February 24, 2025 • 47 mins
Join us for an enlightening discussion with Doug Smith, a pioneer in the field of behavioral health services, as we uncover the revolutionary world of Emotional Attachment Behavioral Therapy (EABT). Doug's personal journey from a household marred by addiction to becoming a beacon of hope in addiction medicine adds a unique and powerful perspective to our conversation. We explore how early intervention and understanding attachment styles can be pivotal in preventing substance use disorders, offering a groundbreaking approach to tackle the addiction crisis with compassion and innovation.
Witness the transformative power of gratitude and community in the recovery journey. Doug and I share heartfelt experiences that highlight the camaraderie among those in recovery, akin to survivors who’ve weathered the storm and emerged with a new zest for life. We discuss the profound impact of being part of the "no matter what club," underscoring the unwavering commitment to sobriety. By drawing parallels between overcoming addiction and surviving life-threatening challenges, we illuminate how recovery fosters resilience, hope, and a deep appreciation for life’s simple joys.
Our exploration continues into the realm of attachment styles and their influence on emotional intelligence and personal growth. Discover how different attachment styles—secure, anxious, avoidant, and fearful—shape our behaviors and relationships. Doug shares insights into therapies like EABT and EMDR, which can help cultivate empathy and healthier coping mechanisms. As we shed light on overcoming perfectionism and nurturing self-care, you’ll find practical strategies to foster self-compassion and balance. Engage with us on this insightful journey, as we aim to inspire personal growth and emotional healing for a healthier, more connected future.
Show Notes
Emotional Attachment Behavioral Therapy
Emotional Attachment Quiz
https://www.learneabt.com/eabt-quiz
Contact Doug Smith
https://www.learneabt.com/contact-us
Music by Green Day, “Wake Me Up When September Ends”
https://youtu.be/NU9JoFKlaZ0?si=LYqOK9jNYkRUcJ7J
Want to learn how to build your EQ? Let's meet to see if working together is good fit.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Doug Smith (00:00):
that I'm really excited about is not only can
this help people in earlyrecovery and by this I don't
just mean EABT, I just meanattachment work in general Not
only can it help people withtreatment who've developed
things like substance usedisorder or other mental health
conditions.
you know, it's been shown to beeffective in a lot of different
(00:20):
areas.
It also can be a big preventiontool.
I'm a big believer when I hearpeople say, when it comes to the
addiction crisis, that we'renot going to treat our way out
of this crisis.
It's going to take acombination of treatment and
prevention both to get to wherewe need to go, and there's a lot
of prevention work that you cando around attachment styles
(00:43):
that might be able to stop someof these issues before they
occur.
So you know, I see more peoplefocused in those directions,
looking in those directions,trying to work in those
directions, and I'm hopeful thatwe can start to reach people at
earlier and earlier ages.
Jami Carlacio (01:06):
Welcome to the podcast Emotional Intelligence
your greatest asset and key tosuccess.
I'm your host, Dr Jami Carlacio, coming to you from the Greater
New Haven, connecticut area, asan emotional intelligence or EQ
coach.
I'm committed to helping peopledevelop both emotional
intelligence and mental fitness.
That is, you'll come to regardproblems as situations that help
(01:30):
you learn and grow.
Eq is a way of being and doingin the world that enables you to
develop and sustain a positiverelationship with yourself and
others, at home, at work andeverywhere in between.
Please subscribe to thispodcast and tap the like button
so more people can enjoy thebenefits of EQ.
And now here's the show.
(01:51):
Hello and welcome everybody,and thank you for joining us
Today.
I have a wonderful guest.
His name is Doug Smith andwe're going to talk about
attachment, among other things.
So hello, doug, how are you?
Doug Smith (02:09):
Good Jamie, how about you?
Jami Carlacio (02:11):
I'm well.
Thank you very much.
I'm cold because it's very,very cold in the Northeast right
now and you are in Oregon,right.
Doug Smith (02:19):
I am, yeah, it was 24 degrees yesterday and it felt
freezing to me, so I can't evenimagine what you guys are going
through.
Jami Carlacio (02:27):
Yeah, actually this morning it was in the
single digits, but I think itgot up to the double digits.
Doug Smith (02:33):
Nice.
Jami Carlacio (02:34):
Yes.
So for our guests who are notfamiliar with you, I want to say
a few words about Doug.
Doug has 21 years of experiencein behavioral health services,
including serving as a directclinician, clinical director and
director of clinicaldevelopment.
He has a BS in psychology fromEastern Oregon University and is
(02:57):
a certified alcohol and drugcounselor level two.
Doug has innovated many modernapproaches to treatment services
one of the reasons why we aretalking today including
developing a newpatient-centered treatment model
and he developed the EmotionalAttachment Behavioral Therapy,
or EABT model.
(03:18):
Doug is a national speaker andhe is the recipient of the
Oregon Association of AddictionProfessionals 2023 Innovator of
the Year Award Congratulations.
Doug Smith (03:30):
Thank you.
Jami Carlacio (03:31):
And he is also the 2018 Addiction Professional
of the Year Award winner for theAddiction Professional of the
Year Community Service Award, socongratulations on that as well
.
Thanks, doug.
You're in addiction medicine,as am I, and I'm wondering how
you got into addiction medicine,because that may lead us into a
(03:53):
conversation about attachmentand how you ended up developing
EABT.
Doug Smith (04:00):
I grew up in a household where substance use
was going on in the home, so Igrew up around addiction issues
and then, as I got older, Ideveloped my own addiction
issues.
I've been sober at this pointfor 24 years and when I first
got sober after a few years, Iwas trying to figure out what
(04:21):
direction I wanted to go with mylife.
And I remember having aconversation with my father and
he said you should look at whatyour qualities and strengths are
and what your experiences inlife have been leading you
towards.
Up till now, a lot of mystrengths were people oriented,
you know, being able tocommunicate with people and
stuff like that.
(04:41):
Almost all of my experienceswere in regards to addiction, so
it kind of felt like a naturaldirection for me to go and some
God shots for lack of a betterword lined up for me.
And the next thing, you know, Igot into an internship to learn
to be a drug and alcoholcounselor.
That was 21 years ago,something along those lines.
(05:03):
The rest is history.
It's been an amazing career.
I've loved working with thispopulation and it's just been
really rewarding.
Jami Carlacio (05:12):
Oh, I love that I have a similar background and I
am also grateful to be inrecovery like you.
Like you, I guess I also hadGod shots, because it was a
natural progression for me,after I left the teaching
profession, to come into this asa professional, so not just a
(05:33):
person in recovery, but as aperson helping other people who
want to be in recovery and whowant to sustain that recovery.
Doug Smith (05:40):
Absolutely One of my favorite things to do is go to
alumni picnics where I get tosee clients with their families
around them.
You can see that you're notjust to have a better chance,
(06:05):
you know moving forward in termsof being able to not fall into
addiction and stuff like that.
It's really rewarding.
Breaking the cycle has been abig focus of my career
throughout my career and theattachment model that I created.
There's a lot of breaking thecycle that's connected with that
as well.
Jami Carlacio (06:30):
Yeah, breaking the cycle.
I love that.
I was actually just having aconversation with somebody today
who has a five-year-old and hewas really regretting that he
has been absent for part of thischild's life.
He's doing everything he can toreintegrate into his child's
life because he wants to be thepresent father, not the absent
father.
And you're right that it is acycle.
(06:51):
Oftentimes people say thataddiction is a family illness or
a disorder that affects theentire family.
It affects the work, it affectsfriends.
It affects a lot of things,right, it affects friends.
Doug Smith (07:05):
It affects a lot of things, right, yeah, and I know
for me, one of the things I'mthe most grateful for is my two
kids have never seen me underthe influence.
I've worked with a lot ofclients over the years that have
a lot of guilt and shame inregards to stuff that they did
during their addiction.
And I'm no different.
During my addiction there's alot of stuff that I had to work
through that I felt a lot ofshame around, but I'm so
(07:29):
grateful.
You know, I've seen people workthrough the guilt and shame of
how they affected their kids andI'm grateful that my kids have
never seen me under theinfluence.
And, yeah, I go back in myfamily history and there's a
degree of breaking the cyclegoing on which makes me feel
really, really hopeful.
Jami Carlacio (07:45):
Right and there is hope.
When you're in the throes ofaddiction, nothing feels hopeful
.
But, as I tell people,willingness is huge.
If you are willing to do this,put in the work, have the
difficult emotions, sit throughthe urges, make the phone calls,
go to the rehab or go tomeetings or do all the things
(08:14):
that people do who are able tostay sober or dry or clean, or
however people like to describeit.
It can be done.
Doug Smith (08:21):
Yeah, absolutely.
And when I'm talking to peoplein early recovery, not only do I
think there's hope you gottenyour life back on track, but
that fresh memory of where lifewas before makes you grateful
(08:50):
every day that you wake up andmakes you grateful for every
opportunity that comes your way,every moment you have with
people you care about and stufflike that.
So you know quite often you'llhear from people that have had
you know, like cancer survivorsor people who've overcome deadly
diseases, that there was aspiritual shift that happened
for them through that processwhich makes them look at life
(09:12):
differently.
And I think addiction providesone of those gifts for us as
well.
When I was in early recovery andI'd go to support group
meetings like 12-step meetingsand I'd hear people refer to
themselves as grateful,recovering, alcoholic or great
you know, part of me was likewhat do they even mean?
But now it's like I get whatthey mean, because I've gone
from being ashamed of my diseaseand being ashamed of what I did
(09:36):
during my disease to beingproud of my disease and proud of
what I've overcome.
And if somebody could tell meright now that I could go back
in time and have never dealtwith addiction, I wouldn't make
that trade, because I feel likeit's made me the person that I
am today and it allows me toappreciate what's around me
every day, which is cool.
Jami Carlacio (09:58):
You said so many things that I want to touch on.
First thing is this idea ofgratitude that I want to touch
on.
