July 21, 2025 โข 53 mins
Do you find yourself being "too clingy" in relationships? Or maybe you're with someone who shuts down emotionally? You're not broken โ you just have an attachment style.
In this eye-opening conversation with certified attachment practitioner Bev Middleman, discover why your relationships keep following the same exhausting patterns and how to finally break free.
What you'll learn:
- Why anxious people don't trust themselves but trust everyone else
- How avoidant partners learned that emotional connection equals danger
- The "hot and cold" fearful-avoidant pattern that creates the most relationship chaos
- Why half of North Americans struggle with attachment issues (and don't even know it)
Bev reveals the childhood experiences that create each attachment style and shares practical strategies for healing. Whether you're the one constantly seeking reassurance or you're frustrated with a partner who won't open up, this episode explains the "why" behind these patterns.
The breakthrough moment: Learning that attachment styles aren't permanent. As Bev says, "Love is learned. We learn how to love ourselves, we learn how to love others" โ at any age.
If you've ever felt like you're repeating the same relationship mistakes, struggling with vulnerability, or walking on eggshells around emotions, this conversation offers hope and a clear path forward.
Ready to understand your attachment style? Take Bev's free quiz at securelyloved.com
Perfect for anyone tired of relationship patterns that don't serve them.
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Music:
Palms by Text Me Records / Bobby Renz
Gemini by The Soundlings
Sunset n Beachz by Ofshane
Misdirection by The Grey Room / Density & Time
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (00:00):
Welcome to the Lift One Self podcast.
I'm your host, nat Nat, andtoday, as I said, we are
changing the style of thepodcast and I'm bringing people
with different modalities,different practices, and today
we are going to talk aboutattachment styles, and some
might be like wait, I thoughtwe're supposed to do connection,
not attachment.
(00:20):
Yet Bev is going to explainwhat she provides for her
clients and have a betterunderstanding of what your
triggers possibly might be.
And before we dive in, you, thelistener, please help support
the podcast.
Could you like share and leavea comment so that we can grow
the community and thisconversation can land with
(00:40):
somebody that actually reallyneeds it.
So, as we dive in, bev is goingto introduce herself and let us
know a little bit about who sheis.
So, bev, take the stage, please.
Bev Middleman (00:52):
Excellent, thank you.
I'm so happy to be here withyou and your audience.
Thank you for the opportunity.
So my name is Bev Middleman.
I'm a certified attachmentpractitioner, and what that
means is I work with people whohave attachment issues, and in
our community in North America,it's about half of the
(01:12):
population who has some issuesaround attachment.
So we're going to dive intowhat attachment actually is.
But I tripped over this workmany years ago when I was trying
to understand my own mind andtrying to understand why did I
think the way I did, why did Ibehave the way that I did?
And this particular work was sohelpful and impactful for me
(01:39):
that I dedicated my time, andpeople have to know about this
that I dedicated my time andpeople have to know about this.
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (01:48):
So, before we do a deep dive, will
you join me in a mindful momentso we can?
Bev Middleman (01:51):
ground ourselves With pleasure.
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (01:53):
And, as the listeners, you know what I
always say safety first.
So if you're driving or needyour visuals, please don't close
your eyes Yet the other promptsyou're able to follow.
So, bev, I'll ask you to getcomfortable in your seating and,
if it's safe to do so, you'regoing to gently close your eyes
and you're going to beginbreathing in and out through
(02:14):
your nose, bringing yourawareness to watching your
breath.
You're not going to try andcontrol the rhythm, you're just
going to be aware of it,allowing it to guide you into
your body.
There may be some feelings orsensations that come up.
That's okay, let them come up.
(02:37):
You're safe to feel.
You're safe to let go,surrender the need to control,
release the need to resist andjust be, be with your breath,
drop deeper into your body.
(02:57):
Now.
There may be some thoughts orto-do lists that have popped up.
That's okay.
Gently, bring your awarenessback to your breath, creating
space between the awareness andthe thoughts and dropping deeper
(03:20):
into your body, being in thespace of being, of presence.
Again, more thoughts may havepopped up.
Gently, bring your awarenessback to your breath, creating
(03:40):
even more space between theawareness and the thoughts and
completely dropping into thebody, surrendering into presence
, being in the space of beingnow, keeping that awareness on
(04:11):
your breath and coming into yoursenses at your own time and at
your own pace.
You're going to gently openyour eyes while staying with the
breath.
How's your heart doing?
Bev Middleman (04:20):
good, it was calm , peaceful a sense of warmth.
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (04:24):
So I know many listeners are like
okay, what is this attachmentstyle and can you explain what
these issues are?
Bev Middleman (04:31):
I absolutely can, and I want to say it is so
relevant to what we justexperienced together, and thank
you for taking us through thatexercise.
The biggest thing aboutattachment styles is that our
attachment style has a greatimpact on our personality needs,
our communication style, ouremotional patterns, our
(04:56):
relationship to boundaries andon trust and our ability to
emotionally regulate.
And so our ability toemotionally regulate is a skill
right, a skill that I learnedmuch later in life and I wish
they taught it in school.
They don't, but it is very muchtied to attachment styles.
(05:20):
So I just wanted to make thatconnection for your audience
before we dive into this.
So attachment styles really islearned behavior.
Just like you know, we learnemotional regulation.
We learn how to interact withothers.
So essentially it's a templatein our mind that gets created
from the earliest interactionsthat we have with our caregivers
(05:42):
.
Like very, very young, like upuntil about five years old, we
are most suggestible and thoseinteractions form this template
in our minds for how we interactand give and receive love, like
a set of rules, right?
So we have two broad categories.
We have folks who are securelyattached and folks who are
(06:06):
insecurely attached, and in theinsecurely attached bracket.
We've got a bunch ofsubcategories.
We have people who areanxiously attached or anxious,
preoccupied.
We have people who areavoidantly attached or
dismissive, avoidant.
And then we have folks whodisplay anxious and avoidant
(06:26):
tendencies all at once andthey're what we call the fearful
avoidance or the disorganizedattachers.
So we'll start with secureattachments.
So if we go back into ourearliest childhood years
typically again before we canactually recall memory, even a
(06:46):
lot of times before we're verbalright, the type of interaction
that we have with our caregivercould be a mother, father,
grandmother, doesn't matter.
The primary caregiver sets outthis template for what love is
for us, right, what thatinteraction is going to look
like.
So if we are in distress as ababy and the caregiver is highly
(07:10):
emotionally attuned, theycoddle us, they meet our
physical needs, they meet ouremotional needs, they interact
with us, they teach us aboutemotions through their own
expressions and they teach usthat it is safe to not only
identify our own emotions but toexpress them.
So, as a young child, if I'mangry and I express that and my
(07:33):
caregiver responds in a healthyway, I learn that it is safe to
trust myself and it is safe totrust others.
That becomes my golden template, the utopia, really, what we
all strive for.
And that template that's in mysubconscious mind follows me all
(07:53):
the way into adulthood.
And because it's in oursubconscious mind, most people
are not consciously aware of it,right, they don't know.
So if we turn our attention tothe folks who are insecurely
attached, they didn't quite havethe same upbringing whereby
they were given, you know, aconsistent level of emotional
(08:16):
attunements.
Right, we're never talkingabout perfection here.
I'm a mother too.
There's no such thing asperfection but we're talking
about a consistent, predictivepattern of emotional attunement.
So, those that were anxiouslyattached, or who grow up to be
anxiously attached, theytypically would have experienced
a child like a childhoodwhereby the parent was, let's
(08:41):
say, emotionally unavailable.
So the parent was, you know,loving to the child sometimes,
and sometimes ignored the child.
Or maybe the child, maybe the,let's say, the mother, the
father were alcoholic andsometimes they were loving and
sometimes they weren't.
And so the child learns thatthis is not a predictable
(09:02):
pattern.
Child learns that this is not apredictable pattern.
They receive enough love toknow that it feels good, but
they get set up in thissituation.
Their template is they'reconstantly chasing that
closeness.
They know it feels good, butit's never given to them in a
consistent way, and so they growup being anxiously attached,
(09:25):
and in romantic relationships,they're the ones who are often
called I don't love these terms,but often called needy, right?
They need a lot of reassurance,validation, a lot of attention,
a lot of recognition.
They are dealing with corewounds like I will be abandoned
Now.
It's sort of recognition.
They are dealing with corewounds like I will be abandoned
(09:46):
Now.
It's sort of understandablebecause in their childhood years
, emotionally to the child, theparent was there and then they
weren't there and then they werethere.
It's that inconsistency.
They couldn't predict it, andso that's what they believe love
to be.
So these are the folks that endup dating unavailable,
unavailable people and when yousay unavailable, that comes in
(10:09):
many flavors, right.
So they might end up datinglike married people we see this
a lot, right?
Or emotionally unavailable,right.
Or they might get overlyattached to someone who really
doesn't want a committedrelationship, right.
So they're sort of chasing love, right, they're the chasers.
(10:33):
Someone who grew up in a homewhereby there was emotional
neglect, right.
Or the child was left alone alot, or the child was a alone a
lot, uh, or the child.
It was a very controlling,demanding environment like a
(10:53):
level of enmeshment.
Um, they could also developproblems with attachments, but
typically they develop anavoidance.
Attachments and that's no, andthat's known as the dismissive
avoidance.
So a child who's left alone alot has to figure things out on
their own Right, and so theyreally don't.
(11:15):
It's never modeled for themlevels of intimacy like where
they were talking about families, where they didn't hug, they
didn't say I love you, there wasno words of kindness, the
children were maybe kept in avery strict schedule, were only
applauded for their achievementsthat type of high demand family
.
The child learns really thatany sort of emotional you know
(11:42):
landscape that they are feeling,they have to deal with that on
their own.
They cannot go to their parents.
Now these folks grow up and theyhave a very hard time moving
into adult type relationshipsbecause they are used to
emotionally being on their ownand so they start to value
(12:03):
things like freedom, autonomy,right.
They tend to keep people atarm's length.
They're very slow to make acommitment.
Vulnerability and intimacy isreally grinding for them.
It's not, it's foreign.
They don't have a template forit.
