December 3, 2025 • 18 mins
Your nervous system learned about love long before you had words. In this conversation, we follow that thread from early implicit memory to the patterns many of us feel in adult relationships—chasing, shutting down, or spinning between the two—and we unpack a kinder way forward. We explore the spectrum of attachment styles with clarity and nuance, showing how secure, anxious, avoidant, and disorganized patterns actually feel during conflict and what they signal beneath the surface.
We dig into why secure attachment isn’t the absence of disagreement but the presence of clear thinking, emotional range, and timely repair. For anxious responses, we talk about flooding, impulsivity, and the urge to pursue for relief. For avoidant responses, we name the quiet danger of numbness and faux self-sufficiency. When disorganization enters the room, we map the chaotic swings between fight, flight, freeze, and fawn, and we emphasize the need for pacing, safety, and often professional support to prevent harm and restore clarity.
Most importantly, we offer practical steps to widen your window of tolerance and rewire old rules through new experiences. Somatic reparenting becomes a simple, powerful tool: a steady hand, slower breath, and curious questions that help you hear what your younger self needs right now. From time-bound pauses that honor reconnection to concise repair language that lowers defensiveness, you’ll leave with grounded strategies to reduce resentment and build trust. If this resonates, subscribe, share the episode with someone who needs it, and leave a review to help others find the show. Your inner child is loved, accepted, and important—and you can learn to love in ways that feel safe to your body.
Looking to begin a conversation with your little one? Try these prompts:
“Sweet one… what’s going on?”
“Are you feeling small, unimportant, or unsafe right now?”
“Did someone hurt your feelings…
or speak to you unkindly?”
Thank you for tuning into And Still WE Rise! If you would like to learn more about me or the work our practice is doing, feel free to follow us on Instagram at:
@atltherapygirl and @risetherapycenter
Or check us out at www.risetherapycenter.com
Disclaimer: And Still We Rise is meant to provide perspective and meaningful conversations around mental health topics. It is not meant to provide specific therapeutic advise to individuals. If anything in these podcasts resonates, ASWR recommends consulting with your individual therapist or seeking a referral from your primary care physician.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:01):
Hello and welcome to In Still We Rise.
I'm your host, Christine Seidel.
And today we're going to talkabout why some of us have
patterns of difficulties anddysfunction and relationships
and how this may be our nervoussystem trying to draw our
attention to childhoodexperiences that taught us not
the healthiest ways to navigaterelationships.
(00:22):
So with that, let's take a deepbreath and jump in.
To begin, we have to talk aboutchildhood experiences and
implicit memory.
So implicit memory is thenervous system's data gathering
way of bringing in informationand creating patterns from it.
It's kind of the if-thenstatements that are kind of
(00:46):
delved into our subconscious andcreates these belief systems
around a various amount oftopics.
Now, in childhood, aside fromour very fundamental needs like
safety, stability, food,shelter, all of those, we also
have emotional needs.
And these emotional needs haveto be belief systems around our
(01:09):
love, acceptance, valued, beingimportant, being seen, being
heard.
And from the time we're in uteroto the time we're about seven or
eight, our nervous system isdeveloping this implicit memory.
It's making meaning, it's makingconnections around how to have
our emotional needs met.
So it's kind of like the if-thenlogic maker.
(01:32):
If I cry, I am fed.
If I am hurt, I am comforted.
And it's creating these beliefsaround connection with those
that are our caregivers or thatare available to meet our
emotional needs.
So when we have childhoodexperiences that develops into
(01:52):
implicit memory that is somewhatdysregulated and difficult for
us to navigate, we tend to havesome of these patterns within
relationships that become alittle distorted and disruptive.
So let's talk about how thiscomes about in terms of
connection.
So again, like I said, asidefrom food, shelter, we have this
(02:17):
second need of belonging, havingthese emotional needs met.
And again, we're talking aboutbeing loved, being accepted,
being important and valued,being seen and heard.
