guidance, and CPTSD recovery.
So yes, your expertise on this podcast is very much comes in handy, because we can benefit from that tremendously. So the concepts and questions we are going to explore in the episode are what is an attachment style, looking at secure versus insecure attachment, briefly going to define the four main attachment styles. Talk about monogamy and non-monogamy. And then we're going to look at the insecurity side of monogamy and non-monogamy as well as
the secure side. And then we're going to explore how anxious people date and show up in relationships, and how avoidant people date and show up in relationships. And then we're going to wrap up with talking about how we can move towards having more of a secure attachment style. So yeah, let's just hop right in. So from your perspective, what is an attachment style? Yeah. If I had to be very reductive, I'd say it's a way of relating to someone and also how
we love or fear in a relationship. So we find that there's a gap between those that are securely attached and though that have an insecure attachment. Those with an all secure attachment are able to love without much interference from fear, meaning that they're not the kind of people to self-sabotage or relationship because they worry about being abandoned or getting too close
to a partner. Their individuals who are able to regulate, they're able to communicate effectively, and generally speaking, it's pretty good at being self-sufficient whilst also wanting a degree of independence with a partner. Then we have the insecure attachment styles, which are not set in stone. They're on a continuum where people can exhibit mild or severe
ranges of these attachment styles. And we have, say, individuals with an anxious attachment who have a preoccupation of being with a fear of abandonment, where they're in a relationship they worry about when their partner might leave them and they also tend to exhibit more behaviors about trying to control their partner to avoid feeling abandoned. Whereas someone with an avoidant attachment style has a preoccupation with a fear of intimacy and closeness, which overshadows
their fear of abandonment. But then they're more worried about being vulnerable with another partner, worrying that they're not going to be good enough for their partner, which then also subsequently leads to their fear that, well, if I stick it out with this person, if they get to know the real
me, they will leave me. And so notoriously, avoidant attachment. I've got a bad reputation for being the S-boys in not only the gay community, but also in just like, in the larger world as a poll, where they seem to have this reputation of being non-committal, which is actually not accurate at all. But the key thing you have to understand about them is that their means of control and a relationship that's managing their distance and intimacy between them and the partner that
they're connecting with. And then finally, we have the disorganized attached to who's a bit of an amalgamation of both of these attachments. And essentially, it's someone who exhibits the same fear of abandonment, whilst also a fear of closeness. Someone who is on one hand worried that their partner might leave them. But when they get to a point of closeness, they then start to push their partner away. This is the disorganized attached role of the fear of abandonment.
So that is essentially it in a nutshell. I'm curious what causes insecure attachment. If I'm being completely honest, whilst the literature would suggest that a lot of this is to do with the way we've brought up, through upbringing, through the way in which our parents and our society has conditioned us, so for example, if you had a lot of inconsistent parenting and you weren't sure whether there was love available, you're more likely to develop
as someone with an anxious attachment. And then if you were smothered as a kid, you had a lot of really overbearing parents or a lot of emotional neglect, you may be more likely to develop into someone who is a dismissive avoidant, whereas if you're someone who had not only very inconsistent parents, but those that, you know, whenever something, you know, good happened, it was quickly followed by punishment or something terrible. And there was maybe a lot of addiction, trauma,
abandonment in the household. Maybe a lot of, you know, maybe there was also a parent with a personality disorder too that was quite harsh on the children. You may be more likely to develop as a fearful avoidant or a disorganized attach up. That's what the literature would say is consistent
with the upbringing for these, you know, insecure attachment styles. But whilst I don't have the scope to talk about this today, I'm also curious about the role of our ancestors and eGNETX may also play a role in this and that unresolved trauma could also have a role in influencing
the way we relate. There can also be some environmental and cultural factors too, where I think that, for instance, avoidant attaches tend to be more, I suppose they're more socially acceptable, because if you're in a society which praises emotional unavailability and avoidance are actually very good at, you know, compartmentalizing their emotions and can look absolutely impeccable on paper and at phenomenal impression managers, they can actually thrive in a variety of cultural
settings as well. And I think in a community that, you know, doesn't like meanness, doesn't like shows of, you know, big emotions, then anxious attaches are less likely, I think, to find a similar degree of acceptance because of their peculiarity to steal their emotions quite deeply and not have an outlet for them. And I also wonder privately whether there might actually be a biological component to some of this as well too, because maybe there is something here genetically
that's also influencing this. But in summary, the literature and the dominant research would suggest that a lot of this is influenced by parenting. Yeah, like a nurture versus nature in the conversation. Yeah, it's interesting. What you said about avoidance and it reminds me of people who are like emotionally over regulating, right? And they might be stoic and they might look like they have it all together. They're calm, cool, collected. And really that could be
the byproduct as an outsider looking at it. It might look like you're composed or stoic, but really at the end of the day, it's like a dissociative state. And you're not actually feeling what's what's alive there. So I think you're you're you're bang on when you say that like our culture, it really, really values and puts people on a pedestal if they are that way. You look at corporate and like, you know, no emotion, don't bring emotion into these things. Men are conditioned to not
be that way. And I think, you know, that's for me, that's the interest of this conversation is, you know, this is a podcast for gay men and we are conditioned as men to not be emotional, right? So there's I would agree with you. There's probably a proclivity to there being more avoidance in our culture and with men in general than there would be towards anxiety. But I do think there's an