First thing is this idea ofgratitude, and I certainly do
actually introduce myself thatway.
When I go to an AA meeting Isay I'm a grateful recovering
alcoholic and, like you, Icouldn't believe it when I heard
that in early sobriety I'm likehow can you possibly be
(10:19):
grateful for this?
But after this many years Ihave found that I am eternally
grateful.
I think of people who havesuffered from addiction and are
in recovery, as people who'vesurvived a shipwreck, and we are
all so happy to be alive thatthere's a special kind of
camaraderie and a special kindof gratitude and a special kind
(10:43):
of appreciation, because we knowwe've been through the fire and
there are lots of differentkinds of fires that people walk
through throughout their lives.
This is just one kind of firebut there is a special kind of
gratitude for that and it'sbeing in the gratitude and then
being willing to do what ittakes.
I heard from somebody in ameeting last week that she's a
(11:07):
member of the no Matter whatClub and I thought that was so
perfect that, no matter what, Iwon't take a drink or consume a
drug today because my life insobriety is so much better than
anything I could have imagined.
Doug Smith (11:25):
Yeah, that's really cool and you know, something
that I'll mention is the peopleI've met in recovery and the
friends I've made through thelast 24 years of my life.
I trust those people in waysthat I don't trust a lot of
other people.
It's really interesting how youcan go from being surrounded by
(11:46):
people who aren't trustworthyincluding yourself in addiction,
to being surrounded by peoplethat are going to have your back
when it really counts and bethere to check on you and make
sure you're doing okay.
I just know when times aretough.
There's no question that thepeople I reach out to are people
I've met through recovery andthey are such a great support
(12:08):
system.
I'm really grateful for thepeople I've met through recovery
, for sure.
Jami Carlacio (12:13):
I would say 90 to 95% of my friends are people
I've met in recovery and you'reright, I would trust my life
with any one of them, absolutely, absolutely.
Let's talk a little bit aboutsome of the emotional language
around what it's like to kind ofdeal with life on life's terms
(12:38):
and, as we know, a lot of timespeople who grow up in households
that are dysfunctional havedifficulty regulating their
emotions.
They have difficulty attaching.
There's oftentimes anover-attachment or an
overdeveloped need to please, orthere's a hypervigilant or
(12:59):
there's an avoidant kind ofstyle of I don't want to get
close, this is too dangerous forme or, you know, too clingy.
So there's so many differentthings.
How did you get involved inattachment and maybe say a
little more about that Cause Ithink that's going to be
something people want to learnabout.
Doug Smith (13:17):
Yes, as a counselor who's worked in the field for a
lot of years, one thing that wasclear to me early on was the
better connection I formed withthe clients I was working with,
the higher their success ratewas going to be.
And I also learned that when Iwas doing group therapies, the
more connections I could formbetween the client and their
(13:37):
peers in the group, the highertheir success rates were going
to be.
So it was apparent pretty earlythat, even though we work on
all these different areas indrug and alcohol treatment, a
lot of it kept coming back tohow good the connections were
between the individual and thepeople around them in terms of
success rates for theirtreatment, and research has
(13:59):
definitely backed that up.
To be true, it got meinterested in attachment theory
and a lot of times withcounselors, most counselors I've
met are very interested andfocused on attachment theory in
general.
But one of the things I'dnoticed throughout my career is
that, even though there's a lotof focus on attachment theory,
(14:19):
there's not really anyaccessible type of work that can
be done by clients around it.
You know, as a person intreatment you can do a lot of
cognitive behavioral therapywork or dialectical behavioral
therapy work.
There's all these models thatare readily available that you
can get workbooks to work out ofand do exercises.
When it comes to attachment,there really isn't anything like
(14:43):
that, and so that was a lot ofmy motivation, where I wanted to
create something that focusedon attachment styles and how to
build healthier attachmentstyles for yourself.
And it's probably not anaccident that, a year or so
after the pandemic hit, you knowthat this came out because in
(15:09):
2020, when the world completelychanged on all of us, it really
brought that home how importantthose connections were.
I was working at a treatmentcenter at that point.
Suddenly, all the patients arewearing masks and they're six
feet apart from each other, andyou're just watching these
connections get separated andhow it's impacting their
(15:30):
treatment level, and it justreally brought home how
important that aspect is.
Jami Carlacio (15:35):
Yeah, and I want to capitalize on that for a
moment, because the connectionpart is absolutely essential and
what I see happening in peoplewho have addiction or even in
other areas of life.
Addiction can be to a substance,a process like gambling or sex
or shopping or, who knows,internet, but what it is is it's
(16:00):
the connection and, as I haveheard it referred to as a
God-shaped hole, and whether ornot you believe in God is not
the relevant part here, butthere's some kind of source or
higher being connection that weall have.
I call it a spiritual umbilicalcord, and what happens is
(16:21):
people are looking for thatconnection and they're seeking
it in the wrong places.
They're looking for it in thebottle versus the person, and so
I think of spirits plural thatare in a bottle versus spirit
with a capital S.
That resides, say, deep withinus.
As you know, the lines at thepackage stores they call it in
(16:45):
the East Coast the liquor storewere longer than they were at
the grocery store when thepandemic shut everything down.
It's certainly somethingtelling People like that,
touching or shaking hands orfist bumping, or the eye contact
and the mouth and the smile andthe I see you, I see you, I
(17:06):
hear you.
Doug Smith (17:10):
Absolutely, and you were talking about that
God-sized hole inside of people.
One of the things with theattachment model that I
developed we look at attachmentwounds from people's past and
then we look at what unmet needsare correlated to those
attachment wounds, right?
So let's say I grew up with afather that was really strict
(17:31):
and because of that at times Ididn't feel safe or I didn't
feel secure.
Those were unmet needs thatcorrelated to that wound from
earlier on in my life.
What we do with our clients iswe have them look at those
wounds and what unmet needs areconnected to it.
And they identify what their topunmet needs are that stem from
those areas of their life.
(17:52):
And then we will ask them lookat that list of unmet needs and
think about the first time youused your drug of choice.
How many of those needs werebeing met in that moment for you
.
And what you see with theseguys is a light bulb, go on.
For the first time they reallyrealize how their addiction is
connected to a lot of theseattachment-based issues that
(18:13):
took place earlier in their life.
Jami Carlacio (18:16):
Wow, I love that.
That makes complete sense.
Attachment issues are huge, socan you say a little bit about
the kinds of attachment stylesthat people typically have and
then maybe how to work to healsome of those?
Doug Smith (18:34):
Yeah, so there's four attachment styles.
The first one is secureattachment, which is the only
one that's under the securecategory of attachment styles.
With secure attachment, thatusually means you're able to
connect with people prettyeasily, you're able to open up
to people, trust people.
You're good when you're alone.
You're good at setting goalsand working towards achieving
(18:56):
them all of those sorts ofthings.
There's then anxious attachmentstyle, which is one I'm very
prone towards.
When you were talking earlier,jamie, about being overly
connected to things andemotionally dependent almost on
things, that's a lot of theanxious attachment style.
With anxious attachment, it'salmost like you don't know who
you are if you're not aroundother people.
(19:18):
So you're really good atidentifying other people's
emotions.
You need constant reassuranceand validation to feel okay
about yourself.
You don't do very good whenyou're alone.
It's almost like if you don'tknow how to chameleon yourself
to the people around you.
You get really uncomfortable inthose situations and there's a
(19:40):
lot of correlations in theresearch I've done between
anxious attachment and what wetalk about with codependency in
the SUD field.
It's a lot of putting otherpeople's needs before your own,
struggling with self-esteem andyour sense of self and some of
that sort of stuff.
Then there's avoidant attachmentand, like you had mentioned
(20:01):
earlier, that's the one whereyou put a wall up and you don't
connect with anything or anybody.
So you don't trust anybody.
You don't want to open up topeople.
You might let people havesurface conversations, but if
they try to get any deeper thanthat you're going to back away.
Quite often people withavoidant attachment style can be
really successful in theircareers and come off as very
(20:24):
confident, be good at publicspeaking and stuff like that,
but if people try to get closeto them, that's when the wall
comes up for them.
And then the last of the fourattachment styles is called
fearful attachment style, andthat one is that hypervigilant
one you were talking aboutearlier.
You can go from one extreme tothe other, so you can be really
(20:47):
clingy at some points and thenput up a wall.
At some points you can bereally hypervigilant.
You can have a really toughtime regulating your emotions,
and a lot of that with fearfulattachment style stems from
growing up in traumaticenvironments or environments
that felt really unsafe.
So you have kids that justlearn to walk on eggshells
(21:08):
constantly and they're justtrying to do whatever they can
to protect themselves in thosesituations.
In regards to what you can do towork on these attachment styles
, there's a lot of differentthings you can do.
Therapists have been working onthis stuff for a while and
one-on-one therapy.
There's great work thattherapists do around attachment
styles.
I've seen EMDR therapy workreally well with
(21:32):
attachment-based issues.
What I wanted to do with EABTis make it more accessible to
everyday people.
With EABT, what people do isthey identify their attachment
styles.
There's a quiz that they taketo learn what their attachment
styles are.
Jami Carlacio (21:48):
And we will include that quiz in the show
notes so other people can takethe quiz and find out like, oh,
that's why I'm that way.
Doug Smith (21:56):
And then, after they identify what their attachment
styles are, they start to lookat their insecure attachment
styles, their insecurecharacteristics that most impact
them in their life.
It's about gaining awareness.
Part of emotional intelligenceis self-awareness, and so much
of EABT is building upself-awareness.
We want people to understandbetter why they react to things
(22:20):
in their world the way that theydo.
Right?
So when I'm alone and myanxiety goes through the roof
and I never know why that is, wewant people to start to be able
to understand why that happens.
They can connect the dots andlearn.
This is why I respond these waysin these situations.
So it's gaining a lot ofself-awareness around that.
And then it's starting to learncoping skills so that you can
(22:42):
respond to these thingsdifferently.
