Is Your Attachment Style Holding Back Your Healing?

Episode Transcript
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(00:04):
Great question in really close relationships,like close romantic relationships, if somebody's securely
attached and going up as securely attachedand their partner is ambivalently attached or when
attached, over a period of fiveyears, the ambivalently attached person will become
securely attached or the whenly attached personwill become securely attached. Cue music,

(00:32):
places and everybody places. We're startingin three two. Welcome to the Autoimmune
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(00:53):
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(01:14):
now at Understanding autoimmune dot com.Now back to your host, Sharon Sailor.
Welcome everyone to the Autoimmune Hour.I'm Sharon Sailor from Sharonsailor dot com
and as always, it's my honorand pleasure to be here with you on
another Autoimmune Hour. You can findover four hundred and eighty plus episodes over
at Understanding autoimmune dot com or onmost of the autoio podcasts and the video

(01:41):
podcasts places that you like. You'llfind it under the Autoimmune Hour or Understanding
Autoimmune either one. And I amso excited because we have a return guest.
I always am mesmerized by her andall the wisdom she shares with this
and a lot of her wisdom hasbeen a major part of my healing,
my understanding about how the body doeswhat it does, why it does what

(02:05):
it does. So it's not justgetting to understanding maybe the physical symptoms of
autoimmune Okay, take an asp whenyou'll feel better in the morning, kind
of thing. Here again tonight withSarah Peyton, Yep, the amazing Sarah
Payton. We're gonna dive and digeven deeper into some more of what I'm

(02:25):
going to put in air quotes.Spell see if Sarah likes to the air
quotes are not root causes or what'sunderneath the some of the obvious symptoms.
Right, let me read her bilefor you because many of you already know
are But if you don't know Sarahyet, buckle up. You're in for
a great ride. Sarah Payton she'sa certified trainer of non violent communication and

(02:46):
a neuroscience educator. I love herbecause she's able to bring all of the
latest and brain science, trauma science, living well science, and she studies
all the research, telling you,this guy really geeks out on the big
word kind of research. And whatI love about her She's able to bring
it and pars it down to whereI can understand it. That's what I

(03:09):
love about her, because she reallyintegrates brain science and the use of resonant
language to awaken and sustain self compassion, particularly in the face of difficult issues
like self condemnation, self discussed,self sabotage, or health issues. I
like to add to her bio.She teaches and lectures internationally and is the
author of the Your Resonant Self bookseries. I have to say that really

(03:32):
slow, because some people think I'msaying resident, which I'm not. I'm
saying resident. I know every timeI transcribe these the transcription AI thing thinks
it's resident anyway. She is alsothe co author, alongside with doctor Roxy
Manning, of the Anti Racist Heart, a Self, Compassion and Activism Handbook,

(03:53):
and I just love that too.We've interviewed both Sarah and doctor Roxy
on that topic. So go toUnderstanding Outoimmune dot com and just put in
either of their names and you'll findthose in our archives because those are pretty
awesome too. But I want toget to it. I don't want to
waste any more time introducing this amazingperson. Welcome Sarah. I so happy

(04:15):
to see you today. Thank you. I am so happy to be here
today. Now I'm really excited.We were chatting offline, shall I say,
and the topic of attachment came up. I've had several other guests on
and I just like getting multiple viewpointsabout it. We've talked about attachment was
your word for it as we werediscussing it, And I would love to

(04:38):
know a little bit more about howyou define attachment. I got the idea
from our discussion, but for theaudience and everybody, how do you define
attachment? Yeah? I like tothink about this sort of whole world of
research that has been done into what'sthe impact of behavior between mom and baby

(05:00):
on babies. Then immune system,nervous system, ability to self regulate,
ability to make friends, ability tofind solid romantic partners. It all begins
really early. Now, when Iwas little. The whole idea was that
if things went wrong in ages zeroto three, you were messed up for

(05:26):
life. Thank god, thank god, we both have discovered that is not
true. You answered my question becausethe interview we had with Mikayla Giles the
other day was fascinating too, andit touched on this topic. And I
remember reflecting back when I was raisingmy own children. The pediatrician and the
conventional wisdom said, if you've gota fussy baby, let them cry it

(05:48):
out. Yeah, that creates awhole nother series. Now that I'm older,
and if you have this guilt complex, but we won't go there.
We'll just talk about attachment. Youjust want to pus for a minute with
cry out. And you and Imay have talked about this before because it's
so important to name it, butI think it helps us to forgive our

(06:09):
parents for their Doctor Spock supported ideasabout letting babies cry out, and pediatricians
supported ideas about letting babies cry out. Doctor Spock was writing his book coming
out of this very repressive and violentreaction to crying babies where people used to

(06:30):
hit crying babies. So what hewas trying to do by getting people to
let their babies cry it out wasto stop the abuse, and that reframes
it in a much better frame.It's stopping that terrible cycle, exactly.
So I think that brings us abreath of fresh air into the whole understanding

(06:54):
of these waves of child wearing.So this repressive don't cutch your ba because
I didn't want us to hit them, and then context it makes no sense
exactly. So, and now we'restarting to go, oh, if you