It's like I sometimes talkabout the brain being like a
computer program.
They don't have a computerprogram for it, right?
(12:26):
So, and the interesting thingis, is that often the anxious
attacher and the avoidantattacher, they often find
themselves in romanticpartnerships.
Yeah which is it which is uh, oh, anyways, um, I apologize,
there's someone, there's someone.
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (12:45):
That's where my dog is working oh, okay
, that's why it's okay, becauseit sounds mumbled yeah, my, my
dog is.
Bev Middleman (12:53):
My dog is barking .
I'm sorry, I don't know if youcan edit that out, but we'll
just keep moving forward.
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (12:57):
You didn't hear it, it didn't come
through, it just muffled yourvoice uh, okay, um, the third.
Bev Middleman (13:04):
The third category of folks are folks who
are fearful avoidance ordisorganized attachments, and
what that means is, generallythey grew up in homes where
there was a very high degree ofchaos, a lot of screaming,
fighting, maybe a high conflict,divorce, oftentimes.
Abuse can be any kind of abusephysical, emotional,
(13:26):
psychological, could be sexualand what happens is that child
develops a particular templateand attachment style, known as
the fearful avoidance, which inlater years, in a romantic
context, is often called the hotand the cold partner.
So these folks really do crave,you know, love and attention,
(13:50):
like everyone, closeness, butthey're very much afraid of
intimacy, and that's because thepattern that's been strongly
imprinted into their mind iswhen they got too close to the
person that they loved, I'd saytheir mother or their father,
they were harmed, and so theirnervous system is generally on
(14:14):
high alert.
These are folks who we oftensee as being in the medical
world, you know, told that theyhave generalized anxiety, they
have adjustment disorder, youknow they're perceiving everyday
things as being threats becausetheir nervous system is on such
(14:35):
high alert.
We see a high degree of hypervigilance with this group of
folks as well Because, again,the people that they trusted the
most in this world harmed themright.
So when we go back to emotionalregulation and trust, this is
what's so important aboutattachment styles is that the
(14:56):
person who's anxiously attacheddoes not trust themselves, but
they afford a great deal oftrust to other people, and so
some of the behaviors you'll seesomeone who's anxiously
attached is if they have adecision to make small or big,
maybe they have to pick a dressto wear for a date night or
they're buying a new car, smallor big they will seek the
(15:20):
opinion of many, many peoplebefore making that decision,
because they just don't simplytrust their own ability to make
a decision.
Or they were heavily punished inchildhood and so they're just
afraid to sort of say, well,this is what I like, or you know
, they're really heavily relianton other people.
(15:41):
They're also heavily reliant onother people for self-soothing.
So this is part of theemotional regulation piece.
They never learned how to justcalm down their own nervous
system.
They are highly attuned to thepeople around them, so if
someone else is anxious aroundthem, or angry or frustrated,
they almost take on thatsensation.
(16:04):
They themselves cannot feelcalm until everyone else around
them is calm.
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (16:09):
Would that self soothing be also where
they always have to talk tosomebody?
They're always on the phonedriving or going somewhere and
they're always on the phonehaving to talk.
Bev Middleman (16:19):
Yeah.
So this person has probably agroup of 12 people that you know
.
Anything can happen in the day.
Someone said something to themat work.
I'm.
Anything can happen in the day.
Someone said something to themat work.
I'm going to use a really sillyexample.
Someone said they didn't likeyour shirt at work.
Most of us would just go, okay,I probably own nicer shirts.
But a person who is sensitivein this regard will actually
(16:43):
really take it to heart.
Because they have core woundsaround.
I am unlikable.
So this is in addition to.
I will be abandoned.
I am unlikable, I'll beexcluded, I will be rejected.
So anything in that, like interms of a criticism, they will
perceive potentially as arejection and, to your point,
(17:04):
they will go out of their way tospeak to 12 different people
about the same incident, becausethat's sort of how they're
they're regulating their nervoussystem yeah being alone for
them is really difficult yeah,that's what I was going to say.
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (17:19):
Because the ones that always have to be
on the phone, driving orgrocery shopping or doing
anything, and always not beingable to just be with themselves
and go through the experienceand be curious, um, that anxiety
, and I I know it, I've walkedthrough it in my previous years
and stuff.
So I I've worked through thatpattern and felt you know that,
(17:43):
the heavy electrocution in yourbody, that, oh my gosh, and
hearing the loud voices andeverything else.
Yet being able to draw in andgo inwardly to regulate that
nervous system and mature it,because that's part of that.
You know, when people say theinner child, a lot of people see
a person where it's like, well,no, that was the immature part
(18:03):
of the nervous system thatcreated these programs that
you're talking about and youwant to meet that part of the
nervous system, to bring inthose fragmented, frightened
parts so that they can matureand everything is a whole with a
W, not these holes, splinteredparts that feel so uncomfortable
.
Bev Middleman (18:22):
Yeah, so.
So you know it makes sense thatwe get patterned with these
different like.
You know they're, they're likeroadmaps, basically Right, so so
.
And then our nervous systemtries to adapt and create these
you know adaptations andstrategies a lot of times
they're maladaptations to dealwith the sensations that come
(18:45):
along with what we perceive asthreats.
Yeah, right, and unless you'reactually doing the work to
identify wounds and whatnot, themind is not very good at
discerning.
Okay, I'm no longer six yearsold, under the care of my father
who did XYZ, I now live alone,I'm safe, I'm this, and that
(19:08):
your nervous system willcontinue to react in the way
that it's been trained.
And so you know, it's notuncommon to hear someone to say
that they wake up every day, andyou know their anxiety scale is
like nine out of 10.
Nothing's happened.
They're just waiting for it tohappen, right, because that
might be mirroring, um, you knowthe level of their nervous
(19:31):
system, by which it had to bethat level of hyper vigilant
when they were younger yeah yeah, yeah, this is, this is um.
it's very important tounderstand and for me personally
, it made a huge difference whenI could understand.
Okay, this is why I think theway that I do and these are my
emotional patterns, and I knowthat I can work with my nervous
(19:55):
system to calm it down.
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (19:57):
Yeah, it's to lean in and do that
inner work and, as you said,it's we, you know, abandon
ourselves in the trust ofexperiencing life.
And, as you said, if we didn'thave a safe space to feel these
big emotions, then they weresuppressed.
And anytime they try to come up, the nervous system, which I
call the ego of the defensemechanisms, push it back down,
(20:20):
so you're not able to experiencevulnerability.
Vulnerability feels repulsive,it feels dangerous.
Yet your vulnerability is yoursuperpower.
And some people, people arelike I want to hear that shit,
like that is not a superpower itis not and it's like well, it's
just, you don't know how toreturn home.
Yet you don't know.
Your nervous system has created, uh, a normal and a safety in
(20:44):
what is unsafe.
It doesn't know that theunknown and the unpredictable is
safe, because the nervoussystem always wants to predict
where it's like I'm just goingto take the old information and
this is what's going to happen.
It's going to pattern it outwhere it's like no, you, that
that's not what possibilitiesare.
And then there are some thatare very anxious, anxiously
(21:05):
attached, and they want topredict the whole future and
they want to control everything.
I'm going to find every littleloophole, and that it serves.
Don't get me wrong.
It's good to have long planningand you know, see, certain
things that could happen.
Yet when you're hyper focusedon that, you're missing out on
the presence, you're missing outon finding safety of what will
(21:28):
I experience?
What will that process be?
Bev Middleman (21:31):
Yeah, I mean, you so beautifully articulate all
of this, right?
So the anxious attacher really,what they're trying to do is
they're trying to plan out andthey're trying to, in a romantic
context, really please theirpartner to do everything
perfectly so their partnerdoesn't leave them.
Their strategy is usuallypeople pleasing, or fawning, as
(21:52):
we call it.
Right, yeah, um, but our, our,those who are anxiously attached
, are typically over feelers.
There's a high degree ofemotional volatility.
Um, you know, they they'rereally over feelers, they, they,
they're, they're big emoters.
So they don't have, they're notthe ones who are repressing
their emotions.
Um, it doesn't mean they'reemotionally regulated, right,
(22:15):
but they're certainly notrepressing.
Who you're describing whenyou're talking about repressing?
And you it's a beautifuldescription you gave was the
dismissive avoidance.
So the child who was left alone, the dismissive avoidance.
So the child who was left alone, the dismissive avoidance.
They really learned to justpush down their feelings and and
they're very good atcompartmentalizing they are very
(22:36):
rational, very logical, theyhave a reason for everything.
If you ask them about theirchildhood, they will likely not
out of 10 times, say to you Ihad a great childhood,
everything was fine, like.
They are that disconnected andwhat's interesting is is that
I've had so many talks withdismissive avoidance over the
(22:56):
years and they've told me thingslike it's not that I have a
trouble emoting, it's that Idon't feel the emotion Like it
is so bottled up, and so some ofthe work that I do with
dismissive avoidance is toreconnect their emotions back
into how does this feel in yourphysical body?
Right like we're going toextend your emotional range from
(23:19):
just like happy, content andsad, right more.
There's more to that.
So the dismissive avoidant, interms of trust, they greatly
trust themselves, but they donot trust others, which is the
exact opposite of the anxiouslyattached person.
(23:39):
The anxious person doesn'ttrust themselves, but they
afford trust to everyone else.
The dismissive avoidant personthey trust themselves.
It's me myself and I I'm, theylearned I can only rely on
myself.
I can't trust that others willmeet my needs, uh, and so
they're usually very independent.
Yeah, it's about hyperindependent, hyper independence,
(24:03):
hyper independence.
Yeah, like they won't ask forhelp no, because it feels like a
threat.
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (24:09):
I don't want to be disappointed because
just the the mere fact ofopening myself, showing that I
need help and then not taking aconsideration the person may
want to help, but they're justnot able to that just feels like
a death inside.
So it's like I'd rather just doit than even go through that.
Steps of vulnerability.
Bev Middleman (24:26):
Yeah, and in terms of behavior, some people
think that dismissive avoidancecan appear secretive.
Again, I don't love that, butthey do tend to keep people at
emotional distance and theydon't really want to.
