May 4, 2023 • 30 mins
Do you know your “attachment style”?? Becca has been researching and learning so much about hers while Hayley is away on tour, so we brought in relationship coach Stephanie Rigg to answer all of our questions.
Becca opens up about how her attachment style with Hayley has changed as their relationship progressed.
And, Stephanie helps explain the 4 different attachment styles and how best to navigate them.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Scrubbing In with and Tanya rap An iHeartRadio podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hello everybody, we are scrubbing in.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Yes we art thou.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Oh, yes we art thou. Yes we art thou. Interesting
Shakespearean with a Tanya twist. Let me tell you something.
I'm on one today. I feel it from you, do you? Yeah,
But I'm like, it's not it's kind of like a
little manning. I'm settling. Yeah, yeah, it's not like it's
not like, oh, on one good, Like it's good, I guess,
(00:38):
good energy, high energy, but like I'm kind of scared
and you shouldn't be scared. It's a good okay, great.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Yeah, never know with you never know. It's really comes
like the wind.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Keep us on our toes. We have a very exciting
guest because I have talked about Stephanie Rigg. I talked
about her a few podcasts ago. She really helped me.
She doesn't know this I will be telling her, but
during my like spirals while Haley was in Europe, I
listened to her podcast. It's called on Attachment and she's
(01:10):
our guest today and she's also a relationship coach. She
helps like specialize in people breaking free of insecurity and
anxiety to create loving, connected, deep relationships and she's worked
with people from multiple countries through her coaching practice and
online courses. And did you want to do the other
part of the intro?
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Sorry, I took it over because I didn't realize you
were doing that.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
I'm also a huge fan of attachment styles. I'm so
fascinated by it. I know my own attachment style, but
I don't know how to get out of that phase
or get out of my attachment styles. So since its
launch in early twenty twenty two, her signature program Healing
Anxious Attachment has helped over a thousand has helped over
a thousand people to heal their anxious attachment and move
(01:58):
towards a more secure way of being.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
And like I said, she is the host and creator
of the top ranked podcast on attachment styles, and it's
called on Attachment Please Help Us. Welcome all the way
from Sydney, Australia, the wonderful Stephanie Ray. Stephanie, thank you
so much for being here. I I talked about you
(02:23):
on our recent podcast because I have had my girlfriend's
on tour right now and I had this realization that
my attachment style may have switched. So I was frantically
searching podcasts on attachment styles and yours came up, and
it is amazing. I love everything that you do. I
(02:43):
love how you speak. I love listening to your podcast
just your voice and it's so calming, but also what
you talk about. So I'm so excited to have you
on our podcast.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Thanks. Becca. It's really great to be here. I think
that a lot of people probably find me by doing
what you do. It's like, oh, Okay, I'm experiencing something.
What is it. I've heard about attachment Google podcasts on
attachment and my podcast is called on Attachment, So I
think that's. Yeah, it's a great road for me to be.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
But I do want to start out for people because
I'm also familiar with attachment styles and I really want
to dig into mine. But I want to lay the
land for everybody that's listening that might not know what
they are. So if you can explain kind of how
many attachment styles are there, and if you could just
kind of give a brief description of what they are.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Yeah, so there are four attachment styles and maybe to
take a step back, attachment styles are basically describing what
we experience in relationships. And I realize that sounds broad,
but the best way that I like to describe it
is that your attachment style basically explains or groups people
based on what kinds of things are scary for me
(03:53):
in relationships, what kind of things feel hard or challenging,
and what are my go to strategies for managing that.
So using that as our starting point, we can walk
through the four attachment styles. So maybe we start with secure,
which is what we would all hope to be or become.
And you know, a really cool thing about this body
(04:15):
of work is that you can change your attachment style.
It's not something that's fixed. It's not like a diagnosis.
It's not some fixed part of you or your personality.
It's just a set of behaviors that you've probably learned
and picked up along the way over the course of
your life and come to rely on, often pretty subconsciously.
So secure attachment is basically relationships feel pretty easeful to you.
(04:41):
You kind of trust in the safety of relationships. You're
okay on your own, but you also really comfortable being
a relationship. You don't have this sense of, oh no,
something's going to go wrong. I'm always on edge because
I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. There's just
this sense of easefulness and trust about the way that
you relate to others, and particularly in romantic relationships, although
(05:03):
also across the board, you know, you're broadly like confident
in voicing needs and setting boundaries. You trust in the
ability to work through conflict. It's all just like, Okay,
hard things will happen, but we'll be fine because we
can work through it. That's the gold standard. That's what
we're all kind of working towards in doing this work right. Unfortunately,
(05:23):
most of us, well about fifty percent is the estimate
of people who are secure for the other fifty percent
of us, and obviously those estimates are I'm always a
little skeptical because I'm like, maybe that's my bias, because
I'm obviously mostly working with people who aren't at that
as their starting point. But I'm always a little skeptical
as to whether it is fifty to fifty The remaining
(05:45):
fifty percent ish fall across these three other categories of
insecure attachment. So it's referred to and maybe we'll start
with anxious attachment because that's most people who I work
with and it's also kind of my personal background and
what I've worked through anxiously attach people. If we're going
(06:06):
back to those questions of what kinds of things scare
me and what do I do with that fear to
manage it? Anxiously attach people are Okay, I'm scared by
this core fear of abandonment or fear of being without you.
So I'm scared of distance, I'm scared of uncertainty. I'm
scared of rejection. I'm scared of you leaving me. I
(06:28):
might struggle with things like jealousy and comparison and worry
and rumination and catastrophizing. As soon as there's any kind
of space between us, I'm filling in the blanks with
like the worst possible thing that could happen. What do
I do with that? To manage that fear? I try
and close the gap. So I'm going to want to
be around you all the time as much as possible,
(06:49):
because if I feel like you're right there and next
to me, then there's not as much space for those
fears to take hold and to you know, do their thing.
So pretty much all of those anxious attachment strategies could
be distilled down to I want to close the gap
and get back to connection with you. Whenever I feel
like there's any sort of disconnection or distance, I want
(07:11):
to squash it and to get us back into connection.
So then we have at the other end of the
spectrum to the anxiously attached person, we have the dismissive avoidant.
