30: Repairing, Reconnecting and Healing Our Relationships: The Power of Attachment with Diane Poole Heller

Artwork for podcast Elevated Life Academy

Episode 30 • 18th November 2024 • Elevated Life Academy • Cherie Lindberg

00;00;07;25 - 00;00;39;03

Narrator

Hello and welcome to Cherie Lindberg's Elevated Life Academy. Stories of hope and healing. Through raw and heartfelt conversations, we uncover the powerful tools and strategies these individuals use to not only heal themselves, but also inspire those around them. Join us on this incredible journey as we discover the human spirit's remarkable capacity to heal, find hope in the darkest of moments, and ultimately live an elevated life.

00;00;39;06 - 00;01;08;11

Cherie Lindberg

Welcome to another episode of Elevated Life Academy, and I am your host, Cherie Lindberg. And we have a wonderful special treat today. Diane Heller is here to share all of her wisdom. I'll let her introduce herself here. Thank you so much for your willingness to to join our community and share your wisdom about relationships and attachment and any of your new projects that you're involved in.

00;01;08;13 - 00;01;25;05

Diane Heller

Okay. Well, thanks, Cherie It's so nice to be here. Well, just in terms of my background, to give people a little bit of orientation, I taught trauma work, Peter Levine's Somatic Experiencing for about 35, 40 years all over the world. Ditto. Know kind of trying to spread the word on that because I really felt of help eliminate a lot of unnecessary suffering.

00;01;25;08 - 00;01;44;27

Diane Heller

But even as I was teaching trauma resolution, kind of a somatic approach to trauma resolution, I just kept coming up against this sense of broken connection, like people not really being able, even after they resolved the triggers around trauma or their nervous system was a little more regulated. They still seem to struggle with this connection to self and connection to other people and, you know, connection to the ground.

00;01;44;29 - 00;02;11;00

Diane Heller

So I really, I think, was Bruce Lipton, Dr. J. One of the Lipton's had talks about Lift and actually talked about trauma. Short definition for trauma is broken connection and I really related to that. So I took a deep dive and trying to understand what what happens in relationship and how it can get just described, but also how it can get repaired and, and how we can have healthier relationships where we really enjoy them.

00;02;11;00 - 00;02;37;13

Diane Heller

I think we all deserve to have fulfilling work, but also fulfilling, loving connections, whether it's an intimate partner or friend or, you know, our relationships in life. So that I really did this kind of openness or focus on attachment work, and I've tried to figure out ways that we can actually have experiential healing of our attachment injury. If we had one or a mix of them, so that we can enjoy healthier relationships.

00;02;37;13 - 00;02;58;04

Diane Heller

And it is a very hopeful message. I know your title of your podcast is Hope and healing. So one of the reasons I'm kind of maniacally focused on attachment work, along with trauma resolution, is that our attachment system can heal. It's highly resilient, but we do need to know what healthy attachment is and then also how to repair when things go off center.

00;02;58;04 - 00;03;17;06

Diane Heller

So that's been my focus for a long time. I also do a lot of spiritual work. Personally, I think that helps a lot. The integration of psychotherapy or just living life and also trying to understand things on a deeper level, I find really fascinating as well. So that's enough about me. Let's dive into whatever we'd like to talk about today.

00;03;17;09 - 00;03;41;01

Cherie Lindberg

Well thank you. I love what you shared about, you know, the The broken Connection. Can you talk a little bit more about what you have learned in all of your years of, you know, teaching and, you know, helping people with healing trauma about what are some ways to help repair the broken connection that folks have experienced?

00;03;41;04 - 00;03;58;22

Diane Heller

First of all, I think there's some myths that we need to like, think about vertical. I think people think they should just know how to do a healthy relationship. And my experience is there's a lot of learning there, you know? But the exploration of the human journey has a lot to do with how we don't do a relationship so well, or how we carry wounds from other generations forward.

00;03;58;24 - 00;04;23;25

Diane Heller

So I think having a little bit of beginner's mind when we start to look at what is healthy relationship and then nobody has the exact definition of that. I mean, it varies from person to person, but I think attachment theory is helpful as a kind of a metaphor, but also a guide to like, what kinds of things can help us feel more connected and more present and more available for intimacy in our relationships.

00;04;23;25 - 00;04;52;15

Diane Heller

So that's one of the reasons I think it's a useful orientation. There's many other ones, but I like this one because if you really understand your own attachment history compassionately and then also understand other people's what they might be bringing forward from their attachment history, what I love about it, and also because it's biologically based, it encourages you kind of by definition, to not take so much of what goes on in relationships deeply, personally.