Most of the time they're veryafraid Subconsciously they don't
(24:46):
realize this to connect withsomeone on an emotional level,
like an intimate level.
They have no problem connectinggenerally with people.
When it comes to, like,intellectual intimacy, sexual
intimacy, they're pretty goodEmotional, emotional intimacy.
(25:06):
Hold on a minute, that's good.
They're gonna put the brakes onthat one.
Yeah, so, uh, they really.
Because they grew up, you know,spending so much time alone.
They're very good at repressingtheir feelings, ignoring their
feelings.
They will, of course, do thesame to you.
It's like they've got thisunwritten expectation that well,
I'll handle my emotions and youhandle yours.
(25:30):
Let me know when you're feelingbetter.
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (25:33):
Yeah.
So what happens?
You know you're speaking intoparts of myself.
I was an only child At times.
My mother was not emotionallyavailable, so I had to deal with
my big emotions on my own.
So now I hold as you.
You know we started the podcast.
You were like, you have likesome depths of presence and you
know there are a few people thatI can show my emotions to and I
(25:57):
can emote and express.
Yet there's a lot of people thatI'm not able to because it
tilts the balance, that, becauseI feel so deeply, it rustles
their nervous system and then Ido not want to um, not a harm,
yet the um, it can feel veryinconvenient if you don't have
(26:22):
the tools when your nervoussystem has been that activated.
So that's where I take theresponsibility of okay, I feel
my emotions.
I can, you know, let out tearswhen I need to, and I think now,
because I can let that out, andpeople were like, oh, I'm so
sorry that I asked you thatquestion.
I'm like, no, it's okay, I'mallowed to feel this and it can
(26:43):
come out and I just come backinto the conversation.
Yeah, yet for the people thatmight think, oh well, I can't
show any emotions.
Yet they are aware that theiremotions are very profound and
when they feel it, it candisrupt a lot of people that are
around them.
So is that a part of maturity,or is that still a part of
hiding?
Bev Middleman (27:05):
So I think the first person they're trying not
to disrupt is themselves, right,Because they never learned how
to work through and processtheir emotions right.
It just feels really negativeto them and they don't know how
to work through it.
So it's interesting People whoare anxiously attached have a
(27:26):
very hard time with boundaries,Very hard time.
So they have a very hard timewith setting boundaries and also
respecting other people'sboundaries.
So it's not someone who'sanxiously attached that's going
to be worried that they'restepping on someone else's
boundaries.
If they overly emote, that isnot a thought process that they
will have.
The dismissive, avoidant personwill avoid that situation
(27:51):
entirely, which means if theyfeel they're getting emotional,
they will self-isolate rightaway.
So they'll walk out of the room.
They'll end a conversation.
They won't text back.
They'll go for a drive, they'llgo for a walk.
They will naturally retreat tospend time alone, because that's
their, their point of safety.
What you're describing how?
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (28:13):
I must be a hybrid, because you're
explaining both parts of me.
I'm like I'm going through theprocess of my growth, where
before I would emote and thenpeople were like, oh, you're too
cry, you're too needy, you'retoo this.
Or when I'd be quiet, I would becalled the storm cloud and I
would dictate the environment ofthe room because I was silent.
(28:34):
So people didn't like thatpresence.
So it was like okay, I'm notallowing you to feel all my
emotions, but then when I feelmy emotions I'm being ridiculed
or told it's too much.
So now it's like I've found ofnot separating myself internally
and feeling those emotions, yetbeing in a space with myself
(28:57):
and really going profoundly, ofself-soothing myself, validating
myself and not abandoningmyself, and then really feeling
it and then when it gets touched, when I'm out, the tears can
come out.
Yet it's like I don't droop outlike a puddle and I don't
isolate myself.
I do see those certainprotective patterns where if I'm
(29:20):
around certain people and itdoesn't emotionally feel safe
that I, I will be silent, I willprotect myself of not being
abandoned and not seeking to dimmyself, to feel a sense of
belonging, if that makes sense.
Bev Middleman (29:34):
It makes a lot of sense.
It makes a lot of sense.
So first I want to mentionwe're talking like sort of in
extremes, right.
So attachment styles exist on acontinuum and when we talk
about healing our attachmentstyle, what we talk about is
really moving more towardssecure attachments whereby you
are emotionally regulated,whereby you can, for example, in
a romantic partnership, enjoyindependence and enjoy a
(29:58):
partnership right.
You can feel and you cancommunicate right, because the
overfeeling and the emotionalvolatility and the underfeeling
and the self-isolation, thoseare both techniques that don't
serve us well.
So, listening to you and yourstory, it seems like you've done
a fair amount of work to bringyourself much more towards
(30:21):
secure attachment, which isreally the goal.
So you know good on you, thanks.
But I actually wonder if youstarted originally in that
hybrid group of the fearfulavoidant that we talked about,
the disorganized attacher.
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (30:37):
I don't know enough about your
background, but I would saythere was a lot of anxiety and
anxiousness and trying to feelsafe because I was sexually
abused at a young age.
And then, yeah, it's.
You know the more that Iunderstand, you know the walk of
(31:02):
life.
It's not the experience.
The experience was awful.
It was the trauma thatseparated me from being in the
space of vulnerability, andthat's what trauma is.
Trauma isn't the sexual abuse Iwent through, it was the
narrative that my nervous systemcreated that that space was no
longer safe.
But that's where my power is,is in that space between
(31:24):
stimulus and response.
Bev Middleman (31:26):
That vulnerability, but it feels were
you left alone to deal withthis trauma yourself?
yeah okay, yeah, so so we, wespoke really really early on,
saying that generally, peoplewho are fearful of avoidance
have abuse in their childhood.
I'm really sorry to hear thisLike.
(31:48):
And then, when you talk abouthow you didn't have support, you
were left alone to deal withthis, that just throws fuel onto
the fire, right, because that'sthe real traumatic event.
Right, there is that you haveto then deal with.
You know, processing thefeelings by yourself.
Yeah, exactly right.
And the shame behind it, and sothe core wounds of the fearful
(32:14):
avoidance is not going tosurprise you, as I will be
betrayed yeah, all the time, allthe time.
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (32:21):
And then I have no value.
And then it's funny becausewhen you understand trauma and
your nervous system if it's in,you know fight or flight, it
will go to validate thatnarrative, so you'll attract the
people that will validate well,this is what the narrative is,
so it will reinforce that.
(32:43):
So you just loop in yourpatterns and now you know,
coming out of that it's like, oh, I'm willing to see my part, no
longer blaming the other people.
Yes, everybody has their partin their actions.
Yet my only empowerment islooking at myself and then
connecting back into that part.
You know, that is a big thingwhere a lot of people think
(33:06):
their feelings, they don't knowhow, the process of coming back
into their body, they're fromthe neck up.
It's very easy to be cerebralabout that.
Bev Middleman (33:14):
Yeah, intellectualizing your feelings,
because you open up the portal.
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (33:18):
So I feel the tears and I'm like, oh,
I'm being seen right now.
So it's like, oh, she'stouching the part and that
nervous system of maturing itand letting it be seen and be
felt and articulated, not being,oh, I gotta armor up and it's
okay, it's.
It was like, no, it was atender moment.
It was understanding the way,as you said at the beginning,
(33:40):
how my brain functioned and howI interpreted things, and so, in
that it's like, okay, it thework that I've done, profoundly,
like when I've gone into mynervous system and dived in and
(34:10):
and allowed the body's wisdom tocommunicate but allow that
little immature part ofseparating from that space of
vulnerability and being in thewholeness with the w, that was
work to come back home to.
And when I I jump out of itlike I do, cause I'm human, I'm,
(34:30):
I have such great gratitude forthe tools of remembering come
back in presence so the illusioncan diminish.
Right, it doesn't mean I don'tmake mistakes and go.
No, we all make mistakes.
Bev Middleman (34:43):
Yeah, no, but that would have been extremely
difficult for you, especiallysomeone that suffered sexual
abuse.
I'm sure that at some point youdisconnected as a strategy.
Yeah, yeah, especially if youwere left alone afterwards to
deal with the event.
That in itself is incrediblytraumatic.
So you know I would be curious.
(35:05):
You know I would be curious.
I think that you probably did.
Start off, your originaltemplate was in the fearful
avoidance side, which meant thatyou had some traits of the
anxious and of the avoidance and, in terms of trust, you didn't
trust yourself, but you didn'ttrust others either.
And so you know, finding yourway back to your body and to
(35:26):
calm your nervous system, thefearful avoidance is really the
most complex and difficult, uh,attachment style, um, because
they have, um, the most amountof poor wounds, because they
carry from both sides right, soit's not that go ahead.
It's not that the it's not thatit can't be healed.
(35:47):
I'll share with you that I alsospend a majority of my life as
a fearful avoidant.
So it can be healed in thesense that you can work towards
secure attachment, but it's alittle more complicated than the
others.
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (36:01):
Yeah, do you know what my healing came
from?
I don't such a deep wound andlife had to really present it
and I had to come back in.
I had lesions in my brainstemand in my cerebellum and I was
told I was almost going to die.
So that brought a significantsurrender wow and I still don't
(36:25):
have a diagnosis 40.
It was 11 years ago, wow, and Iwas given six months.
I was hospitalized for 40 daysand I still don't have a
diagnosis.
And when they discharged methey were like if you don't have
a diagnosis, you don't have aplan.
So, thankfully, a year after Ilearned meditation and that's
where I was able to really go inand I understood the language,
(36:51):
that there was something in mynervous system that was seeking
on the outside.
So I had removed alcohol, Iremoved sex, I removed spending,
I removed social media, Iremoved all the vices that would
have me seeking outside forthat safety that I would come
within.
And there was significantwarrior work and, as you're
(37:13):
saying, just reconfirms of howdeep of a wound that is and to
reconnect that it's profound.
So it's like and I believe thatI don't have a diagnosis so
that it wouldn't give me acrutch of personalizing so when
I hold presence for other people, they feel safe to inquire
(37:52):
within what is this andeverything else.
Bev Middleman (37:56):
How are you feeling 11 years later?
Like how are you feeling now?
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (38:00):
I'm great.