(07:14):
can be with your crying baby,with men, be soothing and responsive,
presence is going to help their nervoussystem and their attachment and their immune system
for the rest of their lives.So we just we learn these new things
and figure out better ways that leadus away from child abuse and away from
child neglect and into what we're reallylooking for is actual, real relationality,

(07:41):
which is what we're going to beneeding more and more in a world where
AI is starting to seep into everything. Which is not real relationality really precious
that we're going to be starting tounderstand about person to person relationship chips,
and that when we allow ourselves tobe really fundamentally changed by each other,

(08:09):
we're starting to move toward what scientistscall coregulation, which is an enormous part
of attachment. It's this concept thatwe for years, scientists have been thinking
about emotions as something that happens insideone person. If emotions are so contagious,

(08:31):
I know, I can't just watchinga rom cam movie. You get
emotional, absolutely, But then inthe scientist's view, you're responsible for your
reaction to the rom com movie.You have to figure out how to get
calm again after you've wept, whensometimes those weepings feels good. But that's

(08:52):
another story. Yeah, no,I agree. Yeah, do you agree
with that that you're responsible for selfregulating? Then I'm aware that this is
the dominant idea that we're become goodgrown ups when we're really good at taking
care of our own emotions without burdeninganybody else. That's the dominant culture's idea

(09:15):
about emotions. Okay, and Iknow a lot of people that they're self
regulating is like masking instead of buyingit out, or we're having a calm
conversation with hey, here's a boundary, they'll just swallow it, or yeah,
swallow it, or turn to addictionsin order to manage it, addictions

(09:39):
and compulsions, in order to manageall that stuff that's happening inside of a
person that's actually supposed to be it'snot supposed to be spilling out and hurting
other people. We're supposed to beable to talk about it, and instead
of coming home and slamming cupboards,were supposed to be able to come home

(10:01):
and say, oh, hun,I had a horrible day to day.
I feel sad and angry and frustratedand so upset, and I think I
just need to put my head inyour lap for a little minute, or
I think I just need to sitback back for a little minute and feel
your body with me. These kindsof radical accompaniment of one another and requests

(10:26):
for accompaniment of one another and tellingeach other about how we're doing instead of
just acting it out. This isall the territory that's created and developed by
experiences of secure attachment. To getback to subject, I want to go
tangentle again. So everybody, Well, there we go. What I just

(10:48):
heard was beautiful, and I havepeople in my world that respond to that
because we've all been trained similarly,so we know exactly what that means.
However, I'm thinking of other peoplein my world that if you come to
them with, oh, I've hada hard day, they say something like
hell, tell me about it,and then they try to solve it.
So how do you begin the conversationif the other person is very open and

(11:15):
not resistant to it, but theyjust don't get it. They don't they've
been exposed to it. I wantto don't get it because I when I've
explained it to people, they oftenthat are open or often get it.
But if they've never been exposed toit, how do you start that conversation
to say, Hey, sometimes Ijust need to talk and I need someone
just to hold a safe space forme. And other times I'll tell you
when I need your help figuring itout. Yeah, oh gosh, it's

(11:41):
such a good question. And Iknow what I just said was pretty blunt.
There's more of a two by four. I know, Sarah will really
make it look soft and pretty nice. You and I have talked a lot
about unconscious contracts. So here's theproblem. If we I got somebody who
really wants to fix us, thenwhat they've usually got is an unconscious contract

(12:07):
that is at play that kind ofputs them into a strance state that makes
it impossible for them to do somethingdifferent, even if we are to ask
them, Even if we say please, honey, be quiet, no,
don't try to fix me. Juststroke my head right now, or just
hold my hand, or just putyour back to my back. We're giving
them something to do. And thenmy little word nerd wants to pop out

(12:31):
here for a second, and Isaid fix it, and you said fix
you. Are they really wanting tofix us? Or are they? It's
so individualized, and I'm just thinkingabout the nuance between someone in your life
that wants to fix it whatever's causingyou pain. Yes, yes, maybe

(12:54):
I'm just being more self relevantory thanI necessarily want to be. But when
my husband comes home and he's havinga hard time, I don't want to
fix the thing he's having a hardtime about. I want to fix him
so that he's I mean, Idon't feel like I'm going to be able
to get in there and change hiswork situation. But I just I want
to structure his brain so that hedoesn't have to be depressed. I want

(13:18):
to fix him so it might bemore like me rather than the joy of
having you have the most awesome husband. He is a sweetie. Yeah,
So then here we are with attachment. How is this connected to attachment?
This is connected to attachment because eachperson will have their own attachment style,

(13:41):
which means that they'll have their owntendency to respond to our experiences of having
a hard day. So if we'vegot somebody who's pretty securely attached, then
they're pretty their unconscious contracts are notgoing to get in the way of them
actually hearing us and hearing what weneed, and our ability to receive their

(14:07):
warmth will also be really impacted byour attachment style. So, for example,
I have a very good friend who'smore securely attached than I am.
I am a little bit avoidantly attached, and everybody's a little bit of everything.
But when I'm having a hard timeand I'm crying, I don't want

(14:28):
it. I don't want anybody totouch me. I'm like very tightly hell
and I'm like, no, don'ttouch me. And so he was with
me and I started to cry,and he said, oh, can I
touch your foot? And I saidno, don't touch me. Then afterwards
I just felt so sad that Ihad done that, and I practiced.

