What if all the insight in the world still leaves you feeling disconnected?

You’ve read the books. You’ve gone to therapy. You know your attachment style. And yet... the same patterns keep showing up in your relationship.

In this episode, Lauren Dry is joined by relationship coach Jack Bohannan, who brings both lived experience and expert insight to the conversation around love, nervous system healing, and emotional safety. Together, they delve into the intricacies of attachment theory, focusing on how these patterns show up in modern relationships especially for high-achieving women partnered with emotionally avoidant men.

They explore the dynamics of anxious and avoidant attachment, how they often look different in men and women, and why doing all the emotional labor in a relationship doesn’t create connection, it erodes it. Jack shares his own journey of relational breakdown and healing, and offers practical, somatic tools to help you come back to yourself and create a secure bond that doesn’t cost your identity.

You’ll hear us explore:

• Why therapy and insight don’t always create lasting change
• How anxious and avoidant patterns show up in real-time and what’s underneath them
• The hidden cost of “doing all the work” in a relationship
• Why letting your partner struggle might be the most loving thing you do
• Somatic tools to regulate your nervous system and reconnect with yourself

Resources & Links:

• Learn more about Rise into Regulation™, the skillset for connection, communication, and Nervous System safety in modern marriage
• Follow Lauren on Instagram @lauren_dry
• Follow Jack on Instagram @jack.unscripted
• Visit Jack’s website www.jackbohannan.com
• Access Jack’s free webinar Get Back Your Power in Love

If something in this episode resonated, please share it with a friend, leave a review, or connect with me on Instagram. I love hearing what lands for you.

Big love,

Lauren X

The Connection Catalyst

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Connection Podcast

[00:00:28] Lauren Dry: Our signature program [00:00:30] Rise Into Regulation was Born. It's giving so many others in modern driven relationships, back clarity and ease for good. On the podcast today, we are going to dive deep together on all things, relationships, business, identity and leadership. Clarity and ease is at the heart of it all, and we [00:00:45] are so happy to be with you so that you can have what you need in connection, mind, body, and soul too.

[00:00:51] Lauren Dry: I would like to welcome to the podcast today, Jack Bohannon. Jack is a relationship coach with a focus on attachment theory and somatics who helps women [00:01:00] release old patterns in their relationships and dating by having new experiences of relationships during sessions.

[00:01:40] Lauren Dry: And now being in a season where he's helping women really uncover [00:01:45] and unlock, their own true selves outside of attachment theory and break some of those hidden patterns too. Jack really brings a new perspective and a new angle for women and men about what it means to [00:02:00] break those attachment style patterns and also find a new experience, a new growth, a new understanding of what it means to connect and become free of labels in our own identity and [00:02:15] in relationships.

[00:02:44] Lauren Dry: [00:02:45] Welcome to the podcast, Jack.

[00:03:17] Jack Bohannan: These things matter so much to me because they affected me a lot. I was in a very sorry state entering into adulthood where for reasons I had a lot of [00:03:30] trouble connecting with other people and attachment theory describes how we do that. It describes the ways that we connect and the ways that we struggle to connect with ourself and other people.

[00:04:10] Jack Bohannan: And I know that your listeners are pretty well versed in this, so if you [00:04:15] want to go further into what that means and unpack some of the different attachment styles, I'm happy to do so. Otherwise we can just assume they're good and keep rolling.

[00:04:43] Lauren Dry: But I'm really excited [00:04:45] to chat to you and go a little bit deeper around all things attachment style, and the different styles themself, because some people are really going to resonate with what anxious attachment style is. But anxious attachment [00:05:00] style is part of a spectrum and when it comes to relationships, when it comes to connection, understanding attachment style really means having an understanding of what that can look like in all its forms, in [00:05:15] relationships, in connection with other people.

[00:05:17] Lauren Dry: Because I don't know if other people are aware of this, but our attachment styles can flux and change through our life according to what season we are in. So I'd love [00:05:30] to hear from you, first of all, why this work resonates with you so much and why you find attachment theory to be so powerful, to be so supportive and so important, to the clients [00:05:45] that you work with as well.

[00:05:45] Jack Bohannan: Attachment is fundamental to being a person. So as people, as humans, we form relationships and that's how we form self to start out life. We form in relation to other [00:06:00] people and a lot of development happens between zero and 18 months or even before zero in how we're co-regulating with our parents or caregivers.

[00:06:33] Jack Bohannan: So it's become really popular lately, maybe in the last two years of pop relationship theory. And, it's not a new concept at [00:06:45] all. It's something that developed in the 1950s in research of how children connect with their primary caregiver, usually their mother. And only recently has it become all the rage for some reason.