I still have pain and the painis energy levels, so it just
turns off.
Yet I was told I was nevergoing to drive again, I wasn't
going to function, I was goingto need assistive devices and
all that.
My thyroid is still out ofwhack, Yet I'm able to navigate
with it.
Other people they wouldn't beable to because it can be very
(38:25):
painful and debilitating incertain ways.
So with that I changed my wholelifestyle.
So, like you know, I'm retired.
So taking it slow and steady andbeing able to cultivate a space
to, you know honor my body,honor what?
My navigation?
And when I start spiraling intoa pattern, you know be aware of
(38:49):
it.
And then you know, have amazinggrace for myself, radical
compassion and remind okay, comewithin.
You're trying to go out again,grasping and your nervous system
.
What are you trying to protectyourself from what feels unsafe?
And sometimes it's just thepsychological suffering I create
in my own mind and and theenergy, like anxiety, is
(39:11):
contagious, so when we walk itactivates us.
So it's very profound in that.
So it's I understand.
And when you said about youknow the anxious attachment
where they feel everything andit's like, yeah, they feel
everything and they're notrealizing.
Some of the stuff they'refeeling isn't there, so you got
to give it back to the otherpeople because it's not yours.
(39:31):
You're intaking everybody'sstuff and you're trying to fix
everybody's emotional thermostatto feel yeah, but it's not
altruistic, that's.
Bev Middleman (39:40):
That's the thing.
It's not because you knowthey're so loving and caring,
it's because they need otherpeople to be calm so they feel
calm.
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (39:48):
Yeah exactly Safety.
And when I say this, it's notminimizing somebody that you
should know it's like.
Do you know how long it takesto really be in a space that
your nervous system feels safeenough to reveal some memories,
reveal the narratives, get theaha moments of oh.
This is when I startedconstructing this narrative
(40:10):
within me and then, just becauseyou see it and you know it, the
default of what your bodyviscerally will go into those
patterns and then you have tobring it back into presence.
That's where you work.
Bev Middleman (40:23):
Yeah, yeah.
You're really such a beautifulexample of how we can heal the
mind and the body right if we'reactually committed to the work.
And I I'm sure you're familiarwith dr gabor, mate, because he
does a lot of this work.
I'm actually seeing him livenext week.
(40:44):
I'm so excited to see him.
Uh, my boyfriend got us ticketsas a surprise.
I didn't know, because he knowsthat I'm just a fangirl and
he's in town and it's just, heis, you know, at the forefront
of talking about, you know,physical ailments and then, of
(41:07):
course, connection back to ournervous system right in our
emotional states.
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (41:13):
So, yeah, when we started the
recording.
I'm going to bring it over toyou now, with the vulnerability
you had mentioned, that you knowwhere you are in your stage and
all the work that you do withyourself and hold space for your
clients, that you are nowfinding language about touch and
how that feels for you, wherebefore you didn't have the
(41:35):
language.
So could you open up that spaceif you're willing to share that
vulnerability and insight forsome listeners that might be
just talking my thing.
Bev Middleman (41:44):
Yeah, I'm happy to.
So it's.
I've really never spoken aboutthis before because this is
something that is sort of new.
You know, I think we all whenwe go through the process, we
start to understand our woundsand we start to understand our
triggers.
You know, people say certainthings, or there's a tone, or
there's, maybe there's, you know, auditory triggers, or we see
(42:06):
something.
You know auditory triggers, oryou can see something, and I've
started to notice that there are, for me anyways, physical touch
triggers.
So I have a certain level ofsensitivity or defensiveness
around certain levels ofphysical touch and when I think
about it, really I have alwayshad this feeling like I don't
want to be touched.
(42:26):
But what I realize now is thatit's not, as you know, a broad,
blanket statement I don't wantto be touched.
Some sensation feels reallynice and calming and some
sensation makes me anxious,irritable and feel unsafe, right
(42:46):
?
So?
And I think that what we haveto realize is is that this is
different for everyone, but themore that you can understand
your own body, you know, and themore you're able to put words
to it and communicate, forexample, to a romantic partner,
the easier it is, right?
So I'll use this as a verysimple example um, I really,
(43:09):
really love, like you know, thesensation of tickle.
I love that on my back, butanywhere else on my arm, on my
hand, on my chest, on my neck,everywhere it just drives me
crazy, like it actually makes mevery, very tense.
And so I think that the workalways continues.
(43:32):
When you realize, now my workis to understand what am I
connecting that to.
And I'm still working throughthat.
But, you know, instead ofgetting irritated in the moment,
I just say to my partner youknow, instead of stroking my
hand, can you just hold it?
That's fair, yeah, right.
(43:54):
But but I think you know when,when I was younger, I certainly,
certainly just didn't have thelanguage, I would sort of pull
my hand away and say I justdon't want to be touched, or
even that allowed to say what,what your preference was or even
that allowed to say what, whatyour preference was right, yeah,
yeah, so I, you know again this, this work in attachment styles
(44:16):
.
It has such a huge impact, uh,in a lot of areas in how we
interact with other people.
So the more you can understandyour own, your own minds, your
personality, needs, what feelsgood to you, what doesn't feel
good to you, and communicatethat calmly, right, you're
setting yourself up for you know, a much more sort of, you know,
(44:40):
beautiful relationship withanyone, with anyone.
It could be with family members, it could be with you know a,
it could be with you know aromantic partner with your
colleagues.
So a lot of this work is reallyjust about understanding
yourself.
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (44:56):
Yeah, exactly, I'm mindful of time.
I think we could talk for youknow we probably could, you and
I.
Yeah, it's going so naturally.
Naturally, I want to ask you areflective question.
I want to ask what would yourpast self say to you right now?
Bev Middleman (45:14):
oh gosh, like my younger self when I was in the
thick of things whatever youfeel, that's coming to you, um,
I think the only thing I everwanted to know was it gets
better.
Like that's the only thing Ithink.
When you're in it, when you'rein any level of pain emotional,
(45:37):
physical, psychological the onlything you're thinking is will
this end, will this get better?
Will tomorrow be better?
Will I still feel the same nextweek?
Right, because it's that notknowing that just sort of is all
consuming, right, the pain andthen the not knowing.
(45:59):
So I think I would have giftedmyself with the knowledge of it
will get better.
You won't always feel this way,way, and maybe that would have
made it more tolerable in themoments, but, um, but what would
your past self say to you rightnow?
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (46:20):
not you talking to your past self.
What would your past self sayto you right now, in this
present moment?
Bev Middleman (46:32):
My past self would likely have a bit of a
sense of humor.
Mine does as well.
I kind of laugh at some things.
I made, these changes in mylife which were so profound in
my 40s.
I'm almost 50 now, and so theyears from my teenage years to
(46:55):
my early 40s, those weredifficult years in which I
suffered, asked me a question,you know, or said something to
me.
They would say do I have towait until I'm 45 to make the
changes, or can we start makingchanges now, because that would
be great?
(47:15):
I think that's what my that,yeah, that's what they would ask
.
Is there a reason we're waitinguntil we're 45?
Exactly 45.
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (47:33):
Exactly , exactly Now.
Bev Middleman (47:35):
I'm going to ask you what would your future self
say to you right now about fear?
What would my future self sayto me about fear?
My future self would tell me,would tell me, that fear is
debilitating in a way that itstrips you of potentially
(47:56):
incredible experiences, moments.
Right, I'm reminded of theexpression that you know we
often don't regret what we do,but more so what we don't do.
And for people who have dealtwith anxiety, they will often
put very strong boundariesaround doing certain things,
(48:17):
whether it be social or travel,or leaving the apartment or this
or that, whatever it is Becausethey're afraid of being in a
situation where their anxietyflares and they feel out of
control and they're not at home,or they're around people, or
they don't feel safe.
There's all sorts of reasons,but that creates a very limited
(48:43):
life, and so I think that, yeah,my future self would remind me
that my fear is limiting to thelife that I want to enjoy.
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (48:57):
Love that, Love that.
So I know the listeners arelike okay, where can we find Bev
?
So can you let them know whereyou are and what your?
Bev Middleman (49:05):
offerings are Sure.
Thank you so much.
So I'm the owner of securelyloved.
We're a group of practitionersthat work with folks to help
them overcome their attachmentissues and move towards secure
attachments.
I do have a website,securelylovedcom site
(49:33):
securelylovedcom.
We're also on instagram,securely underscore loved uh, we
are all over youtube, uh, andyou can simply type my name into
any browser and you will seelots of my stuff come up as well
.
Um, I'm on a bit of a mission tojust get the word out about
attachment styles, let peopleknow.
So I have a pretty heavy socialmedia footprint.
Generally, people don't have ahard time finding me and if what
(49:58):
I've said here resonates withyou, you certainly can go on our
website again, securelylovedcom.
We have a free attachment stylequiz.
It's just sort of a startingpoint to answer a couple of
questions and then it'll tellyou where you fall on the scale.
Are you secure, are you anxious, are you avoidant, are you
(50:20):
fearful, avoidant?
And then you can book a freeconsult with me we do a free
20-minute consult or any of theother practitioners that work
with Securely Love, who are alsoterrific, and we go from there.
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (50:40):
Okay, I want you not, I want you.
If you could, please drop intoyour heart and bring out an
intention you want one of thelisteners to hear right now.
Meet them exactly where theyare.
Bev Middleman (50:56):
This took me far too long to learn in life, so
maybe this will hit someone atthe right time in their life.
Love is learned.
We learn how to love ourselves,we learn how to love ourselves.
(51:18):
We learn how to love others.
So, yeah, I think that, whetheryou know, regardless of your
age, if you're dealing withthese issues, you can learn with
these issues, you can learn.
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (51:35):
Thank you so much for this vulnerable,
real talk and thank you for thealchemy that you've done within
your own life.
You've taken those impuritiesand you've turned them into gold
.
Yet you haven't kept the goldfor yourself.
You're sharing it with others,and we didn't get too deep into
your personal life yet.
Those that go and research you.
They're they're going to findout some more profoundness of
why you do the work and whyyou're so good at it.
(51:56):
So I want to thank you so much,bev so, for what you are
contributing in the world in thelight that you're shining those
are such sweet words and I willreciprocate that to you as well
.