(14:48):
I actually practiced for six to eightmonths before we were visiting again, and
I started to cry and he said, I touch your foot. And I've
been practicing and practicing to move towardssecure attached meant so that I wasn't rebuffing
someone who genuinely wanted to reach outto me, And this time I was
able to say, yes, youcould touch Because I'd been practicing, I

(15:11):
knew that my resistance to being touchedwasn't any kind of truth. It was
this foundational, cellular attitude and setof contracts that told me that I was
supposed to take care of my painall by myself. So it's like working
on that so that my friend couldoffer me comfort and I could accept it.

(15:37):
So that felt like a little bitof a triumph. So he's offering
from a secure place, but healso in his secure attachment. When I
said no, don't touch me,he was like okay. He was a
little startled, but he ended upbeing just fine with it because he works
really hard on his attachment stuff too, And part of what happens with secure

(15:58):
attachment actually really listening to each other, and we're listening for those deep intentions
of love and care. So that'slike the coolest best thing. It's really
good for our immune system. It'sreally good for our for our autonomic nervous
system. It creates these juicy,wonderful connections between the prefrontal cortex and the

(16:25):
limbic system where the prefrontal cortex canreach in like a good parent and reach
for the crying baby that is us, and it really holds us, but
also let other people be a partof that holding. Now, if you're
more the way I was when Isaid, oh no, don't touch me,

(16:45):
that is called avoidant attachment, andan avoid attachment we actually use,
we like create a buffer in ournervous system. That's like an insulation layer
that stops other people from coming tooclose to us. So if we're the

(17:08):
sort of person who thinks I haveto do it all myself, I'm responsible
for taking care of my own pain. The lone hero is my hero.
I'm going to follow on the pathof the lone horse rider. The lone
Western hero is the pinnacle of goodness. This person can take care of themselves.

(17:33):
They don't need anybody else. That'sa win and detachment, and we
creative wind attachment. We create thissort of buffer or insulation layer in our
nervous systems in order to manage achild's world, a baby's world where there's

(17:55):
quite a bit of attention for us, we're well cared for, fed,
or our diapers are changed. Thatroom is a good comfortable temperature. There's
thoughtfulness about toys and playing, andthere's a good schedule, and there's just
a lot of thoughtfulness about what doesa baby need physically. But an avoidantly

(18:18):
attached parent, really this is nota conscious decision. But an avoidantly attached
parent doesn't pick up a crying baby. They don't hear a crying baby the
same way a securely attached parent does. So when we put this insulation layer

(18:42):
around ourselves in our avoidant attachment,and if we have avoidant attachment, it's
very likely that our parents have avoidantattachment because it gets transmitted in over eighty
five percent of cases. We inheritour parents' attachment styles. They can have
two different attachment styles. If you'reI'm able to talk about that in just
a minute, but we'll inherit theattachment style of the person who we're in

(19:06):
relationship with and reconstruct it for ourselves. The mother, then, if it's
an avoidant mother, doesn't really thinkit's important to respond to a grind baby.
And the avoidant mother also is toobusy to really stop and appreciate celebration

(19:27):
and joy. So the two thingsthat were really insulating ourselves from as avoidant
babies, we're insulating ourselves from thedisappointment of nobody catching us in our sadness
and nobody being with us in ourjoy. So then we take that and

(19:47):
we move on with it. Iremember when I was studying facial expressions,
and it took me eight months tobegin to see sadness on people's faces.
In the photographic test that I Iwas doing, I kept interpreting sadness as
fear. Oh, interesting, Yeah, our brains are changed, we're not

(20:10):
we don't know, we don't know, and then fear. There's another really
interesting thing about fear, so wecan maybe go there. Yes's fascinating thing
to me, though, So Iwant to make sure that people aren't feeling
or I'm doomed we can reparent ourselvesor reteach ourselves, or change our attachment
style. Yeah, the happiest thingthat we know about the brain is that

(20:33):
those fibers of secure attachment, whichrun from the prefronal cortex to the amigdo
la, are the most happy togrow of any fibers that we've got in
the human brain. Oh thank goodness, Oh my goodness. I don't want
to be doomed. So as weage, we definitely lose neural material in

(20:53):
our temporal lobes. If you're havingmore trouble finding your car keys or your
glasses or where you parked your car, then ever before then you can say,
yes, I am losing neural matterin my temporal lobes. But we
don't lose neural matter in our attachmentcircuits. And I think this is the

(21:15):
root of the idea that old peopleare wise, because we grow and grow
these very sweet if we're having goodexperiences with other people, we grow and
grow these very sweet neural connections betweenour prefrontal cortec center AMI, no matter
how old we are, So wecan be avoidantly attached and we can grow
into secure attachment. We can beambivalently attached and we can grow into secure