intersection here. Like I think, you know, in my work, I've seen when I'm working with somebody with an avoidance attachment style, they tend to have to go through anxiety to heal to become secure. And when I'm working with an an anxious person, they tend to have to go through avoidance to become secure. So it tells me there's an intersection between these two attachment styles. And you know, I'm a firm believer that like if you look at the the conscious fears of each attachment
style, so you have anxious, the conscious fear is abandonment. Okay. And the conscious fear of the avoidant would be intimacy. But I'm a firm believer that the unconscious fear that they're probably not even aware of would be for an avoidant, it would likely be abandonment. Right? If I get too close and I have that intimacy, I'll be left or they'll think that I'm bad, wrong, shameful, and they'll leave me. Right? Whereas an anxious person, their unconscious fear is likely going to be
intimacy. And I've seen this in myself, I have a disorganized attachment and it's like, I want I want intimacy, I want it, bring it to me. And then as soon as it arrives and it's present, the person's present, they want to be there for me, I freak out. Right? So it's like it's telling you that yes, I have a fear of abandonment, but I also have a fear of intimacy because if somebody gets close, there's a possibility they might leave me. Right? So there's so much intersection
between these two attachment styles. 100 billion percent. And I love the fact that you brought up the subconscious elements of this too because I think that people assume, especially when you've had a break up with an avoidant attachment, they look like they've moved on with seeming ease at everything's hunky-dory. It's like you don't understand like these people, you know, have very sophisticated defense mechanisms to intimacy. Like, you know, and just because they appear stoic
doesn't mean they don't have any emotions. In fact, often at times they are extremely emotional and have big things going on inside of them which they're trying to manage. And often I've heard some avoidant clients be like, I feel like I'm holding a dozen plates and if I even stop to think about someone else's emotions, I'm going to come undone. It's a 24-7 drop from what I understand. And I mean, I lean more anxiously attached. I have a boring parts, but I'm not someone who
identifies with an avoidant attachment based on my style of relating. But what you said also about how the parkway to healing these is to go in the other direction is to be like if your dominant style is more avoidant, you have to go through the anxious side of things. And if your dominant style is more anxious, you have to learn to embrace those more avoidant styles of
meaning. I completely agree. And it's hard because it these days have been done. Like I mean, people who are more anxiously inclined have a real, I think, tend to have this real fear of coming across as being, you know, mean as being, you know, self-centered, selfish, and really what they need to learn. Like if there's, I don't know if I'm going to see this if they're listening in,
but basically I'm holding up my phone to represent a line. I always said as clients are like, look, if secure the base in the middle and you've got anxious on my left and then avoidant on the right, we're really trying to get people who are anxious with dwelling in the realm of co-dependency, loving too much and being far too good at overwhelming and engulfing people to start learning to go into more loving selfishness and learn to embody their sense of self without needing to
engulf another person for their sort, for their sense of self. Whereas the witness attaches by the complete other end of the spectrum, they are way too good at having an individuation, they're very good at being selfish, they are very good at doing their own stick. And what they need to learn to do is go in the other direction and learn to love and also embrace another person. Yeah, amen. And that can easily lead to gaslighting for, and that's happened to me, you
dating, avoiding people. They can gaslight you easily and be like, you're needy, you know, you have all these needs, these sorts of things. And I look at what causes attachment trauma in people is it's a legacy of unmet needs. Right? So like as an anxious person, if you have anxiety, it's likely because you have a lot of unmet needs as a child, then you have this avoidant person telling you that you're needy. Right? So it's really reinforcing this narrative of, you know,
my needs don't matter. I'm alone in this world. And you know, it's, I have a belief that like, and I'm disorganized. So I have both. I have an anxious part and I have an avoidant part within my, within my attachment style. I would say my, my anxious parts a little bit bigger, but they're pretty, pretty equal. And in my experience, I think, you know, because it's, it's also shifted for me. So there was a period in my 20s when I was purely anxious. And then I went through a
period where I was purely avoidant. And so I've under, I understand both of these attachment styles extremely well. And when I was anxious, I was very anxious with my partner and very avoidant of self, okay? Which caused the anxiety because I wasn't here. I was self abandoning. So of course, the anxiety perpetuates when your safety and securities reliant on this person outside yourself. That isn't consistent, right? But then I also find that when I was avoidant, I was, I was very
anxious with self and very avoidant with other. So I was holding all this shit in and all this anxiety was stirring around inside me, but I was showing composure to people outside me. And I was very avoidant of, you know, talking about my feelings or my inadequacies or these sorts of things. So it's so interesting. I find these two attachment styles. They mirror each other. And oftentimes, the healing, at least for myself, the healing has come through dating, the opposing attachment
style. So when I was avoidant and I was dating an anxious person, I had to really step into my power and, you know, have a strong sense of self and set boundaries and communicate my needs. And then when I was anxious, I was, I was learning from a partner how to be with myself, how to be with my emotions because, you know, I was looking outside myself for safety and security when all along, it was within me, right? So there's a lot of lessons that can be taught between these two
attachment styles, but very painful lessons, I must say. Oh my god, I completely agree with you. And I mean, can I just say thank you very much for sharing that story because I think, um, look, even though sources like attached will say that disorganized attaches, because, you know, are applied to sent out population, I don't agree with that. I think that they would constitute a much bigger percent of the population. And I think what I love about the way you
described your experiences, it's really important. I think that people who have, who identify with a disorganized attachment to realize like this, you know, you are part of the huge population. And I think especially in a gay community, I think that I would argue that there's probably a higher percentage of disorganized attaches and they would be dismissive avoidance or even anxious attaches purely because, as I've mentioned with you in our last episode, that there is a higher