And I do want to say I know that in
a lot of you know, kind of pop culture, and
if you have come across attachment styles at are probably
a pretty surface level online, I think avoidance get a
(07:33):
really bad rap, and I understand why because if you're
on the receiving end of some of the more challenging
avoidant behaves, it can be pretty painful, frankly. And I
think we also have to come back to this thing
of you know, they have fears and they're managing those
fears the only way they know how. So for the
avoidant person, the fear is around loss of self, being smothered,
(07:58):
being controlled, you know, losing your independence, feeling like someone
is depending on you in a way that feels overwhelming
and suffocating. And the way that they can manage that
is by creating distance, right, so by kind of pushing
someone away or being protective of their autonomy, being protective
(08:18):
of their independence, but basically returning to their island because
that feels safe. And so that's kind of the other
end of the spectrum to the anxious person. And we
can get into a bit later the irony of the
fact that those types tend to gravitate towards each other,
which seems like, you know, the last thing that should happen,
(08:40):
but it actually happens a lot. Then the fourth category
is what's referred to as fearful avoidant or disorganized attachment.
And this is a person who ranks high on both
anxiety and avoidance, so they've kind of got you can
either say, the best or the worst of both worlds there.
So they experience the anxiety and they want to be
(09:01):
close to people, and then once they get close, it's like,
well this feels too much. I got to get out
of here. And so they tend to have a lot
of push pull and a lot of kind of fear
and stress and relationships understandably because they have these conflicting
drives within them that are saying like get close, and
then once you're closed, it's like, Okay, get out of here.
This is too much and So that's kind of the
(09:23):
experience of the fearful avoidant, is having that desire for
intimacy and closeness and connection, but once you get it,
being really terrified and pulling away. So their strategies can
kind of range from anxious strategies to more pure avoidance strategies,
and often when they're in stress, they'll lean more on
(09:44):
avoidant strategies, And it can kind of depend on the
context and who they're in relationship with. So if they're
in relationship with someone who is more anxious, they're likely
to lean more on their avoidant strategies because they're going
to be more in that overwhelmed place, whereas if they
were with someone who was more avoidant, then their anxious
(10:04):
parts might be triggered and activated and they might go
more inwards, go kind of try and get closer because
those anxieties are being activated by the other person's behavior.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Wow, I have a question about So you said fifty
percent are securely attached, which feels like a lot, feels
way more than I would be like rude, I don't
buy it. Do attachment styles stamp Like are some people
(10:48):
just secure?
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Like?
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Are they just secure? Is it that people work on
themselves and go to therapy and do these types of
things to get to a place of security or are
people just naturally secure in relationships? And where do that
where you suspicious?
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Isn't it pit it by it so that when we're
talking about like fifty percent a secure at least according
to theory, that is like their starting point, and that
is because you know, all of this attachment stuff originates
in childhood for the most part, and so that we're
talking there about fifty percent are secure as a starting point. Again,
(11:25):
I'm really skeptical of that. And it's important to note
as well that this all sits on a spectrum, and
it's not like you go in one bucket and you
are in that bucket to the exclusion of all the
other buckets. So it does sit on a spectrum. And
you might be someone who's broadly secure, and if you're
in a healthy relationship, that might be kind of where
you're hanging out. But most people will have kind of
(11:47):
secondary styles or strategies. So if you were broadly secure,
but then you got into a relationship with someone who
was very avoidant, then you might exhibit more anxious strategies
or vice versa. So I think it is messier than
just saying like I am this, and I started as this,
and now I am this, and it's all really clean
and compartmentalized. I think the reality is that it is
(12:10):
messier than that. And I'm always cautious about getting too
attached to the labels. I think sometimes people really want
to be like, which one am I. I think that I,
you know, kind of that resonates with me. But then
I did this quiz online and now I'm very confused
and I've got to get to the bottom of which
attachment style I am. And it's like, yeah, yes, and
(12:33):
does it really matter? Like it's just a tool. It's
not a diagnosis. It's not something where you need to
like figure out which bucket you're in before you can
do anything. Whether it you can just go, oh, okay,
that resonates with me. Can I get curious about that? Oh?
I do notice that I really struggle with uncertainty or
distance in my relationships. I wonder what that's about for me.
(12:56):
So I always encourage people to take a bit more
of a nuanced and curious, a curious approach rather than
getting too fixated on labels and kind of categories.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Yeah, that was me taking the closes. It's just spiraling
out of control.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Well, like I know, like I know what I am,
and I do I know what I'm anxious attachment. I'm
anxiously attached, and I feel like obviously, securely attached is
the goal for everybody. So what's like one first step
that you can take to get to that secure attachment?
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Because I've been working at it for years and still here.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
It's a journey. No, I mean, I have also been
working on it for years, and I'd like to say
that I'm the way that I describe it to people
because I always get asked like, can you ever actually
if you're anxiously attached, is there ever like a light
at the end of the tunnel where I don't experience
anxious attachment anymore? And the way that I answer that
(13:53):
is like yes and no. It's not like it's going
to just evaporate and you're never going to feel that
way again. That's probably been with you for a really
long time and there's just like a level of muscle
memory around it where you're like, oh, that's where I
go in a flash, right when I'm triggered, when I'm scared.
That's where I go because my body knows how to
do that, and it's learned to do that to keep
(14:13):
me safe. That's not a problem, there's nothing wrong with that.
But what the goal of the work is really like,
can I get to a place where I have some
sort of choice, where I feel like I'm in the
driver's seat of that rather than this anxious part of
me grabs the wheel and drives me off a cliff
to this place that feels really out of control of
panicky and stressed, and I feel like I'm not okay
(14:35):
if my relationship is not okay, which is really anxious attachment,
is like I'm okay if we're okay and you're here
and I feel like everything's all right. But if not,
even if you're just in a bad mood and you're
a bit quiet, all of the alarm bells go up
in me and I'm like, oh, what's wrong? What's wrong?
And you're okay? Are you mad at me? What did
I do? Can I fix it? Can I get us
back to harmony? Because I experience any kind of even
(14:57):
tiny momentary rupture as a precursor to abandonment. I feel
like you're going to leave me or you're angry at me,
or you are disappointed in me and you don't love
me or whatever. Right, so all of those things can happen.
So to answer your question of like what do we
do with that, I think for anxiously attach people, the
(15:19):
big piece, the biggest piece is learning to create safety
within yourself. Because if that's kind of your experience, I
know it's been mine, you'll know that it's really really
hard to create safety from within. We get our safety
(15:39):
from other people, and so if there is something wrong
in our relationship, if we have a fight, or our
partners away or whatever, any of that distance I was
speaking about earlier, it's like I don't know how to
be my own power source here. I'm just I need
to like plug back into you before I can feel okay.