Bev Middleman (52:08):
I said, before we press start, before we press to
record, I said to you you havesuch a beautiful, calming
presence and I meant that.
So thank you for bringing thatinto the world and sharing
(52:29):
yourself and for the listeners.
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (52:30):
As I always say, you know, these
podcasts are here to help youreflect, to be able to do some
inner work.
Even if you just took that twominute pause and did that
mindful moment, that is thechange that you start to do
little by little.
It's not in the big things.
So, again, if you can help thepodcast, like, share and leave a
review so that thisconversation to get to people
that really need it, and if youwant to work with me, you know
(52:53):
where to find me LiftOneSelfcom.
Until next time.
Welcome to the Lift One Self podcast.
I'm your host, nat Nat, andtoday, as I said, we are
changing the style of thepodcast and I'm bringing people
with different modalities,different practices, and today
we are going to talk aboutattachment styles, and some
might be like wait, I thoughtwe're supposed to do connection,
not attachment.
(00:20):
Yet Bev is going to explainwhat she provides for her
clients and have a betterunderstanding of what your
triggers possibly might be.
And before we dive in, you, thelistener, please help support
the podcast.
Could you like share and leavea comment so that we can grow
the community and thisconversation can land with
(00:40):
somebody that actually reallyneeds it.
So, as we dive in, bev is goingto introduce herself and let us
know a little bit about who sheis.
So, bev, take the stage, please.
Bev Middleman (00:52):
Excellent, thank you.
I'm so happy to be here withyou and your audience.
Thank you for the opportunity.
So my name is Bev Middleman.
I'm a certified attachmentpractitioner, and what that
means is I work with people whohave attachment issues, and in
our community in North America,it's about half of the
(01:12):
population who has some issuesaround attachment.
So we're going to dive intowhat attachment actually is.
But I tripped over this workmany years ago when I was trying
to understand my own mind andtrying to understand why did I
think the way I did, why did Ibehave the way that I did?
And this particular work was sohelpful and impactful for me
(01:39):
that I dedicated my time, andpeople have to know about this
that I dedicated my time andpeople have to know about this.
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (01:48):
So, before we do a deep dive, will
you join me in a mindful momentso we can?
Bev Middleman (01:51):
ground ourselves With pleasure.
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (01:53):
And, as the listeners, you know what I
always say safety first.
So if you're driving or needyour visuals, please don't close
your eyes Yet the other promptsyou're able to follow.
So, bev, I'll ask you to getcomfortable in your seating and,
if it's safe to do so, you'regoing to gently close your eyes
and you're going to beginbreathing in and out through
(02:14):
your nose, bringing yourawareness to watching your
breath.
You're not going to try andcontrol the rhythm, you're just
going to be aware of it,allowing it to guide you into
your body.
There may be some feelings orsensations that come up.
That's okay, let them come up.
(02:37):
You're safe to feel.
You're safe to let go,surrender the need to control,
release the need to resist andjust be, be with your breath,
drop deeper into your body.
(02:57):
Now.
There may be some thoughts orto-do lists that have popped up.
That's okay.
Gently, bring your awarenessback to your breath, creating
space between the awareness andthe thoughts and dropping deeper
(03:20):
into your body, being in thespace of being, of presence.
Again, more thoughts may havepopped up.
Gently, bring your awarenessback to your breath, creating
(03:40):
even more space between theawareness and the thoughts and
completely dropping into thebody, surrendering into presence
, being in the space of beingnow, keeping that awareness on
(04:11):
your breath and coming into yoursenses at your own time and at
your own pace.
You're going to gently openyour eyes while staying with the
breath.
How's your heart doing?
Bev Middleman (04:20):
good, it was calm , peaceful a sense of warmth.
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (04:24):
So I know many listeners are like
okay, what is this attachmentstyle and can you explain what
these issues are?
Bev Middleman (04:31):
I absolutely can, and I want to say it is so
relevant to what we justexperienced together, and thank
you for taking us through thatexercise.
The biggest thing aboutattachment styles is that our
attachment style has a greatimpact on our personality needs,
our communication style, ouremotional patterns, our
(04:56):
relationship to boundaries andon trust and our ability to
emotionally regulate.
And so our ability toemotionally regulate is a skill
right, a skill that I learnedmuch later in life and I wish
they taught it in school.
They don't, but it is very muchtied to attachment styles.
(05:20):
So I just wanted to make thatconnection for your audience
before we dive into this.
So attachment styles really islearned behavior.
Just like you know, we learnemotional regulation.
We learn how to interact withothers.
So essentially it's a templatein our mind that gets created
from the earliest interactionsthat we have with our caregivers
(05:42):
.
Like very, very young, like upuntil about five years old, we
are most suggestible and thoseinteractions form this template
in our minds for how we interactand give and receive love, like
a set of rules, right?
So we have two broad categories.
We have folks who are securelyattached and folks who are
(06:06):
insecurely attached, and in theinsecurely attached bracket.
We've got a bunch ofsubcategories.
We have people who areanxiously attached or anxious,
preoccupied.
We have people who areavoidantly attached or
dismissive, avoidant.
And then we have folks whodisplay anxious and avoidant
(06:26):
tendencies all at once andthey're what we call the fearful
avoidance or the disorganizedattachers.
So we'll start with secureattachments.
So if we go back into ourearliest childhood years
typically again before we canactually recall memory, even a
(06:46):
lot of times before we're verbalright, the type of interaction
that we have with our caregivercould be a mother, father,
grandmother, doesn't matter.
The primary caregiver sets outthis template for what love is
for us, right, what thatinteraction is going to look
like.
So if we are in distress as ababy and the caregiver is highly
(07:10):
emotionally attuned, theycoddle us, they meet our
physical needs, they meet ouremotional needs, they interact
with us, they teach us aboutemotions through their own
expressions and they teach usthat it is safe to not only
identify our own emotions but toexpress them.
So, as a young child, if I'mangry and I express that and my
(07:33):
caregiver responds in a healthyway, I learn that it is safe to
trust myself and it is safe totrust others.
That becomes my golden template, the utopia, really, what we
all strive for.
And that template that's in mysubconscious mind follows me all
(07:53):
the way into adulthood.
And because it's in oursubconscious mind, most people
are not consciously aware of it,right, they don't know.
So if we turn our attention tothe folks who are insecurely
attached, they didn't quite havethe same upbringing whereby
they were given, you know, aconsistent level of emotional
(08:16):
attunements.
Right, we're never talkingabout perfection here.
I'm a mother too.
There's no such thing asperfection but we're talking
about a consistent, predictivepattern of emotional attunement.
So, those that were anxiouslyattached, or who grow up to be
anxiously attached, theytypically would have experienced
a child like a childhoodwhereby the parent was, let's
(08:41):
say, emotionally unavailable.
So the parent was, you know,loving to the child sometimes,
and sometimes ignored the child.
Or maybe the child, maybe the,let's say, the mother, the
father were alcoholic andsometimes they were loving and
sometimes they weren't.
And so the child learns thatthis is not a predictable
(09:02):
pattern.
Child learns that this is not apredictable pattern.
They receive enough love toknow that it feels good, but
they get set up in thissituation.
Their template is they'reconstantly chasing that
closeness.
They know it feels good, butit's never given to them in a
consistent way, and so they growup being anxiously attached,
(09:25):
and in romantic relationships,they're the ones who are often
called I don't love these terms,but often called needy, right?
They need a lot of reassurance,validation, a lot of attention,
a lot of recognition.
They are dealing with corewounds like I will be abandoned
Now.
It's sort of recognition.
They are dealing with corewounds like I will be abandoned
(09:46):
Now.
It's sort of understandablebecause in their childhood years
, emotionally to the child, theparent was there and then they
weren't there and then they werethere.
It's that inconsistency.
They couldn't predict it, andso that's what they believe love
to be.
So these are the folks that endup dating unavailable,
unavailable people and when yousay unavailable, that comes in
(10:09):
many flavors, right.
So they might end up datinglike married people we see this
a lot, right?
Or emotionally unavailable,right.
Or they might get overlyattached to someone who really
doesn't want a committedrelationship, right.
So they're sort of chasing love, right, they're the chasers.
(10:33):
Someone who grew up in a homewhereby there was emotional
neglect, right.
Or the child was left alone alot, or the child was a alone a
lot, uh, or the child.
It was a very controlling,demanding environment like a
(10:53):
level of enmeshment.
Um, they could also developproblems with attachments, but
typically they develop anavoidance.
Attachments and that's no, andthat's known as the dismissive
avoidance.
So a child who's left alone alot has to figure things out on
their own Right, and so theyreally don't.
(11:15):
It's never modeled for themlevels of intimacy like where
they were talking about families, where they didn't hug, they
didn't say I love you, there wasno words of kindness, the
children were maybe kept in avery strict schedule, were only
applauded for their achievementsthat type of high demand family
.
The child learns really thatany sort of emotional you know
(11:42):
landscape that they are feeling,they have to deal with that on
their own.
They cannot go to their parents.
Now these folks grow up and theyhave a very hard time moving
into adult type relationshipsbecause they are used to
emotionally being on their ownand so they start to value
(12:03):
things like freedom, autonomy,right.
They tend to keep people atarm's length.
They're very slow to make acommitment.
Vulnerability and intimacy isreally grinding for them.
It's not, it's foreign.
They don't have a template forit.
It's like I sometimes talkabout the brain being like a
computer program.
They don't have a computerprogram for it, right?
(12:26):
So, and the interesting thingis, is that often the anxious
attacher and the avoidantattacher, they often find
themselves in romanticpartnerships.
Yeah which is it which is uh, oh, anyways, um, I apologize,
there's someone, there's someone.
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (12:45):
That's where my dog is working oh, okay
, that's why it's okay, becauseit sounds mumbled yeah, my, my
dog is.
Bev Middleman (12:53):
My dog is barking .
I'm sorry, I don't know if youcan edit that out, but we'll
just keep moving forward.
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (12:57):
You didn't hear it, it didn't come
through, it just muffled yourvoice uh, okay, um, the third.