(21:37):
attachment. We can be disorganizably attached, and we can begin to heal towards
towards secure attachment. So you nameda few of them, avoidant, disorganized,
What are the different categories. Thereare two ways of looking at attachment,
and one of them is adult attachmentstyles, and one of them is
attachment styles from infancy. I likeworking with the attachment styles from infancy because

(22:03):
that feels like they're still alive inme. The adult ones feel like there's
a little bit of a remove onthem. So I go with the infant
attachment style information and find it reallyeffective to work with people with that.
There's secure attachment, and that's boththat's secure and it's organized. We're predictable

(22:29):
in our secure attachment. And thenwe have two more styles that are organized
and predictable, and that's avoidant attachment, which we started to talk about with
the insulation layer, and we haveambivalent attachment where there's no insulation layer whatsoever.
We're just taken into the emotional attachmentof whoever we're with. We travel,

(22:52):
we move into that into their emotionsand we're reflecting and we're merging,
soaking up if they're avoidant. Allof a sudden, we've become avoidant.
We move to another person in theirambivalent, we become ambivalent. Yeah,
we can absolutely. Wow, that'sfascinating. Yeah, we're very fluid,
and it depends on the other personand the way we interact with them.

(23:15):
What kind of attachment style will comeout of us when we're with them,
but in our ambivalent attachment. Forexample, you've got a kid who's sad
and you're just like devastated with them, Like your emotion is even bigger than
your kid's emotion. You're like,oh my god, my child is sad.

(23:38):
It's so hard to recover. Sothat's ambivalent attachment is where we're carried
away by somebody else's emotions. Wecan do it as a mom with a
baby. We can be completely blownout by our kids emotions, or we
can lean into our child's nervous systemand require that they accompany us in our

(24:03):
emotional stuff. I have a strangebackdoor question because that brought up. That
ambivalent brought up a friend of minewho is called dramatic. Yeah. Yeah,
if I'm noticing that and I regulatemyself differently, will that kind of
energetically, they'll start to regulate differently. Is that what you're saying about the

(24:26):
ambivalent side. That's a great questionin really close relationships, like close romantic
relationships, if somebody's securely attached togrown up is securely attached, and their
partner is ambivalently attached, or wouldn'tthey attached, over a period of five
years, the ambivalently attached person willbecome securely attached, or the avoidantly attached

(24:51):
person will become securely attached. That'sbecause they're starting to feel safe, right.
Yeah, it's hard to be anythingbut securely and organized the attached when
you feel safe. Wow, thatis fascinating. A side note, how
they discover five years, that's fascinating. They tracked it, did big surveys

(25:15):
of adults and had the partners doattachment style tests, and then went back
and tested them again every year,and so find of me and my friend
who trains horses, and sometimes shegets horses that have been pretty damaged from
horror ownership or other things like that. I don't think it takes five years

(25:36):
for that. But I was justthinking about that that her repetitive calmness is
in some ways in the long term, it is a retraining, but all
it I think her repetitive calmness justcontinues to calm the horse down more and
more. Yeah, calmness is alsocontagious. That the more steady as she
makes sure she always walks the sameway. She says, hello, this

(26:00):
the horse begins to Not that I'mcompared to but no, we are just
like horses, and just like cats, and just like dogs. All of
any animal that's closely connected to humansdoes this attachment style stuff too. We
see it with their kittens and withtheir puppies. Okay, I was just
thinking about how she's taken some prettyrascally horses who people said, what do

(26:25):
I give it up? Just byrepetitive, same demeanor, calmness, So
she becomes predictable. Oh yeah,absolutely, very predictable. Yeah, and
that's huge for creating secure attachment withan animal and with a human, it
turns out. But here's the interestingthing. If you're too calm, then

(26:52):
you're avoidant. I was thinking frommy point of view, there were times,
especially as before I all this andI'm still learning, as you guys
know, but in my growing patternthere that I would get annoyed with people
that were too calm. It's likeexactly upset as I am, because they're
avoidant. They're avoidant, they're intheir little buffer of insolation, and they're

(27:15):
not actually responding to us when we'recrying. We don't want somebody to sometimes
we do, but what we reallyneed is somebody to go, oh,
honey, of course that was hard. Can I just sit with you in
this being hard? And sometimes wewant them to then say and it's gonna

(27:37):
be okay. I know it's gonnabe okay, which is also a little
avoidant and a little fixie, butsometimes they like that we get to ask
for what we want. Yeah,So this is fascinating to me. I
just find that it's amazing to mehow viable our brains are, and how
when we first started this conversation,I'm just thinking, oh, no,

(27:59):
I'm doing But I'm really getting hopenow that you can even retrain those sorts
of things. I know they talkabout as you get older, to take
up a hobby that you haven't everdone before and all of that, but
it's obviously you can retrain all partsof your brain. Yes, take up
a hobby you've never done before,and take up a resonance. I think

(28:21):
I could grow these wonderful fibers nowto explain resonance because I want to make
sure they don't think that they haveto move to Italy or something. I
just get comments and things like whatword are you really saying? And she
did not say take a different residenceItaly. Explain resonant language for those who
aren't familiar. And we've got severalshows where SAH goes through much greater detail.