00;04;52;15 - 00;05;09;11

Diane Heller

And I think we are always bouncing off, like reacting to what people said or did or how could they do that? And, you know, there's a lot of making a case against people when they sort of screw up that I think, I think causes unnecessary suffering and understandable that we do that, but it causes a lot of unnecessary suffering.

00;05;09;11 - 00;05;32;23

Diane Heller

So what I really like about understanding attachment, especially from a compassionate point of view, is that so much of it's coming from our very early history, our very beginning imprints in our soul or even in utero, or we're absorbing what's happening relationally with mom and mom and dad or mom and mom or whoever's the caregivers are there. We're just absorbing it like a little sponge.

00;05;32;23 - 00;05;55;17

Diane Heller

And so much of our knee jerk reactions are still in that not conscious yet or implicit memory. And just from behind the scenes, we're getting kind of pulled all sorts of different ways, like a puppeteer and a puppet that will, we understand that we start to have a little bit more curiosity and awareness about our own behaviors and emotions and reactions, but also we start to understand other people.

00;05;55;20 - 00;06;13;23

Diane Heller

I mean, in terms of hope and healing stories, I have, you know, these trainings I do online about all of this, of course, and then we do a lot more of them in person before Covid. And I have assistants that help me during the trainings because we have people do breakout groups and have experiences, and they have the support of someone that's been through the program a few times, which I really love.

00;06;13;23 - 00;06;37;25

Diane Heller

That setup works really well because I think we learn experientially. So it's one thing to have the knowledge, but it's another thing to actually experience the shifts in your own, your own body, your own emotional self, all of that. But one of the assistants had divorced about, I don't know, five years ago or something, and she remarried her husband after she understood the attachment work more because she really wasn't taking what he was doing.

00;06;37;25 - 00;06;57;13

Diane Heller

She understood where it came from and they were able to have dialog about it. And I just thought that was a really great story of someone who understood a lot more and then went back in and was able to work with it and have a, you know, an even happier outcome with that. So that's one example. So you do want me to talk a little bit about the different attachment possibilities?

00;06;57;13 - 00;06;57;22

Diane Heller

I mean.

00;06;57;29 - 00;07;07;02

Cherie Lindberg

Yeah, if you'd like to. That would be wonderful. And then maybe give us 1 or 2 ways that you have maybe taught about repair.

00;07;07;04 - 00;07;23;05

Diane Heller

Okay, I can I can certainly do that. First of all, it's important to know what security attachment means. That's that's our healthiest. I've sort of win the jackpot. If you are born into a pro-social family that is sensitive to relationship and, you know, if there's a mis attunement or, you know, if things go wrong, that's going to happen.

00;07;23;07 - 00;07;38;03

Diane Heller

We're human beings. We're not perfect. We shouldn't even try because it's not going to happen. But we can repair what we know. Something's gone off the rails. We can say, hey, you know, when I was, you know, mom could say to a kid, I know I kind of lost it this morning when you were late for the school bus.

00;07;38;03 - 00;08;09;18

Diane Heller

And I think we just need to, you know, I'm sorry I got a little abrupt or didn't give you your lunch or whatever, and let's just get up 15 minutes earlier so we don't have that struggle in the morning. I mean, there's just a way to repair that I think is really relevant. And, you know, when I asked people online or in person, a group of people and they're usually groups of therapists, if they had good modeling around repair and apology from their parents or generationally, almost, I usually about 5%, only 5% say they had any kind of that going on in their history.

00;08;09;18 - 00;08;25;22

Diane Heller

So this is usually something we have to learn. And I think what I like about really the way I'm trying to bring attachment theory, I mean, it's a wonderful theory, but I'm really trying to make it practical. Like, what the heck do you do with it that makes a difference, whether that's clinically or whether that's just living your everyday life.

00;08;25;26 - 00;08;43;00

Diane Heller

That's what I think is really valuable. So let me give you like for secure, of course you feel more safe. You tend to feel protected. There's laughter and humor. You have a sense of humor. You kind of have a sense of confidentiality and good boundaries. You have your go to person who, if we're talking about intimate relationships, would be your partner.

00;08;43;08 - 00;09;01;12

Diane Heller

You know, I'm trying to think of some other things you are aware of comings and goings. You know how to regulate yourself, but you also need to go regulate with your partner, because bodies like to be with other bodies that are regulating, you know, there's a lot of little things that can make a big difference. So what we're really looking at is attachment goes to wounding.