And those change to some degreebetween the time we're born and
the time of seven or eight.
You know, if you look at athree-year-old, they have
different emotional needs than,say, an eight-year-old.
(02:38):
So when it comes to our implicitmemory and our connection, we
tend to develop what we all haveprobably heard of, which are
attachment styles.
So let's look at the fourdifferent types of attachments.
That's right.
I said four.
There's not just one.
There are four different typesof attachments.
And this is where, you know, inmy own therapeutic work, people
(02:59):
become somewhat confused.
They kind of say, well, I hadthis type of childhood, my
parents weren't really there forme, but it wasn't that bad,
right?
So when we talk aboutattachment, we want to
understand there is a spectrumof attachment that we can have.
Not any one person fallsspecifically just within one of
those four categories.
We sometimes can run on aspectrum in between them and
(03:22):
hoping to get as close topossible to more of a secure
type.
So we'll start with secure.
Secure attachment is kind of theattachment we all want to try to
work towards.
But fundamentally, there reallyisn't a ton of people in this
world that have a fully healthysecure attachment style.
And secure attachment isdeveloped when we have
(03:44):
caregivers that really wereemotionally available to attune
and attend to our emotionalneeds.
And that requires a caregiver tohave a very conscious awareness
of emotional availability towhere a child is
developmentally.
So let's say a child falls andscrapes their knee, their, yeah,
(04:07):
their knee.
And that parent has the capacityand availability to sit with a
crying child and comfort them.
There is no, you know,frustration that they're
projecting, there's no blame orshaming.
They're just available to, youknow, validate that that is
painful and then attend to theknee.
(04:28):
Or if a child is overwhelmed,the parent is available to be
patient with the child and helpthem problem solve or understand
what the child needs withoutbeing frustrated or irritated
that the child is not solvingtheir own problem.
So secure attachment is whenthat parent has that emotional
availability and maturity to beable to attune and attend to a
(04:50):
child's needs throughout thedifferent needs of their
development.
The next attachment is anxiousattachment.
Now, anxious attachment is whena child has a parent who is
emotionally available to meettheir needs sometimes, and then
you guessed right, other timesnot.
So this might be a parent whocan handle these types of
(05:12):
emotions, maybe when you are sador scared, but if you were
angry, they couldn't handlethat.
Or if you were excited andexuberant, that was too much.
But if you were happy andcompliant, that was just enough.
And so this is a emotionalavailability to not really be
(05:34):
succinct and you know stable inthe range of a child's emotions.
Now, the avoidant type tends tojust be kind of that, very
avoiding of any of the child'semotional needs andor kind of
the of the the other needs aswell.
You know, maybe there wasclothing and food on the table
(05:55):
and a roof over your heads, butthere was no real uh investment
into the child's world.
These tend to be caregivers thatare very dismissive or
uncomfortable with children.
Uh, they may be unavailable orneglectful.
They really just do not want tointeract too much with the
child's world.
Now, the fourth one is calledthe disorganized attachment.
(06:18):
And this becomes kind of thismixture.
You sometimes hear it beingcalled an anxious avoidant.
And the disorganized attachmentoccurs when the child actually
develops a sense of fear of thecaregiver.
And this does happen in cases ofabuse and significant neglect.
The child really does not knowhow to enter into a connection
(06:41):
because it was just one,unavailable and two,
exceptionally unsafe inchildhood to be in connection
with those caregivers.
So when we look at those fourtypes of attachment, and again,
remember, we can fall on thespectrum.
We may have anxious attachment,but really be working towards
(07:01):
secure.
And maybe we we've made sometherapeutic work and we can find
ourselves more in the secure, ormaybe we've been avoidant and
we've been working towardssecure, but we have those
moments of triggering and we seeourselves kind of turn into the
withdrawal of the avoided.
So we have to understand that wecan do therapeutic work and move
within this spectrum of securethrough disorganized.
(07:25):
You don't have to stay there.