rate of trauma for gay men in general. And I think because men, as we said, are conditioned and socialized to not have emotions and also not to be needy. In my experience, so I have dated quite a few disorganized attaches in my time. And I have to say on paper, they have been phenomenal daters. Like generally speaking, they can be very funny, quirky, charming,
very intense individuals as well when you're getting to know them. And what I've found is that it's really interesting how those that have yet to sort of like integrate a lot of those anxious parts tend to sometimes have a lot of self-loathing towards their own neediness and project that,
being like, oh, I don't want to come across as being too needy. And simultaneously, you know, they also can pride themselves at times on their compartmentalization and their skills to say a loof every now and then as well, it's true and just to put it together when they're going through an emotional crisis. And I have to give them credit where it's due, like, I mean, you know, I wish I could shut my emotions down, but I can't. And it's impressive in one hand to look at
these individuals when they appear so stoic. But as you said, it can be devastating to someone's nervous system when you have a breakup with one of these people, especially like whether it be in a dismissive avoid or a fearful avoidant, if you have an abrupt ending to want to look to a situation to a relationship, it can really destroy people. But it can also simultaneously be the
catalyst to actually start working on yourself and healing your own attachment wounds. Because usually I find, as you said in dating, you know, you start to learn to appreciate self when you are dating a lot of these individuals, regardless of whether you are dating an anxious or an avoidant attachment. And I think that dating actually, even though I think a lot of people would love to
just be like, you know, let's heal in a relationship, that's wonderful if it happens. But I actually think a lot of them magic can actually happen just in dating because you can get a lot of your own triggers coming up. And it's actually an opportunity to reconnect with yourself. Yeah. Yeah, well said, very well said. I want to give a shout out to what you said about, you know, dating and disorganized attachment because we're talking about insecurity and attachment. We're not,
we're not saying that these people are bad people or anything like that. And I can even have days or periods in my life where I'm very secure. And if I'm dating a secure person, I can, I can match that security. I've done a lot of deep work on myself. So, but there is, it's a very fluctuating thing attachment. It's not like if you land in disorganized, you're going to be there forever. It's malleable. It can change. You can grow. You can heal out of it. And there's a lot of strength in
each one. I know for people that tend to be more fearful, avoidant or disorganized, they are very good at vulnerability and being present. And they're highly attuned to the people in their lives needs because most of the time these people had a significant amount of trauma. There were a lot of chaos in the home. So they had to become hyper vigilant. They had to notice everything that is going on outside themselves. So they abandon themselves to take care of other people's needs so they can
find that they're probably the most primary need, which is safety. And I think this is where the insecure attachment is the birthplace of it. And I think for myself, I went into hyperindependence. My subconscious comfort zone is to not have needs because when I had needs, when I was younger, it was an inconvenience or they weren't met. So instead of continuously having the disappointment of my needs not being met, I turned my needs off. And that was a very
adaptive strategy as a child to that environment. But part of my work now is to bring myself back online to I matter. My needs matter. It's okay to have. Because I noticed that to reaffirm what you said, I noticed that comes up for me. When I have needs, there's a judgment or there's shame around that. Like there's something wrong with me. I shouldn't be needy. I shouldn't have
needs. It's not safe to rely on somebody as a big one. You know, I'll be disappointed. I'll be betrayed if I put myself out there and somebody doesn't show up for me the way that I need them to. A lot of this, this language is what stirs in the mind of somebody with an insecure attachment, right? 100% and I want to add another layer to that too, which is it's easy to become almost addicted to your own happiness when you're in the depths of an insecure attachment. And what I mean
by that is that if you're someone, let's just continue using this example. Let's just say you're someone with a disorganized attachment and you've grown up with a pretty awful childhood where you've heard like a lot of chaotic parenting. You've had a lot of, you know, difficult things happen to you. You know, genuine love kindness empathy can be really unsettling for one's nervous system if that's
your familiarity. And if, you know, what I often find is for a lot of people who lean in the category of being fearful of avoidance, dismissive avoidance is that, and even anxious to say is that if you're someone who hasn't had a lot of, I'd say, functional role modeling of what those more positive unconditional loving traits and qualities can be, you can often misconstrue another person's kindness in this case is control, manipulation. And it can make you feel like
I am not worthy to receive this love. I worry that if we connect and we get deeper with this person's going to realize what a fraud or how terrible I am and they're just going to shout at me and tell me how bad I am. It's like I know it's a tough for a lot of people to understand this because, you know, I think anxious to touch a brain would say, well, if they loved me, they would fight for me, they would want this relationship where it's like, no, no, avoid brain will never, will never,
ever, ever think that way. Avoid brain is this is too scary. I'm out of here because inevitably, this is going to go badly. So I'm doing as both a matter of favor by walking away from this. And, you know, when we talk about like it's incredible with the amount of work you've done on yourself too, but I also want to give, you know, listen to an opportunity to say just because, you know, people have the opportunity to recognize these experiences inside of themselves and work on
them. Doesn't mean everyone will because when you're in the depths of that insecure attachment and you are, as I said, addicted to your own situation, it can be very hard to break free of that and not everyone has the willingness to do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so I love the way we create because it's like you end and like the exact thing that I was wanting to share prior is like this. That's a perfect segue for it, which was oftentimes insecure people date other insecure people, right?