[00:07:19] Jack Bohannan: And this is a really important, powerful way to understand how we connect.

[00:08:17] When Self-Awareness Isn't Enough

[00:08:27] Jack Bohannan: Yeah. Yeah. I was a mess. I was a complete [00:08:30] mess and very incapable of connecting with people in my early twenties. I was a difficult guy to be in a relationship with because my attachment style was so disordered. And there are three types of insecure attachment which we can [00:08:45] go into. I have the most complex and baffling and difficult of the three, in my opinion, or at least it's a mix of the other two.

[00:09:20] Jack Bohannan: So we had a dramatic dance of attachment infused drama throughout that time [00:09:30] where it was high, high tension, high trauma connection with this other person who happened to be a therapist who specialized in attachment theory. So she wrote, on [00:09:45] that in her masters and, she's a dear person.

[00:10:17] Jack Bohannan: So we can do a lot of therapy and we did a lot of therapy, and at the same time, we can watch ourselves relive the same patterns, have the same behaviour

[00:10:28] Jack Bohannan: with all the [00:10:30] self-awareness in the world. And there you are acting the same way, doing the same thing. And in fact, therapy can really be a defense against having to change.

[00:11:03] Jack Bohannan: I'm really thankful for that and yeah, school of the hard knocks PHD.

[00:11:36] Lauren Dry: And I hear how much care and respect that you have, for your ex-partner. so I would really [00:11:45] love to start off by asking you what do you think was missing? what was that point in time where you came to this season of, we've been together 20 [00:12:00] years, we have all this knowledge, but it's not really closing the gap for us.

[00:12:08] The Hidden Ways We Lose Ourselves in Love

[00:12:25] Lauren Dry: Hmm.

[00:12:36] Jack Bohannan: You know, there's great urgency to have that person's attention and connection, and that's a form of objectification

[00:12:49] Jack Bohannan: without your partner, that objectify them as something that you have to control, that you have to manage.

[00:13:12] Lauren Dry: Mm-hmm.

[00:13:20] Jack Bohannan: And it's the same thing on the flip side of the coin. That we have put our partner way over there. They are not part of us. We are not in [00:13:30] relationship with them. They are an object, and I need to stay the heck away from them. You know? So when we feel overwhelmed by connection, we're likely to, put our partner at arm's length.

[00:14:04] Lauren Dry: Mm-hmm.

[00:14:10] Jack Bohannan: And yeah, it's a little tragic and, life is tragic sometimes. [00:14:15] So at some point it made sense to, to separate and,

[00:14:37] Lauren Dry: Now I want to kind of preface that with, if anyone's listening, if they're in a really tough season and maybe they're [00:14:45] resonating with a lot of what you said there, Jack, which is so powerful around. This is my programming and this is, how I know to operate and I'm only okay if this person is doing X, Y, Z or I have to move away when they are [00:15:00] behaving badly.

[00:15:22] Lauren Dry: It's a terrifying concept. And I say that as someone who, we hit [00:15:30] that hard stage and we were separated, which is a scary thing to say. Even now, that we've repaired, reconnected, and my work is absolutely supporting you how to stay in your marriage. I think that the [00:15:45] fear of being alone is something that blocks so many of us from even trying to do the work.

[00:16:28] Lauren Dry: Now, for me, in that [00:16:30] season, what that looked like was okay. Stepping away from, I love the word that you used there about around objectifying your partner. I liked to think of myself as someone really independent, someone who didn't need another [00:16:45] person. But I found I was swinging heavily, when I finally touched to the sides of what anxious attachment was, who swung really heavily towards anxious attachment.

[00:16:56] Lauren Dry: Because here I was thinking consciously, I'm just trying to be [00:17:00] independent. I'm trying to sort our relationship out. What I was trying to do was fix my partner,

[00:17:05] Lauren Dry: I tried to fix him, the more dysregulated I became. Because I'd never realized that although there were things that my partner really needed to work [00:17:15] on, the more I fixated on what he needed to do, the greater our disconnection becoming, but most importantly, my disconnection from self.

[00:17:52] Lauren Dry: And whether it's through the way I communicate, the way I show up the dynamics, my willingness to step in the chaos with you, or the actual [00:18:00] actions of what I was doing and saying as well, I think it's so important to hold space for the tenderness at that point in time where we go, oh, maybe just, maybe there's some development on my own that [00:18:15] actually might help me here.