(28:44):
You can search for it on Understandingaut immune dot com, but share
what it is. These fibers ofattachment are largely in the right hemisphere,
running between the right prefuneral cortex andthe right limbic system. And the kinds
of words that light up the righthemisphere and help those fibers grow, which
we can actually see on fMRIs.We can see what kinds of words light

(29:11):
up. The areas that need tobe lit up to let these fibers grow
are words that are like emotionally meaningfulattachment is formed through emotionally meaningful experiences of
being accompanied with warmth and precision.When we accompany somebody with warmth and precision,

(29:36):
we care about how they feel andwe try to put words to it
as best we can understand, andwe also are thinking about context. Of
course this person is sad, orof course this person is angry, and
we begin to with these words andconcepts, we're supporting the growth of those

(29:56):
neurons where the prefrontal cortex gets toreach inside the brain for the amigdala.
Really, with these neural arms thatare going, oh Sara's prefront aquatic says,
oh Sarah's amygdala. Are you scared? Oh Sarah's a migdala? Are
you excited? Are you happy?Do you love hanging out with Sharon?

(30:18):
Isn't this fun? There's there's anability to be with whatever the emotional experiences
inside the brain. And this iswhat we're doing that offers people a way
to learn it is we use resonantlanguage, feelings and needs, metaphors,
impossible dreams, swearing. It turnsout, Oh, I've sometimes found out,

(30:40):
like when I hit my thumb,a good swear word always makes my
thumb feel better. I don't itdoesn't because there's research that shows that a
really yeah yeah. The research showsthat if you use like my dad always
did instead of fuck to say fricking, it actually doesn't have this effect,

(31:00):
it doesn't create the analgesic impact foryour body for to take care of pain.
Yeah, my favorite one is similarto shoot. That's my favorite one.
Yeah. Oh, terrible story totelling myself. The other day,
I was gardening with my grandchild.I did hit my thumb really hard.
It was purple for white, andunbeknownst to me, it came out.

(31:26):
It was a reaction. Guy,I didn't There was really not a second
between the two. It was definitelynot a conscious thought. And they looked
at me and go, oh,Grandma, I've never heard you say.
I swear, I'm not so bad. I've damaged my reputation now. But
all that success, all those yearsof success, you can kind of although

(31:52):
though I think they then all ofa sudden realized, yeah, that she's
human too, or something along there. And speaking of along those lines,
we need to take a quick commercialbreak when where with Sarah time flies.
We've got a twenty minutes. Iwant to make sure we get that commercial
break, and so we'll be rightnow. The Autowa I Mune Hour will

(32:12):
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change. Own Times open yourself tothe possibilities. If I could be you
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get inside each other's mine. Welcomeall in my shoes, walcome all in

(33:47):
my shoes. Well before you abused, criticize and ac cues. Welcome all
in my shoes. Welcome back everyonefrom that quick commercial break. I'm Sharon
Taylor, as you guys know,and I'm here with the wonderful Sarah Payton.
We've been just been having a fascinatingjourney through attachment and understanding attachment styles

(34:13):
and what that means. And I'malways fascinated by labels and how we define
these things. And I'm going tothrow out a couple other labels that can
you have more than one label?I guess would be my question. I've
heard things like little bits of whatyou're saying sound a little bit like personality
disorder, and a little bit ofwhat you're saying could might be interpretated as

(34:35):
minor narcissism or something. Can yoube all or a little confused in the
definitions here of what is attachment andwhat is personality? Yeah? What is
bigger? Yeah? There are correlationsbetween attachment styles and their manifestations in stuff

(34:55):
that gets in the way of relationships. So in narse syism, for example,
this is a word that we useto describe a phenomenon where one person
really doesn't know that the other personexists, their needs don't really matter to
person a And this is if youthink about attachment on a kind of a

(35:17):
kind of a curve where we've gotsecure attachment in the middle, then you
go down on the left, andthen you go into avoidant attachment. The
farther you go into avoidant attachment,the more you move into punitive and controlling
away from secure attachment. And thenas you get out of predictability, you
drop into disorganized attachment or traumatic attachment, which really comes with emotional violence and

(35:40):
physical violence and addiction and mental illness, because all those things make a person
unpredictably available. And so the fartheryou get down into unpredictable availability, the
more it's disorganized, so you canget you can slide down the hill into
avoiding attack. You can be justa little bit avoidably attached. That's where

(36:02):
I was with my friend and himreaching out for my foot, No,
don't touch me, And then Iwas like, I gently, gently brought
myself back towards security, and Iwas like, yeah, you can touch
me. It's good. I canget a little comfort from you. That's
a movement that you're seeing there.But you can also slide down away from
security and be way out on theand the end, and that's more towards

(36:23):
narcissism, and then we're not reallyin relationship with people, and then we
can do really harmful things, Sothat's we're in relationship with people, the
more harmful things we do. Andthen you can also slide down on the
ambivalent side, on the right handside, where you're you're more and more
emerged, until finally you're subsumed insomebody else, and that then has its