But we do want to become veryconsciously aware of how we
experience this attachmentwithin our intimate
relationships.
Because as adults, our family oforigin and our relationship with
our caregivers and our siblingsreally help shape our belief
system and the neuropathwaysthat we we fall into when we are
(07:48):
seeking connection, when we arelooking to not only be in a
relationship, but have ouremotional needs met within
ourselves and with others, whichis a human experience we need to
have.
And adult relationships,intimate relationships are a
mirror of what our emotionalneeds, belief systems are.
(08:09):
And that's where we tend to seeour nervous system become
dysregulated or becomes verydifficult to navigate.
So let's look at how our nervoussystem responds to disconnect or
conflict within the body.
Not so much our belief systems,but how our body responds to any
type of disconnect when we areseeking our emotional needs
(08:32):
being met within a relationship.
The first one, we're going tocome back to secure attachment.
Now, secure attachment does notmean that you do not have
conflict with other people.
It does not mean you never gothrough disconnect with
partners.
What it means is that when yougo into conflict or disagreement
or disconnect, you are able tofeel a spectrum of all of these
(08:55):
feelings and yet not be reactiveto those feelings.
There's a really low level ofimpulsivity.
You're able to think clearly,you can listen to other
perspectives.
And what that actually means isthat you come to repair sooner.
You're able to see perspectives.
(09:16):
So you're able to come to aplace of understanding.
You can listen to other people,other people can listen to you
if they have a secureattachment.
And you come to repair sooner,you come up with solutions with
a lot less harm and damage tothe relationship.
But what that means is thatthere's not this underlying
resentment within therelationship.
(09:37):
That's really what is harm anddamage to relationship is a lot
of resentment, meaning somewherealong the lines, we really
didn't have resolution.
So again, secure attachment isnot about not having
disagreements or conflict.
It's that your ability to feelthose feelings and to think
clearly occurs, and you're ableto move through the disconnect,
(09:57):
through the disagreement or orconflict without any harm or
damage to the relationship.
Now let's move to anxious.
Now, anxious attachment withinthe nervous system starts
beginning to feel overwhelmed.
We call it flooding.
It starts being flooded with awith a range of fear hormones,
(10:18):
or not hormones, but fear beliefsystems.
It does spike your cortisol andadrenaline.
However, what that means is thatthe nervous system is signaling,
again, the nervous system likelikes to signal through that
fight, flight, freeze, or fawnbelief system about how to
address this disconnect, goingall the way back to childhood,
right?
(10:39):
And the anxious attachment seesa situation where there's
disconnect, disagreement, orconflict, and it wants to
pursue, it wants to chase, itwants to um fight, it wants to
try to come back into connectionto be able to resolve this
(10:59):
because it's flooded with thispanicky feeling.
It pursues, it chases, it fawnssometimes.
And what it's really trying todo is get this external relief
from the nervous systemdysregulation.
The nervous system feelspanicky, it feels overwhelmed,
it can't think clearly, it'sexceptionally impulsive.
(11:19):
This might be where you're like,I'm gonna send 15,000 text
messages back to back to backtrying to get a response from
you, or I'm gonna call you, orI'm gonna drive by your house,
I'm gonna try and get someresponse to get this resolved.
And what that's saying is, Ineed you to make me feel better.
It's this external seeking ofregulation.
(11:42):
Now, the next one is avoidant,and the avoidant goes into a
nervous system that is very hypovigilant, meaning it goes into
this avoidant withdrawing,numbing out place.
Now, this occurs again, samething.
If there's disconnect,disagreement, or you know, some
(12:03):
type of conflict.
And again, we when we talk aboutthese things, we also have to
like understand is this is thissomething we're perceiving or is
this something that's that isactually happening?
Is this in reality?
We'll talk about that next.
But what that avoidantattachment does is it wants to
withdraw and avoid anyinteraction.