00;09;01;12 - 00;09;19;13

Diane Heller

How do we come back to secure attachment. Because that's where connections are much easier and much more enjoyable. So let me give you just a couple different examples of that. And then I can talk a little bit about different ways attachment wounding can happen, the way they tend to write about it, and how we have different strategies to help with that too.

00;09;19;16 - 00;09;42;14

Diane Heller

But for instance, we'll repair like I talked about already is really important. I mean, John Dorman does a lot of research on couples and how they functioning and all of that. And he says that if you learn how to initiate and receive repair in your relationships, when things are kind of off, that will give you research shows 85% more sustainable well-being into your relationship.

00;09;42;14 - 00;09;58;10

Diane Heller

So if you don't take anything else away from what I say today, that would be important. Because just think about if you could put your money in the bank and you get an 85% return. I mean, if you wouldn't even buy be buy in Starbucks, you'd put every dollar in there, because every now it's borrowing 85%, you know, be worth it.

00;09;58;13 - 00;10;19;24

Diane Heller

So that's really true for relationships. So one of the things about repair is you have to learn how to do an effective apology. And Harriet Lerner wrote a great book, something like why don't you apologize? I don't know if I have the title exactly right, but if you look up her name, you'll get it. And she talks, she goes, writes a whole book on what's probably advisable to do and an apology because people need to learn this so much.

00;10;20;00 - 00;10;42;23

Diane Heller

And I liked a lot of her ideas, but one of them is that when somebody is hurt by you, maybe it's a good idea, even if you aren't guilty, even if you thinking, I didn't even do that, or they misinterpreted everything, that's probably often, sometimes the case because we're living in projections, right? But if you can put aside that I'm being falsely accused.

00;10;42;23 - 00;11;01;27

Diane Heller

This is not an easy exercise. So you try it, right? This is just let the person express their emotional hurt, express their anger, express, I mean, not in a violent way, obviously, but, you know, express themselves about it before you start saying, but I didn't do that. What I meant was, you know, and we all tend to do that right away.

00;11;02;04 - 00;11;20;28

Diane Heller

And the now often that could be objectively true, that you didn't actually, you know, do or say or whatever or mean something to be a certain way. The thing is, though, if you say it right away, the person is still stuck with all those feelings and they they stand tend to just reverberate through the person's body. So it's better to let them just.

00;11;21;00 - 00;11;43;15

Diane Heller

Is there anything else you want to tell me? Is there any other feeling that's theirs in me? Just let them empty the bucket. Basically, even when you're inside feeling like a minute, who are they talking about? You know, I don't have that motive. I never had that thought. You know, don't go there. Just let the say I can see this situation the way you're it was hurtful, you know, and just let them do their thing.

00;11;43;15 - 00;12;08;17

Diane Heller

Whatever they need to say or feel or share about it. And this sounds easy, but this is a very difficult thing. I'm suggesting this is not easy because immediately when somebody is kind of in your face about something, you want to defend yourself. It's natural. But let's just see if you can hang tight, let them finish their whatever is they're saying, and then you can have a conversation because they have that are carrying all that still that charge of all that.

00;12;08;23 - 00;12;43;15

Diane Heller

So that's that's something that most people don't do. And I found very helpful to learn, and to practice. And it's not easy. So I'm just going to say not easy for me. Probably not easy for you, but much more effective because then when I say, well, you know, when I did whatever I was thinking this and it sounds like you were thinking that, and I can see why that would be really hurtful if you were thinking that I was, because I was late, I didn't value your time, and I was late because my friend called and they had our mutual friend had just passed away and I couldn't just say, well, I gotta go.

00;12;43;15 - 00;12;59;25

Diane Heller

I mean, you know, it was so I mean, there was a misunderstanding there, but you want to wait till the end of the emotional expression. So that's one thing that I think is interesting. The other thing is sometimes we don't really let people repair. It's like, well, they should have apologized a week ago, then it would have mattered.

00;12;59;25 - 00;13;22;24

Diane Heller

Or they bought me candy instead of flowers. And I really wanted flowers or they used this word and I don't like that word. So, you know, blah blah blah. Or they, you know, they didn't say enough. So I don't think they're sincere. So sometimes we block a repair. So you have to kind of look at your own behavior, go, well, is there anybody in my life right now that I'm blocking repair that's trying?

00;13;22;24 - 00;13;43;24

Diane Heller

Maybe they're not doing it very effectively, but they're actually trying to make a repair and they're not doing it the way I would really like them to do it. But the intention is there. Can I give them a little wiggle room and then are there some people in your life right now that you feel like, oh, you know, I probably should initiate a repair because I kind of stepped on their toes in this way.