So it's just anxious to avoid it, right? Most insecure attackers are not drawn to secure attached people until they get to that point where they've done enough work, right? Because they see it as boring, right? If you have an insecure attachment, you likely grew up in an environment where there was inconsistency, chaos, drama, it was like high, high cortisol adrenaline environment. So a secure person is like level calm collected, they're present, they're there for you. And it's like
very jarring, right? For somebody that's used to having a lot of chaos. So and that's what creates a lot of conflict in relationships. And again, I see this in my private practice, like the lore, like with people like struggling with dating and why can't I find somebody there's so many avoidant or anxious partners we can never match. It's always like this, like you're hitting off the
mark. And I really do think it's because of this. I think we have a high representation of attachment trauma and insecure attachment in our community, which leads to a lot of conflict in relationships and a lot of unmet intimacy needs because there's a lot of fear of intimacy or fear of abandonment. So this is again, one of my inspirations for doing this work, connecting with
you, having the brotherhood, all of this is because I want to help heal this. So we don't have to have so much disconnection and you know, continuous recurring trauma over relationships, right? It's it's taxing. It's so taxing on the nervous system. So yeah. And society as a whole, like I mean, to be fair to look, to be fair to a little bit of a game in dating, I get it. Like I work with a lot of like you, a lot of clients in our community, who are at their wit's end with dating.
It's like, God damn, it seems like everyone is just afraid of commitment. We want these non-monogamous relationships. And it's like, I know we'll talk about that, but it's one of those things where like, I understand the hopelessness that it feels around dating as well too. Like I really get it. And I'm not about to spread this toxic positivity message of like, it gets better. There's like, there's always
the next person around the corner. No, no, let's say like, I think that we have to be aware that, you know, there is unfortunately some reasons as to why, you know, it's as challenging it as it as it is. I think on one hand, yes, there is a huge body of people who have a higher insecure attachment, especially I think in not just the gay community, but the LGBTQI plus community as a
whole. We don't have, I think, a lot of good resources and adequate training to help people who are experiencing attachment trauma, who are also in the LGBT community in general, because I think it's mostly focused on straight men and women. I do think that a lot of that stuff can be translated very well for our community at large. But I think that, you know, I can understand realistically
speaking, we have a bit of a basket case situation where it comes to dating. And at the end of the day, there's only one thing you can do, which in my opinion is you've got to accept and work on yourself, because as much as it would be nice to maybe give up and be a monk in the mountains, you know, that in and of itself doesn't help anyone. And so I think that it is one of those things where for those that are actually willing to work on themselves and do this, you know, I want to one
of time, I feel like this is a very anxious sort of thing to do. I used to think, well, if I work on myself, well, then finally, I'll have, you know, a partner and now I'm like, no, I'm doing this for myself. I don't care if I end up dying alone. I'll make friends with a nurse as if that's the case. Like I mean, for me, I'm just like, no, it's one of those things where I think building that
relationship to self, you know, yes, all this other good stuff will happen. But I think that we've got a divorce ourselves from this whole need to like be with another human being at a fear of like being alone, being judging ourselves, we're not having a partner, but it's far easier said than done. Yeah, exactly. And it's kind of like, which side of the coin, right? Because I think for some people, they need to learn how to come into connection and get their needs met. And then there's
people that need to learn how to have individuation, right? So it's like, you know, big, big-ass little O or big O little less like other self, right? Like what's your flavor and that can kind of flip flop. Okay, let's move this into the second half of the conversation because I'm really, really curious to get your perspective on this. So, you know, relationship structure, choosing relationship structure structure that works for you in our community, it's very, very common for there to be
monogamous, non-monogamous, polyramorous, different types of relationship structures. I'm curious about the intersection between attachment styles and choosing different types of relationship structures. In this episode, we're not going to go into all of them. I think let's just look at non-monogamy as a category that involves relating with more than one person and monogamy as relating with one person and it being a closed connection. Okay? And there's going to be security and insecurity
in both of them. So I like to call it the shadow side or the conscious side of making the choice of what you're going to choose for an attachment style. So for your attachment style. So I'm curious for you, what's the correlation here between like let's even start with anxious. Somebody with an anxious attachment, what are they more likely to move towards as far as an attachment or a relationship structure? In my experience, I think that anxious attaches have a tendency to want a more closed
monogamous relationship because the whilst it sounds all very good and appealing. I think anxious attachment insecurity is they will leave me and they and I will be alone and I will feel like I am worthless and I am unlovable. So the danger is that those unhealed wounds haven't been taken care of. The tendency can be to not only have a monogamous relationship but actually quite a smothered and meshed code of ending relationship where a sense of cell is completely dictated by the
presence of that other person that's in that relationship too. And this can be dysfunctional. Like this can be the sort of thing where it's like you need to hang out with this person all the time 24 7. Your identity is set the blends together. It's almost like you've taken on the hobbies and the attributes of this other person without actually having your own sense of self in this entire experience too. I mean that's extreme but you know what's really interesting too and I guess