And that's a really kind of disempowering place to be
(16:04):
because we're you know, it's not to shame ourselves for
wanting connection and closeness, because that's perfectly human and normal
and natural. But there's a difference between wanting it and
needing it from a place of survival, Like I am
not okay without you, that's not like that. That's a
really hard way to live. Right. It means that we
(16:24):
are so reliant on something outside of us, and so
we want to come back to a bit more balance around. Okay,
I can like, I can be connected to you, but
I can also stand on my own two feet and
know that I'll be okay. So learning tools for being
more comfortable in yourself and with yourself, whether that's on
(16:45):
a day to day basis or when you're triggered, ideally both,
but being able to bring yourself to this kind of
embodied personal experience of like I'm okay in the world,
just me, and then we can relate from a place
that isn't so anxiety driven or fear based, or like
(17:06):
I need this, like this kind of clutching energy, I
need this in order to be okay.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Yeah, I would say my whole life, I've lived probably
on the border of secure and avoidant. And then I
was so confident that I was secure until I fell
in love, and then I was like, oh, this all
my advice that I'd give to my friends has gone
out the window because now I'm experiencing all these feelings.
(17:35):
And so I feel like in the beginning of our relationship,
my girlfriend and I have been together for five years
and in the beginning, I would say that she was
anxiously attached and I was more avoidant. So we would
have these conflicts of like her being like needing me
and being really anxious, and I would shut down or
like need space. And then I don't know if it
was during the pandemic, I don't know where there was
(17:56):
a shift, but when she went on tour this time,
especially with the time change in Europe, I was with
her for the first week and then as soon as
I left, like it was like immediate panic and I
was like, this is not me, Like I don't feel
like myself. I don't know why I'm in this spiral.
It was the first tim where I couldn't like talk
myself out of the feeling the feelings, which is it
(18:20):
was kind of a scary feeling because I was like
who is this person? Like who what? Why is this happening?
And how why can't I stop it? And so that's
why I was like I need to figure out what's
going on? How do I get out of this cycle?
So I know that you know, Tanya and I have
talked a lot about her attachment being anxious, and.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
I've been anxious my whole life, Like it's it's not
just in my relationship that I'm in now, it's in
all my relationships, and like, I know we joke about
it a lot on the podcast, but it's like I'll
text my friend. If they don't text me back within
five minutes, I'm like, where are you?
Speaker 2 (18:53):
What are you doing?
Speaker 3 (18:54):
Hello?
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Hello? Hello, Like it's in all my relationships.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
She's hit me, or you did?
Speaker 3 (19:01):
I see you're at your house, so I know you're
not anywhere else, So are you not responding to me?
Speaker 2 (19:22):
I know? It's like and that was the whole thing,
was like I need to be able to self soothe
because I don't want I don't ever want to have
to rely on someone to have to take care of
that part of me. Like I want to be able
to do it on my own.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
But I could teach you how to self soothe, if
you know what I mean, I'm.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Going to go to the profession. But I'm curious, like
when for someone who maybe gets into that spiral and
is like at that low point of like how do
I get out of this? What what do you do? Like? Really,
what are what is an action where you're like, okay,
try this to get out of this head space, like
what do you turn to?
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Yeah? Yeah, So again it's frustratingly there's no one thing.
But what I really encourage people to do, and a
big part of my work is blending all of the
stuff where we can analyze ourselves and get curious about,
like oh, my wounds and my fears and all of
that intellectual stuff with understanding our nervous system. And the
(20:22):
reality is when you're in that state of trigger and
your body, like your body can feel like my body
feels like I'm on fire. Why do I have this
giant lump in my chest? Why can't I breathe past
you know, you know, past my throat and all of
that is a body experience, and that is our nervous system.
And that is a system that is running all the
(20:42):
time without our realizing it, and it's just doing this
constant assessment of am I safe or am I in danger?
Right in this moment, like all of us sitting here,
if there was a weird noise in the background, our
system would just fire up immediately and would tell us
to go and do something about it. It's doing that
all the time, and it does that in relationships. So
(21:03):
if ever something happens. In your case, Becker, this distance,
there's something in your system that's going, all of a sudden,
this distance doesn't feel safe. And so I'm going into
this thing of oh, we need to do something, what's wrong?
Why is this happening? And then there's another part of
you that's going, I shouldn't be feeling like this, I
should be fine with this? What's wrong with me? And
there's just all of these layers of like, this isn't safe,
this isn't safe, this is bad, this is wrong. And
(21:25):
so I think as a starting point, just releasing the
grip on needing all of that to make sense. I
think a really important first piece is stop judging yourself
for feeling what you're feeling. The way that I kind
of visualize that is imagining the starting feeling of anxiety
or stress as like a clenched fist inside you. And
(21:47):
then when we come over the top of it with
like I shouldn't be feeling like this, it's like clenching
another fist over the top. It's just adding more stress
to a system that's already stressed. So rather than going, oh,
I should be fine without her, I shouldn't be doing
this this is bad, this is wrong. Can we just
go huh okay? Interesting?
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Ah?
Speaker 1 (22:04):
I noticed that I'm feeling stressed. I noticed that I'm
feeling really anxious. Isn't that interesting? I used to be
fine with this. I wonder what's new for me here?
I wonder what this is about for me? And just
like the tone of those things is so different. So
even just starting with that with not like judging, criticizing,
shaming yourself for feeling however you're feeling, and instead being like, ah, okay,
(22:27):
feeling's just a feeling, it's just information. Interesting. Can I
get curious about it? I think start with that, and
then we want to go, okay, what do I need
to bring my body back to some semblance of regulation?
Which is kind of to use nervous system speak. So
there's this concept in polyvagel theory nervous system stuff, which
(22:50):
is your state creates your story. Meaning if your nervous
system is in a vital flight state, which is what's
happening when you're feeling really activated and stressed and panicky
and anxious, then your thoughts follow that state. It's like
you're putting on goggles and everything you think and see
and feel and perceive is going to be kind of
I don't want to say poising because that makes it
(23:11):
sound really negative, but it's going to be infused with
the energy of this isn't safe, this is bad, sort
of like when you are awake at three am and
your heart's racing and you think the most catastrophic thoughts
that just come out of nowhere, You're like, oh, good,
what else can I like fish out from the depths
of my soul? That could be, you know, the most
horrendous thing that could ever happen. Why don't I think
about that?