Because for people like me,when those uncomfortable
situations come up and I gettriggered for lack of a better
word my go-to would be thoseunhealthy addictions that you're
talking about, whether it besubstances or shopping or
whatever it might be.
And so what we want people tolearn with the ABT is how to
(23:03):
utilize more healthy copingskills so that they can respond
to it in different ways.
Jami Carlacio (23:08):
Right, wow, you said a lot there, so I'm going
to just slow us down a secondand maybe break some of that
apart.
And since this is a podcast onemotional intelligence and I
talk a lot about a positiveintelligence and emotional
intelligence in positiveintelligence, shirzad shamim has
developed a system for reallyunderstanding how to be in the
(23:32):
world, and part of how to be inthe world and part of how to be
in the world is to recognizewhat are the things sabotaging
our success, and we all have ajudge, the inner critic.
And the inner critic, or thejudge, has nine accomplices, and
one of them is hypervigilance.
One of them is control.
One of them is people pleasing.
(23:52):
One of them is conflictavoidance.
One of them is hyper rational,especially like oh, emotions are
not safe, let's just keep theemotions out of it, let's.
It's all logical.
It has to be this, this andthis.
There are 10 total saboteurswhen you're talking about how do
we heal from this stuff.
First of all and I say thisalmost every time because it's
(24:16):
so important those saboteurswere developed as coping
mechanisms and as survivalstrategies, so they're not bad.
It's that they helped when youare in trauma or when you are in
crisis.
Maybe you needed to behypervigilant, maybe you really
did need to learn how to walkand kind of dance around the
(24:38):
minefields in your house, butmaybe there aren't any
minefields anymore, but you'restill dancing around like there
are minefields.
You were talking aboutself-awareness, and that is huge
.
But, as you said, it's not justself-awareness, just the first
piece, right, it's now what do Ido with this information?
How do I develop differentstrategies?
(25:00):
We talk about in positiveintelligence, these sage powers.
So the first one is empathy,like, hey, I'm not a bad person,
or, yeah, I did screw up andthat's okay.
It's easy to make that kind ofa mistake and I can do better
next time.
And, of course, if you canempathize with yourself, you can
(25:21):
empathize with others.
But the other ones are alsoimportant, and one of them is
explore, and so this goes toyour point about looking at.
Here are my attachment styles,here are my character defaults.
Let me explore.
Why did I react that way?
Why did I try to push thatperson away, or why won't I
(25:42):
accept a compliment, or why do Ishut down every time I get into
an intimate relationship?
And it gets a little bit toocozy for me, right?
Doug Smith (25:53):
Yeah no absolutely.
You know you were talking aboutexploring also and being able
to explore.
So much of that is rooted inattachment.
You know, if I'm a one-year-oldlittle Doug in my crib and I'm
crying and my mom comes inimmediately.
Not only do.
Jami Carlacio (26:10):
I feel safe connected with her.
Doug Smith (26:12):
but if I cry and she comes immediately, I feel safer
knowing that when I get introuble, the parental figure is
going to be there for me.
And so you fast forward a fewyears and I'm on the playground.
I'm going to feel morecomfortable testing the
boundaries and doing new thingsbecause I'm going to know if I
get into trouble, somebody isgoing to be there quickly to
(26:34):
help and give me support.
So I've got that safety netright, and kids that don't have
that or don't grow up with that,they feel really uncomfortable
as they become adults, exploringor taking new risks right.
So it all kind of plays forwardinto our adulthood and it can
impact us as we move forwardinto adulthood.
(26:56):
The other thing I want tomention that you touched on was
empathy, and one of the thingsthat we focus on in EABT is not
only having empathy for yourselfwith these attachment styles,
but understanding thatattachment styles are
intergenerational.
These styles are passed fromgeneration to generation to
generation.
So a lot of the work that we'redoing around attachment is
(27:16):
around how to break these cyclesthat have been passed down from
generation to another and so,like you said, empathy for
yourself leads to empathy forothers.
Understanding your ownattachment styles and having
empathy for developing thosealso allows you to have empathy
for your caregivers and the factthat somebody passed it down to
them this goes back lots ofgenerations.
(27:39):
We really focus on learning howyour parents' attachment styles
played into the development ofyour attachment styles and so on
and so forth, so you can seethe whole cycle, also your
parents' attachment styles, howthat plays into your choice and
partners.
There's a lot of overlap thereyou can create this whole
genogram, almost type of familytree of attachment, and really
(28:02):
see all these correlations thatplay into it.
Jami Carlacio (28:06):
Yeah, wow, okay.
So for those of you who'venever heard of a genogram, a
genogram, you can probablybetter explain it than I've.
I've done a few of them myself.
But it's looking at your familytree and looking at, say, let's
say, you did a genogram onaddiction in your family or
(28:27):
trauma, you can pinpoint oh,that uncle was an alcoholic, he
was an untreated alcoholic andhe had three marriages.
They all ended in divorce andhis kids won't talk to him.
And then I've got my aunt,so-and-so, and she married an
alcoholic, you know.
And then all my grandparentsand their parents, and so you
can start to see all of theseconnections.
(28:50):
It's like a board and thelights light up and you're like,
oh, that's where that comesfrom, that's why I do that thing
, or that's why I pick thosepeople in my life, or that's why
I have no boundaries.
Doug Smith (29:04):
Yeah, and not only can you look at the different
people on the genogram, you alsocan look at relationship
dynamics between those people.
Jami Carlacio (29:13):
Right, yeah, yeah , yeah.
Doug Smith (29:14):
To see that you respond certain ways in
relationship situations andother people in your family tree
who responded similar ways.
So a lot of this gets passeddown.
You know we talk a ton in theclinical world about
intergenerational trauma andmuch of that correlates to this
conversation with attachmentstuff, because a lot of it is
(29:36):
just passed down from onegeneration to the next.
Jami Carlacio (29:39):
Right and I am going to share a personal
anecdote because it seemsapropos right now.
I have a lot ofintergenerational trauma and I
grew up with all kinds ofscrewed up attachment styles,
which I've now learned about andcan work to heal.
But one thing that I hadtrouble doing was forgiving my
(29:59):
parents and I finally forgavethem and it was the most freeing
thing on the planet when I wasable to say you know what?
I don't know what happened whenyou were a kid, but something
clearly did and it caused you todo this and that or whatever,
(30:20):
behaved this way or that way andI forgive you and I'm sorry
that that happened to you.
I had to do it.
They both passed on, but itdidn't matter.
It didn't matter what happenedwas.
I healed tremendously in thatprocess and as soon as I was
able to look beyond my own painand my own hurt and my own
(30:42):
whatever and say, wow, I wonderwhat happened, I wonder why you
chose to do this and not that,or why you weren't here or
whatever, it just all of theresentment and the anger just
went away and I healedtremendously.
So I highly recommend doingthis kind of work Because and do
(31:06):
it with a therapist, do it witha counselor.
This isn't stuff you just gointo by yourself.
You can, you know, read thebook.
This is something that you workwith people in.
Would you say that?
Doug Smith (31:19):
Yeah, absolutely.
There's a degree of work thatyou can, that self-help that you
can do on your own.
But a lot of what we're talkingabout I've worked individually
with therapists throughout myrecovery.
I've worked in different groupmodels and with different
counselors and stuff.
So I definitely am a bigbeliever that there's layers
that we work on and certainlayers you want to have
(31:40):
professional guidance with you.
But once you go through some ofthose layers, there's a degree
of self-help work you canmaintain on your own.
And just to add to somethingyou said, Jamie, one of my
favorite sayings in recovery isthe greatest gift we can give
ourselves is forgiveness foranother.
That's always really applied tomy recovery journey as well, so
I appreciate you sharing that.
Jami Carlacio (32:02):
Yeah, I don't share it too often, but I think
I might share it a little moreoften, and I have started
talking about forgiveness withpeople that I work with because
they are so hard on themselves.
The forgiveness piece is soimportant because if we can't
forgive ourselves, we're goingto be in the shame that you
mentioned earlier and we'regoing to be in the resentment,
(32:26):
and you know recipe forcontinuing to do things that
sabotage our success.
Doug Smith (32:34):
Yeah, you know, one of the things that I'm really
proud of we work with a youthhere in the state of Oregon
using EABT and when I talk tothe parents of the students that
are using it, the parents willsay that and I hear this pretty
regularly that they're seeing anincrease in empathy coming from
their kid, where the studentsare gaining empathy towards
(32:58):
other people and they're moreunderstanding about people
making mistakes, and they alsosee an increase in their kids'
ability to regulate emotions andhave coping skills and stuff
like that.
So when I hear stuff like that,it really warms my heart
because that's exactly the sortof stuff we're going for, right.
Jami Carlacio (33:15):
Yeah.
Doug Smith (33:17):
In a nutshell what we really want to see with EABT,
no matter which population isusing it.
We want to see insecureattachment style scores coming
down and secure attachment stylescores going up, and that's a
lot of the results that we'veseen so far working with
different populations, which isreally exciting.
Jami Carlacio (33:41):
Yeah, boy, that is exciting, it's so hopeful.
And the other thing I would sayis this isn't a sprint, right
that it would be lovely to sayokay, I've done the workbook,
worked with Doug, we're good,we're good to go, you know.
But this is stuff that can takeyears and maybe we need to have
some patience with ourselvesand with the whole process,
because it wasn't built in a dayand you can't dismantle it in a
(34:02):
day.
Doug Smith (34:05):
Yeah, no, absolutely .
I completely agree with that.
I look at it like layers.
A lot of times, you know, Ithink there's times like in
early recovery we're gettingcertain things off of our chest
quickly can be really helpful.
And then there's other workthat's going to take longer and
it's going to take years, and soknowing when to push yourself
and when to pace yourself isreally important.
(34:26):
So, yeah, it's a difficultbalance, for sure.
Jami Carlacio (34:29):
Right, I think you know the impetus is I want
to get better, I want to feelbetter, I want to just get
better, I want to put it allbehind me.