(12:23):
Now, the the nervous system maynot seem like it's having as
significant of a response, butit's still a harmful response
because the nervous system isdisassociating, it's numbing
out.
There's a belief system of Idon't need anyone, I'm fine
without connection.
And the nervous system is stillnot thinking clearly.
(12:46):
It's avoiding feelings, it'swithdrawing from feelings.
And yes, this person can appearself-sufficient, yet is not
meeting the fundamental needs ofemotional needs within
relationships.
Now, the last one is thedisorganized attachment.
And I don't want this to soundlike I'm hating on the
disorganized attachment, but wedo need to be very consciously
(13:08):
aware of this attachment stylebecause it can be very
misleading and confusing.
And that's what makes it sodifficult to be in a
relationship with.
Now, remember, the disorganizedattachment tends to come from a
childhood that was unsafe insome way, shape, or form,
whether that's through abuse orsome significant neglect, those
(13:28):
emotional needs were not met.
And so the availability forthese people to understand their
emotional needs and communicateabout them is very, very low.
And so for somebody who is in arelationship with somebody with
a disorganized attachment,you're gonna see a range of
dysregulated nervous systemresponses.
(13:50):
Anything from fight, flight,freeze, or fawn, all within the
spectrum of one conflict, allwithin one disagreement.
That can be, you know, maybesomething was said and it was
perceived the wrong the wrongway by the other person with the
disorganized attachment.
And all of a sudden there areaccusations, and the other
person withdraws and thedisorganized pursues.
(14:12):
And the person says somethingand they they flee.
So this is where you get a lotof chaotic relationship dynamics
play out.
And this is where it is really,really important that if you see
the signs of disorganizedattachment, you find a way to
remove yourself until there's anability to have some type of
clear conversation, whether it'swith a therapist or with a third
(14:35):
party, because there can be alot of harm in this
relationship.
It can become very confusing.
It can be become confusing tothe person who has the
disorganized attachment and forthe person who may be in a
relationship with them.
And so there needs to beprofessional support when we're
navigating that type of adetachment.
And with therapeutic support,you can navigate through
(14:57):
disorganized on your way to asecure attachment.
So when you're in these stateswhere your nervous system is
actually either being flooded orwhether it is numbing out and
withdrawing, it is your nervoussystem's call back to listen to
what that emotional unmet needactually is.
(15:21):
And we want to talk about thatfrom a realistic standpoint to a
perceived standpoint.
Part of the work is to come backto a place of grounding, check
in with yourself.
And one of my favorite ways isthrough somatic reparenting,
where we actually put a gentlehand on ourselves.
I'll put a link in my bio tothis.
There's another video that willpop up for you guys to watch how
(15:42):
to do this.
And it's a way to actually checkin and find out what it is that
your little self is feelingdisrupted by.
So whether that's your feelingsare hurt or you didn't feel
listened to, or maybe you'rebeing judged, it's a way for
(16:03):
your nervous system to regulateto a point where you're getting
clarity as to what is disruptingit.
And this might be something thatthe little one needs to address.
Maybe there is a trigger and youknow, something needs to be
worked through.
Maybe it's somethingindividually that needs to be
worked through.
Or maybe your inner child isresponding to something that
(16:26):
really isn't appropriate fromsomebody else and needs the
gentle guidance of thatreparenting self to guide them
to understanding.
There are some gentle prompts atthe end of this video.
There is a link down in thedescription below.
But this is really where theinner work begins, is in really
(16:48):
understanding when your nervoussystem is dysregulated.
If we look at Daniel Siegel'swindow of tolerance, we'll see
that the window of tolerancereally does, sorry about that,
Sean, really does address whereour nervous system finds itself.
If we are anxious, we findourselves hyperactive,
overwhelmed, panicky, we can'tthink clearly.
(17:10):
If we're in that avoidant, we'redown here where we're just
numbing out, we'redisassociating, doom scrolling.
Hello, anybody out there onsocial media, you know what I'm
talking about.