(36:45):
own disorganization and its own unpredictability.Once you get below the edge of predictable
attachment predictable responsiveness, for example,as we go down the road into what
people call borderline attachment, where there'ssudden losses of temper and sudden terrors of
being abandoned and sudden flashes of paranoia, then that's like down in there,

(37:13):
in the terror of being lost.In avoidance, we don't worry about losing
each other so much because we're soself sufficient in ambivalence. We're just become
more and more terrified of losing theother as we get farther and farther.
There are certain people running through myhead as you say these things, they're
like, oh, yeah, oneof them came to my head that I

(37:35):
had always mineor narcissists. Their explanationof people to them. Are they useful?
Yes, that's very avoidant. I'llput this as an acquaintance. I
wouldn't put this in the clothes because, yeah, there are times I like
talking. They're smart and all that. I enjoy conversation, but I still
keep that idea in my head.I don't really like just being useful.

(37:58):
It's not very interesting. It's absolutelynot interesting to me at all. But
yet I know that I've heard themsay, not about me, but just
in conversations we have, because Ithink people who watch the show know that
I love tan gentle conversations, anda couple of times over the twenty years,
I've known this person the term like, oh, people are useful or
they're not, And I'm like,wow, that is a really weird thing

(38:20):
to say. In my book,yeah exactly. So now we've gotten to
touch all four of the attachment styles. We've gotten to touch the organized ones
where people have predictability in their availability, secure, avoiding, and ambivalent,
And now we've started to say okay, and there's also this completely unpredictable area

(38:40):
of disorganization, which has lots ofinteresting implications because ambivalent attachment is closest to
secure attachment, it's easiest to heal. It's harder to heal that out of
that very cozy installation layer. Soit's easier to heal from ambivalent attachment because

(39:02):
we're more emotionally available to be ableto receive those messages that go between prefronal
cortex and a mindala. So thework I did, for example, so
that my friend could hold my ankle, that was work to chisel away the
ossified insulation layer that was keeping mefrom being able to receive comfort. When

(39:24):
I could receive comfort, then Ican actually strengthen those connections between my prefrontal
cortecs and my mindala, I'll actuallylive longer. If you're avoidantly attached,
you live short, you have shorterlives span than if you're securely attached,
which is a very good reason.As avoidantly attached people, we need logical

(39:44):
reasons for why we would put ourselvesthrough that trauma and torture of chipping away
the insulation layer. But there wego. You have your very good reason
now to your life when important.I'm thinking, if someone's done the work
and they're pretty steady at that Okay, the insulation's tipped away enough. I'm

(40:07):
not ambivalent. I'm not avoidant andtrying to be the nice, safe ship
in the harbor kind of thing.Are there things that they can do?
Your friend didn't really offer any help. It was something you did on your
own. There was a response thatthey had to go, oh, okay,
back off. Yeah, are therethings that people can do to Then

(40:31):
I get into the world of whereI hate where people label other people.
Okay, I'm talking myself out ofthis, So would there be any It
sounds like you're going to ask,is there anything that your friend could do
in that moment where you're like,h ry to make you feel safer or
that it's okay. One thing isyou could say to somebody who doesn't want
to be touched. You could say, and I do this all the time

(40:52):
when I'm doing session work with peopleand they have a little child within them
in the trauma state who doesn't wantto be touched. You're like, Oh,
how close does it feel comfortable forme to be and accompany you?
Do you need me to be twofeet away? Do you need to be
ten feet away? Do you needme to be on mars? And sometimes
They're like, I need to beoutside the bedroom window in this memory.

(41:15):
I need you to be out inthe hall okay. So we're gonna close
the door and we're gonna let yoube in there, but we're gonna be
right here on the other side ofthe door. Are you doing okay?
There? It could be right.It's not outside your office in the hallway
screaming through the door. You know, it's more metaphorical. But like my
friend could say, oh, isit okay if I'm like a five feet

(41:37):
away from you? Or is itokay if I'm ten feet away from you?
How close can I be? BecauseI really want to offer comfort,
but I know that the closeness mightdisrupt the comfort that I want to offer.
My friend could say something like that, And that's the radical warmth for
whatever comes. That is the mosthealing of all the attachment stuff. Is

(41:57):
it like we put a warm layerof earned secure attachment around any kind of
attachment reactivity that we have. We'rejust like, yeah, we'd are of
course you on space, and thenthen we can My friend Bonnie Badnock says,
we have nesting bowls of attachment stylesthat we have disorganized inside a layer

(42:21):
of ambivalent, inside a layer ofsecure, inside a layer of avoidant,
and that we just are in aswe heal, we're moving through the nesting
bowls of attachment and moving towards secure. I have a question and one technique
that I use. I want toknow what your thoughts on it are are.
Sometimes it's not practical to move fiveor ten feet away, but sometimes

(42:44):
I found if I just can Isit over here on the other end of
the bench so you're both looking inthe same direction. Yeah, those kinds
of questions are really sweet. Yeah. I like that when they don't have
to make eye contact with me,because sometimes it's just the emotion so true
of eye contact that can cause somereactions. And oftentimes when I take that