00;13;43;26 - 00;14;07;01

Diane Heller

I mean, one time I was hiking with a friend. This is a personal example. And I when I hike, I don't have it just the way my energy is. If I keep stopping, I sort of lose my endurance to keep go the distance. So I'll tend to just keep walking. And my friend tends to one talk to everybody and everybody's dog as they go by.

00;14;07;01 - 00;14;19;28

Diane Heller

And I totally get that because I love dogs. I love talking to people, but if I do that, I'm not going to make it to the end. Like, you know, it's just the way it works for me. And I learned this from a mountaineer that said, just you just keep walking. Even if you're walking slowly, just keep going.

00;14;19;28 - 00;14;36;00

Diane Heller

You don't stop. And I might I mean, you know, occasionally for water, but besides that, you don't stop. And that works really well for me. So I wasn't stopping. So I kept ending up in front of her because she would stop and talk to dogs and everything. And she she took that to me and she was upset with me, and I didn't.

00;14;36;03 - 00;14;53;00

Diane Heller

She, she took that to me that I was trying to dominate or, I don't know, be ahead or be first or there was this whole meaning about it that I was like, okay, I is that nothing to do with my internal reality? But I could see how she would take that behavior to mean that, because I kept passing her when she would stop and talk to these people.

00;14;53;03 - 00;15;13;12

Diane Heller

So we had to like, have a conversation about it, which is really all it took. But we had two different, completely different experiences of that reality, which happens like all the time, every post, every five minutes a day in your your relationships. Because we're projecting our histories in a certain way, you know, and I know her well enough over time.

00;15;13;12 - 00;15;33;05

Diane Heller

And I really like her. She's one of my favorite people, but she tends to devalue herself sometimes. And so she was seeing me as trying to do a one up by being first on the trail or whatever, you know? And that wasn't in my reality, that wasn't what was happening. But anyhow, I know we all have millions of stories where we could share about those kinds of things.

00;15;33;11 - 00;15;47;28

Diane Heller

And so if you practice repair, though, and you have conversation, you can kind of clean things up as they go. And there's a great example of friends. I tell the story a lot. You probably heard it if you've seen me before. I have friends that I love. They're what they do. They both love chocolate and I'm in that camp.

00;15;47;28 - 00;16;15;18

Diane Heller

They love really high quality, like truffle level. The best chocolate you can get with all these amazing combinations and everything. And so their tradition, their married, their tradition is to give each other a unique truffle every night. And I guess I'm going to make this up 9:00 and they have a little pillow talk and they clear the day like what happened during the day, but okay, I didn't like it when you took the call in the middle of our conversation or whatever was going on.

00;16;15;25 - 00;16;30;24

Diane Heller

They have this kind of, you know, whatever time it takes to kind of clear the day, maybe give news. But also if there's something going on relationally, they clear it. They do that every night. It's like a it's a routine that's just as long as are both in the house. They do it and one of them goes to bed early.

00;16;30;24 - 00;16;49;00

Diane Heller

So one after that, 9:00 little truffle treat time, we'll just go to sleep. And the other one my step late. So they'll go be on the computer or do whatever they do till maybe 1:00 in the morning, but they have this time together. And not only are they clearing whatever's happening and they're enjoying chocolate, which I'm way up for that.

00;16;49;03 - 00;17;15;18

Diane Heller

They're also doing something it's called it's a bonding. It's something we're really helped bonding by what you do with comings and goings. And when we go to sleep, we're literally separating, right? We're into our own journey, our own dream journey. Our bodies resting. So how you do that separation into sleep? I mean, the other thing that could happen probably happens in a lot of households is, oh, honey, I'm going to bed and I know you'll be up to two and I'm out of here and they're still in their computer down and a look up.

00;17;15;20 - 00;17;37;02

Diane Heller

Okay, fine. You know, that's not a particularly nourishing separating into sleep. There could be something, but only take five minutes. Maybe. Maybe 15, where you could have something where you actually come together and you do something. It doesn't have to be truffles. It can be the, I don't know, whatever could be. I mean, I used to when I was married, I used to watch cheers, cheers.

00;17;37;02 - 00;17;40;23

Diane Heller

It was really popular back then. Ted Danson A lot of people remember that show anymore.

00;17;40;25 - 00;17;42;06

Cherie Lindberg

I do remember that show.

00;17;42;07 - 00;17;59;24

Diane Heller

I know, I know a lot of people. I get all my references are dated like Leave It to Beaver and, you know, adore, you know, Donna Reed and, you know, Mr. Sky King. I mean, if I was around before, you know, TV and was even invented. But anyway, most people remember cheers. But. Oh, we used to have this ritual where we'd watch 1 or 2 episodes.