But it isn't as simple as that,because humans are complex.
Doug Smith (34:40):
Absolutely.
Jami Carlacio (34:41):
And emotions are so complex, I mean we're still,
we're all still trying to figurestuff out.
Right?
You know the philosophers from5,000 years ago?
I mean, look, read the Bible.
Like some of the Hebrewscriptures over 5,000 years old,
they were still trying tofigure stuff out.
They didn't have EABT then theymight have needed it.
Doug Smith (35:02):
Absolutely.
The other thing I'll mentionreally quick that I'm really
excited about is not only canthis help people in early
recovery and by this I don'tjust mean EABT, I just mean
attachment work in general Notonly can it help people with
treatment who've developedthings like substance use
disorder or other mental healthconditions.
(35:23):
you know it's been shown to beeffective in a lot of different
areas.
It also can be a big preventiontool.
I'm a big believer when I hearpeople say, when it comes to the
addiction crisis, that we'renot going to treat our way out
of this crisis.
It's going to take acombination of treatment and
prevention both to get to wherewe need to go, and there's a lot
(35:44):
of prevention work that you cando around attachment styles
that might be able to stop someof these issues before they
occur.
So you know, I see more peoplefocused in those directions,
looking in those directions,trying to work in those
directions, and I'm hopeful thatwe can start to reach people at
earlier and earlier ages towork on this stuff.
(36:06):
I even do parenting classeswith parents where they work on
increasing their levels ofsecure attachment with their
kids and stuff like that.
And so if we can start workingwith parents early on and
working with kids earlier on whoare developing insecure
attachment styles, how much ofsubstance use disorder can we
start to prevent before itoccurs, which is really exciting
(36:28):
to me.
Jami Carlacio (36:35):
Yeah, I think the other good thing is having this
conversation and being reallyopen about it is important,
because this is not stuff youcan keep under the rug, bringing
it to light, saying this is athing and you don't have to have
shame around it, you do have todeal with it and you have to
own it.
And you have to take shamearound it.
You do have to deal with it andyou have to own it and you have
to take responsibility forthings that you may have done or
not done, that you should haveor shouldn't have done.
But really it's having theconversations and then saying
(36:59):
now we can prevent it, we canheal, we can move on, we can
make different choices.
And part of emotionalintelligence in reframing the
way we think about the world,the way that we think about
ourselves and others, and thenbehaving differently.
And that involves resilience.
It involves the ability toaccept your imperfections and
(37:24):
say, okay, I screwed up.
And the other thing I wanted togo back really quickly.
You know, with the trajectoryof learning, we may do some
really great work and then wemay fall back a little bit,
right, we may regress a littlebit.
That doesn't mean we've losteverything.
It's like this.
(37:45):
Growth is always like this.
It's never just all one way.
And so don't say oh, it's, it'slike this.
Growth is always like this.
It's never just all one way.
Yeah, and so don't say oh, itdoesn't work.
Doug Smith (37:55):
Yeah, it's kind of that two steps forward, one step
back type of mentality.
So, yeah, it definitely doesnot seem like it's a perfect
trajectory where we're justmoving the same direction, and I
kind of look at it like thosedips allow us to learn more
parts of ourself for the nextlayer that we need to work on.
So, you know, I think I try tolook at it from from almost a
(38:21):
Zen perspective, where it's likewithout this, you wouldn't have
this.
You know, and I think thebiggest strength is being
willing to look at yourselfopenly and honestly and see what
you can continue to improve onand also find joy in that path.
Find joy in it's about theprocess, it's not about the
destination and being able toenjoy the fact that you're
working on yourself.
I am not a perfect parent withmy kids, but when I make
(38:44):
mistakes I try to own it right.
I try to do things a little bitdifferently than what I saw
when I was a kid and that's nottrying to be negative towards my
parents.
They want each generation to dobetter than what they did as
well.
I think the natural tendency isto want each generation to get
a little bit better and so beingwilling to look at yourself and
how you can improve is reallyreally important is really,
(39:06):
really important.
Jami Carlacio (39:07):
Yeah, and again, going back to the willingness to
do the work and it isn't easyand it's not always comfortable
to have to look in the mirror.
In the AA Big Book, one of thefirst things that Bill W talks
about in doing that fourth stepquote unquote moral inventory is
he likens it to taking aninventory at the store.
(39:29):
When you've got a bunch ofstuff on the shelf and some of
it doesn't work, it's defectivemerchandise, get it off the
shelf, it's not gonna sell, youknow.
And so you take the stuff offthe shelf that's not working or
is defective or whatever, andyou see what is working.
So the other thing is right.
(39:50):
And again this goes back toloving yourself, forgiving
yourself, accepting yourself.
That try not to make this intoa, an excavation of all the
things that you've ever donewrong in the world, or all of
the things that are quoteunquote wrong with you, because
you know, ultimately, as I say,there's nothing wrong with you.
(40:14):
We are all perfectly imperfecthuman beings and, as I like to
say, we are beautiful, belovedchildren of a beloved creator.
And you know we've all gotcracks and places.
But you know, if you have acrack, then there's a little bit
of light that can get in right.
Doug Smith (40:31):
Absolutely.
Yeah, it's.
You know your biggestweaknesses are your greatest
strengths, in disguise.
I remember being told thatearly in recovery.
It's not just a question ofovercoming my weaknesses, it's a
question of understanding thatthose are actually my biggest
strengths.
They're just hiding having thattype of attitude towards it.
And you're right, you got totake it at a certain pace and be
(40:53):
kind to yourself as you'regoing through it, and all that
stuff is extremely important.
You know, every time I do aclass or a group or whatever, I
just commend people for beingthere and wanting to do the work
, because that's a bigger stepthan a lot of people would be
willing to do.
And so having that willingnessto be open and honest with
yourself but also be kind toyourself at the same time, be
(41:15):
understanding that you're notgoing to be perfect in any of
these areas- Right, I just had aconversation with somebody
about perfection and I justdon't even believe it should be
in any book.
Jami Carlacio (41:27):
It shouldn't be in the dictionary, because we
have this sort of ideal that wesomehow think we need to achieve
and none of us ever doesachieve it.
Doug Smith (41:37):
So well.
And let's take it a stepfurther.
If I'm honest with myself, myperfectionism is a direct
correlation to my anxiousattachment style.
The reality I need constantreassurance from people around
me that I'm good enough, becauseI don't feel like I'm good
enough.
That's been somethingthroughout all my recovery.
Is my self-esteem right and so?
And that's improved over thecourse of my recovery.
(42:00):
It's gotten a lot better, butit's still a work in progress,
just like all the other areas,and so the reality when it comes
to perfectionism is, I think Ihave to do stuff perfectly and
better than other people to getthe same level of respect that
the average person might get.
And you know, you think aboutall the ways that leads to
(42:22):
burnout and not taking care ofyourself and all those sorts of
things.
So it's really interesting howa lot of these things that we
focus on in recovery whether itbe procrastination,
perfectionism, all thesecharacter areas that we try to
work on they're all correlatedto the attachment stuff, which
is really interesting.
Jami Carlacio (42:42):
Yeah, it is.
And just going back to closethe loop here, because we need
to wrap up the idea ofperfectionism, you said it leads
to burnout and I would just sayit's exhausting trying to
achieve some kind of ideal thatwe've maybe set for ourselves
that is artificially high orimpossible.
(43:04):
And you're right, we're kind ofrunning like a hamster on a
wheel and we're never going toget wherever we're trying to go.
And also that kind of vibedoesn't sit well with other
people.
They're like oh gosh, you knowshe's going to judge me if she
(43:24):
has these high standards and I'mnot even close to meeting those
.
And I'm guilty of living withthat kind of perfectionist.
If I'm not this, then I'm notgood enough, right?
If I don't get an A, then Imust not be good enough at all.
And that kind of rubs off onpeople, even if we don't think
it does.
I'm here to tell everybodywho's listening or watching it
(43:48):
rubs off People notice.
Doug Smith (43:52):
Absolutely.
Yeah, no, you'll see it.
I see it at times with my kidswhere their grades have to be to
a certain level and when I seeit it's like, oh, that's not
what I want, but we canunintentionally pass this stuff
down, which definitely affectsthe people around you.
When I was supervising teams ofpeople, my perfectionism would
create a lack of self-care forme, which would role model a
(44:15):
lack of self-care to those guysas well, and thankfully a lot of
them were better about it thanI was.
But still it's like it does ruboff on the people around you.
Something my therapist wouldalways say to me that has really
stuck with me.
He would have me use and youtalked about good enough.
He'd have me use the wordenough in my vocabulary a lot
(44:35):
and he would say, instead ofsaying, have I gotten all my
work done before you leave forthe day, say, have I gotten
enough work done for today?
Instead of saying, did I getthis project exactly the way I
want it?
Did I do good enough on thisproject to feel good about it?
It was interesting howchallenging it was for me to
incorporate that word enoughinto my vocabulary, because I'm
(45:00):
kind of that black and whitethinker, right when it's either
all or nothing, and it wouldkind of bring that middle ground
in, which was really helpful tome and it would kind of bring
that middle ground in, which wasreally helpful to me.
Jami Carlacio (45:11):
Yeah, I had a therapist who made me say out
loud to myself on the way towherever I was going it's okay
if I make a mistake today.
I had to say it out loud and itwas a good exercise because as
soon as I could hear myself saythat I did give myself
permission to relax.
But I know it may sound silly,but it is important, just little
(45:35):
things like that.
Doug Smith (45:37):
Absolutely, absolutely yeah.
Jami Carlacio (45:40):
And so earlier you and I were talking about a
song that resonates with you.
Doug Smith (45:46):
I like songs that remind me of where I come from,
because that makes me appreciatewhere I am, and so there's a
song by Green Day that I like alot, called Wake Me Up when
September Ends.
That song always resonates withme because it reminds me of
where I've come from in my life.
Jami Carlacio (46:03):
All right, let me pull it up and play a snippet
of it.