[00:18:43] Jack Bohannan: So in [00:18:45] my situation, in my past, I definitely did have some developmental work to do. And my partner was game to do it with me. She was really proactive about that and jones'ing for me to change. So [00:19:00] when somebody leaves the dishes sitting there, I like to use this analogy of like, when somebody leaves the dishes sitting there, we are all gonna do the dishes eventually, but if a roommate, if a partner rushes [00:19:15] in and does those dishes for us, it's like they have a lower tolerance for the dishes being there.

[00:19:41] Lauren Dry: Mm.

[00:19:47] Jack Bohannan: So,yeah, there's a lot of, darkness that the person with anxious attachment can carry through the best of their intentions. They're the one that's usually more pro connection in one way, but [00:20:00] that may be coming from a space where their partner is objectified, where the partner is a project to work on whenthey need attention and things from their partner and then the dude is just out wandering around stray and, nursing [00:20:15] a cannabis addiction and, generally trying to be 15.

[00:20:30] Lauren Dry: I would actually love to hear your interpretations and your definitions of attachment style. We tend to touch more on the anxious avoidant, disorganized, secure, but I'd love to hear your, how you speak into [00:20:45] attachment styles. But I'd also love to, just on this angle, I wanna pause first of all on something that you just said there.

[00:21:23] Lauren Dry: And I think so much of what happens underneath the surface there is that fear. If I don't do it, [00:21:30] no one will help me. And so pressing a pause and slowing down on that, for a lot of people with anxious attachment style is a form of death to self. and there's an element of grief there, there's an element of being able to sit with your own fear, [00:21:45] and finding a new way to move into something that's more of a secure attachment style, which allows possibility to happen again.

[00:22:19] Jack Bohannan: Okay holy smokes that's a lot. Yeah.

[00:22:25] Jack Bohannan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Circle, circle back. I love what you're pointing out about [00:22:30] those with an anxious attachment style and wanting to do some amount of fixing in the partner. It makes so much sense to do that. it comes from a often a loving place, compassionate place, and it's so normal to do that.

[00:22:54] What Attachment Styles Really Say About You

[00:23:07] Jack Bohannan: How can I finally get that attention? So it's beautiful that your listeners are aware of that. And it makes a lot of sense [00:23:15] to be in that mode, and there's a lot of benefit to coming out of it too. So one thing that I notice about clients who have anxious attachment, and most of my clients do, as we do some of this work together in session where I'm present with [00:23:30] 'em, we're going through processes of setting boundaries, communicating really openly.

[00:24:03] Jack Bohannan: Sitting down there in their belly. Why would you let somebody see that? Why would you actually want that deep connection? It's much more likely that they'll choose a partner who [00:24:15] doesn't have the capacity to give that to them so that deep sense of unworthiness can stay hidden and stay safe. So that's a little glimpse into anxious attachment as I observe it in [00:24:30] my clients.

[00:25:07] Lauren Dry: Mm-hmm.

[00:25:29] Lauren Dry: Mm-hmm.

[00:25:48] Jack Bohannan: And deep, deep down inside them, they're wondering like, Hey, am I gonna starve here because my parents are too maxed out? They're strapped for resources, they're inattentive. Whereas the person with [00:26:00] avoidant attachment didn't receive the embrace, the warm, fuzzy love that we should have in childhood in terms of soothing comfort and attunement.

[00:26:34] Jack Bohannan: And that person experienced a caregiver as a source of love and also a source of threat. Or that the caregiver was dealing with their own trauma [00:26:45] from their past. So if there was a lot of fear in the caregiver, or if they were the cause of fear, a person is likely to develop fearful avoidance, which, leaves us struggling for personhood at all [00:27:00] in this constant state of, dependence on other people.

[00:27:35] Jack Bohannan: If you're wondering what the heck are they gonna do, when are they gonna text? You can develop an anxious attachment style. Or likewise, [00:27:45] if your partner is very reactive and demanding of you and, leaning into you too much, you may find, ooof, I'm having enough here. This is a lot of work to be in this relationship, and you may find yourself avoiding [00:28:00] it.

[00:28:10] Jack Bohannan: So, some of the literature out there really demonizes people with [00:28:15] avoidant attachment, and I get it. I get where that's coming from because they do seem shut down and uncaring and ready to dismiss a partnership for very little reason. And in fact, they're struggling a [00:28:30] lot inside.

[00:28:43] Jack Bohannan: It's [00:28:45] a hard scene inside a deeply avoidant person. All that perfectionism, all that worldly performance, it's masking something that's quite lonely and quite painful.

[00:29:26] Jack Bohannan: But you know, they had the gastric bypass surgery as a [00:29:30] kid and their stomach is only so big and they can only take in so much at once. And you just have to be mindful of that, that they're there. They may have all this beauty and complexity that's so alluring to an anxious anxiously [00:29:45] attached partner on the other side.