this will nicely lead up to the next aspect of this. It is very funny how sometimes anxious attaches will sometimes acquiesce to an avoidant partner and go into having a more non ethical monogamous style. Sorry ethical monogamous relationship to please a partner as well too who might be going into it because what we often find with the insecure attachments especially anxious statuers they have terrible boundaries like they don't tend to stand up for themselves in terms
of their own sense of self and what they want some needs are. And I mean avoidant attaches aren't much better at this as well too but when anxious attaches you know want to hold on to that connection for dear life they can go in very hyper mode where they'll try and like hold on to the person or they'll try and let the person do whatever they want and pretend to be as cool and collected about it when in fact both of these are really taking them away from their sense of
self. Yeah yeah yeah so just I want to kind of maybe just reflect what you just said like just paraphrase so I'm getting the sense that somebody with an insecure attachment on leaning on the anxious side is going to have a tendency to want to gravitate towards like closed so that that way
they it's like possessive there might be some jealousy in the relationship it they tend to rely on their partner for a sense of self or maybe worth these sorts of things so there's more of a codependent nature it's in a mesh type of relationship what about somebody from the like with
an insecure attachment leaning avoidant what do they tend to draw towards. I think of when attaches interestingly I think in our community they make the assumption that they are meant for more non-monogamous style relationships because part of I think their fear of intimacy is that when they
get close to one partner one of their rationalizations might be oh well maybe this is just the way I know maybe I'm actually not meant for monogamy and so they'll conclude based on that irrational realization that the way forward for them is anything but monogamy and this becomes really
problematic for them because the irony is is that whilst it may seem like polyamory you know or anything around that might be freer less restricted no needs need to be worried about too it's actually late opposite because to be in a police secure relationship means you have to take into
consideration multiple people emotion jealousy insecurity boundaries it's a full time job now full experience to have and it's one of those things where if an avoidant attacher goes into that direction it can ultimately prove quite dissatisfying for them as well too
because the same issue keeps coming up for them which is when they get close to someone even if it's a primary or secondary it starts to cause them to distance themselves away their causal unnecessary you know resistances and insecurities in their partners as well too but then interestingly
avoidance can also go the other deep direction as well too which is if they get with someone who maybe is comfortable enough for them whether triggers of intimacy and commitment aren't being activated like let's just say they get with someone where frankly their partner is either extremely
non-emotional or lacks emotional intimacy or is extremely dysfunctional held even narcissistic or someone who has like really bad emotional dysregulation they may stick it out for a very long time in what looks like a committed relationship but it won't activate them because none of that
emotional intimacy is happening because there's no vulnerability in that relationship yeah yeah and I would see this in the shadow side of say polyamory it's like I'm going to give 25% of myself to four different people right so there's not as much accountability there's not as much
right and and that's what I would say the shadow side right that's the person who's leading with fear right so they're going into this with with intentionality or maybe it even is unconscious with I'm distributing my eggs in four different baskets so then that way I don't have to deal with
my fear right my fear of intimacy so okay so this is interesting so then the if we look at the the conscious side so people who are who are deliberate they're not leading with fear they're leading with love how would that change whether somebody's you know when it comes to selecting
the type of relationship structure that would work for them that's a really good question I think that look as someone I know for myself because I've tried all kinds of different things myself and I think I'll speak with my heart but myself as someone who's a recovering anxious
attached or and say I know for me I like the nalga me not because I want to keep my eyes on my partner but because I it's fine that I work best when there's just one other person there and I don't have to also think about other people as well too like I only have a band with for one person
and I only came to that conclusion through trial and error I can completely honest like I came to that conclusion through not only trial and error but also working on myself and also learning to be honest I had to also heal my fear of intimacy as well too and a lot of my stuff to the point
where I'm like yeah actually I could definitely be in a committed relationship with someone but I don't think I could take on other entities as well to one is enough for me otherwise it just gets a little bit too messy and I think for an avoidant attacher it's not to say the bit you know that they're always going to be someone who's inclined from a nalga me but I do think that you know they start to I think comes with point of realizing love is a choice and that they need to
step away from choosing what their fear tells them to do which is to run and to get closer to lean in and I think mine is the opposite where it's like I need space and I need you to just like do your own thing and to just like have a life outside of myself as well too and I need to do that myself
so I think it you know it really goes to what you said consistently which is when you meet the the other part of you in my case the more avoidant part of you depending on your partner the more anxious or avoidant part of you I think it's about pointing that balancing act and also
getting back to self and being like okay if I don't have to be ruled by my insecurity right now whichever is prevalent you know how would you know what would allow me to choose joy, peace, freedom and love because at the end of the day and this I don't mean to sound too woo but at our
core we are beings of love but all this humanness stuff gets in the way of that and that's what causes all these problems and dating yeah yeah I'm a firm believer too I think you know even for people that have significant trauma in childhood and they develop in secure attachment I think that's like
we can we can have what I would call parts we have different parts inside of us and when we're unhealed our parts that are wounded are big right but I don't think those parts just dissolve when we do healing they're they're there but they're just smaller and they're not they're not screaming