And we may not be activelydysregulated, meaning in an
anxious state, but we arenumbing out and we are avoiding
what it is that needs to beaddressed.
(17:31):
And remember, that doesn'tsatisfy us.
We're still seeking connection.
And disorganized goes into thebounce back of anxious,
avoidant, anxious, avoided,anxious, avoided.
So what we seek is to really bein this secure attachment place
where we are, we can beactivated, but we can still
experience all the feelings,think clearly, come to
(17:54):
solutions, and eventually have asolid repair and reconnection
within the relationship.
But our nervous system isactually pointing us in the
direction we need to go.
And somatic reparenting is aplace where we can get guidance
as to what is that actual unmetneed and how that inner parent,
(18:15):
that inner adult, can guide youto receiving it.
And again, a link in the bio.
So I invite you, if this podcastor this video resonated with
you, please go like, subscribe,and follow us.
We love to be in this healingjourney alongside you.
And if as always, our innerchild and your inner child are
(18:37):
loved, they are accepted, andthey are important.
Thanks, and we'll see you guysnext time.
Bye for now.
Hello and welcome to In Still We Rise.
I'm your host, Christine Seidel.
And today we're going to talkabout why some of us have
patterns of difficulties anddysfunction and relationships
and how this may be our nervoussystem trying to draw our
attention to childhoodexperiences that taught us not
the healthiest ways to navigaterelationships.
(00:22):
So with that, let's take a deepbreath and jump in.
To begin, we have to talk aboutchildhood experiences and
implicit memory.
So implicit memory is thenervous system's data gathering
way of bringing in informationand creating patterns from it.
It's kind of the if-thenstatements that are kind of
(00:46):
delved into our subconscious andcreates these belief systems
around a various amount oftopics.
Now, in childhood, aside fromour very fundamental needs like
safety, stability, food,shelter, all of those, we also
have emotional needs.
And these emotional needs haveto be belief systems around our
(01:09):
love, acceptance, valued, beingimportant, being seen, being
heard.
And from the time we're in uteroto the time we're about seven or
eight, our nervous system isdeveloping this implicit memory.
It's making meaning, it's makingconnections around how to have
our emotional needs met.
So it's kind of like the if-thenlogic maker.
(01:32):
If I cry, I am fed.
If I am hurt, I am comforted.
And it's creating these beliefsaround connection with those
that are our caregivers or thatare available to meet our
emotional needs.
So when we have childhoodexperiences that develops into
(01:52):
implicit memory that is somewhatdysregulated and difficult for
us to navigate, we tend to havesome of these patterns within
relationships that become alittle distorted and disruptive.
So let's talk about how thiscomes about in terms of
connection.
So again, like I said, asidefrom food, shelter, we have this
(02:17):
second need of belonging, havingthese emotional needs met.
And again, we're talking aboutbeing loved, being accepted,
being important and valued,being seen and heard.
And those change to some degreebetween the time we're born and
the time of seven or eight.
You know, if you look at athree-year-old, they have
different emotional needs than,say, an eight-year-old.
(02:38):
So when it comes to our implicitmemory and our connection, we
tend to develop what we all haveprobably heard of, which are
attachment styles.
So let's look at the fourdifferent types of attachments.
That's right.
I said four.
There's not just one.
There are four different typesof attachments.
And this is where, you know, inmy own therapeutic work, people
(02:59):
become somewhat confused.
They kind of say, well, I hadthis type of childhood, my
parents weren't really there forme, but it wasn't that bad,
right?
So when we talk aboutattachment, we want to
understand there is a spectrumof attachment that we can have.
Not any one person fallsspecifically just within one of
those four categories.
We sometimes can run on aspectrum in between them and
(03:22):
hoping to get as close topossible to more of a secure
type.
So we'll start with secure.
Secure attachment is kind of theattachment we all want to try to
work towards.
But fundamentally, there reallyisn't a ton of people in this
world that have a fully healthysecure attachment style.