Speaker 3 (23:31):
Right?
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Our thoughts are following the state that we're in, and
so we need to kind of work backwards from the
state we're in so that our thoughts can become a
little bit more reasonable and a little bit less fear
based and catastrophic. So doing things as simple as if
you're in that really activated state, doing things like exercising
(23:53):
is really good because it's kind of just getting that
energy out, sort of in the way that like dogs,
when they're really really worked up, they'll shake and it's
like a reset button on them. We kind of need
to do that as well. I think we forget that
we're animals sometimes and so working with Okay, I've got
all of this really intense charged energy flowing through me.
Can I do something with that? Can I go for
(24:14):
a walk? Can I go for a run? Can I
do some sort of workout that allows me to reset
my system? That can be a really good short term
way to regulate other things. And this is sort of
why I said, like, you want to build out your toolbox,
so you don't want to just have one thing, because
if you're feeling really anxious and you're on a plane,
you're not going to go for a run, right, So
(24:36):
it's like we need to have different things that we
can reach for depending on where we are, and you know,
a million different contextual factors that might constrain what we
can do. So like breathing exercises can be good if
you're in a more like, if you've got five minutes
between meetings and you're really anxious, a breathing exercise could
be good. Or some people like journaling or you know,
(24:58):
calling a friend. There's a million things that we can do,
but we just need to figure out what they are
and almost like have them as a mental or an
actual list so we can go Okay, huh, I notice
I'm feeling really anxious. I'm feeling like totally spinning out
what do I need and just going through that process
of like coming back and going what do I need
in my body right now? Rather than staying up here
(25:21):
in our heads and going why am I feeling like this?
I shouldn't be feeling like this? Is there something wrong?
Do I need to do something? This is bad? And
it's just like you know, kind of the train goes
off into the sunset, it's just too much and it's
really hard to catch it when we just let it go,
so trying to catch it earlier and bring it back
down and really see it for what it is. It's
just like, Okay, something of my body's feeling like we're
(25:44):
in danger right now? Is that true?
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Like?
Speaker 1 (25:46):
What do I need to create a bit more safety
in my body? And then, you know, whatever panicky thoughts
I'm thinking, I'll revisit them in you know, ten minutes
or half an hour when my body has come back
down a bit and I can assess whether that was
just you know, driven by all of that anxiety in
my system, or whether there's actually something that needs my
attention there. But were just really, our ability to make
(26:08):
good judgment calls when we're in that state is just
so out the window. It's no point trying to decide something,
to have a hard conversation, to speak to someone about
something serious, like just don't do it when you're in
that state, because you've just got those goggles on that
are saying everything's dangerous right now, and that's it's really
hard to kind of hack that system when that part
(26:30):
of you is at the wheel.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
That is so true. My girlfriend was very patient because
she somehow remained calm when like every we would like
end a conversation, then I'd be like stewing over like
what else was like going out into my head and
I'd be like I need to talk about this, and
it was just like a downward spiral. But I think
the first thing you said, I think was such a
that really resonated with me. The shame, Like I felt
(26:55):
a lot of shame in it. And so instead of
like acknowledging and being like, Okay, don't know what's going on.
This isn't like you, but it's okay, you know, like
everything's gonna be okay, you'll figure it out, I was
just I never even let myself get to that point
because I felt so much, I was like judging myself
that I was out of character for how I felt,
my how I see myself.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Yeah, which sort of makes sense if you know, you
said that you have tended towards being more avoidant in
the past. So this's probably a part of you that goes,
it's not safe for us to feel anxious and clinging
and needy. This is this is not okay. We've like,
we've relied on the strategies where we don't need anyone
and we just pull away and we're fine on our own.
(27:37):
So it might have been really destabilizing for your system
to be like, oh, no, I feel needy, I miss
my partner, I want to go back, I want to
be with her. Where is she. There's another part of
you that's like absolutely not shut that down. That's no good,
that's unsafe, it's pathetic, it's weak. Don't go there. You
are reliant on something in a way that is like
not okay. And so you've got like this inner war
(27:58):
going on between the fears and this other part of
you that's been a really strong protector that's been like, no,
we don't do stuff like that. Because it's not safe,
and so it makes a lot of sense. And when
we can see it like that, we go, oh okay,
that makes sense, and all of a sudden, it's just
like everything settles a bit. It's like a snow globe.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Yeah, that's exactly what happened. Like my part, you know,
I've always been like, it's fine, out need anybody like everything.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
So she was very avoidant and now she's like me, welcome,
Welcome to this life.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
So it's not the journey I was trying to be on.
I mean, I have so many I'm like, I want
to do a part two with you where we have
you back on to talk just more about this because
I think both Tanya and I could go on for
days talking to you. But I do want to give
people an opportunity to follow you because I know your
instagram has a lot of just like tips and tricks
(28:55):
and ways to kind of learn more about attachment style.
So where can everyone follow you and your podcast? And
then also you're coaching, I want to hear more about
that as well.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Yeah, So my instagram is Stephanie Underscore, Underscore, Rigri DOUBLEG
and my podcast is called on Attachment. So I released
two episodes a week there and there's everything we've talked
about today and a whole lot more. So you can
find me there. And then my website is stephanieriigg dot
com and I have online courses. I have a course
(29:30):
called Healing Anxious Attachment, which is kind of my signature
program that a lot of people have done and has
been has been a real help to a lot of
people in working through this stuff and learning all of
these tools right, not only understanding yourself, but learning about
nervous system regulation, learning about how to set boundaries, and
just kind of equipping you with that toolbox that I
(29:51):
spoke about so that you don't feel so overwhelmed and
powerless when these things arise, because they will arise. That's
the like gitty thing about it. Just we can't opt
out of like triggers in relationship. We can't opt out
of conflict. So it's more about like, Okay, how can
I equit myself with the tools I need to navigate
that when it arises, rather than how can I never
(30:14):
get triggered again?
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Yeah, that's a good point, because the triggers do come
whether no matter how old you are. Should we do
the course together?