the loudest so I'm a firm believer that when we you know move towards more security we're still gonna have these parts so there there might even be somebody who's secure listening to this and they're like yeah I prefer monogamy because it feels safer for me because in my childhood right I
didn't there was so much chaos and moving parts or maybe there was infidelity between your parents these sorts of things so those scars can still stay with us they just don't drive the bus but they still can influence our decisions in what we choose and how we choose to show up in our relationships
but I will also say too like for myself my journey of moving towards more security has been easier access to my authentic desires so it's less fear at the forefront and it's more like ah yeah this would feel good for me and and understanding like you know my desires and being able to lead with
those and not having to make choices out of pure fear I think that really is what how I would describe secure attachment especially earned secure attachment I think that's very different from somebody who has organic a secure attachment like they you know I think earned earned secure
attachment is it's like a badge of fucking honor honestly like truly like I'm so like I just I've learned so much in the last 10 years of healing healing attachment trauma that like security means so much to me like truly whereas I think somebody that maybe was how to like a
secure upbringing and they never had to navigate any sort of trauma related to relationships or development I I think maybe there's like not as much like wow like look at how far I've come you know I couldn't agree more I think earned secure attachment look I'll be honest I'm going to be like I
actually didn't get if I had to be pretty a preference on it I'm much preferable to the idea of being just securely attached at the because you know I wanted to enjoy the think of trauma healing and I'm not wishing anyone had trauma but one of the joys of trauma healing as I think you gain
access to a breadth of your own human experience as well too you know in each scar there can often be a lot of growth and a lot of you know material for foliage to actually come out of those experiences and I I will say that my biggest relationship scars have turned into the foundation for
a few I am today and again I look I understand it realistically speaking I know some people will never ever get to a stage where they're able to say well you and I are saying and that's fine like for some people it is just the way it is but for those of us that can get to a stage of you
know earn secure attachment I think it's a a huge achievement and I will be honest like in my experience I have to say I actually think for those of me have at least a very strong avoidant attachment also deserve tremendous you know just praise for the work that they do on this sort
of stuff because as someone who I said I don't really identify with avoidant attachment but I've heard from clients and I've seen some of the things that they will say and how they relate to love and it's bloody hard work like I've worked with some avoidant clients and it's slow and steady
not expecting these people to race to earn secure attachment it takes time and I think that there's a lot I'm sure you've seen this too the blood of people online will be like heal your attachment wounds in three months it's like there ain't no way in three months you're going to be healing from
that shit no like it's and I know from you you've even mentioned how you've done like some significant trauma work where you've like fried and you've gone through like the motions of like meeting those parts of yourself too every time I have an avoidant client is working through parts
you know it's a deeply emotional experience for them and it is one of those things where you know with all due respect like yes the end of the strategy deserves its own you know commendation too but for someone to meet parts themselves that they've compartmentalized like that
like that's an entirely different based yeah yeah I agree and the thing with avoidance is you have to activate right if you've been dissociating numbing these sorts of things you have to activate the emotion before you can start the healing journey whereas if an anxious person they're already
flooded they're in emotion storms right so they're working on how to regulate and then so they're almost like a step ahead I find an avoidant person has to activate and then go through all the steps an anxious person would have to would have to go through right they have to learn how to feel and
be with some other big emotions and yeah it's it's quite a journey and yeah I'm curious around security like what would be some things that you would say can help the listener viewer move towards security like what are some maybe your top three things that you would suggest that they focus
on that is such a great question I think one of those things that I would recommend is develop an awareness habit such as journaling whenever you have like bigger motions come up just to just to get started because a really easy thing you can do is you can go back to a significant
relationship at recently so say I can more anxiously attach pay attention to the moments where you may have felt jealous where you felt like you know your partner wasn't going to respond back to you up through a text message take time just to even write out some of the thoughts that you might have
been having at that particular moment just to start separating yourself a little bit from it the same thing I highly recommend just to even get this you know this work really rolling is also developed an emotional regulation technique I am a huge fan of techniques like rage journaling
of just writing out how I'm feeling from time to time and even dialoging with certain parts of myself when they come up and that's a bit of an advanced technique but one of the best things that I've found is just that anytime I feel a major emotion just to really express it and the
final part that I'm actually going to recommend which does connect a little bit to dialoging is one of my favorite techniques that I think is really essential is and this is especially true for anyone who's experiencing an insecure attachment is I would start meeting it in a critic often I find
people with your attachment have a scathing voice telling them your anxious well if you did X Y Z then this person wouldn't have left you where the avoidant one have well you know you're a bad person so they're not going to want to be with you anyways you might as well try and cover
that shit up because if they find out who you are they're going to reject you or they're going to shout at you and so the reason I think that part is really important to address before any of the other stuff is because if you attempt to meet your inner child or to do any of this other stuff