(43:05):
away, they actually are okay ifI'm closer to them than if I had
been eye contact. Eye contact sotrue. This is so fascinating. So
we're not to ten minutes. Iwant time to talk about the class you
have coming up on attachment, becauseI think that's it's a fantastic class.
I learn so much and I takeit all the time because you learn so

(43:28):
much, as you could tell justI'm learning here. What are some things
that if we've heard ourselves in eitherof these places, or I guess we've
talked about four quadrants. But ifwe've heard ourselves in these places, what
would you say would be some ofthe first things that we could do to
prepare ourselves to continue to explore andgrow and heal. I do. Taking

(43:51):
my classes is a wonderful possibility,and reading the books is a wonderful possibility.
And watching the youtubes and watching allof Sharon's episodes because she's securely attached,
because she's warm, and she's predictablyavailable. And I have to tell
you why I wasn't always that wayeverybody. Okay, Sarah's showed me there's
a roadmap. I can't go backand tell you. I'm sure there was

(44:14):
a roadmap, but I was wanderingaround in the desert a while. Okay,
But I do want to say thereis hope for everybody. There is
hope. Yeah, So these kindsof things, exposure to people that we
can bear, who are warm andprecise and have like, yeah, you
make sense. And I think everyepisode of your work is Yes, my

(44:36):
dear listeners, you make sense.And that's one of the things I love
about you. Oh, thank you. Maybe because I just have been trying
to make sense of my whole life. And then when you get a diagnosis
like this, I'm the type ofperson has to make sense of stuff.
Yeah, and those diagnoses, thosemoments of trauma, actually put us into

(44:57):
disorganized attachment and we have to findo way back. So a cancer diagnosis
or not immune diagnosis, or beingin a car accident or these big things,
these things are big moments and theyput us down in a way.
I've been thinking about this lately,our attachment to life itself. If life
gets too unpredictable and too many badthings happen, we lose our sense of

(45:22):
secure attachment with life itself, andthen we're down in disorganized attachment with life
itself. So this is a bigpart of the healing journey for folks who
are in relationship with autoimmune or anyother kind of diagnosis, mental health diagnoses,
whatever it is. That's a momentof extreme unpredictability with life, and

(45:46):
we need to gradually find our wayback toward predictable availability, not predictable bad
things. That doesn't increase our attachmentin the sense that life wants us,
that life likes us. The metaphorI made when I got the diagnosis.

(46:06):
To me, the metaphor was somebodyasked me, I says, I feel
like I'm flying without a net allof a sudden. Oh yeah. And
to me, I like metaphors andstories in my head, it was about
rebuilding the net, you know,yeah, okay, why I can fly
with the net now? That now? Yeah? Exactly So that that's such

(46:28):
a beautiful metaphor because that speaks exactlyto this sense of does life want me?
Am I going to be safe?Yeah? And I think the thing,
especially when when we get a diagnosisand it's a big shock and you
go through the process of, firstoff, trying to understand the big medical
words. For me, I didn'teven understand the words. It is a

(46:49):
whole time. I like the disorganizedand the organized idea because it is a
whole time of reorganizing everything. Andyeah, way is it possible to accompany
someone along as they're rebuilding hope ormaybe they might say they never had hope,
but one hundred percent anything to methat would go along with this attachment
issue. I had the amazing experience, and I think this is true for

(47:13):
your show too. I had thisamazing experience where somebody said to me,
can you improve your attachment with somethingbesides another human because humans have been really
unsafe for me. I said,that's why I wrote the book Your reson
itself was to provide something that wasn'ta human, that was as warm and
understanding as possible for people to beable to make their way without to get

(47:39):
used to these ideas before they startto experiment with other people again. And
that person said to me, Islept with your book for the first year
that I had it, and Iwas like, yes, how beautiful.
This is like the book providing secureattachment and you make sense, just this

(48:00):
solid message of you make sense.Whatever's going on you makes sense. And
I think your show does this forpeople. They can sleep with you metaphor
metaly also physically because with a soundyou can turn it on and you can

(48:21):
fall asleep and you can have people'svoices and with you accompanying you. So
absolutely you asked if it wasn't possibleto accompany people, Yes, from afar
the way you and I do it, or we can do it with our
very closest people too, with grandchildrenand children partners. The sound part makes
sense and MICHAELA. Shared with uson her interview with US was that the

(48:45):
people sometimes chastise themselves if they haveto go to sleep with the television on
or the radio on or something likethat with noise. She was talking about
that can actually provide a lot ofcomfort and beat themselves up over that as
they're working through that process. Ifthey're like, I should be stronger,
why do I have to sleep withMaybe their bed partner doesn't like that the

(49:07):
TV's on or something, and Ican just see where that could be a
real problem. I like to readthe book. Nobody'd know, really your
bear or less if it was abook. Right. No, Sometimes we
just need these, We need thesesupport and buffers. They're good for us
absolutely. Now I want to makesure we get plenty of time to talk

(49:28):
about the class that's coming up andwhen it is, because I know this
is an evergreen show. Sarah offersthis periodically, so this isn't a one
time thing. But the quicker youjump on it, the happier you'll be,
I know from true experience. Sotell us about the upcoming class you
have on a time. We havean upcoming class that meets about once a