Speaker 1 (30:25):
I'd love to have you.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Yes, well, thank you so much for taking time to
be on here.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
I can't wait to talk to you again. It was
so great meeting you and thanks for all you.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Do my pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Guys, all right, great rest of your day. Hye bye
Scrubbing In with and Tanya rap An iHeartRadio podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hello everybody, we are scrubbing in.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Yes we art thou.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Oh, yes we art thou. Yes we art thou. Interesting
Shakespearean with a Tanya twist. Let me tell you something.
I'm on one today. I feel it from you, do you? Yeah,
But I'm like, it's not it's kind of like a
little manning. I'm settling. Yeah, yeah, it's not like it's
not like, oh, on one good, Like it's good, I guess,
(00:38):
good energy, high energy, but like I'm kind of scared
and you shouldn't be scared. It's a good okay, great.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Yeah, never know with you never know. It's really comes
like the wind.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Keep us on our toes. We have a very exciting
guest because I have talked about Stephanie Rigg. I talked
about her a few podcasts ago. She really helped me.
She doesn't know this I will be telling her, but
during my like spirals while Haley was in Europe, I
listened to her podcast. It's called on Attachment and she's
(01:10):
our guest today and she's also a relationship coach. She
helps like specialize in people breaking free of insecurity and
anxiety to create loving, connected, deep relationships and she's worked
with people from multiple countries through her coaching practice and
online courses. And did you want to do the other
part of the intro?
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Sorry, I took it over because I didn't realize you
were doing that.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
I'm also a huge fan of attachment styles. I'm so
fascinated by it. I know my own attachment style, but
I don't know how to get out of that phase
or get out of my attachment styles. So since its
launch in early twenty twenty two, her signature program Healing
Anxious Attachment has helped over a thousand has helped over
a thousand people to heal their anxious attachment and move
(01:58):
towards a more secure way of being.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
And like I said, she is the host and creator
of the top ranked podcast on attachment styles, and it's
called on Attachment Please Help Us. Welcome all the way
from Sydney, Australia, the wonderful Stephanie Ray. Stephanie, thank you
so much for being here. I I talked about you
(02:23):
on our recent podcast because I have had my girlfriend's
on tour right now and I had this realization that
my attachment style may have switched. So I was frantically
searching podcasts on attachment styles and yours came up, and
it is amazing. I love everything that you do. I
(02:43):
love how you speak. I love listening to your podcast
just your voice and it's so calming, but also what
you talk about. So I'm so excited to have you
on our podcast.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Thanks. Becca. It's really great to be here. I think
that a lot of people probably find me by doing
what you do. It's like, oh, Okay, I'm experiencing something.
What is it. I've heard about attachment Google podcasts on
attachment and my podcast is called on Attachment, So I
think that's. Yeah, it's a great road for me to be.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
But I do want to start out for people because
I'm also familiar with attachment styles and I really want
to dig into mine. But I want to lay the
land for everybody that's listening that might not know what
they are. So if you can explain kind of how
many attachment styles are there, and if you could just
kind of give a brief description of what they are.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Yeah, so there are four attachment styles and maybe to
take a step back, attachment styles are basically describing what
we experience in relationships. And I realize that sounds broad,
but the best way that I like to describe it
is that your attachment style basically explains or groups people
based on what kinds of things are scary for me
(03:53):
in relationships, what kind of things feel hard or challenging,
and what are my go to strategies for managing that.
So using that as our starting point, we can walk
through the four attachment styles. So maybe we start with secure,
which is what we would all hope to be or become.
And you know, a really cool thing about this body
(04:15):
of work is that you can change your attachment style.
It's not something that's fixed. It's not like a diagnosis.
It's not some fixed part of you or your personality.
It's just a set of behaviors that you've probably learned
and picked up along the way over the course of
your life and come to rely on, often pretty subconsciously.
So secure attachment is basically relationships feel pretty easeful to you.
(04:41):
You kind of trust in the safety of relationships. You're
okay on your own, but you also really comfortable being
a relationship. You don't have this sense of, oh no,
something's going to go wrong. I'm always on edge because
I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. There's just
this sense of easefulness and trust about the way that
you relate to others, and particularly in romantic relationships, although
(05:03):
also across the board, you know, you're broadly like confident
in voicing needs and setting boundaries. You trust in the
ability to work through conflict. It's all just like, Okay,
hard things will happen, but we'll be fine because we
can work through it. That's the gold standard. That's what
we're all kind of working towards in doing this work right. Unfortunately,
(05:23):
most of us, well about fifty percent is the estimate
of people who are secure for the other fifty percent
of us, and obviously those estimates are I'm always a
little skeptical because I'm like, maybe that's my bias, because
I'm obviously mostly working with people who aren't at that
as their starting point. But I'm always a little skeptical
as to whether it is fifty to fifty The remaining
(05:45):
fifty percent ish fall across these three other categories of
insecure attachment. So it's referred to and maybe we'll start
with anxious attachment because that's most people who I work
with and it's also kind of my personal background and
what I've worked through anxiously attach people. If we're going
(06:06):
back to those questions of what kinds of things scare
me and what do I do with that fear to
manage it? Anxiously attach people are Okay, I'm scared by
this core fear of abandonment or fear of being without you.
So I'm scared of distance, I'm scared of uncertainty. I'm
scared of rejection. I'm scared of you leaving me. I
(06:28):
might struggle with things like jealousy and comparison and worry
and rumination and catastrophizing. As soon as there's any kind
of space between us, I'm filling in the blanks with
like the worst possible thing that could happen. What do
I do with that? To manage that fear? I try
and close the gap. So I'm going to want to
be around you all the time as much as possible,
(06:49):
because if I feel like you're right there and next
to me, then there's not as much space for those
fears to take hold and to you know, do their thing.
So pretty much all of those anxious attachment strategies could
be distilled down to I want to close the gap
and get back to connection with you. Whenever I feel
like there's any sort of disconnection or distance, I want
(07:11):
to squash it and to get us back into connection.
So then we have at the other end of the
spectrum to the anxiously attached person, we have the dismissive avoidant.