without addressing that part of you good luck because that's not going to cut you into a million pieces and it's very easy to just tell it to shut the fuck up but you know those of us that are in you know in the mental health world we know that that actually is the worst thing you can do to that part of yourself so I'd say around other pieces it's really good to learn how to communicate
and validate and he what that part of me was saying and to unpack a lot of that. Far as it's had been done probably best with the clinician but just want to say just getting out of awareness developing your emotional regulation and even just getting into dialogue with that
in a critic can do so much good foundational stuff. Yeah yeah thanks for sharing all that I think there's some great great tips there yeah for me I would I would I there's a strong correlation for me in my experience and in the experience of the people that I work with around anger and anger
of the childhood that never was there or you know it's anger that is manifesting on the top layer and grief sits underneath it a grief of all of the unmet needs that led to the attachment trauma so I think anger work and and I want to give a shout out to the episode that I released I think it
was four weeks ago called dealing with or dealing with anger in healthy ways or something like that that's going to give a lot of people that do have maybe unresolved anger sitting underneath that is fueling some of this this stuff definitely go to that episode and take that listen to that or watch
that and then another thing so 10 years ago I learned about attachment from my from me like within myself I learned about it in school but like where I actually understood what insecure attachment felt like and I was in a relationship I with a very avoiding guy which activated the anxious side of
my of my attachment style and I was sent on a 18 month horrible journey I had a adrenal fatigue I was had insomnia was terrible because my mind would not shut off I had such a highly activated nervous system so the biggest thing is to educate yourself like understand like what your attachment style is first of all like if you're just having all of these big emotions and you're not sure what it's actually going on you know take our attachment style quiz we have that on our website
the link will be in the show notes and take the quiz learn what your attachment style is and then go from there and I would recommend like like you said working with a therapist or or a coach or somebody that can support you that is trauma like attachment trauma trained that's really important
you want to have somebody that understand the attachment theory and they can work with you on helping you understand your needs and how to set boundaries and how to feel emotions I just think that's such a huge part of this work and then the last one I'll say is have compassion
because this this like this has probably been I've been through a lot of things in my life and I you know I had a crack addiction for seven years and my healing my attachment style was way harder than overcoming an addiction it was very very challenging for me it was 10 years I'm still working
through it you know and depending on the amount of trauma that you had will obviously depend on maybe the length of the duration of the healing journey but it's uh so just have so much compassion for yourself and know that you're not defective you're not flawed you're not broken you know you can
still love and be in relationships with an insecure attachment it just takes little nuances and you know you have to communicate and you have to show up and express yourself and and these sorts of things so um and I do believe that people can heal in relationships if you are an anxious or
avoidant person and you get in a relationship with someone who's attuned to you and they are more secure that can pull it's like the people pulling out of the crab bucket right other crabs pulling other crabs out of the crab bucket that's what a secure attacker can do for us is help us heal
because they know the the remedy they they're able to attune and help us meet our needs so um yeah there's so many things honestly we could do a whole episode on healing and developing secure attachment which uh you know maybe that could be our next one in in the fall but uh who knows right
yeah I love everything you said like not only from you know the importance of anger but also the significance of compassion as well so because I think that both like having a healthy outlet that anger is so cathartic and healing and compassion I think is a very understated get
necessary part of us building our own reparenting for ourselves as well too and it sounds like I know it's a little bit too wee and quaint when people say you need to learn to love yourself I actually think whilst I pray this not entirely accurate I think you actually do need to learn to accept
love in order to be able to be with someone else because like I said before about being addicted to unhappiness if your nervous system is rejecting love then you got a problem and even if like I agree with you about the um the crap bucket analogy of being with someone secure but I want to
add to that a secure attachment is not the answer so if you're good at adding some of the secure attachment it won't necessarily mean that it will save you from your insecure attachment you have to be willing to work on this sort of stuff you know when you talk briefly about you know what it
was like being with an avoidant 10 years ago I funny my I have often said to people like just because people who are disorganized or dismissive avoidance may not recognize the impact of what they do to people when they're leaving a relationship they know it when they get with someone who is
more avoidant than them and it breaks like I mean it's often I find like my come to Jesus moment and also my work on my attachment began when I had an avoidant situation shift five years ago because it made me realize oh my god like I didn't even recognize that I had all this anxious
attachment stuff inside of me yeah it was even though it was the most painful and hardest thing to ever like that I ever had to overcome I am so infinitely grateful for it because that was the catalyst that got me to where I am today but I will say that breakup was the hardest thing that I
went through in my life emotionally speaking and I know people who've been in narcissistic relationships and are sent to me yes the knock was bad but nothing was as bad that breakup was because when you go through that it just triggers every event wound in your body it is horrific