Bev Middleman (13:04):
The third category of folks are folks who
are fearful avoidance ordisorganized attachments, and
what that means is, generallythey grew up in homes where
there was a very high degree ofchaos, a lot of screaming,
fighting, maybe a high conflict,divorce, oftentimes.
Abuse can be any kind of abusephysical, emotional,
(13:26):
psychological, could be sexualand what happens is that child
develops a particular templateand attachment style, known as
the fearful avoidance, which inlater years, in a romantic
context, is often called the hotand the cold partner.
So these folks really do crave,you know, love and attention,
(13:50):
like everyone, closeness, butthey're very much afraid of
intimacy, and that's because thepattern that's been strongly
imprinted into their mind iswhen they got too close to the
person that they loved, I'd saytheir mother or their father,
they were harmed, and so theirnervous system is generally on
(14:14):
high alert.
These are folks who we oftensee as being in the medical
world, you know, told that theyhave generalized anxiety, they
have adjustment disorder, youknow they're perceiving everyday
things as being threats becausetheir nervous system is on such
(14:35):
high alert.
We see a high degree of hypervigilance with this group of
folks as well Because, again,the people that they trusted the
most in this world harmed themright.
So when we go back to emotionalregulation and trust, this is
what's so important aboutattachment styles is that the
(14:56):
person who's anxiously attacheddoes not trust themselves, but
they afford a great deal oftrust to other people, and so
some of the behaviors you'll seesomeone who's anxiously
attached is if they have adecision to make small or big,
maybe they have to pick a dressto wear for a date night or
they're buying a new car, smallor big they will seek the
(15:20):
opinion of many, many peoplebefore making that decision,
because they just don't simplytrust their own ability to make
a decision.
Or they were heavily punished inchildhood and so they're just
afraid to sort of say, well,this is what I like, or you know
, they're really heavily relianton other people.
(15:41):
They're also heavily reliant onother people for self-soothing.
So this is part of theemotional regulation piece.
They never learned how to justcalm down their own nervous
system.
They are highly attuned to thepeople around them, so if
someone else is anxious aroundthem, or angry or frustrated,
they almost take on thatsensation.
(16:04):
They themselves cannot feelcalm until everyone else around
them is calm.
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (16:09):
Would that self soothing be also where
they always have to talk tosomebody?
They're always on the phonedriving or going somewhere and
they're always on the phonehaving to talk.
Bev Middleman (16:19):
Yeah.
So this person has probably agroup of 12 people that you know
.
Anything can happen in the day.
Someone said something to themat work.
I'm.
Anything can happen in the day.
Someone said something to themat work.
I'm going to use a really sillyexample.
Someone said they didn't likeyour shirt at work.
Most of us would just go, okay,I probably own nicer shirts.
But a person who is sensitivein this regard will actually
(16:43):
really take it to heart.
Because they have core woundsaround.
I am unlikable.
So this is in addition to.
I will be abandoned.
I am unlikable, I'll beexcluded, I will be rejected.
So anything in that, like interms of a criticism, they will
perceive potentially as arejection and, to your point,
(17:04):
they will go out of their way tospeak to 12 different people
about the same incident, becausethat's sort of how they're
they're regulating their nervoussystem yeah being alone for
them is really difficult yeah,that's what I was going to say.
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (17:19):
Because the ones that always have to be
on the phone, driving orgrocery shopping or doing
anything, and always not beingable to just be with themselves
and go through the experienceand be curious, um, that anxiety
, and I I know it, I've walkedthrough it in my previous years
and stuff.
So I I've worked through thatpattern and felt you know that,
(17:43):
the heavy electrocution in yourbody, that, oh my gosh, and
hearing the loud voices andeverything else.
Yet being able to draw in andgo inwardly to regulate that
nervous system and mature it,because that's part of that.
You know, when people say theinner child, a lot of people see
a person where it's like, well,no, that was the immature part
(18:03):
of the nervous system thatcreated these programs that
you're talking about and youwant to meet that part of the
nervous system, to bring inthose fragmented, frightened
parts so that they can matureand everything is a whole with a
W, not these holes, splinteredparts that feel so uncomfortable
.
Bev Middleman (18:22):
Yeah, so.
So you know it makes sense thatwe get patterned with these
different like.
You know they're, they're likeroadmaps, basically Right, so so
.
And then our nervous systemtries to adapt and create these
you know adaptations andstrategies a lot of times
they're maladaptations to dealwith the sensations that come
(18:45):
along with what we perceive asthreats.
Yeah, right, and unless you'reactually doing the work to
identify wounds and whatnot, themind is not very good at
discerning.
Okay, I'm no longer six yearsold, under the care of my father
who did XYZ, I now live alone,I'm safe, I'm this, and that
(19:08):
your nervous system willcontinue to react in the way
that it's been trained.
And so you know, it's notuncommon to hear someone to say
that they wake up every day, andyou know their anxiety scale is
like nine out of 10.
Nothing's happened.
They're just waiting for it tohappen, right, because that
might be mirroring, um, you knowthe level of their nervous
(19:31):
system, by which it had to bethat level of hyper vigilant
when they were younger yeah yeah, yeah, this is, this is um.
it's very important tounderstand and for me personally
, it made a huge difference whenI could understand.
Okay, this is why I think theway that I do and these are my
emotional patterns, and I knowthat I can work with my nervous
(19:55):
system to calm it down.
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (19:57):
Yeah, it's to lean in and do that
inner work and, as you said,it's we, you know, abandon
ourselves in the trust ofexperiencing life.
And, as you said, if we didn'thave a safe space to feel these
big emotions, then they weresuppressed.
And anytime they try to come up, the nervous system, which I
call the ego of the defensemechanisms, push it back down,
(20:20):
so you're not able to experiencevulnerability.
Vulnerability feels repulsive,it feels dangerous.
Yet your vulnerability is yoursuperpower.
And some people, people arelike I want to hear that shit,
like that is not a superpower itis not and it's like well, it's
just, you don't know how toreturn home.
Yet you don't know.
Your nervous system has created, uh, a normal and a safety in
(20:44):
what is unsafe.
It doesn't know that theunknown and the unpredictable is
safe, because the nervoussystem always wants to predict
where it's like I'm just goingto take the old information and
this is what's going to happen.
It's going to pattern it outwhere it's like no, you, that
that's not what possibilitiesare.
And then there are some thatare very anxious, anxiously
(21:05):
attached, and they want topredict the whole future and
they want to control everything.
I'm going to find every littleloophole, and that it serves.
Don't get me wrong.
It's good to have long planningand you know, see, certain
things that could happen.
Yet when you're hyper focusedon that, you're missing out on
the presence, you're missing outon finding safety of what will
(21:28):
I experience?
What will that process be?
Bev Middleman (21:31):
Yeah, I mean, you so beautifully articulate all
of this, right?
So the anxious attacher really,what they're trying to do is
they're trying to plan out andthey're trying to, in a romantic
context, really please theirpartner to do everything
perfectly so their partnerdoesn't leave them.
Their strategy is usuallypeople pleasing, or fawning, as
(21:52):
we call it.
Right, yeah, um, but our, our,those who are anxiously attached
, are typically over feelers.
There's a high degree ofemotional volatility.
Um, you know, they they'rereally over feelers, they, they,
they're, they're big emoters.
So they don't have, they're notthe ones who are repressing
their emotions.
Um, it doesn't mean they'reemotionally regulated, right,
(22:15):
but they're certainly notrepressing.
Who you're describing whenyou're talking about repressing?
And you it's a beautifuldescription you gave was the
dismissive avoidance.
So the child who was left alone, the dismissive avoidance.
So the child who was left alone, the dismissive avoidance.
They really learned to justpush down their feelings and and
they're very good atcompartmentalizing they are very
(22:36):
rational, very logical, theyhave a reason for everything.
If you ask them about theirchildhood, they will likely not
out of 10 times, say to you Ihad a great childhood,
everything was fine, like.
They are that disconnected andwhat's interesting is is that
I've had so many talks withdismissive avoidance over the
(22:56):
years and they've told me thingslike it's not that I have a
trouble emoting, it's that Idon't feel the emotion Like it
is so bottled up, and so some ofthe work that I do with
dismissive avoidance is toreconnect their emotions back
into how does this feel in yourphysical body?
Right like we're going toextend your emotional range from
(23:19):
just like happy, content andsad, right more.
There's more to that.
So the dismissive avoidant, interms of trust, they greatly
trust themselves, but they donot trust others, which is the
exact opposite of the anxiouslyattached person.
(23:39):
The anxious person doesn'ttrust themselves, but they
afford trust to everyone else.
The dismissive avoidant personthey trust themselves.
It's me myself and I I'm, theylearned I can only rely on
myself.
I can't trust that others willmeet my needs, uh, and so
they're usually very independent.
Yeah, it's about hyperindependent, hyper independence,
(24:03):
hyper independence.
Yeah, like they won't ask forhelp no, because it feels like a
threat.
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (24:09):
I don't want to be disappointed because
just the the mere fact ofopening myself, showing that I
need help and then not taking aconsideration the person may
want to help, but they're justnot able to that just feels like
a death inside.
So it's like I'd rather just doit than even go through that.
Steps of vulnerability.
Bev Middleman (24:26):
Yeah, and in terms of behavior, some people
think that dismissive avoidancecan appear secretive.
Again, I don't love that, butthey do tend to keep people at
emotional distance and theydon't really want to.
Most of the time they're veryafraid Subconsciously they don't
(24:46):
realize this to connect withsomeone on an emotional level,
like an intimate level.
They have no problem connectinggenerally with people.
When it comes to, like,intellectual intimacy, sexual
intimacy, they're pretty goodEmotional, emotional intimacy.
(25:06):
Hold on a minute, that's good.
They're gonna put the brakes onthat one.
Yeah, so, uh, they really.
Because they grew up, you know,spending so much time alone.
They're very good at repressingtheir feelings, ignoring their
feelings.
They will, of course, do thesame to you.
It's like they've got thisunwritten expectation that well,
I'll handle my emotions and youhandle yours.
(25:30):
Let me know when you're feelingbetter.
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (25:33):
Yeah.
So what happens?