And I do want to say I know that in
a lot of you know, kind of pop culture, and
if you have come across attachment styles at are probably
a pretty surface level online, I think avoidance get a
(07:33):
really bad rap, and I understand why because if you're
on the receiving end of some of the more challenging
avoidant behaves, it can be pretty painful, frankly. And I
think we also have to come back to this thing
of you know, they have fears and they're managing those
fears the only way they know how. So for the
avoidant person, the fear is around loss of self, being smothered,
(07:58):
being controlled, you know, losing your independence, feeling like someone
is depending on you in a way that feels overwhelming
and suffocating. And the way that they can manage that
is by creating distance, right, so by kind of pushing
someone away or being protective of their autonomy, being protective
(08:18):
of their independence, but basically returning to their island because
that feels safe. And so that's kind of the other
end of the spectrum to the anxious person. And we
can get into a bit later the irony of the
fact that those types tend to gravitate towards each other,
which seems like, you know, the last thing that should happen,
(08:40):
but it actually happens a lot. Then the fourth category
is what's referred to as fearful avoidant or disorganized attachment.
And this is a person who ranks high on both
anxiety and avoidance, so they've kind of got you can
either say, the best or the worst of both worlds there.
So they experience the anxiety and they want to be
(09:01):
close to people, and then once they get close, it's like,
well this feels too much. I got to get out
of here. And so they tend to have a lot
of push pull and a lot of kind of fear
and stress and relationships understandably because they have these conflicting
drives within them that are saying like get close, and
then once you're closed, it's like, Okay, get out of here.
This is too much and So that's kind of the
(09:23):
experience of the fearful avoidant, is having that desire for
intimacy and closeness and connection, but once you get it,
being really terrified and pulling away. So their strategies can
kind of range from anxious strategies to more pure avoidance strategies,
and often when they're in stress, they'll lean more on
(09:44):
avoidant strategies, And it can kind of depend on the
context and who they're in relationship with. So if they're
in relationship with someone who is more anxious, they're likely
to lean more on their avoidant strategies because they're going
to be more in that overwhelmed place, whereas if they
were with someone who was more avoidant, then their anxious
(10:04):
parts might be triggered and activated and they might go
more inwards, go kind of try and get closer because
those anxieties are being activated by the other person's behavior.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Wow, I have a question about So you said fifty
percent are securely attached, which feels like a lot, feels
way more than I would be like rude, I don't
buy it. Do attachment styles stamp Like are some people
(10:48):
just secure?
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Like?
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Are they just secure? Is it that people work on
themselves and go to therapy and do these types of
things to get to a place of security or are
people just naturally secure in relationships? And where do that
where you suspicious?
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Isn't it pit it by it so that when we're
talking about like fifty percent a secure at least according
to theory, that is like their starting point, and that
is because you know, all of this attachment stuff originates
in childhood for the most part, and so that we're
talking there about fifty percent are secure as a starting point. Again,
(11:25):
I'm really skeptical of that. And it's important to note
as well that this all sits on a spectrum, and
it's not like you go in one bucket and you
are in that bucket to the exclusion of all the
other buckets. So it does sit on a spectrum. And
you might be someone who's broadly secure, and if you're
in a healthy relationship, that might be kind of where
you're hanging out. But most people will have kind of
(11:47):
secondary styles or strategies. So if you were broadly secure,
but then you got into a relationship with someone who
was very avoidant, then you might exhibit more anxious strategies
or vice versa. So I think it is messier than
just saying like I am this, and I started as this,
and now I am this, and it's all really clean
and compartmentalized. I think the reality is that it is
(12:10):
messier than that. And I'm always cautious about getting too
attached to the labels. I think sometimes people really want
to be like, which one am I. I think that I,
you know, kind of that resonates with me. But then
I did this quiz online and now I'm very confused
and I've got to get to the bottom of which
attachment style I am. And it's like, yeah, yes, and
(12:33):
does it really matter? Like it's just a tool. It's
not a diagnosis. It's not something where you need to
like figure out which bucket you're in before you can
do anything. Whether it you can just go, oh, okay,
that resonates with me. Can I get curious about that? Oh?
I do notice that I really struggle with uncertainty or
distance in my relationships. I wonder what that's about for me.
(12:56):
So I always encourage people to take a bit more
of a nuanced and curious, a curious approach rather than
getting too fixated on labels and kind of categories.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Yeah, that was me taking the closes. It's just spiraling
out of control.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Well, like I know, like I know what I am,
and I do I know what I'm anxious attachment. I'm
anxiously attached, and I feel like obviously, securely attached is
the goal for everybody. So what's like one first step
that you can take to get to that secure attachment?
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Because I've been working at it for years and still here.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
It's a journey. No, I mean, I have also been
working on it for years, and I'd like to say
that I'm the way that I describe it to people
because I always get asked like, can you ever actually
if you're anxiously attached, is there ever like a light
at the end of the tunnel where I don't experience
anxious attachment anymore? And the way that I answer that
(13:53):
is like yes and no. It's not like it's going
to just evaporate and you're never going to feel that
way again. That's probably been with you for a really
long time and there's just like a level of muscle
memory around it where you're like, oh, that's where I
go in a flash, right when I'm triggered, when I'm scared.
That's where I go because my body knows how to
do that, and it's learned to do that to keep
(14:13):
me safe. That's not a problem, there's nothing wrong with that.
But what the goal of the work is really like,
can I get to a place where I have some
sort of choice, where I feel like I'm in the
driver's seat of that rather than this anxious part of
me grabs the wheel and drives me off a cliff
to this place that feels really out of control of
panicky and stressed, and I feel like I'm not okay
(14:35):
if my relationship is not okay, which is really anxious attachment,
is like I'm okay if we're okay and you're here
and I feel like everything's all right. But if not,
even if you're just in a bad mood and you're
a bit quiet, all of the alarm bells go up
in me and I'm like, oh, what's wrong? What's wrong?
And you're okay? Are you mad at me? What did
I do? Can I fix it? Can I get us
back to harmony? Because I experience any kind of even
(14:57):
tiny momentary rupture as a precursor to abandonment. I feel
like you're going to leave me or you're angry at me,
or you are disappointed in me and you don't love
me or whatever. Right, so all of those things can happen.
So to answer your question of like what do we
do with that, I think for anxiously attach people, the
(15:19):
big piece, the biggest piece is learning to create safety
within yourself. Because if that's kind of your experience, I
know it's been mine, you'll know that it's really really
hard to create safety from within. We get our safety
(15:39):
from other people, and so if there is something wrong
in our relationship, if we have a fight, or our
partners away or whatever, any of that distance I was
speaking about earlier, it's like I don't know how to
be my own power source here. I'm just I need
to like plug back into you before I can feel okay.