Pull it up and play a snippetof it.
(46:39):
Like my father's come to pass.
20 years has gone so fast.
Wake me up when september ends.
Okay, that was lovely and, um,I hope people enjoy it.
And, of course, I'll have thename of the song in the show
notes.
And for those of you who aretuning in, don't forget that
like and subscribe to thispodcast, because the more people
(47:02):
see it and share it, the morepeople can be helped with people
like my friend here, doug, andif you want to work with me, my
information is in the show notes.
If you want to reach out toDoug, his information will be in
the show notes, includinginformation on the emotional
attachment styles and any kindof work that you might want to
do around that, doug.
(47:23):
Any final thoughts?
Doug Smith (47:25):
No, it's been a pleasure spending some time with
you, Jamie, and thanks forinviting me to take part.
Jami Carlacio (47:32):
I am so grateful for you, I'm grateful to know
you, and thank you everybody,and until next time we'll see
you at the EmotionalIntelligence Gym.
Bye.
that I'm really excited about is not only can
this help people in earlyrecovery and by this I don't
just mean EABT, I just meanattachment work in general Not
only can it help people withtreatment who've developed
things like substance usedisorder or other mental health
conditions.
you know, it's been shown to beeffective in a lot of different
(00:20):
areas.
It also can be a big preventiontool.
I'm a big believer when I hearpeople say, when it comes to the
addiction crisis, that we'renot going to treat our way out
of this crisis.
It's going to take acombination of treatment and
prevention both to get to wherewe need to go, and there's a lot
of prevention work that you cando around attachment styles
(00:43):
that might be able to stop someof these issues before they
occur.
So you know, I see more peoplefocused in those directions,
looking in those directions,trying to work in those
directions, and I'm hopeful thatwe can start to reach people at
earlier and earlier ages.
Jami Carlacio (01:06):
Welcome to the podcast Emotional Intelligence
your greatest asset and key tosuccess.
I'm your host, Dr Jami Carlacio, coming to you from the Greater
New Haven, connecticut area, asan emotional intelligence or EQ
coach.
I'm committed to helping peopledevelop both emotional
intelligence and mental fitness.
That is, you'll come to regardproblems as situations that help
(01:30):
you learn and grow.
Eq is a way of being and doingin the world that enables you to
develop and sustain a positiverelationship with yourself and
others, at home, at work andeverywhere in between.
Please subscribe to thispodcast and tap the like button
so more people can enjoy thebenefits of EQ.
And now here's the show.
(01:51):
Hello and welcome everybody,and thank you for joining us
Today.
I have a wonderful guest.
His name is Doug Smith andwe're going to talk about
attachment, among other things.
So hello, doug, how are you?
Doug Smith (02:09):
Good Jamie, how about you?
Jami Carlacio (02:11):
I'm well.
Thank you very much.
I'm cold because it's very,very cold in the Northeast right
now and you are in Oregon,right.
Doug Smith (02:19):
I am, yeah, it was 24 degrees yesterday and it felt
freezing to me, so I can't evenimagine what you guys are going
through.
Jami Carlacio (02:27):
Yeah, actually this morning it was in the
single digits, but I think itgot up to the double digits.
Doug Smith (02:33):
Nice.
Jami Carlacio (02:34):
Yes.
So for our guests who are notfamiliar with you, I want to say
a few words about Doug.
Doug has 21 years of experiencein behavioral health services,
including serving as a directclinician, clinical director and
director of clinicaldevelopment.
He has a BS in psychology fromEastern Oregon University and is
(02:57):
a certified alcohol and drugcounselor level two.
Doug has innovated many modernapproaches to treatment services
one of the reasons why we aretalking today including
developing a newpatient-centered treatment model
and he developed the EmotionalAttachment Behavioral Therapy,
or EABT model.
(03:18):
Doug is a national speaker andhe is the recipient of the
Oregon Association of AddictionProfessionals 2023 Innovator of
the Year Award Congratulations.
Doug Smith (03:30):
Thank you.
Jami Carlacio (03:31):
And he is also the 2018 Addiction Professional
of the Year Award winner for theAddiction Professional of the
Year Community Service Award, socongratulations on that as well
.
Thanks, doug.
You're in addiction medicine,as am I, and I'm wondering how
you got into addiction medicine,because that may lead us into a
(03:53):
conversation about attachmentand how you ended up developing
EABT.
Doug Smith (04:00):
I grew up in a household where substance use
was going on in the home, so Igrew up around addiction issues
and then, as I got older, Ideveloped my own addiction
issues.
I've been sober at this pointfor 24 years and when I first
got sober after a few years, Iwas trying to figure out what
(04:21):
direction I wanted to go with mylife.
And I remember having aconversation with my father and
he said you should look at whatyour qualities and strengths are
and what your experiences inlife have been leading you
towards.
Up till now, a lot of mystrengths were people oriented,
you know, being able tocommunicate with people and
stuff like that.
(04:41):
Almost all of my experienceswere in regards to addiction, so
it kind of felt like a naturaldirection for me to go and some
God shots for lack of a betterword lined up for me.
And the next thing, you know, Igot into an internship to learn
to be a drug and alcoholcounselor.
That was 21 years ago,something along those lines.
(05:03):
The rest is history.
It's been an amazing career.
I've loved working with thispopulation and it's just been
really rewarding.
Jami Carlacio (05:12):
Oh, I love that I have a similar background and I
am also grateful to be inrecovery like you.
Like you, I guess I also hadGod shots, because it was a
natural progression for me,after I left the teaching
profession, to come into this asa professional, so not just a
(05:33):
person in recovery, but as aperson helping other people who
want to be in recovery and whowant to sustain that recovery.
Doug Smith (05:40):
Absolutely One of my favorite things to do is go to
alumni picnics where I get tosee clients with their families
around them.
You can see that you're notjust to have a better chance,
(06:05):
you know moving forward in termsof being able to not fall into
addiction and stuff like that.
It's really rewarding.
Breaking the cycle has been abig focus of my career
throughout my career and theattachment model that I created.
There's a lot of breaking thecycle that's connected with that
as well.
Jami Carlacio (06:30):
Yeah, breaking the cycle.
I love that.
I was actually just having aconversation with somebody today
who has a five-year-old and hewas really regretting that he
has been absent for part of thischild's life.
He's doing everything he can toreintegrate into his child's
life because he wants to be thepresent father, not the absent
father.
And you're right that it is acycle.
(06:51):
Oftentimes people say thataddiction is a family illness or
a disorder that affects theentire family.
It affects the work, it affectsfriends.
It affects a lot of things,right, it affects friends.
Doug Smith (07:05):
It affects a lot of things, right, yeah, and I know
for me, one of the things I'mthe most grateful for is my two
kids have never seen me underthe influence.
I've worked with a lot ofclients over the years that have
a lot of guilt and shame inregards to stuff that they did
during their addiction.
And I'm no different.
During my addiction there's alot of stuff that I had to work
through that I felt a lot ofshame around, but I'm so
(07:29):
grateful.
You know, I've seen people workthrough the guilt and shame of
how they affected their kids andI'm grateful that my kids have
never seen me under theinfluence.
And, yeah, I go back in myfamily history and there's a
degree of breaking the cyclegoing on which makes me feel
really, really hopeful.
Jami Carlacio (07:45):
Right and there is hope.
When you're in the throes ofaddiction, nothing feels hopeful
.
But, as I tell people,willingness is huge.
If you are willing to do this,put in the work, have the
difficult emotions, sit throughthe urges, make the phone calls,
go to the rehab or go tomeetings or do all the things
(08:14):
that people do who are able tostay sober or dry or clean, or
however people like to describeit.
It can be done.
Doug Smith (08:21):
Yeah, absolutely.
And when I'm talking to peoplein early recovery, not only do I
think there's hope you gottenyour life back on track, but
that fresh memory of where lifewas before makes you grateful
(08:50):
every day that you wake up andmakes you grateful for every
opportunity that comes your way,every moment you have with
people you care about and stufflike that.
So you know quite often you'llhear from people that have had
you know, like cancer survivorsor people who've overcome deadly
diseases, that there was aspiritual shift that happened
for them through that processwhich makes them look at life
(09:12):
differently.
And I think addiction providesone of those gifts for us as
well.
When I was in early recovery andI'd go to support group
meetings like 12-step meetingsand I'd hear people refer to
themselves as grateful,recovering, alcoholic or great
you know, part of me was likewhat do they even mean?
But now it's like I get whatthey mean, because I've gone
from being ashamed of my diseaseand being ashamed of what I did
(09:36):
during my disease to beingproud of my disease and proud of
what I've overcome.
And if somebody could tell meright now that I could go back
in time and have never dealtwith addiction, I wouldn't make
that trade, because I feel likeit's made me the person that I
am today and it allows me toappreciate what's around me
every day, which is cool.
Jami Carlacio (09:58):
You said so many things that I want to touch on.
First thing is this idea ofgratitude that I want to touch
on.
First thing is this idea ofgratitude, and I certainly do
actually introduce myself thatway.
When I go to an AA meeting Isay I'm a grateful recovering
alcoholic and, like you, Icouldn't believe it when I heard
that in early sobriety I'm likehow can you possibly be
(10:19):
grateful for this?
But after this many years Ihave found that I am eternally
grateful.
I think of people who havesuffered from addiction and are
in recovery, as people who'vesurvived a shipwreck, and we are
all so happy to be alive thatthere's a special kind of
camaraderie and a special kindof gratitude and a special kind
(10:43):
of appreciation, because we knowwe've been through the fire and
there are lots of differentkinds of fires that people walk
through throughout their lives.
This is just one kind of firebut there is a special kind of
gratitude for that and it'sbeing in the gratitude and then
being willing to do what ittakes.
I heard from somebody in ameeting last week that she's a
(11:07):
member of the no Matter whatClub and I thought that was so
perfect that, no matter what, Iwon't take a drink or consume a
drug today because my life insobriety is so much better than
anything I could have imagined.