00;17;59;24 - 00;18;15;03

Diane Heller

I guess it was because we watched it live. Back then. You couldn't, you know, stream things like you can today, but we'd watch cheers. It was sort of our our evening. We just liked it, you know, so we'd watch cheers. We thought it was funny and we'd have a little conversation, you know, and that was sort of our ritual before going to sleep.

00;18;15;09 - 00;18;32;20

Diane Heller

So it can be anything. Anything that hopefully is somewhat constructive. And then the same thing. But how do you get up in the morning? Do you immediately? I mean, you know, most people are doing as you know, it's understandable because we live on our phones now, but can you, like, cook breakfast together? Can you walk the dog together?

00;18;32;20 - 00;18;55;23

Diane Heller

Can you? So or you're coming home from work or somebody was on a business trip and they're coming back. The ideal scenario and Stan Chapman, by the way, has a wonderful little YouTube out there. Everybody can watch called and Welcome Home Hug. And some of his graphics are pretty old now, but the message is really good. And that is that, like, okay, I'm cooking dinner and I've got three kids, I'm trying to help with homework and I'm trying to feed the dog.

00;18;55;23 - 00;19;13;04

Diane Heller

And, you know, it's the end of my workday too. And all this craziness is going on around dinner time. And my partner comes in and there and I'm just like, hey, you forgot to take out the trash now or or sit down, dinner's hot and you're late. It's going to be cold or, you know, I mean, I, you know, have that energy because I'm overwhelmed.

00;19;13;06 - 00;19;32;10

Diane Heller

That's not the ideal, most regulating way to greet a partner. So the recommendation is you drop what you're doing, you tell the kids, hey, continue to your safe activity, whatever it is, the dog weights, you turn the heat off the stove, you actually go and greet your partner and you don't do an American Triangle hug. You do a full.

00;19;32;11 - 00;19;55;25

Diane Heller

If it's a partner test touch has to be appropriate to the relationship. But if you're in an intimate relationship, you do a full body, belly to belly, chest to chest hug, and you stay in that until you can feel each other regulating each other's body. Bodies love to be regulated and they love to be with people who are regulating.

00;19;55;25 - 00;20;15;22

Diane Heller

So this is a really big attachment bonding glow really. And then so for instance, if I was in this full body hug right now and I would say to my partner, oh, this feels so good. But you know what? I really had this headache. They might that ideally they put their hand into. So I'm having to put my hand is there's nobody here but they would be putting their hand on my forehead.

00;20;15;28 - 00;20;32;11

Diane Heller

And maybe they say my my low back is killing me. I would put my hand on their low back, and they would have their hand on my head so that we're actually giving nourishment to each other in a co regulating way. And the more we can co regulate not that we only co regulate, we need to self regulate.

00;20;32;19 - 00;20;49;27

Diane Heller

You know all that stuff. But co regulation is really bonding. And you don't want to be expecting that your partner's always going to be available for that because that's unrealistic. But but in this welcome home hug you know you want to stay in it long enough. This is the thing we often give these really quick hugs. Or we do a little pat on the back or something.

00;20;49;27 - 00;21;09;25

Diane Heller

You know, it's not good enough, especially if it's somebody that you're in a deep relationship with. You want to do this full body hug and stay in it long enough. I had a couple that I absolutely I was doing a live training in Denmark. I'll never forget this session. I had one of the top relationship people for the another body of work.

00;21;09;26 - 00;21;24;04

Diane Heller

I'm trying to remember the horrible Hendrix work. She was one of the main, main teachers for them. She happened to be attending. She. I was also in Denmark same time and she I learned she came so. But anyway, these couple that I knew really cared about each other. I mean, it was clear to me they'd been in a few trainings of mine.

00;21;24;04 - 00;21;42;16

Diane Heller

I knew they were just really yummy together. They were having a lot of snarky time. They were just irritated with each other. They were needy, you know, a lot of not going in a good direction. And they brought it up because I was doing healthy adult relationship training and I said, let's try something. I said, how do you guys come together at the end of the day?

00;21;42;16 - 00;22;00;06

Diane Heller

And the gentleman said to me goes, oh, as soon as I hit the doorknob, I'm like, what am I going to walk into? I'm really nervous. No. And the woman was like, I'm usually trying to make dinner and the kids and the dog and then. And then he comes in and he didn't do what he agreed to do, and I'm like, pissed off.