And that's a really kind of disempowering place to be
(16:04):
because we're you know, it's not to shame ourselves for
wanting connection and closeness, because that's perfectly human and normal
and natural. But there's a difference between wanting it and
needing it from a place of survival, Like I am
not okay without you, that's not like that. That's a
really hard way to live. Right. It means that we
(16:24):
are so reliant on something outside of us, and so
we want to come back to a bit more balance around. Okay,
I can like, I can be connected to you, but
I can also stand on my own two feet and
know that I'll be okay. So learning tools for being
more comfortable in yourself and with yourself, whether that's on
(16:45):
a day to day basis or when you're triggered, ideally both,
but being able to bring yourself to this kind of
embodied personal experience of like I'm okay in the world,
just me, and then we can relate from a place
that isn't so anxiety driven or fear based, or like
(17:06):
I need this, like this kind of clutching energy, I
need this in order to be okay.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Yeah, I would say my whole life, I've lived probably
on the border of secure and avoidant. And then I
was so confident that I was secure until I fell
in love, and then I was like, oh, this all
my advice that I'd give to my friends has gone
out the window because now I'm experiencing all these feelings.
(17:35):
And so I feel like in the beginning of our relationship,
my girlfriend and I have been together for five years
and in the beginning, I would say that she was
anxiously attached and I was more avoidant. So we would
have these conflicts of like her being like needing me
and being really anxious, and I would shut down or
like need space. And then I don't know if it
was during the pandemic, I don't know where there was
(17:56):
a shift, but when she went on tour this time,
especially with the time change in Europe, I was with
her for the first week and then as soon as
I left, like it was like immediate panic and I
was like, this is not me, Like I don't feel
like myself. I don't know why I'm in this spiral.
It was the first tim where I couldn't like talk
myself out of the feeling the feelings, which is it
(18:20):
was kind of a scary feeling because I was like
who is this person? Like who what? Why is this happening?
And how why can't I stop it? And so that's
why I was like I need to figure out what's
going on? How do I get out of this cycle?
So I know that you know, Tanya and I have
talked a lot about her attachment being anxious, and.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
I've been anxious my whole life, Like it's it's not
just in my relationship that I'm in now, it's in
all my relationships, and like, I know we joke about
it a lot on the podcast, but it's like I'll
text my friend. If they don't text me back within
five minutes, I'm like, where are you?
Speaker 2 (18:53):
What are you doing?
Speaker 3 (18:54):
Hello?
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Hello? Hello, Like it's in all my relationships.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
She's hit me, or you did?
Speaker 3 (19:01):
I see you're at your house, so I know you're
not anywhere else, So are you not responding to me?
Speaker 2 (19:22):
I know? It's like and that was the whole thing,
was like I need to be able to self soothe
because I don't want I don't ever want to have
to rely on someone to have to take care of
that part of me. Like I want to be able
to do it on my own.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
But I could teach you how to self soothe, if
you know what I mean, I'm.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Going to go to the profession. But I'm curious, like
when for someone who maybe gets into that spiral and
is like at that low point of like how do
I get out of this? What what do you do? Like? Really,
what are what is an action where you're like, okay,
try this to get out of this head space, like
what do you turn to?
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Yeah? Yeah, So again it's frustratingly there's no one thing.
But what I really encourage people to do, and a
big part of my work is blending all of the
stuff where we can analyze ourselves and get curious about,
like oh, my wounds and my fears and all of
that intellectual stuff with understanding our nervous system. And the
(20:22):
reality is when you're in that state of trigger and
your body, like your body can feel like my body
feels like I'm on fire. Why do I have this
giant lump in my chest? Why can't I breathe past
you know, you know, past my throat and all of
that is a body experience, and that is our nervous system.
And that is a system that is running all the
(20:42):
time without our realizing it, and it's just doing this
constant assessment of am I safe or am I in danger?
Right in this moment, like all of us sitting here,
if there was a weird noise in the background, our
system would just fire up immediately and would tell us
to go and do something about it. It's doing that
all the time, and it does that in relationships. So
(21:03):
if ever something happens. In your case, Becker, this distance,
there's something in your system that's going, all of a sudden,
this distance doesn't feel safe. And so I'm going into
this thing of oh, we need to do something, what's wrong?
Why is this happening? And then there's another part of
you that's going, I shouldn't be feeling like this, I
should be fine with this? What's wrong with me? And
there's just all of these layers of like, this isn't safe,
this isn't safe, this is bad, this is wrong. And
(21:25):
so I think as a starting point, just releasing the
grip on needing all of that to make sense. I
think a really important first piece is stop judging yourself
for feeling what you're feeling. The way that I kind
of visualize that is imagining the starting feeling of anxiety
or stress as like a clenched fist inside you. And
(21:47):
then when we come over the top of it with
like I shouldn't be feeling like this, it's like clenching
another fist over the top. It's just adding more stress
to a system that's already stressed. So rather than going, oh,
I should be fine without her, I shouldn't be doing
this this is bad, this is wrong. Can we just
go huh okay? Interesting?
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Ah?
Speaker 1 (22:04):
I noticed that I'm feeling stressed. I noticed that I'm
feeling really anxious. Isn't that interesting? I used to be
fine with this. I wonder what's new for me here?
I wonder what this is about for me? And just
like the tone of those things is so different. So
even just starting with that with not like judging, criticizing,
shaming yourself for feeling however you're feeling, and instead being like, ah, okay,
(22:27):
feeling's just a feeling, it's just information. Interesting. Can I
get curious about it? I think start with that, and
then we want to go, okay, what do I need
to bring my body back to some semblance of regulation?
Which is kind of to use nervous system speak. So
there's this concept in polyvagel theory nervous system stuff, which
(22:50):
is your state creates your story. Meaning if your nervous
system is in a vital flight state, which is what's
happening when you're feeling really activated and stressed and panicky
and anxious, then your thoughts follow that state. It's like
you're putting on goggles and everything you think and see
and feel and perceive is going to be kind of
I don't want to say poising because that makes it
(23:11):
sound really negative, but it's going to be infused with
the energy of this isn't safe, this is bad, sort
of like when you are awake at three am and
your heart's racing and you think the most catastrophic thoughts
that just come out of nowhere, You're like, oh, good,
what else can I like fish out from the depths
of my soul? That could be, you know, the most
horrendous thing that could ever happen. Why don't I think
about that?