[00:30:14] Jack Bohannan: And [00:30:15] you just won't catch a person with avoidant attachment, reading a self-help book unless their life, unless the building is on fire you know, like unless life is absolutely on fire, it's hard to get them to come around to growth work, just,

[00:30:28] Jack Bohannan: naturally. [00:30:30] yeah, that's a misconception about people with avoidant attachment for sure.

[00:30:52] Lauren Dry: Now I just wanna pause on that because I think what can be really common, and I wanna say common but [00:31:00] not, a rule is there tends to be a larger portion of men with avoidant attachment style and women with anxious attachment style. It seems to be more common that [00:31:15] way, although I have quite a few clients that who are women who have avoidant attachment style as well.

[00:31:43] Lauren Dry: Or, [00:31:45] inevitably I'm going to end up on my own. but I think it's a beautiful, segue to continue touching on that reference there around, we need to not undermine their agency [00:32:00] to grow either. So the anxious attachment style can often try and protect or project or create rules around, well, this is the capacity that my partner has.

[00:32:39] Lauren Dry: And what would you suggest [00:32:45] women who are feeling stuck, who are in that moment of time around, well, this is just the way things are, this is the way my partner is. It's not going to change. I'm either gonna need to abandon myself and just [00:33:00] try and make the relationship work, or, try and do the work and possibly risk ending up on my own.

[00:33:16] Stop Doing All the Work

[00:33:34] Jack Bohannan: Your partner's not gonna learn to do his own dishes unless you quit doing them. So honoring self before the connection makes a lot of sense. [00:33:45] Otherwise, that person with anxious attachment may end up maintaining that connection with zero integrity in the connection that actually there's so much lopsided effort from either direction.

[00:34:33] Jack Bohannan: And if that's the state of affairs, that your partner is such a disappointment in so many ways, you just have to sit with that disappointment because it's very unlikely that we're going to [00:34:45] change our partner. We can make a request, see what happens, and then leave. So at some point it's really difficult to wait and to hold on to hope and overperform in all these [00:35:00] ways.

[00:35:23] Jack Bohannan: But you also asked about men, and it's true that men are more [00:35:30] avoidant research shows the stats are there. I've cited it before in something I've written. I can't remember where it was, but you can find the peer reviewed journal where the studies show men are on average a little bit more skewed towards avoidance.

[00:36:05] Jack Bohannan: We haven't been allowed that culturally. On the flip side, women are taught to be pleasing to people. They're taught that their [00:36:15] identity is contingent on other people's opinion of them. So that's its own nightmare that lends itself to being more anxious. if you're having to control other people's opinion of you and be what they want you to be [00:36:30] all the time, that creates an anxious attachment style.

[00:36:59] Jack Bohannan: [00:37:00] we're trained so, so far away from that mode of existence that it takes guys a long time to get there and it's not gonna happen if somebody's swooping in to do the dishes and care, take and manage emotions. He just needs to [00:37:15] flounder your partner needs to be in pain. And I assume that the listeners out there are mostly, folks with anxious attachment who are doing the work, who are listening to podcasts, doing the self help.

[00:37:47] Lauren Dry: Yeah. I love that. I really love that a lot. Just the simplicity around that of it's okay to let them fall, you know?

[00:37:58] Jack Bohannan: Yeah. You're okay? [00:38:00] Yeah.

[00:38:15] Lauren Dry: I can't let other people, there's almost a sense of self-soothing that comes from, I mustn't let them fall because nobody helped me. Nobody was there for me. I can't let them fall because it's like [00:38:30] watching myself fall and I can't do that. And so there's something very powerful and important about acknowledging how [00:38:45] terrifying that can be for people with anxious attachment style.

[00:39:29] Lauren Dry: [00:39:30] hold yourself and it's it's not abandoning the other person. It's not abandoning yourself to explore what allowing your partner to sit in discomfort can look like because you believe in them, because [00:39:45] you're no longer undermining their agency to grow.

[00:40:06] Jack Bohannan: No. No. They need to detox, and it's painful and it's terrible and it's difficult for the person with anxious attachment who's more proactive in the [00:40:15] relationship to watch that happen. And I love that you add that the anxious experience is echoing their past and someone let them fall. They knew what it was like to feel so helpless alone, and [00:40:30] when they see that in their partner, of course they want to help.

[00:40:56] Lauren Dry: Yeah. I would love to hear from you. [00:41:00] How would you help someone who is maybe new to attachment styles or new to exploring what that means in their world, or maybe just starting to get good at, integrating and [00:41:15] experiencing the differentiation between who they actually are and their identity outside of their attachment style patterns.