(49:49):
week from July twenty second to Octoberseventh at one thirty Pacific time. But
also it's available in recording. It'scalled Healing Attachment Wounds. And not only
will you get everything that Sharon andI just spent this time talking about in
more detail, but you'll also getthe chance to do processes and exercises to

(50:13):
begin to feel into how to changeyour attachment style from avoidant towards towards secure,
from ambivalent towards secure, from disorganizedtowards secure. And so it's experiential,
it's warm, it's lovely, itis and I want to say this

(50:35):
is twenty twenty four for everybody.Yeah, give your website so they know
how to sign up and where tosign up, and then also they can
bookmark that in case they need totake one of the later times that you
offer the classes. Yeah, andthen if you want to get recordings,
oh yeah, if you want toget the class is called Healing Attachment Wounds.
It's on Sarah Peyton dot com andthe link you can click on is

(50:55):
learn with Sarah, and then youscroll down to the July twenty two In
there you are you can sign upright there, and Peyton is p E
Y T O n okay. Yeahsthey are ahp E y t O n
dot com. And that's fantastic.Now, we just have a few minutes
left, probably three or four minutesleft, and I want to open it

(51:16):
up to I love how your brainworks, So just what's on the top
of your brain that you're feeling compelledto share with us. I made a
note for some things that I promisedto say, and one was that we
have two parents, so we'll havea different attachment style with each parent.
So we'll have a secure attachment witha mom and avoidant attachment with our dad,
or secure attachment with our or andbuilding attachment with our mom and secure

(51:39):
attachment with our dad, or disorganizedwith a mom and secure with a dad.
It just depends on each of themand how they are with us as
kids. That sounds like a wholenew show, Sarah, We're going to
book park? What else? Yeah? And the other thing is that we
talked about. We talked about grownups switching their attachment styles when they got

(52:02):
into relationship with this scarely attached persona romantic partner. But little kids,
when they're adopted, they'll change theirattachment style. So if we get a
little kid who's been traumatized in theirfamily of origin, and they come into
our house in foster situation, foran adopted situation, they'll switch to being
attached with us in our attachment style, whatever it is that we're able to

(52:27):
offer them. So that's cool too, to know that little kids change even
faster than adults. It doesn't takefive years. I remember the day.
I may have told you this storybefore, but I love this story.
We had an adopted boy who cameto us when he was fifteen years old
and had terrible trauma. And wheneveryou just kept getting arrested, you would

(52:50):
just get you would just like walkdown the street and get arrested. We
go to the police office, andwe dealt with the courts, and we
just kept hanging in there. Whenhe'd been with us for three years,
I think he was He came atthe end of his fourteenth year, so
he was like the end of hissixteenth year, seventeen years old. First
time the policeman brought him home insteadof arresting him, he had softened enough

(53:16):
that he wasn't presenting the demeanor inthe world of being a bad kid who
needed to be arrested with all thatdefiance and toughness. Instead he's picked up
and brought him home, and Iwas like, oh my god, his
attachment style has changed. So thatwas like two or three years for a
teen. So for those of youwho are out there adopting and fostering,

(53:39):
just to want to give you somelove and hope and a shout out to
you for changing kids' lives. Absolutely, Oh my gosh, we could have
gone so much deeper about we're outof time. I'm totally fascinated by attachment
style and it's such a gift whenyou have these people. I love this

(54:00):
term. A friend said this tome years ago, but it was about
having you're the safest person in myworld. Kind of people in your world
where it's nice and safe and you'realways home. Yeah, those are our
secure attachments. Yeah. And whatI love about those, and I want
people to understand is a lot ofthose people are very different from me.

(54:24):
They don't This doesn't mean that youryour attachment style like means like you're twins.
A lot of the people I feelare safe people, my safest people
in my world. Each one ofthem is quite unique there, So I
want people to understand that's not reallyabout oh personality being identical or anything like

(54:44):
that. It's really a different topicand we just barely scratch the surface.
So go to PA dot com.Yeah, Sarah Payton dot com and I
have the link of Understanding auto immunedot com. And also, if you
are listening and watching us on youYouTube, please subscribe. We're really trying
to grow our reach and be ableto bring this message out that you are

(55:07):
not your diagnosis. You can reallythrive back ten years ago, believe it
or not. I'm going to bedoing a show really soon on ten years
what I've learned in the ten yearsof autoimmune. But I was given terrible
statistics back then, and if Ihad believed those, I probably wouldn't be
here now sharing with you on theshow nor doing the ten years of shows.

(55:30):
But anyway, I just want everybodyto understand come along with this,
and if you haven't subscribed to uson YouTube, which is Understanding Autoimmune,
you can find it there. Pleasedo that helps the algorithms and helps us
grow and get our message out bigger. So everyone, love you all,
have a great week, whatever youradventures. Thank you so much for taking

(55:50):
the time to join with us again. I love how I love her and
I love how our brain works.So anyway, everyone likes to have a
great week, but your adventures.Join me next week for another brand new
episode. Enjoy fantastic, wonderful,

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Is Your Attachment Style Holding Back Your Healing?

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