Speaker 3 (23:31):
Right?
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Our thoughts are following the state that we're in, and
so we need to kind of work backwards from the
state we're in so that our thoughts can become a
little bit more reasonable and a little bit less fear
based and catastrophic. So doing things as simple as if
you're in that really activated state, doing things like exercising
(23:53):
is really good because it's kind of just getting that
energy out, sort of in the way that like dogs,
when they're really really worked up, they'll shake and it's
like a reset button on them. We kind of need
to do that as well. I think we forget that
we're animals sometimes and so working with Okay, I've got
all of this really intense charged energy flowing through me.
Can I do something with that? Can I go for
(24:14):
a walk? Can I go for a run? Can I
do some sort of workout that allows me to reset
my system? That can be a really good short term
way to regulate other things. And this is sort of
why I said, like, you want to build out your toolbox,
so you don't want to just have one thing, because
if you're feeling really anxious and you're on a plane,
you're not going to go for a run, right, So
(24:36):
it's like we need to have different things that we
can reach for depending on where we are, and you know,
a million different contextual factors that might constrain what we
can do. So like breathing exercises can be good if
you're in a more like, if you've got five minutes
between meetings and you're really anxious, a breathing exercise could
be good. Or some people like journaling or you know,
(24:58):
calling a friend. There's a million things that we can do,
but we just need to figure out what they are
and almost like have them as a mental or an
actual list so we can go Okay, huh, I notice
I'm feeling really anxious. I'm feeling like totally spinning out
what do I need and just going through that process
of like coming back and going what do I need
in my body right now? Rather than staying up here
(25:21):
in our heads and going why am I feeling like this?
I shouldn't be feeling like this? Is there something wrong?
Do I need to do something? This is bad? And
it's just like you know, kind of the train goes
off into the sunset, it's just too much and it's
really hard to catch it when we just let it go,
so trying to catch it earlier and bring it back
down and really see it for what it is. It's
just like, Okay, something of my body's feeling like we're
(25:44):
in danger right now? Is that true?
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Like?
Speaker 1 (25:46):
What do I need to create a bit more safety
in my body? And then, you know, whatever panicky thoughts
I'm thinking, I'll revisit them in you know, ten minutes
or half an hour when my body has come back
down a bit and I can assess whether that was
just you know, driven by all of that anxiety in
my system, or whether there's actually something that needs my
attention there. But were just really, our ability to make
(26:08):
good judgment calls when we're in that state is just
so out the window. It's no point trying to decide something,
to have a hard conversation, to speak to someone about
something serious, like just don't do it when you're in
that state, because you've just got those goggles on that
are saying everything's dangerous right now, and that's it's really
hard to kind of hack that system when that part
(26:30):
of you is at the wheel.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
That is so true. My girlfriend was very patient because
she somehow remained calm when like every we would like
end a conversation, then I'd be like stewing over like
what else was like going out into my head and
I'd be like I need to talk about this, and
it was just like a downward spiral. But I think
the first thing you said, I think was such a
that really resonated with me. The shame, Like I felt
(26:55):
a lot of shame in it. And so instead of
like acknowledging and being like, Okay, don't know what's going on.
This isn't like you, but it's okay, you know, like
everything's gonna be okay, you'll figure it out, I was
just I never even let myself get to that point
because I felt so much, I was like judging myself
that I was out of character for how I felt,
my how I see myself.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Yeah, which sort of makes sense if you know, you
said that you have tended towards being more avoidant in
the past. So this's probably a part of you that goes,
it's not safe for us to feel anxious and clinging
and needy. This is this is not okay. We've like,
we've relied on the strategies where we don't need anyone
and we just pull away and we're fine on our own.
(27:37):
So it might have been really destabilizing for your system
to be like, oh, no, I feel needy, I miss
my partner, I want to go back, I want to
be with her. Where is she. There's another part of
you that's like absolutely not shut that down. That's no good,
that's unsafe, it's pathetic, it's weak. Don't go there. You
are reliant on something in a way that is like
not okay. And so you've got like this inner war
(27:58):
going on between the fears and this other part of
you that's been a really strong protector that's been like, no,
we don't do stuff like that. Because it's not safe,
and so it makes a lot of sense. And when
we can see it like that, we go, oh okay,
that makes sense, and all of a sudden, it's just
like everything settles a bit. It's like a snow globe.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Yeah, that's exactly what happened. Like my part, you know,
I've always been like, it's fine, out need anybody like everything.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
So she was very avoidant and now she's like me, welcome,
Welcome to this life.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
So it's not the journey I was trying to be on.
I mean, I have so many I'm like, I want
to do a part two with you where we have
you back on to talk just more about this because
I think both Tanya and I could go on for
days talking to you. But I do want to give
people an opportunity to follow you because I know your
instagram has a lot of just like tips and tricks
(28:55):
and ways to kind of learn more about attachment style.
So where can everyone follow you and your podcast? And
then also you're coaching, I want to hear more about
that as well.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Yeah, So my instagram is Stephanie Underscore, Underscore, Rigri DOUBLEG
and my podcast is called on Attachment. So I released
two episodes a week there and there's everything we've talked
about today and a whole lot more. So you can
find me there. And then my website is stephanieriigg dot
com and I have online courses. I have a course
(29:30):
called Healing Anxious Attachment, which is kind of my signature
program that a lot of people have done and has
been has been a real help to a lot of
people in working through this stuff and learning all of
these tools right, not only understanding yourself, but learning about
nervous system regulation, learning about how to set boundaries, and
just kind of equipping you with that toolbox that I
(29:51):
spoke about so that you don't feel so overwhelmed and
powerless when these things arise, because they will arise. That's
the like gitty thing about it. Just we can't opt
out of like triggers in relationship. We can't opt out
of conflict. So it's more about like, Okay, how can
I equit myself with the tools I need to navigate
that when it arises, rather than how can I never
(30:14):
get triggered again?
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Yeah, that's a good point, because the triggers do come
whether no matter how old you are. Should we do
the course together?
Speaker 1 (30:25):
I'd love to have you.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Yes, well, thank you so much for taking time to
be on here.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
I can't wait to talk to you again. It was
so great meeting you and thanks for all you.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Do my pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Guys, all right, great rest of your day. Hye bye
Hosts And Creators
Tanya Rad
Rebecca Tilley
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