00;22;00;06 - 00;22;18;15

Diane Heller

And I'm like, okay, let's see if we can do something different. And all I did was have them, okay, we're going to renegotiate. Just homecomings. I had them do this welcome home, like I said, okay. So I want you to just stop cooking. Just drop everything. You don't immediately task your partner when they walk in the door like you didn't do this or do this, do this, do this.

00;22;18;15 - 00;22;36;09

Diane Heller

You, you know, you want to actually connect first. And I had him, you know, so so she they did this welcome home hug thing and they were in this embrace maybe, I don't know, three minutes. I wasn't hugely long but they were felt the regulation going back and forth. And I just said why don't you see. And they really felt good about each other.

00;22;36;10 - 00;22;55;09

Diane Heller

They really liked it. And I said, well, you know, if you're up for it, you know, practices like do it every day. So then I was back coming back through to do another level, the training. And they said, oh my gosh, that is the only thing we did differently. It changed everything. And that's just an intelligent use of nervous system regulation.

00;22;55;09 - 00;23;17;10

Diane Heller

But also co and co regulation but also attachment understanding that when you come together and when you separate those are big attachment opportunities. But there can also be attachment enduring times and to and to make sure that you're you're aware you plan it or you're like these guys that do the truffles, they have that written into their their relationship.

00;23;17;10 - 00;23;37;11

Diane Heller

I mean, that's a big part of their marriage is making sure they have that triple time and they're welcome home. Hug could be I would think would be another milestone. And it's see, the thing is, Sherry, these are not rocket science things, right? I mean, anybody who's listening could probably put that into practice. This is I mean, your own version.

00;23;37;11 - 00;23;59;27

Diane Heller

You know what I love about this, but I'm so passionate about is once you're aware of it, it's highly doable now. So if there were more uncomfortable, like when I suggested you don't defend yourself when somebody is, you know, blaming you for something, that one's harder, that one's that one takes them. Okay, I'm going to keep my seat and ground my feet and just listen and tell me if there's anything else.

00;23;59;27 - 00;24;15;21

Diane Heller

What else do you feel about it? You know, just let that happen. That's a harder practice. But this one where you know, you're doing the welcome home hug or you're doing the ritual at night, I mean, these are usually fun. It's hard to remember to do them because we get busy and distracted. Right. But our relationships are really important.

00;24;15;21 - 00;24;24;15

Diane Heller

They're a big part of what makes life worth living, so it's worth it to put these things into practice. I mean, I can go on and on. I have a million of these practices. I just.

00;24;24;15 - 00;24;47;08

Cherie Lindberg

I, I absolutely love it. I mean, I'm just listening and I'm getting to hear just listening from you. But, you know, just through some intentional planning, how just tweaking and doing these little things can make a big difference. And I'm just paying attention to what you're saying about, you know, the connection and and the regulation. And then what you said about, you know, repair.

00;24;47;10 - 00;24;51;28

Cherie Lindberg

And these are not things that we are naturally taught, you know, and.

00;24;51;28 - 00;25;21;01

Diane Heller

So what I think is unfortunate because wouldn't it be great to have a course in high school, you know, where you learn about just these simple things like this can help a lot. You know. You know, the I this is a little bit of a taking a left. But Helen Fisher, who is a very amazing anthropologist, she I was at a keynote speech that she was giving at a conference one time, and she said that almost everybody in prison, I mean, this is really think about this in the extreme, is there because of some form of mate guarding?

00;25;21;01 - 00;25;42;07

Diane Heller

She calls it mate guarding. And I was like, what is that? And she went on to explain, like people that steal because they're trying to get food for their family or people that might hurt somebody because they feel like their relationship with their wife or their husband is threatened, you know, and they attack that other person or, you know, anything that because because it's so primal.

00;25;42;07 - 00;26;08;23

Diane Heller

I guess the reason I'm going into it is it's so instinctual and primal to want this primary relationship with someone. And then when it's threatened, it can bring up all sorts of passionate and sometimes not healthy, very, very much not healthy destructive reactions. But I thought, that's an amazing I think she I can't remember the exact statistic, but it was something like 90% of the people in prison were there.

00;26;08;23 - 00;26;33;07

Diane Heller

You could trace back to some sort of mate guarding. So I mean, that's the that was so astonishing to me. And I thought, is this really as awful as that is? Right? It also highlights how important and if we learn these skills, how much problems and suffering and even violence and even incarceration could be avoided. I mean, I'm talking in the extreme right now, I realize.