You know you're speaking intoparts of myself.
I was an only child At times.
My mother was not emotionallyavailable, so I had to deal with
my big emotions on my own.
So now I hold as you.
You know we started the podcast.
You were like, you have likesome depths of presence and you
know there are a few people thatI can show my emotions to and I
(25:57):
can emote and express.
Yet there's a lot of people thatI'm not able to because it
tilts the balance, that, becauseI feel so deeply, it rustles
their nervous system and then Ido not want to um, not a harm,
yet the um, it can feel veryinconvenient if you don't have
(26:22):
the tools when your nervoussystem has been that activated.
So that's where I take theresponsibility of okay, I feel
my emotions.
I can, you know, let out tearswhen I need to, and I think now,
because I can let that out, andpeople were like, oh, I'm so
sorry that I asked you thatquestion.
I'm like, no, it's okay, I'mallowed to feel this and it can
(26:43):
come out and I just come backinto the conversation.
Yeah, yet for the people thatmight think, oh well, I can't
show any emotions.
Yet they are aware that theiremotions are very profound and
when they feel it, it candisrupt a lot of people that are
around them.
So is that a part of maturity,or is that still a part of
hiding?
Bev Middleman (27:05):
So I think the first person they're trying not
to disrupt is themselves, right,Because they never learned how
to work through and processtheir emotions right.
It just feels really negativeto them and they don't know how
to work through it.
So it's interesting People whoare anxiously attached have a
(27:26):
very hard time with boundaries,Very hard time.
So they have a very hard timewith setting boundaries and also
respecting other people'sboundaries.
So it's not someone who'sanxiously attached that's going
to be worried that they'restepping on someone else's
boundaries.
If they overly emote, that isnot a thought process that they
will have.
The dismissive, avoidant personwill avoid that situation
(27:51):
entirely, which means if theyfeel they're getting emotional,
they will self-isolate rightaway.
So they'll walk out of the room.
They'll end a conversation.
They won't text back.
They'll go for a drive, they'llgo for a walk.
They will naturally retreat tospend time alone, because that's
their, their point of safety.
What you're describing how?
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (28:13):
I must be a hybrid, because you're
explaining both parts of me.
I'm like I'm going through theprocess of my growth, where
before I would emote and thenpeople were like, oh, you're too
cry, you're too needy, you'retoo this.
Or when I'd be quiet, I would becalled the storm cloud and I
would dictate the environment ofthe room because I was silent.
(28:34):
So people didn't like thatpresence.
So it was like okay, I'm notallowing you to feel all my
emotions, but then when I feelmy emotions I'm being ridiculed
or told it's too much.
So now it's like I've found ofnot separating myself internally
and feeling those emotions, yetbeing in a space with myself
(28:57):
and really going profoundly, ofself-soothing myself, validating
myself and not abandoningmyself, and then really feeling
it and then when it gets touched, when I'm out, the tears can
come out.
Yet it's like I don't droop outlike a puddle and I don't
isolate myself.
I do see those certainprotective patterns where if I'm
(29:20):
around certain people and itdoesn't emotionally feel safe
that I, I will be silent, I willprotect myself of not being
abandoned and not seeking to dimmyself, to feel a sense of
belonging, if that makes sense.
Bev Middleman (29:34):
It makes a lot of sense.
It makes a lot of sense.
So first I want to mentionwe're talking like sort of in
extremes, right.
So attachment styles exist on acontinuum and when we talk
about healing our attachmentstyle, what we talk about is
really moving more towardssecure attachments whereby you
are emotionally regulated,whereby you can, for example, in
a romantic partnership, enjoyindependence and enjoy a
(29:58):
partnership right.
You can feel and you cancommunicate right, because the
overfeeling and the emotionalvolatility and the underfeeling
and the self-isolation, thoseare both techniques that don't
serve us well.
So, listening to you and yourstory, it seems like you've done
a fair amount of work to bringyourself much more towards
(30:21):
secure attachment, which isreally the goal.
So you know good on you, thanks.
But I actually wonder if youstarted originally in that
hybrid group of the fearfulavoidant that we talked about,
the disorganized attacher.
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (30:37):
I don't know enough about your
background, but I would saythere was a lot of anxiety and
anxiousness and trying to feelsafe because I was sexually
abused at a young age.
And then, yeah, it's.
You know the more that Iunderstand, you know the walk of
(31:02):
life.
It's not the experience.
The experience was awful.
It was the trauma thatseparated me from being in the
space of vulnerability, andthat's what trauma is.
Trauma isn't the sexual abuse Iwent through, it was the
narrative that my nervous systemcreated that that space was no
longer safe.
But that's where my power is,is in that space between
(31:24):
stimulus and response.
Bev Middleman (31:26):
That vulnerability, but it feels were
you left alone to deal withthis trauma yourself?
yeah okay, yeah, so so we, wespoke really really early on,
saying that generally, peoplewho are fearful of avoidance
have abuse in their childhood.
I'm really sorry to hear thisLike.
(31:48):
And then, when you talk abouthow you didn't have support, you
were left alone to deal withthis, that just throws fuel onto
the fire, right, because that'sthe real traumatic event.
Right, there is that you haveto then deal with.
You know, processing thefeelings by yourself.
Yeah, exactly right.
And the shame behind it, and sothe core wounds of the fearful
(32:14):
avoidance is not going tosurprise you, as I will be
betrayed yeah, all the time, allthe time.
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (32:21):
And then I have no value.
And then it's funny becausewhen you understand trauma and
your nervous system if it's in,you know fight or flight, it
will go to validate thatnarrative, so you'll attract the
people that will validate well,this is what the narrative is,
so it will reinforce that.
(32:43):
So you just loop in yourpatterns and now you know,
coming out of that it's like, oh, I'm willing to see my part, no
longer blaming the other people.
Yes, everybody has their partin their actions.
Yet my only empowerment islooking at myself and then
connecting back into that part.
You know, that is a big thingwhere a lot of people think
(33:06):
their feelings, they don't knowhow, the process of coming back
into their body, they're fromthe neck up.
It's very easy to be cerebralabout that.
Bev Middleman (33:14):
Yeah, intellectualizing your feelings,
because you open up the portal.
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (33:18):
So I feel the tears and I'm like, oh,
I'm being seen right now.
So it's like, oh, she'stouching the part and that
nervous system of maturing itand letting it be seen and be
felt and articulated, not being,oh, I gotta armor up and it's
okay, it's.
It was like, no, it was atender moment.
It was understanding the way,as you said at the beginning,
(33:40):
how my brain functioned and howI interpreted things, and so, in
that it's like, okay, it thework that I've done, profoundly,
like when I've gone into mynervous system and dived in and
(34:10):
and allowed the body's wisdom tocommunicate but allow that
little immature part ofseparating from that space of
vulnerability and being in thewholeness with the w, that was
work to come back home to.
And when I I jump out of itlike I do, cause I'm human, I'm,
(34:30):
I have such great gratitude forthe tools of remembering come
back in presence so the illusioncan diminish.
Right, it doesn't mean I don'tmake mistakes and go.
No, we all make mistakes.
Bev Middleman (34:43):
Yeah, no, but that would have been extremely
difficult for you, especiallysomeone that suffered sexual
abuse.
I'm sure that at some point youdisconnected as a strategy.
Yeah, yeah, especially if youwere left alone afterwards to
deal with the event.
That in itself is incrediblytraumatic.
So you know I would be curious.
(35:05):
You know I would be curious.
I think that you probably did.
Start off, your originaltemplate was in the fearful
avoidance side, which meant thatyou had some traits of the
anxious and of the avoidance and, in terms of trust, you didn't
trust yourself, but you didn'ttrust others either.
And so you know, finding yourway back to your body and to
(35:26):
calm your nervous system, thefearful avoidance is really the
most complex and difficult, uh,attachment style, um, because
they have, um, the most amountof poor wounds, because they
carry from both sides right, soit's not that go ahead.
It's not that the it's not thatit can't be healed.
(35:47):
I'll share with you that I alsospend a majority of my life as
a fearful avoidant.
So it can be healed in thesense that you can work towards
secure attachment, but it's alittle more complicated than the
others.
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (36:01):
Yeah, do you know what my healing came
from?
I don't such a deep wound andlife had to really present it
and I had to come back in.
I had lesions in my brainstemand in my cerebellum and I was
told I was almost going to die.
So that brought a significantsurrender wow and I still don't
(36:25):
have a diagnosis 40.
It was 11 years ago, wow, and Iwas given six months.
I was hospitalized for 40 daysand I still don't have a
diagnosis.
And when they discharged methey were like if you don't have
a diagnosis, you don't have aplan.
So, thankfully, a year after Ilearned meditation and that's
where I was able to really go inand I understood the language,
(36:51):
that there was something in mynervous system that was seeking
on the outside.
So I had removed alcohol, Iremoved sex, I removed spending,
I removed social media, Iremoved all the vices that would
have me seeking outside forthat safety that I would come
within.
And there was significantwarrior work and, as you're
(37:13):
saying, just reconfirms of howdeep of a wound that is and to
reconnect that it's profound.
So it's like and I believe thatI don't have a diagnosis so
that it wouldn't give me acrutch of personalizing so when
I hold presence for other people, they feel safe to inquire
(37:52):
within what is this andeverything else.
Bev Middleman (37:56):
How are you feeling 11 years later?
Like how are you feeling now?
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (38:00):
I'm great.
I still have pain and the painis energy levels, so it just
turns off.
Yet I was told I was nevergoing to drive again, I wasn't
going to function, I was goingto need assistive devices and
all that.
My thyroid is still out ofwhack, Yet I'm able to navigate
with it.
Other people they wouldn't beable to because it can be very
(38:25):
painful and debilitating incertain ways.
So with that I changed my wholelifestyle.
So, like you know, I'm retired.
So taking it slow and steady andbeing able to cultivate a space
to, you know honor my body,honor what?
My navigation?
And when I start spiraling intoa pattern, you know be aware of
(38:49):
it.
And then you know, have amazinggrace for myself, radical
compassion and remind okay, comewithin.
You're trying to go out again,grasping and your nervous system
.
What are you trying to protectyourself from what feels unsafe?