Doug Smith (11:25):
Yeah, that's really cool and you know, something
that I'll mention is the peopleI've met in recovery and the
friends I've made through thelast 24 years of my life.
I trust those people in waysthat I don't trust a lot of
other people.
It's really interesting how youcan go from being surrounded by
(11:46):
people who aren't trustworthyincluding yourself in addiction,
to being surrounded by peoplethat are going to have your back
when it really counts and bethere to check on you and make
sure you're doing okay.
I just know when times aretough.
There's no question that thepeople I reach out to are people
I've met through recovery andthey are such a great support
(12:08):
system.
I'm really grateful for thepeople I've met through recovery
, for sure.
Jami Carlacio (12:13):
I would say 90 to 95% of my friends are people
I've met in recovery and you'reright, I would trust my life
with any one of them, absolutely, absolutely.
Let's talk a little bit aboutsome of the emotional language
around what it's like to kind ofdeal with life on life's terms
(12:38):
and, as we know, a lot of timespeople who grow up in households
that are dysfunctional havedifficulty regulating their
emotions.
They have difficulty attaching.
There's oftentimes anover-attachment or an
overdeveloped need to please, orthere's a hypervigilant or
(12:59):
there's an avoidant kind ofstyle of I don't want to get
close, this is too dangerous forme or, you know, too clingy.
So there's so many differentthings.
How did you get involved inattachment and maybe say a
little more about that Cause Ithink that's going to be
something people want to learnabout.
Doug Smith (13:17):
Yes, as a counselor who's worked in the field for a
lot of years, one thing that wasclear to me early on was the
better connection I formed withthe clients I was working with,
the higher their success ratewas going to be.
And I also learned that when Iwas doing group therapies, the
more connections I could formbetween the client and their
(13:37):
peers in the group, the highertheir success rates were going
to be.
So it was apparent pretty earlythat, even though we work on
all these different areas indrug and alcohol treatment, a
lot of it kept coming back tohow good the connections were
between the individual and thepeople around them in terms of
success rates for theirtreatment, and research has
(13:59):
definitely backed that up.
To be true, it got meinterested in attachment theory
and a lot of times withcounselors, most counselors I've
met are very interested andfocused on attachment theory in
general.
But one of the things I'dnoticed throughout my career is
that, even though there's a lotof focus on attachment theory,
(14:19):
there's not really anyaccessible type of work that can
be done by clients around it.
You know, as a person intreatment you can do a lot of
cognitive behavioral therapywork or dialectical behavioral
therapy work.
There's all these models thatare readily available that you
can get workbooks to work out ofand do exercises.
When it comes to attachment,there really isn't anything like
(14:43):
that, and so that was a lot ofmy motivation, where I wanted to
create something that focusedon attachment styles and how to
build healthier attachmentstyles for yourself.
And it's probably not anaccident that, a year or so
after the pandemic hit, you knowthat this came out because in
(15:09):
2020, when the world completelychanged on all of us, it really
brought that home how importantthose connections were.
I was working at a treatmentcenter at that point.
Suddenly, all the patients arewearing masks and they're six
feet apart from each other, andyou're just watching these
connections get separated andhow it's impacting their
(15:30):
treatment level, and it justreally brought home how
important that aspect is.
Jami Carlacio (15:35):
Yeah, and I want to capitalize on that for a
moment, because the connectionpart is absolutely essential and
what I see happening in peoplewho have addiction or even in
other areas of life.
Addiction can be to a substance,a process like gambling or sex
or shopping or, who knows,internet, but what it is is it's
(16:00):
the connection and, as I haveheard it referred to as a
God-shaped hole, and whether ornot you believe in God is not
the relevant part here, butthere's some kind of source or
higher being connection that weall have.
I call it a spiritual umbilicalcord, and what happens is
(16:21):
people are looking for thatconnection and they're seeking
it in the wrong places.
They're looking for it in thebottle versus the person, and so
I think of spirits plural thatare in a bottle versus spirit
with a capital S.
That resides, say, deep withinus.
As you know, the lines at thepackage stores they call it in
(16:45):
the East Coast the liquor storewere longer than they were at
the grocery store when thepandemic shut everything down.
It's certainly somethingtelling People like that,
touching or shaking hands orfist bumping, or the eye contact
and the mouth and the smile andthe I see you, I see you, I
(17:06):
hear you.
Doug Smith (17:10):
Absolutely, and you were talking about that
God-sized hole inside of people.
One of the things with theattachment model that I
developed we look at attachmentwounds from people's past and
then we look at what unmet needsare correlated to those
attachment wounds, right?
So let's say I grew up with afather that was really strict
(17:31):
and because of that at times Ididn't feel safe or I didn't
feel secure.
Those were unmet needs thatcorrelated to that wound from
earlier on in my life.
What we do with our clients iswe have them look at those
wounds and what unmet needs areconnected to it.
And they identify what their topunmet needs are that stem from
those areas of their life.
(17:52):
And then we will ask them lookat that list of unmet needs and
think about the first time youused your drug of choice.
How many of those needs werebeing met in that moment for you
.
And what you see with theseguys is a light bulb, go on.
For the first time they reallyrealize how their addiction is
connected to a lot of theseattachment-based issues that
(18:13):
took place earlier in their life.
Jami Carlacio (18:16):
Wow, I love that.
That makes complete sense.
Attachment issues are huge, socan you say a little bit about
the kinds of attachment stylesthat people typically have and
then maybe how to work to healsome of those?
Doug Smith (18:34):
Yeah, so there's four attachment styles.
The first one is secureattachment, which is the only
one that's under the securecategory of attachment styles.
With secure attachment, thatusually means you're able to
connect with people prettyeasily, you're able to open up
to people, trust people.
You're good when you're alone.
You're good at setting goalsand working towards achieving
(18:56):
them all of those sorts ofthings.
There's then anxious attachmentstyle, which is one I'm very
prone towards.
When you were talking earlier,jamie, about being overly
connected to things andemotionally dependent almost on
things, that's a lot of theanxious attachment style.
With anxious attachment, it'salmost like you don't know who
you are if you're not aroundother people.
(19:18):
So you're really good atidentifying other people's
emotions.
You need constant reassuranceand validation to feel okay
about yourself.
You don't do very good whenyou're alone.
It's almost like if you don'tknow how to chameleon yourself
to the people around you.
You get really uncomfortable inthose situations and there's a
(19:40):
lot of correlations in theresearch I've done between
anxious attachment and what wetalk about with codependency in
the SUD field.
It's a lot of putting otherpeople's needs before your own,
struggling with self-esteem andyour sense of self and some of
that sort of stuff.
Then there's avoidant attachmentand, like you had mentioned
(20:01):
earlier, that's the one whereyou put a wall up and you don't
connect with anything or anybody.
So you don't trust anybody.
You don't want to open up topeople.
You might let people havesurface conversations, but if
they try to get any deeper thanthat you're going to back away.
Quite often people withavoidant attachment style can be
really successful in theircareers and come off as very
(20:24):
confident, be good at publicspeaking and stuff like that,
but if people try to get closeto them, that's when the wall
comes up for them.
And then the last of the fourattachment styles is called
fearful attachment style, andthat one is that hypervigilant
one you were talking aboutearlier.
You can go from one extreme tothe other, so you can be really
(20:47):
clingy at some points and thenput up a wall.
At some points you can bereally hypervigilant.
You can have a really toughtime regulating your emotions,
and a lot of that with fearfulattachment style stems from
growing up in traumaticenvironments or environments
that felt really unsafe.
So you have kids that justlearn to walk on eggshells
(21:08):
constantly and they're justtrying to do whatever they can
to protect themselves in thosesituations.
In regards to what you can do towork on these attachment styles
, there's a lot of differentthings you can do.
Therapists have been working onthis stuff for a while and
one-on-one therapy.
There's great work thattherapists do around attachment
styles.
I've seen EMDR therapy workreally well with
(21:32):
attachment-based issues.
What I wanted to do with EABTis make it more accessible to
everyday people.
With EABT, what people do isthey identify their attachment
styles.
There's a quiz that they taketo learn what their attachment
styles are.
Jami Carlacio (21:48):
And we will include that quiz in the show
notes so other people can takethe quiz and find out like, oh,
that's why I'm that way.
Doug Smith (21:56):
And then, after they identify what their attachment
styles are, they start to lookat their insecure attachment
styles, their insecurecharacteristics that most impact
them in their life.
It's about gaining awareness.
Part of emotional intelligenceis self-awareness, and so much
of EABT is building upself-awareness.
We want people to understandbetter why they react to things
(22:20):
in their world the way that theydo.
Right?
So when I'm alone and myanxiety goes through the roof
and I never know why that is, wewant people to start to be able
to understand why that happens.
They can connect the dots andlearn.
This is why I respond these waysin these situations.
So it's gaining a lot ofself-awareness around that.
And then it's starting to learncoping skills so that you can
(22:42):
respond to these thingsdifferently.
Because for people like me,when those uncomfortable
situations come up and I gettriggered for lack of a better
word my go-to would be thoseunhealthy addictions that you're
talking about, whether it besubstances or shopping or
whatever it might be.
And so what we want people tolearn with the ABT is how to
(23:03):
utilize more healthy copingskills so that they can respond
to it in different ways.
Jami Carlacio (23:08):
Right, wow, you said a lot there, so I'm going
to just slow us down a secondand maybe break some of that
apart.
And since this is a podcast onemotional intelligence and I
talk a lot about a positiveintelligence and emotional
intelligence in positiveintelligence, shirzad shamim has
developed a system for reallyunderstanding how to be in the
(23:32):
world, and part of how to be inthe world and part of how to be
in the world is to recognizewhat are the things sabotaging
our success, and we all have ajudge, the inner critic.
And the inner critic, or thejudge, has nine accomplices, and
one of them is hypervigilance.
One of them is control.
One of them is people pleasing.
(23:52):
One of them is conflictavoidance.