And secure attachment isdeveloped when we have
(03:44):
caregivers that really wereemotionally available to attune
and attend to our emotionalneeds.
And that requires a caregiver tohave a very conscious awareness
of emotional availability towhere a child is
developmentally.
So let's say a child falls andscrapes their knee, their, yeah,
(04:07):
their knee.
And that parent has the capacityand availability to sit with a
crying child and comfort them.
There is no, you know,frustration that they're
projecting, there's no blame orshaming.
They're just available to, youknow, validate that that is
painful and then attend to theknee.
(04:28):
Or if a child is overwhelmed,the parent is available to be
patient with the child and helpthem problem solve or understand
what the child needs withoutbeing frustrated or irritated
that the child is not solvingtheir own problem.
So secure attachment is whenthat parent has that emotional
availability and maturity to beable to attune and attend to a
(04:50):
child's needs throughout thedifferent needs of their
development.
The next attachment is anxiousattachment.
Now, anxious attachment is whena child has a parent who is
emotionally available to meettheir needs sometimes, and then
you guessed right, other timesnot.
So this might be a parent whocan handle these types of
(05:12):
emotions, maybe when you are sador scared, but if you were
angry, they couldn't handlethat.
Or if you were excited andexuberant, that was too much.
But if you were happy andcompliant, that was just enough.
And so this is a emotionalavailability to not really be
(05:34):
succinct and you know stable inthe range of a child's emotions.
Now, the avoidant type tends tojust be kind of that, very
avoiding of any of the child'semotional needs andor kind of
the of the the other needs aswell.
You know, maybe there wasclothing and food on the table
(05:55):
and a roof over your heads, butthere was no real uh investment
into the child's world.
These tend to be caregivers thatare very dismissive or
uncomfortable with children.
Uh, they may be unavailable orneglectful.
They really just do not want tointeract too much with the
child's world.
Now, the fourth one is calledthe disorganized attachment.
(06:18):
And this becomes kind of thismixture.
You sometimes hear it beingcalled an anxious avoidant.
And the disorganized attachmentoccurs when the child actually
develops a sense of fear of thecaregiver.
And this does happen in cases ofabuse and significant neglect.
The child really does not knowhow to enter into a connection
(06:41):
because it was just one,unavailable and two,
exceptionally unsafe inchildhood to be in connection
with those caregivers.
So when we look at those fourtypes of attachment, and again,
remember, we can fall on thespectrum.
We may have anxious attachment,but really be working towards
(07:01):
secure.
And maybe we we've made sometherapeutic work and we can find
ourselves more in the secure, ormaybe we've been avoidant and
we've been working towardssecure, but we have those
moments of triggering and we seeourselves kind of turn into the
withdrawal of the avoided.
So we have to understand that wecan do therapeutic work and move
within this spectrum of securethrough disorganized.
(07:25):
You don't have to stay there.
But we do want to become veryconsciously aware of how we
experience this attachmentwithin our intimate
relationships.
Because as adults, our family oforigin and our relationship with
our caregivers and our siblingsreally help shape our belief
system and the neuropathwaysthat we we fall into when we are
(07:48):
seeking connection, when we arelooking to not only be in a
relationship, but have ouremotional needs met within
ourselves and with others, whichis a human experience we need to
have.
And adult relationships,intimate relationships are a
mirror of what our emotionalneeds, belief systems are.
(08:09):
And that's where we tend to seeour nervous system become
dysregulated or becomes verydifficult to navigate.
So let's look at how our nervoussystem responds to disconnect or
conflict within the body.
Not so much our belief systems,but how our body responds to any
type of disconnect when we areseeking our emotional needs
(08:32):
being met within a relationship.
The first one, we're going tocome back to secure attachment.
Now, secure attachment does notmean that you do not have
conflict with other people.
It does not mean you never gothrough disconnect with
partners.