00;26;33;07 - 00;26;53;21

Diane Heller

But it it is impressive. I also watch this show on prison. Prison? This woman went in and she was doing the AC studies. You know, the ten questions. You know, where your parents divorced or separated, what was their abuse in the household, you know, was addiction? I mean, there's like only ten questions. But she had this massive group of inmates in the yard, right.

00;26;53;27 - 00;27;11;07

Diane Heller

Like, I don't know, maybe five, 500 guys and women. I think it was men's prison but doesn't matter. Maybe it was both, I can't remember. But she said, how many? If you had this number one in your household, step forward and like a bunch of them would step forward. And then by the time she got to the third one, almost everybody had stepped forward.

00;27;11;07 - 00;27;37;25

Diane Heller

That had they almost all had 4 or 5 on the Aces study. So it's it's such a big part of what creates human suffering. And what I like about kind of what I think of it as like clinical izing or practical izing Jamaican upwards. Now, attachment theory is that it gets to the core of what our original relationship imprints were and is actually able to facilitate healing.

00;27;37;25 - 00;27;57;05

Diane Heller

And so then I've created a and just, I do a lot, a lot, a lot of, a lot of interventions that, you know, therapists can use or coaches can use or people just regular people walking around because we're all have a nervous system and, and, and I believe biologically we have a, an innate biological understanding of secure attachment.

00;27;57;05 - 00;28;16;12

Diane Heller

Then things interrupt it and get in the way of it and, and make it difficult to access. But we all have it and it's part of our human package. So this information, what I like about it, it's relevant to anybody that has a brain, a nervous system, a body and a and a heart. And we have on a and a and a an orientation to connect.

00;28;16;17 - 00;28;19;10

Diane Heller

So I find it universally useful.

00;28;19;13 - 00;28;49;07

Cherie Lindberg

Well, thank you so much. I mean, you're I'm just hearing a lot about how we all have this neuro biological need. Review gets disrupted quite often, you know, knowingly or unknowingly. You know, when we're children and then it leads these impressions and prints, and then we don't even realize we get into these relationships later in life, and then we start to see these patterns, those that grow up and disrupt our adult relationships.

00;28;49;09 - 00;29;10;14

Cherie Lindberg

I often work with couples, I do a relationship coaching, and we're going into these patterns. What you're talking about, about the disrupted attachment and how it's showing up. And you were talking about how we project some of these things on to our partners, and we don't even realize, oh, I'm having a different.

00;29;10;14 - 00;29;15;01

Diane Heller

Experience than you are. Right? Right, exactly.

00;29;15;04 - 00;29;24;21

Cherie Lindberg

So thank you for a lot. You share about any, you know, as we're getting ready to wrap up here, what are your what is your current work that you're doing now? What are some of the things that are.

00;29;24;23 - 00;29;52;07

Diane Heller

One of the things that I'm writing about right now a lot, I just did the whole week on it was how these patterns get triggered in the arena of adult relationships, like what happens when no one gets together with an ambivalent, or what happens when a disorganized gets together. You know what kinds of how you would know if you're in a relationship with someone who tends toward avoidance or tends toward a middle and or tends towards a different attachment injury, and then what can you do to be helpful in the relationship, not add to the problem?

00;29;52;09 - 00;30;11;11

Diane Heller

And also, what can they be doing that's helpful for their own healing process? Because you can't really do somebody else's homework. You know, ideally everybody's working on their stuff, right? Not always the case, but you can do a lot even if you're the only one presenting secure attachment, that's a big job. But ideally, your partner will have some interest in and participate, too.

00;30;11;17 - 00;30;36;09

Diane Heller

But they also say that if you're if you have an attachment injury like you avoid Natasha, which means you tend to isolate a lot and connection is kind of threatening, or you're ambivalent and you really crave connection, and being alone is really threatening or disorganized is most coupled with trauma, unresolved trauma. So there's a lot of fear and terror if you actually get to a certain level of intimacy in a relationship, that's a very brief and incomplete description of all three of those.

00;30;36;11 - 00;30;52;11

Diane Heller

But with the time we have. So I'm doing a lot of writing that I'm hoping will be very useful in terms of here's what you can do for yourself if you are suffering with a certain injury. Here's what you can do for a partner that you feel is has this in their history, but you know this good for you, but also good.

00;30;52;11 - 00;31;11;22

Diane Heller

Good for them. You know it's actually practical and works pretty well. And then, you know, what are the characteristics of when you're suffering from a particularly a particular attachment injury. And most of us walking around have a mix of them anyway. And we do have a free I should mention this because it's free. We have a free attachment quiz on my website.