One of them is hyper rational,especially like oh, emotions are
not safe, let's just keep theemotions out of it, let's.
It's all logical.
It has to be this, this andthis.
There are 10 total saboteurswhen you're talking about how do
we heal from this stuff.
First of all and I say thisalmost every time because it's
(24:16):
so important those saboteurswere developed as coping
mechanisms and as survivalstrategies, so they're not bad.
It's that they helped when youare in trauma or when you are in
crisis.
Maybe you needed to behypervigilant, maybe you really
did need to learn how to walkand kind of dance around the
(24:38):
minefields in your house, butmaybe there aren't any
minefields anymore, but you'restill dancing around like there
are minefields.
You were talking aboutself-awareness, and that is huge
.
But, as you said, it's not justself-awareness, just the first
piece, right, it's now what do Ido with this information?
How do I develop differentstrategies?
(25:00):
We talk about in positiveintelligence, these sage powers.
So the first one is empathy,like, hey, I'm not a bad person,
or, yeah, I did screw up andthat's okay.
It's easy to make that kind ofa mistake and I can do better
next time.
And, of course, if you canempathize with yourself, you can
(25:21):
empathize with others.
But the other ones are alsoimportant, and one of them is
explore, and so this goes toyour point about looking at.
Here are my attachment styles,here are my character defaults.
Let me explore.
Why did I react that way?
Why did I try to push thatperson away, or why won't I
(25:42):
accept a compliment, or why do Ishut down every time I get into
an intimate relationship?
And it gets a little bit toocozy for me, right?
Doug Smith (25:53):
Yeah no absolutely.
You know you were talking aboutexploring also and being able
to explore.
So much of that is rooted inattachment.
You know, if I'm a one-year-oldlittle Doug in my crib and I'm
crying and my mom comes inimmediately.
Not only do.
Jami Carlacio (26:10):
I feel safe connected with her.
Doug Smith (26:12):
but if I cry and she comes immediately, I feel safer
knowing that when I get introuble, the parental figure is
going to be there for me.
And so you fast forward a fewyears and I'm on the playground.
I'm going to feel morecomfortable testing the
boundaries and doing new thingsbecause I'm going to know if I
get into trouble, somebody isgoing to be there quickly to
(26:34):
help and give me support.
So I've got that safety netright, and kids that don't have
that or don't grow up with that,they feel really uncomfortable
as they become adults, exploringor taking new risks right.
So it all kind of plays forwardinto our adulthood and it can
impact us as we move forwardinto adulthood.
(26:56):
The other thing I want tomention that you touched on was
empathy, and one of the thingsthat we focus on in EABT is not
only having empathy for yourselfwith these attachment styles,
but understanding thatattachment styles are
intergenerational.
These styles are passed fromgeneration to generation to
generation.
So a lot of the work that we'redoing around attachment is
(27:16):
around how to break these cyclesthat have been passed down from
generation to another and so,like you said, empathy for
yourself leads to empathy forothers.
Understanding your ownattachment styles and having
empathy for developing thosealso allows you to have empathy
for your caregivers and the factthat somebody passed it down to
them this goes back lots ofgenerations.
(27:39):
We really focus on learning howyour parents' attachment styles
played into the development ofyour attachment styles and so on
and so forth, so you can seethe whole cycle, also your
parents' attachment styles, howthat plays into your choice and
partners.
There's a lot of overlap thereyou can create this whole
genogram, almost type of familytree of attachment, and really
(28:02):
see all these correlations thatplay into it.
Jami Carlacio (28:06):
Yeah, wow, okay.
So for those of you who'venever heard of a genogram, a
genogram, you can probablybetter explain it than I've.
I've done a few of them myself.
But it's looking at your familytree and looking at, say, let's
say, you did a genogram onaddiction in your family or
(28:27):
trauma, you can pinpoint oh,that uncle was an alcoholic, he
was an untreated alcoholic andhe had three marriages.
They all ended in divorce andhis kids won't talk to him.
And then I've got my aunt,so-and-so, and she married an
alcoholic, you know.
And then all my grandparentsand their parents, and so you
can start to see all of theseconnections.
(28:50):
It's like a board and thelights light up and you're like,
oh, that's where that comesfrom, that's why I do that thing
, or that's why I pick thosepeople in my life, or that's why
I have no boundaries.
Doug Smith (29:04):
Yeah, and not only can you look at the different
people on the genogram, you alsocan look at relationship
dynamics between those people.
Jami Carlacio (29:13):
Right, yeah, yeah , yeah.
Doug Smith (29:14):
To see that you respond certain ways in
relationship situations andother people in your family tree
who responded similar ways.
So a lot of this gets passeddown.
You know we talk a ton in theclinical world about
intergenerational trauma andmuch of that correlates to this
conversation with attachmentstuff, because a lot of it is
(29:36):
just passed down from onegeneration to the next.
Jami Carlacio (29:39):
Right and I am going to share a personal
anecdote because it seemsapropos right now.
I have a lot ofintergenerational trauma and I
grew up with all kinds ofscrewed up attachment styles,
which I've now learned about andcan work to heal.
But one thing that I hadtrouble doing was forgiving my
(29:59):
parents and I finally forgavethem and it was the most freeing
thing on the planet when I wasable to say you know what?
I don't know what happened whenyou were a kid, but something
clearly did and it caused you todo this and that or whatever,
(30:20):
behaved this way or that way andI forgive you and I'm sorry
that that happened to you.
I had to do it.
They both passed on, but itdidn't matter.
It didn't matter what happenedwas.
I healed tremendously in thatprocess and as soon as I was
able to look beyond my own painand my own hurt and my own
(30:42):
whatever and say, wow, I wonderwhat happened, I wonder why you
chose to do this and not that,or why you weren't here or
whatever, it just all of theresentment and the anger just
went away and I healedtremendously.
So I highly recommend doingthis kind of work Because and do
(31:06):
it with a therapist, do it witha counselor.
This isn't stuff you just gointo by yourself.
You can, you know, read thebook.
This is something that you workwith people in.
Would you say that?
Doug Smith (31:19):
Yeah, absolutely.
There's a degree of work thatyou can, that self-help that you
can do on your own.
But a lot of what we're talkingabout I've worked individually
with therapists throughout myrecovery.
I've worked in different groupmodels and with different
counselors and stuff.
So I definitely am a bigbeliever that there's layers
that we work on and certainlayers you want to have
(31:40):
professional guidance with you.
But once you go through some ofthose layers, there's a degree
of self-help work you canmaintain on your own.
And just to add to somethingyou said, Jamie, one of my
favorite sayings in recovery isthe greatest gift we can give
ourselves is forgiveness foranother.
That's always really applied tomy recovery journey as well, so
I appreciate you sharing that.
Jami Carlacio (32:02):
Yeah, I don't share it too often, but I think
I might share it a little moreoften, and I have started
talking about forgiveness withpeople that I work with because
they are so hard on themselves.
The forgiveness piece is soimportant because if we can't
forgive ourselves, we're goingto be in the shame that you
mentioned earlier and we'regoing to be in the resentment,
(32:26):
and you know recipe forcontinuing to do things that
sabotage our success.
Doug Smith (32:34):
Yeah, you know, one of the things that I'm really
proud of we work with a youthhere in the state of Oregon
using EABT and when I talk tothe parents of the students that
are using it, the parents willsay that and I hear this pretty
regularly that they're seeing anincrease in empathy coming from
their kid, where the studentsare gaining empathy towards
(32:58):
other people and they're moreunderstanding about people
making mistakes, and they alsosee an increase in their kids'
ability to regulate emotions andhave coping skills and stuff
like that.
So when I hear stuff like that,it really warms my heart
because that's exactly the sortof stuff we're going for, right.
Jami Carlacio (33:15):
Yeah.
Doug Smith (33:17):
In a nutshell what we really want to see with EABT,
no matter which population isusing it.
We want to see insecureattachment style scores coming
down and secure attachment stylescores going up, and that's a
lot of the results that we'veseen so far working with
different populations, which isreally exciting.
Jami Carlacio (33:41):
Yeah, boy, that is exciting, it's so hopeful.
And the other thing I would sayis this isn't a sprint, right
that it would be lovely to sayokay, I've done the workbook,
worked with Doug, we're good,we're good to go, you know.
But this is stuff that can takeyears and maybe we need to have
some patience with ourselvesand with the whole process,
because it wasn't built in a dayand you can't dismantle it in a
(34:02):
day.
Doug Smith (34:05):
Yeah, no, absolutely .
I completely agree with that.
I look at it like layers.
A lot of times, you know, Ithink there's times like in
early recovery we're gettingcertain things off of our chest
quickly can be really helpful.
And then there's other workthat's going to take longer and
it's going to take years, and soknowing when to push yourself
and when to pace yourself isreally important.
(34:26):
So, yeah, it's a difficultbalance, for sure.
Jami Carlacio (34:29):
Right, I think you know the impetus is I want
to get better, I want to feelbetter, I want to just get
better, I want to put it allbehind me.
But it isn't as simple as that,because humans are complex.
Doug Smith (34:40):
Absolutely.
Jami Carlacio (34:41):
And emotions are so complex, I mean we're still,
we're all still trying to figurestuff out.
Right?
You know the philosophers from5,000 years ago?
I mean, look, read the Bible.
Like some of the Hebrewscriptures over 5,000 years old,
they were still trying tofigure stuff out.
They didn't have EABT then theymight have needed it.
Doug Smith (35:02):
Absolutely.
The other thing I'll mentionreally quick that I'm really
excited about is not only canthis help people in early
recovery and by this I don'tjust mean EABT, I just mean
attachment work in general Notonly can it help people with
treatment who've developedthings like substance use
disorder or other mental healthconditions.
(35:23):
you know it's been shown to beeffective in a lot of different
areas.
It also can be a big preventiontool.
I'm a big believer when I hearpeople say, when it comes to the
addiction crisis, that we'renot going to treat our way out
of this crisis.