What it means is that when yougo into conflict or disagreement
or disconnect, you are able tofeel a spectrum of all of these
(08:55):
feelings and yet not be reactiveto those feelings.
There's a really low level ofimpulsivity.
You're able to think clearly,you can listen to other
perspectives.
And what that actually means isthat you come to repair sooner.
You're able to see perspectives.
(09:16):
So you're able to come to aplace of understanding.
You can listen to other people,other people can listen to you
if they have a secureattachment.
And you come to repair sooner,you come up with solutions with
a lot less harm and damage tothe relationship.
But what that means is thatthere's not this underlying
resentment within therelationship.
(09:37):
That's really what is harm anddamage to relationship is a lot
of resentment, meaning somewherealong the lines, we really
didn't have resolution.
So again, secure attachment isnot about not having
disagreements or conflict.
It's that your ability to feelthose feelings and to think
clearly occurs, and you're ableto move through the disconnect,
(09:57):
through the disagreement or orconflict without any harm or
damage to the relationship.
Now let's move to anxious.
Now, anxious attachment withinthe nervous system starts
beginning to feel overwhelmed.
We call it flooding.
It starts being flooded with awith a range of fear hormones,
(10:18):
or not hormones, but fear beliefsystems.
It does spike your cortisol andadrenaline.
However, what that means is thatthe nervous system is signaling,
again, the nervous system likelikes to signal through that
fight, flight, freeze, or fawnbelief system about how to
address this disconnect, goingall the way back to childhood,
right?
(10:39):
And the anxious attachment seesa situation where there's
disconnect, disagreement, orconflict, and it wants to
pursue, it wants to chase, itwants to um fight, it wants to
try to come back into connectionto be able to resolve this
(10:59):
because it's flooded with thispanicky feeling.
It pursues, it chases, it fawnssometimes.
And what it's really trying todo is get this external relief
from the nervous systemdysregulation.
The nervous system feelspanicky, it feels overwhelmed,
it can't think clearly, it'sexceptionally impulsive.
(11:19):
This might be where you're like,I'm gonna send 15,000 text
messages back to back to backtrying to get a response from
you, or I'm gonna call you, orI'm gonna drive by your house,
I'm gonna try and get someresponse to get this resolved.
And what that's saying is, Ineed you to make me feel better.
It's this external seeking ofregulation.
(11:42):
Now, the next one is avoidant,and the avoidant goes into a
nervous system that is very hypovigilant, meaning it goes into
this avoidant withdrawing,numbing out place.
Now, this occurs again, samething.
If there's disconnect,disagreement, or you know, some
(12:03):
type of conflict.
And again, we when we talk aboutthese things, we also have to
like understand is this is thissomething we're perceiving or is
this something that's that isactually happening?
Is this in reality?
We'll talk about that next.
But what that avoidantattachment does is it wants to
withdraw and avoid anyinteraction.
(12:23):
Now, the the nervous system maynot seem like it's having as
significant of a response, butit's still a harmful response
because the nervous system isdisassociating, it's numbing
out.
There's a belief system of Idon't need anyone, I'm fine
without connection.
And the nervous system is stillnot thinking clearly.
(12:46):
It's avoiding feelings, it'swithdrawing from feelings.
And yes, this person can appearself-sufficient, yet is not
meeting the fundamental needs ofemotional needs within
relationships.
Now, the last one is thedisorganized attachment.
And I don't want this to soundlike I'm hating on the
disorganized attachment, but wedo need to be very consciously
(13:08):
aware of this attachment stylebecause it can be very
misleading and confusing.
And that's what makes it sodifficult to be in a
relationship with.
Now, remember, the disorganizedattachment tends to come from a
childhood that was unsafe insome way, shape, or form,
whether that's through abuse orsome significant neglect, those
(13:28):
emotional needs were not met.
And so the availability forthese people to understand their
emotional needs and communicateabout them is very, very low.
And so for somebody who is in arelationship with somebody with
a disorganized attachment,you're gonna see a range of
dysregulated nervous systemresponses.