[00:41:37] Is It a Trigger or Your Truth?

[00:42:07] Jack Bohannan: We're trying to figure out what is the external circumstance, what's appropriate externally. I'd really direct them back [00:42:15] into themself into the moment and figure out what they want in terms of what is their body calling for, what feels like too much to sit with what feels like self betrayal, and they may not be aware of that right [00:42:30] away.

[00:42:58] Jack Bohannan: But [00:43:00] what anxiously attached people often do is get in their partner's head. They're trying to figure out what this means to, you know, what does this behavior mean, he's doing this? How? How does this reflect on me? [00:43:15] So that's a no win game. And to come back to truth, to come back to home, to come back to our belly.

[00:43:49] Jack Bohannan: But to come away from labels is what I recommend all my clients do. There's so much fascination with that in pop culture online. You'll find it up and [00:44:00] down of people who qualifies having anxious attachment, very focused on understanding the issue. learning more podcasts, books, Instagram. I had one piece of content on Instagram Go wildly viral.[00:44:15]

[00:44:34] Jack Bohannan: Is this okay? is he avoidant? Is he, is this a red flag or a green flag? Or, am I doing something wrong? Is this how things should be as though there's [00:44:45] some parent or authority in the room and there's not? It's just us and we have to know what's right for us. State it and act accordingly.

[00:45:23] Lauren Dry: but I think this question is going to be really powerful for your, level of expertise and, the, [00:45:30] the clients that you work with, and the question that was left from a previous guest was, what are some practical tools that you use for nervous system grounding in the moment to come home to yourself?

[00:46:07] Jack Bohannan: Of this place where you have the things that help you soothe yourself. That could be a [00:46:15] playlist of music, weighted blanket, essential oils. Like know the ways that you regulate yourself down when you're a, in a high energy state of like anxiety or anger and some of the ways where you regulate [00:46:30] yourself up out of sadness, depression.

[00:46:34] Jack Bohannan: So that is a foundation of moving forward with healing or growth or connection, is to have that baseline regulation because without [00:46:45] that, we're just in fight, flight, flee, fawn, we're activated. We're in a state of panic and there's no growth that's gonna come from that. There's no healthy connection.

[00:47:18] Regulate Your Way Back to You

[00:47:39] Jack Bohannan: So there's a physiological change. Worst case scenario, yeah, fill a bowl with ice water and stick your face in there.[00:47:45]

[00:48:10] Jack Bohannan: okay, what kind of strange, interesting question. Can I leave for this [00:48:15] next poor unsuspecting guest?

[00:48:25] Lauren Dry: I love that question.

[00:48:27] Lauren Dry: And so, Jack, what I would like to ask you is, where do you find joy in your connections in unexpected or forbidden ways?

[00:49:28] Lauren Dry: Hmm.

[00:49:47] Lauren Dry: And I think, there's, it's such a healthy to call out the shadow side, but you know, also in terms of humanity and embracing all parts of ourselves, there's a beautiful reflection there around pausing and [00:50:00] allowing your self to experience gratitude and celebration when it's reflected back to you.

[00:50:26] Lauren Dry: But what if it's all part of the party? And we can actually say, [00:50:30] oh my goodness. As in, by embracing the full spectrum of the human experience, how cool is this that I get a reflection around maybe pausing and acknowledging and celebrating and honoring [00:50:45] something that maybe I didn't a second ago that gives me an opportunity to pause on that.

[00:51:09] Lauren Dry: If you feel jealousy for someone else, it's because you believe that you have the potential too. So, I really [00:51:15] love, moments where I feel a sense of jealousy for someone else too, and then just got

[00:51:20] Lauren Dry: Huh? Do I embrace that jealousy and simply explore, the possibility that lives for me if I allow myself to [00:51:30] regulate and celebrate that other person and bring my energy up to match that or, Do I take it at face value, which is either judge myself for being jealous or, criticize the other person and maybe find sneaky ways to criticize or, bring [00:51:45] the other person down because there's envy or jealousy there. So I love all of that. I love all of those angles and particularly what you mentioned there around, the full spectrum of who we are and, the love for all of our parts.

[00:52:09] Final Reflections & Where to Connect

[00:52:43] Lauren Dry: Thank you so much, Jack, and, [00:52:45] I also encourage any of our listeners to continue the conversation, drop some comments in the show notes. we'll be, continuing a lot of this. I think this is gonna resonate, for so many people. if you have anything particular come up, something that you wanna share, something you wanna go deeper on, please come [00:53:00] and join us on Instagram.

[00:53:20] Lauren Dry: Thank you for being here.