00;31;11;22 - 00;31;32;15

Diane Heller

It's trauma solutions plural.com, trauma solutions.com or just my name Diane pool healer.com. It goes the same place. And the free attachment quiz. It'll give you kind of a based on your answers. It's subjective based on your answers to these different questions about how you are or how you you feel in relationship. It will give you a little summary of this.

00;31;32;21 - 00;31;47;24

Diane Heller

This your little chart on, you know, like this percentage seems to be a secure this it seems to be avoidant, seems to be ambivalent or disorganized. And then you can read a little bit about, you know, the different styles. It gives you a little more information that I'm able to give in the time we have today. But we have a lot of resources on the website.

00;31;47;24 - 00;32;11;14

Diane Heller

We do a lots of online training. We do training for therapists, coaches, anybody working with people and like as a facilitator, whatever version of that they're doing. This has a little more clinical orientation to it. But we're also doing a lot of public, you know, just presentations. We did a 2.5 hour, one on shame. We have a I hour, two and a half or three hour one on introduction to attachment styles, to give you kind of the basics of what I'm talking about today.

00;32;11;16 - 00;32;30;03

Diane Heller

And then we have one coming up. I think it's in October on anxiety. Like how to manage, what is anxiety, how to manage it, what are some things that you can do for yourself or for other people that are struggling with anxiety because you know, these times are a little anxiety producing for a lot of us. You know, we just came out of Covid.

00;32;30;03 - 00;32;49;09

Diane Heller

That was very challenging. I don't think a lot of us are over that, you know, I mean, especially kids that were in their formative years and then, you know, just turbulent times in history. So there's just a lot that's stirring us up, you know? So how do we address that? How do we regulate with that? How do we stay sane with all of that?

00;32;49;09 - 00;33;10;06

Diane Heller

How do we keep keep present and in our bodies with all of that? So those are the kinds of things we're trying to offer, things that are relevant and helpful to either the professional community or the just everybody human being walking around community, which, you know, we're all part of. So and we have a course going on right now on healthy parenting.

00;33;10;09 - 00;33;29;18

Diane Heller

You know, we have another one on intergenerational trauma that we're in the middle of. I'm doing another intergenerational trauma, one that starts, I think, in September, co-teaching with Naoki, who does a lot of constellation work, and she's a Brazilian. And what happened in her village are some traumas that and how to work collectively. I'm working more with individually, with attachment, how it's passed down.

00;33;29;18 - 00;33;51;18

Diane Heller

Parent child and Peter Levine will be there also working on a very broad orientation to intergenerational trauma. And a lot of times that goes unnoticed. We don't even really realize how much of the effect of what happened in our our history as a culture, but also our history as a in the family that we are into, how much that might be deeply impacting us, that we don't even know why or how and how to untangle that.

00;33;51;18 - 00;34;23;05

Diane Heller

So lots of different things coming up. I'm presenting a lot of intergenerational trauma in the conferences I'm in one in California with Psychotherapy Network or in October and then one in March if the Psychotherapy Network or in Washington, DC. And I'm also teaching with Deb Dana on poly vagal theory. I have a lot of things going on, but I, I love hanging out with you and other people that have been in the trenches a long time and are just really sincerely interested in what the heck does this human journey, and how do we manage it in the best way possible for ourselves and the people that were on that journey with me?

00;34;23;05 - 00;34;46;04

Cherie Lindberg

Well, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to be with us and share some of these tips, and we'll be sure they have all your and your links so that people can get to your website and enjoy some of these enriching classes. Thank you so much for being here. Is there any anything else that's percolating up that maybe it's like, oh, this is one last thing I really would love the audience to know.

00;34;46;07 - 00;35;14;16

Diane Heller

Well, just that it is a very hopeful message. Your attachment system, with the right support and the right nourishment is really resilient. It wants to go back to secure attachment, in my view, and it's as long as sort of get some help to do that. Very often people can recover a lot of their healthy attachment that they may have had just stomped on from all over the place in their childhood, or even maybe an adult relationship that was really hard, or abandoned or neglectful or abusive or whatever.

00;35;14;20 - 00;35;43;03

Diane Heller

h. I started doing therapy in: 1987

00;35;43;04 - 00;35;49;19

Cherie Lindberg

Thanks so much for being with us and thank you. And thank you.

00;35;49;21 - 00;36;08;19

Narrator

Thank you for joining us on another uplifting journey on Cherie Lindberg's Elevated Life Academy stories of Hope and healing. If you found resonance or connection with what you've heard today, we encourage you to share this episode and consider becoming a subscriber. Please spread the word so others can live an elevated life.

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