It's going to take acombination of treatment and
prevention both to get to wherewe need to go, and there's a lot
(35:44):
of prevention work that you cando around attachment styles
that might be able to stop someof these issues before they
occur.
So you know, I see more peoplefocused in those directions,
looking in those directions,trying to work in those
directions, and I'm hopeful thatwe can start to reach people at
earlier and earlier ages towork on this stuff.
(36:06):
I even do parenting classeswith parents where they work on
increasing their levels ofsecure attachment with their
kids and stuff like that.
And so if we can start workingwith parents early on and
working with kids earlier on whoare developing insecure
attachment styles, how much ofsubstance use disorder can we
start to prevent before itoccurs, which is really exciting
(36:28):
to me.
Jami Carlacio (36:35):
Yeah, I think the other good thing is having this
conversation and being reallyopen about it is important,
because this is not stuff youcan keep under the rug, bringing
it to light, saying this is athing and you don't have to have
shame around it, you do have todeal with it and you have to
own it.
And you have to take shamearound it.
You do have to deal with it andyou have to own it and you have
to take responsibility forthings that you may have done or
not done, that you should haveor shouldn't have done.
But really it's having theconversations and then saying
(36:59):
now we can prevent it, we canheal, we can move on, we can
make different choices.
And part of emotionalintelligence in reframing the
way we think about the world,the way that we think about
ourselves and others, and thenbehaving differently.
And that involves resilience.
It involves the ability toaccept your imperfections and
(37:24):
say, okay, I screwed up.
And the other thing I wanted togo back really quickly.
You know, with the trajectoryof learning, we may do some
really great work and then wemay fall back a little bit,
right, we may regress a littlebit.
That doesn't mean we've losteverything.
It's like this.
(37:45):
Growth is always like this.
It's never just all one way.
And so don't say oh, it's, it'slike this.
Growth is always like this.
It's never just all one way.
Yeah, and so don't say oh, itdoesn't work.
Doug Smith (37:55):
Yeah, it's kind of that two steps forward, one step
back type of mentality.
So, yeah, it definitely doesnot seem like it's a perfect
trajectory where we're justmoving the same direction, and I
kind of look at it like thosedips allow us to learn more
parts of ourself for the nextlayer that we need to work on.
So, you know, I think I try tolook at it from from almost a
(38:21):
Zen perspective, where it's likewithout this, you wouldn't have
this.
You know, and I think thebiggest strength is being
willing to look at yourselfopenly and honestly and see what
you can continue to improve onand also find joy in that path.
Find joy in it's about theprocess, it's not about the
destination and being able toenjoy the fact that you're
working on yourself.
I am not a perfect parent withmy kids, but when I make
(38:44):
mistakes I try to own it right.
I try to do things a little bitdifferently than what I saw
when I was a kid and that's nottrying to be negative towards my
parents.
They want each generation to dobetter than what they did as
well.
I think the natural tendency isto want each generation to get
a little bit better and so beingwilling to look at yourself and
how you can improve is reallyreally important is really,
(39:06):
really important.
Jami Carlacio (39:07):
Yeah, and again, going back to the willingness to
do the work and it isn't easyand it's not always comfortable
to have to look in the mirror.
In the AA Big Book, one of thefirst things that Bill W talks
about in doing that fourth stepquote unquote moral inventory is
he likens it to taking aninventory at the store.
(39:29):
When you've got a bunch ofstuff on the shelf and some of
it doesn't work, it's defectivemerchandise, get it off the
shelf, it's not gonna sell, youknow.
And so you take the stuff offthe shelf that's not working or
is defective or whatever, andyou see what is working.
So the other thing is right.
(39:50):
And again this goes back toloving yourself, forgiving
yourself, accepting yourself.
That try not to make this intoa, an excavation of all the
things that you've ever donewrong in the world, or all of
the things that are quoteunquote wrong with you, because
you know, ultimately, as I say,there's nothing wrong with you.
(40:14):
We are all perfectly imperfecthuman beings and, as I like to
say, we are beautiful, belovedchildren of a beloved creator.
And you know we've all gotcracks and places.
But you know, if you have acrack, then there's a little bit
of light that can get in right.
Doug Smith (40:31):
Absolutely.
Yeah, it's.
You know your biggestweaknesses are your greatest
strengths, in disguise.
I remember being told thatearly in recovery.
It's not just a question ofovercoming my weaknesses, it's a
question of understanding thatthose are actually my biggest
strengths.
They're just hiding having thattype of attitude towards it.
And you're right, you got totake it at a certain pace and be
(40:53):
kind to yourself as you'regoing through it, and all that
stuff is extremely important.
You know, every time I do aclass or a group or whatever, I
just commend people for beingthere and wanting to do the work
, because that's a bigger stepthan a lot of people would be
willing to do.
And so having that willingnessto be open and honest with
yourself but also be kind toyourself at the same time, be
(41:15):
understanding that you're notgoing to be perfect in any of
these areas- Right, I just had aconversation with somebody
about perfection and I justdon't even believe it should be
in any book.
Jami Carlacio (41:27):
It shouldn't be in the dictionary, because we
have this sort of ideal that wesomehow think we need to achieve
and none of us ever doesachieve it.
Doug Smith (41:37):
So well.
And let's take it a stepfurther.
If I'm honest with myself, myperfectionism is a direct
correlation to my anxiousattachment style.
The reality I need constantreassurance from people around
me that I'm good enough, becauseI don't feel like I'm good
enough.
That's been somethingthroughout all my recovery.
Is my self-esteem right and so?
And that's improved over thecourse of my recovery.
(42:00):
It's gotten a lot better, butit's still a work in progress,
just like all the other areas,and so the reality when it comes
to perfectionism is, I think Ihave to do stuff perfectly and
better than other people to getthe same level of respect that
the average person might get.
And you know, you think aboutall the ways that leads to
(42:22):
burnout and not taking care ofyourself and all those sorts of
things.
So it's really interesting howa lot of these things that we
focus on in recovery whether itbe procrastination,
perfectionism, all thesecharacter areas that we try to
work on they're all correlatedto the attachment stuff, which
is really interesting.
Jami Carlacio (42:42):
Yeah, it is.
And just going back to closethe loop here, because we need
to wrap up the idea ofperfectionism, you said it leads
to burnout and I would just sayit's exhausting trying to
achieve some kind of ideal thatwe've maybe set for ourselves
that is artificially high orimpossible.
(43:04):
And you're right, we're kind ofrunning like a hamster on a
wheel and we're never going toget wherever we're trying to go.
And also that kind of vibedoesn't sit well with other
people.
They're like oh gosh, you knowshe's going to judge me if she
(43:24):
has these high standards and I'mnot even close to meeting those
.
And I'm guilty of living withthat kind of perfectionist.
If I'm not this, then I'm notgood enough, right?
If I don't get an A, then Imust not be good enough at all.
And that kind of rubs off onpeople, even if we don't think
it does.
I'm here to tell everybodywho's listening or watching it
(43:48):
rubs off People notice.
Doug Smith (43:52):
Absolutely.
Yeah, no, you'll see it.
I see it at times with my kidswhere their grades have to be to
a certain level and when I seeit it's like, oh, that's not
what I want, but we canunintentionally pass this stuff
down, which definitely affectsthe people around you.
When I was supervising teams ofpeople, my perfectionism would
create a lack of self-care forme, which would role model a
(44:15):
lack of self-care to those guysas well, and thankfully a lot of
them were better about it thanI was.
But still it's like it does ruboff on the people around you.
Something my therapist wouldalways say to me that has really
stuck with me.
He would have me use and youtalked about good enough.
He'd have me use the wordenough in my vocabulary a lot
(44:35):
and he would say, instead ofsaying, have I gotten all my
work done before you leave forthe day, say, have I gotten
enough work done for today?
Instead of saying, did I getthis project exactly the way I
want it?
Did I do good enough on thisproject to feel good about it?
It was interesting howchallenging it was for me to
incorporate that word enoughinto my vocabulary, because I'm
(45:00):
kind of that black and whitethinker, right when it's either
all or nothing, and it wouldkind of bring that middle ground
in, which was really helpful tome and it would kind of bring
that middle ground in, which wasreally helpful to me.
Jami Carlacio (45:11):
Yeah, I had a therapist who made me say out
loud to myself on the way towherever I was going it's okay
if I make a mistake today.
I had to say it out loud and itwas a good exercise because as
soon as I could hear myself saythat I did give myself
permission to relax.
But I know it may sound silly,but it is important, just little
(45:35):
things like that.
Doug Smith (45:37):
Absolutely, absolutely yeah.
Jami Carlacio (45:40):
And so earlier you and I were talking about a
song that resonates with you.
Doug Smith (45:46):
I like songs that remind me of where I come from,
because that makes me appreciatewhere I am, and so there's a
song by Green Day that I like alot, called Wake Me Up when
September Ends.
That song always resonates withme because it reminds me of
where I've come from in my life.
Jami Carlacio (46:03):
All right, let me pull it up and play a snippet
of it.
Pull it up and play a snippetof it.
(46:39):
Like my father's come to pass.
20 years has gone so fast.
Wake me up when september ends.
Okay, that was lovely and, um,I hope people enjoy it.
And, of course, I'll have thename of the song in the show
notes.
And for those of you who aretuning in, don't forget that
like and subscribe to thispodcast, because the more people
(47:02):
see it and share it, the morepeople can be helped with people
like my friend here, doug, andif you want to work with me, my
information is in the show notes.
If you want to reach out toDoug, his information will be in
the show notes, includinginformation on the emotional
attachment styles and any kindof work that you might want to
do around that, doug.
(47:23):
Any final thoughts?
Doug Smith (47:25):
No, it's been a pleasure spending some time with
you, Jamie, and thanks forinviting me to take part.
Jami Carlacio (47:32):
I am so grateful for you, I'm grateful to know
you, and thank you everybody,and until next time we'll see
you at the EmotionalIntelligence Gym.
Bye.
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