yeah yeah yeah and I agree I think that people like you know on the healing journey like you're not going to be drawn to a securely attached person until you get to a certain point right and that's kind of that point where I think they can pull you out they can help you as long as you're
doing the work I fight I think that was well said I couldn't agree more I think that's that's really important there was something else that got activated when you said I was going to say something but it's escaped me for now but it'll yeah anything else that you want to because we
should wrap up here but is there anything else that you think is important to know to or leave the audience with yeah I just want to say that whilst developing a secure attachment can have tremendous benefits relationally speaking I also want to say to the listeners that it can also
have a tremendous impact on so many other areas of your life too because attachment doesn't just happen in our romantic areas of life it happens with our relationship with money without profession and if you do overcome a lot of this stuff you will actually see a just a huge net positive in a lot
of other areas of your life too yeah whilst the journey is hard you will I'm sorry you are going to lose people along the journey because that's just how it works unfortunately when you develop self-realisation okay I'm out growing a lot of people in my life too you know the benefit
of a lot of this is you overcome a lot of and this is something you talk a lot in your podcasts is you overcome a lot of crippling loneliness you also I think develop a greater sense of peace and you will probably find a greater sense of purpose and missions for your life as well too
and I think look I really want to end this podcast episode echoing what you said that yes change is possible for some I understand it may not be a possibility and it is what it is you know everyone's on their own journey but if you can commit to this part of your journey then I think you will find
that it does lead to a lot of incredible things for you it just may not be maybe what you're really thinking of will look like because it is a very evolving experience yeah yeah I agree and I want we could go on all night but I I want to say this secure secure is like securely attached I
think oftentimes we can look at it as like it's perfect once you get there you're perfect you're no longer activated and it's that's not that's could be couldn't be farther from the truth the difference the difference between somebody who's secure versus insecure a secure person can still
get anxious by dating a highly avoidant person but the difference is that they don't make it mean anything about them they're able to kind of stand in their power and say this is about them not about me whereas an insecure person specifically an anxious person is going to say this means that
I'm not worthy I'm not lovable you know I don't belong like that's what that's what happens so I think a secure person has worked through their core wounds that gets stimulated by you know relationship activations whatever that might be so so I want to just I wanted to say that because
we don't want to strive to be perfect because when we do that we bypass and we end up being stoic and over-regulated like an avoidant person would be in the first place so and a secure person still has big emotions they still feel they still get you know heartbroken they still feel
betrayed like it's all it's all part of it human emotions are messy and big and they're going to bring up stuff for us so I just I had to say that because I don't want people to think that you know when you're dating a secure person that they're perfect and then they never you know get upset
or angry or have conflict and these sorts of things yeah absolutely not I want to look I would argue that I've definitely killed more secure in my attachment now but are there a moments where I'll have a part of myself come up where I'm like oh that's my anxiety again better go have a
chat with that yeah and I think that to your point about not taking things personally you're absolutely right like I think um the less you make someone's behavior means something about yourself and I really speak to my actual touch of audience when I say this they're healthier you will
feel like I mean uh a concept that I don't think either of us have talked about is there is a need for developing a positive narcissism in ourselves in terms of being like my need matter I am important what I say matters frankly I should be the arbiter of myself and whatever anyone else
has to say I will you know take their opinions with a grain of salt because I have to put myself first and that's going to trick a lot of people who've made it used to you know more forms of modesty of not wanting to you know praise their own accolades I get it but there is real benefit
in putting yourself first and it doesn't mean it's going to be easy and there are going to be moments where you make mistakes but such as the lack of big a human thing yeah exactly there's so much I could say but we're you'll be on again I have a good feeling about that
so we'll save that for our next conversation because I do want to keep this under an hour but um honestly well before I wrap up I want to say um building better relationships course we have a course that can bring you from A to Z in some of these technical things if you want to learn more about attachment styles the remote about navigating conflict how to get your needs met we developed a course in the game and's brotherhood about this so that'll be in the show in the show notes as well
and then just so much gratitude to you to coming um for those of you who don't know it is Ken's birthday today and he chose to spend the first few hours of his birthday with me with us uh sharing his wisdom so thank you so much for that we appreciate that you're very welcome I'll be honest uh when you suggested the date and the time I was like well we are talking about attachment and I do enjoy having this conversation and I you know with that big big bench as I was like yeah I'll trick myself
to this this word and feel like works I was very happy thank you very much I'm very grateful to have this birthday moment as well so yeah yeah no it's it's always so stimulating I love creating with you it's just so easy and and it vibes it goes back and forth like a ping pong game so I love it
um and yeah for people that are uh maybe not joined us yet in the Facebook group game and brotherhood come and join us there and share some of your thoughts if you're watching on YouTube share some thoughts in the comments about what this this conversation stimulated for you
we'd love to hear from you and if you're listening on your favorite podcast uh platform please give us a rating hopefully five stars if you enjoyed what you heard today this helps us get into the the ears of people that need this information this content for their own healing journey so um yeah until next time everybody much love