(13:50):
Anything from fight, flight,freeze, or fawn, all within the
spectrum of one conflict, allwithin one disagreement.
That can be, you know, maybesomething was said and it was
perceived the wrong the wrongway by the other person with the
disorganized attachment.
And all of a sudden there areaccusations, and the other
person withdraws and thedisorganized pursues.
(14:12):
And the person says somethingand they they flee.
So this is where you get a lotof chaotic relationship dynamics
play out.
And this is where it is really,really important that if you see
the signs of disorganizedattachment, you find a way to
remove yourself until there's anability to have some type of
clear conversation, whether it'swith a therapist or with a third
(14:35):
party, because there can be alot of harm in this
relationship.
It can become very confusing.
It can be become confusing tothe person who has the
disorganized attachment and forthe person who may be in a
relationship with them.
And so there needs to beprofessional support when we're
navigating that type of adetachment.
And with therapeutic support,you can navigate through
(14:57):
disorganized on your way to asecure attachment.
So when you're in these stateswhere your nervous system is
actually either being flooded orwhether it is numbing out and
withdrawing, it is your nervoussystem's call back to listen to
what that emotional unmet needactually is.
(15:21):
And we want to talk about thatfrom a realistic standpoint to a
perceived standpoint.
Part of the work is to come backto a place of grounding, check
in with yourself.
And one of my favorite ways isthrough somatic reparenting,
where we actually put a gentlehand on ourselves.
I'll put a link in my bio tothis.
There's another video that willpop up for you guys to watch how
(15:42):
to do this.
And it's a way to actually checkin and find out what it is that
your little self is feelingdisrupted by.
So whether that's your feelingsare hurt or you didn't feel
listened to, or maybe you'rebeing judged, it's a way for
(16:03):
your nervous system to regulateto a point where you're getting
clarity as to what is disruptingit.
And this might be something thatthe little one needs to address.
Maybe there is a trigger and youknow, something needs to be
worked through.
Maybe it's somethingindividually that needs to be
worked through.
Or maybe your inner child isresponding to something that
(16:26):
really isn't appropriate fromsomebody else and needs the
gentle guidance of thatreparenting self to guide them
to understanding.
There are some gentle prompts atthe end of this video.
There is a link down in thedescription below.
But this is really where theinner work begins, is in really
(16:48):
understanding when your nervoussystem is dysregulated.
If we look at Daniel Siegel'swindow of tolerance, we'll see
that the window of tolerancereally does, sorry about that,
Sean, really does address whereour nervous system finds itself.
If we are anxious, we findourselves hyperactive,
overwhelmed, panicky, we can'tthink clearly.
(17:10):
If we're in that avoidant, we'redown here where we're just
numbing out, we'redisassociating, doom scrolling.
Hello, anybody out there onsocial media, you know what I'm
talking about.
And we may not be activelydysregulated, meaning in an
anxious state, but we arenumbing out and we are avoiding
what it is that needs to beaddressed.
(17:31):
And remember, that doesn'tsatisfy us.
We're still seeking connection.
And disorganized goes into thebounce back of anxious,
avoidant, anxious, avoided,anxious, avoided.
So what we seek is to really bein this secure attachment place
where we are, we can beactivated, but we can still
experience all the feelings,think clearly, come to
(17:54):
solutions, and eventually have asolid repair and reconnection
within the relationship.
But our nervous system isactually pointing us in the
direction we need to go.
And somatic reparenting is aplace where we can get guidance
as to what is that actual unmetneed and how that inner parent,
(18:15):
that inner adult, can guide youto receiving it.
And again, a link in the bio.
So I invite you, if this podcastor this video resonated with
you, please go like, subscribe,and follow us.
We love to be in this healingjourney alongside you.
And if as always, our innerchild and your inner child are
(18:37):
loved, they are accepted, andthey are important.
Thanks, and we'll see you guysnext time.
Bye for now.
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