And sometimes it's just thepsychological suffering I create
in my own mind and and theenergy, like anxiety, is
(39:11):
contagious, so when we walk itactivates us.
So it's very profound in that.
So it's I understand.
And when you said about youknow the anxious attachment
where they feel everything andit's like, yeah, they feel
everything and they're notrealizing.
Some of the stuff they'refeeling isn't there, so you got
to give it back to the otherpeople because it's not yours.
(39:31):
You're intaking everybody'sstuff and you're trying to fix
everybody's emotional thermostatto feel yeah, but it's not
altruistic, that's.
Bev Middleman (39:40):
That's the thing.
It's not because you knowthey're so loving and caring,
it's because they need otherpeople to be calm so they feel
calm.
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (39:48):
Yeah exactly Safety.
And when I say this, it's notminimizing somebody that you
should know it's like.
Do you know how long it takesto really be in a space that
your nervous system feels safeenough to reveal some memories,
reveal the narratives, get theaha moments of oh.
This is when I startedconstructing this narrative
(40:10):
within me and then, just becauseyou see it and you know it, the
default of what your bodyviscerally will go into those
patterns and then you have tobring it back into presence.
That's where you work.
Bev Middleman (40:23):
Yeah, yeah.
You're really such a beautifulexample of how we can heal the
mind and the body right if we'reactually committed to the work.
And I I'm sure you're familiarwith dr gabor, mate, because he
does a lot of this work.
I'm actually seeing him livenext week.
(40:44):
I'm so excited to see him.
Uh, my boyfriend got us ticketsas a surprise.
I didn't know, because he knowsthat I'm just a fangirl and
he's in town and it's just, heis, you know, at the forefront
of talking about, you know,physical ailments and then, of
(41:07):
course, connection back to ournervous system right in our
emotional states.
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (41:13):
So, yeah, when we started the
recording.
I'm going to bring it over toyou now, with the vulnerability
you had mentioned, that you knowwhere you are in your stage and
all the work that you do withyourself and hold space for your
clients, that you are nowfinding language about touch and
how that feels for you, wherebefore you didn't have the
(41:35):
language.
So could you open up that spaceif you're willing to share that
vulnerability and insight forsome listeners that might be
just talking my thing.
Bev Middleman (41:44):
Yeah, I'm happy to.
So it's.
I've really never spoken aboutthis before because this is
something that is sort of new.
You know, I think we all whenwe go through the process, we
start to understand our woundsand we start to understand our
triggers.
You know, people say certainthings, or there's a tone, or
there's, maybe there's, you know, auditory triggers, or we see
(42:06):
something.
You know auditory triggers, oryou can see something, and I've
started to notice that there are, for me anyways, physical touch
triggers.
So I have a certain level ofsensitivity or defensiveness
around certain levels ofphysical touch and when I think
about it, really I have alwayshad this feeling like I don't
want to be touched.
(42:26):
But what I realize now is thatit's not, as you know, a broad,
blanket statement I don't wantto be touched.
Some sensation feels reallynice and calming and some
sensation makes me anxious,irritable and feel unsafe, right
(42:46):
?
So?
And I think that what we haveto realize is is that this is
different for everyone, but themore that you can understand
your own body, you know, and themore you're able to put words
to it and communicate, forexample, to a romantic partner,
the easier it is, right?
So I'll use this as a verysimple example um, I really,
(43:09):
really love, like you know, thesensation of tickle.
I love that on my back, butanywhere else on my arm, on my
hand, on my chest, on my neck,everywhere it just drives me
crazy, like it actually makes mevery, very tense.
And so I think that the workalways continues.
(43:32):
When you realize, now my workis to understand what am I
connecting that to.
And I'm still working throughthat.
But, you know, instead ofgetting irritated in the moment,
I just say to my partner youknow, instead of stroking my
hand, can you just hold it?
That's fair, yeah, right.
(43:54):
But but I think you know when,when I was younger, I certainly,
certainly just didn't have thelanguage, I would sort of pull
my hand away and say I justdon't want to be touched, or
even that allowed to say what,what your preference was or even
that allowed to say what, whatyour preference was right, yeah,
yeah, so I, you know again this, this work in attachment styles
(44:16):
.
It has such a huge impact, uh,in a lot of areas in how we
interact with other people.
So the more you can understandyour own, your own minds, your
personality, needs, what feelsgood to you, what doesn't feel
good to you, and communicatethat calmly, right, you're
setting yourself up for you know, a much more sort of, you know,
(44:40):
beautiful relationship withanyone, with anyone.
It could be with family members, it could be with you know a,
it could be with you know aromantic partner with your
colleagues.
So a lot of this work is reallyjust about understanding
yourself.
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (44:56):
Yeah, exactly, I'm mindful of time.
I think we could talk for youknow we probably could, you and
I.
Yeah, it's going so naturally.
Naturally, I want to ask you areflective question.
I want to ask what would yourpast self say to you right now?
Bev Middleman (45:14):
oh gosh, like my younger self when I was in the
thick of things whatever youfeel, that's coming to you, um,
I think the only thing I everwanted to know was it gets
better.
Like that's the only thing Ithink.
When you're in it, when you'rein any level of pain emotional,
(45:37):
physical, psychological the onlything you're thinking is will
this end, will this get better?
Will tomorrow be better?
Will I still feel the same nextweek?
Right, because it's that notknowing that just sort of is all
consuming, right, the pain andthen the not knowing.
(45:59):
So I think I would have giftedmyself with the knowledge of it
will get better.
You won't always feel this way,way, and maybe that would have
made it more tolerable in themoments, but, um, but what would
your past self say to you rightnow?
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (46:20):
not you talking to your past self.
What would your past self sayto you right now, in this
present moment?
Bev Middleman (46:32):
My past self would likely have a bit of a
sense of humor.
Mine does as well.
I kind of laugh at some things.
I made, these changes in mylife which were so profound in
my 40s.
I'm almost 50 now, and so theyears from my teenage years to
(46:55):
my early 40s, those weredifficult years in which I
suffered, asked me a question,you know, or said something to
me.
They would say do I have towait until I'm 45 to make the
changes, or can we start makingchanges now, because that would
be great?
(47:15):
I think that's what my that,yeah, that's what they would ask
.
Is there a reason we're waitinguntil we're 45?
Exactly 45.
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (47:33):
Exactly , exactly Now.
Bev Middleman (47:35):
I'm going to ask you what would your future self
say to you right now about fear?
What would my future self sayto me about fear?
My future self would tell me,would tell me, that fear is
debilitating in a way that itstrips you of potentially
(47:56):
incredible experiences, moments.
Right, I'm reminded of theexpression that you know we
often don't regret what we do,but more so what we don't do.
And for people who have dealtwith anxiety, they will often
put very strong boundariesaround doing certain things,
(48:17):
whether it be social or travel,or leaving the apartment or this
or that, whatever it is Becausethey're afraid of being in a
situation where their anxietyflares and they feel out of
control and they're not at home,or they're around people, or
they don't feel safe.
There's all sorts of reasons,but that creates a very limited
(48:43):
life, and so I think that, yeah,my future self would remind me
that my fear is limiting to thelife that I want to enjoy.
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (48:57):
Love that, Love that.
So I know the listeners arelike okay, where can we find Bev
?
So can you let them know whereyou are and what your?
Bev Middleman (49:05):
offerings are Sure.
Thank you so much.
So I'm the owner of securelyloved.
We're a group of practitionersthat work with folks to help
them overcome their attachmentissues and move towards secure
attachments.
I do have a website,securelylovedcom site
(49:33):
securelylovedcom.
We're also on instagram,securely underscore loved uh, we
are all over youtube, uh, andyou can simply type my name into
any browser and you will seelots of my stuff come up as well
.
Um, I'm on a bit of a mission tojust get the word out about
attachment styles, let peopleknow.
So I have a pretty heavy socialmedia footprint.
Generally, people don't have ahard time finding me and if what
(49:58):
I've said here resonates withyou, you certainly can go on our
website again, securelylovedcom.
We have a free attachment stylequiz.
It's just sort of a startingpoint to answer a couple of
questions and then it'll tellyou where you fall on the scale.
Are you secure, are you anxious, are you avoidant, are you
(50:20):
fearful, avoidant?
And then you can book a freeconsult with me we do a free
20-minute consult or any of theother practitioners that work
with Securely Love, who are alsoterrific, and we go from there.
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (50:40):
Okay, I want you not, I want you.
If you could, please drop intoyour heart and bring out an
intention you want one of thelisteners to hear right now.
Meet them exactly where theyare.
Bev Middleman (50:56):
This took me far too long to learn in life, so
maybe this will hit someone atthe right time in their life.
Love is learned.
We learn how to love ourselves,we learn how to love ourselves.
(51:18):
We learn how to love others.
So, yeah, I think that, whetheryou know, regardless of your
age, if you're dealing withthese issues, you can learn with
these issues, you can learn.
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (51:35):
Thank you so much for this vulnerable,
real talk and thank you for thealchemy that you've done within
your own life.
You've taken those impuritiesand you've turned them into gold
.
Yet you haven't kept the goldfor yourself.
You're sharing it with others,and we didn't get too deep into
your personal life yet.
Those that go and research you.
They're they're going to findout some more profoundness of
why you do the work and whyyou're so good at it.
(51:56):
So I want to thank you so much,bev so, for what you are
contributing in the world in thelight that you're shining those
are such sweet words and I willreciprocate that to you as well
.
Bev Middleman (52:08):
I said, before we press start, before we press to
record, I said to you you havesuch a beautiful, calming
presence and I meant that.
So thank you for bringing thatinto the world and sharing
(52:29):
yourself and for the listeners.
NatNat Be - LiftOneSelf (52:30):
As I always say, you know, these
podcasts are here to help youreflect, to be able to do some
inner work.
Even if you just took that twominute pause and did that
mindful moment, that is thechange that you start to do
little by little.
It's not in the big things.
So, again, if you can help thepodcast, like, share and leave a
review so that thisconversation to get to people
that really need it, and if youwant to work with me, you know
(52:53):
where to find me LiftOneSelfcom.
Until next time.
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