If you struggle to feel at ease in your relationships, you may be struggling with an insecure attachment style. In the second of this two-part series, we continue exploring how to improve your relationships by developing a more secure attachment style. We discuss actionable tools for shifting from an anxious, avoidant, or disorganized attachment style to a secure style.

If you haven’t yet, make sure to listen to Part 1 of this series first. That’ll make this episode make a lot more sense 🙂.

Key Takeaways

00:00 - Intro

01:25 - Develop secure functioning skills

13:33 - Develop a coherent self-narrative

18:40 - Befriend your nervous system

20:53 - Practice mindfulness

Resources and links

For full show notes with links, visit relationshipcenter.com/podcast

Ep. 10 - How to develop secure attachment - Part 1

Befriending Your Nervous System by Deb Dana

The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk

Headspace

The Center for Mindful Self-Compassion

Thich Nhat Hanh

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Looking for some help finding your person? Visit relationshipcenter.com

From the relationship center, I'm psychotherapist, couples

counselor and dating coach, Jessica Engle, and this is I Love You too.

A show about how to create and sustain meaningful relationships.

I'm professional certified coach Josh Van Vliet.

On today's episode, we're gonna be talking about how to develop

secure attachment part two.

We are so happy you're here, and please remember that this show is not

a substitute for our relationship with a licensed mental health professional.

Welcome everybody to part two of our two part series, all about

how to develop secure attachment.

If you missed part one, you may want to go back and listen to that.

Uh, it was our last month's episode, so you can get caught up and then we're

gonna dive right in with our conversation, where we left off for part two.

Yes.

And before we do get started, if you love our show, well we love you too and

we wanna be in touch between episodes.

So to get more free dating relationship and social anxiety

advice, go to relationship center.com/newsletter to sign up for you.

Guested our newsletter.

Again, relationships center.com/newsletter.

Okay, let's dive into part two

Okay.

Well, shall we go on?

We shall.

So my other main point here is in addition to , how does a securely attached

person view themselves in relationships?

What are the skills that you need?

To be a part of a secure functioning relationship?

You're gonna be learning that through the secure attachment priming, right?

Taking on some of the viewpoints and the conclusions and the lenses of a

secure functioning person will naturally produce some of the, or some of the

behaviors that, uh, you need to be a part of a secure functioning relationship.

And you, of course, because they're skills, you can practice

these, you can deliberately learn and develop these skills.

And so I've got a, a very incomplete, uh, list of things here.

A couple things that I think are.

Important skills that we'll touch on maybe just briefly,

uh, in this episode at least.

Yes.

I love that.

Did you say touch on or chacha,

uh, Chacha with Oh, Chacha.

Well, Chacha with these different skills, uh, and I like that we're ready to chacha.

Uh, no, we'll touch on them and, uh, I think one of the most important

ones, maybe we'll start with the most important one that I know we've talked

about in the past is making good repair.

Mm-hmm.

From moments of rupture, from moments of conflict, difficulty,

disconnection, because those are normal.

Mm-hmm.

In any relationship, you're gonna have ruptures, you're going to have

conflict, you're going to have places where you miss each other, someone does

something and it hurts the other person.

And it's not the absence of those.

That indicates a secure functioning relationship.

It's how do you repair from those moments.

Mm-hmm.

So if you had no other skills, but that one, that would get you a long

way towards secure functioning.

And of course there's a lot of nuance that we could go into

about how to do that well.

Um, and I think for the sake of our, our time today, we probably won't

go super deep with that, but I wanna name it here because that is one

of the skills that you can develop.

It's like, how do I listen, validate, understand what

my partner is experiencing?

How do I make a good apology?

Right?

We don't get a lot of training on this.

Mm-hmm.

We don't get a lot of good examples of this.

We get a lot of fake apologies or insincere apologies, or even

sincere apologies that don't really land for the other person.

And so how do we do that?

Well, yes.

Uh, and how do we share.

What didn't work for us in a way that's effective and that invites the other

person in versus pushing them away.

Uh, all of these things that are really important for how do we do repair.

Well, yes.

I've got some interesting stats on rupture, uh, in relationships.

John Gottman estimates that partners are emotionally available.

Guess how much of the time?

Well, I think I may have heard this step before.

Uh, it's, it's something like 33% or something.

That's what I had remembered.

I looked at it.

It's 9%, 9%.

The 33% I think may refer to responding to bids for connection.

Okay.

This is referring to being emotionally available 9% of the time.

Help me understand that stat a little more.

So it's basically John Gottman saying it's impossible to

be emotionally available for your partner a hundred percent of the time.

Yeah.

Both partners in a relationship are typically emotionally

available only 9% of the time.

Mm-hmm.

Which leaves the other 91% of the time ripe for miscommunication.

Mm-hmm.

And so because of that, we have to be very, very good at repair.

Mm-hmm.

Interesting.

Another interesting stat is that, um, mothers or caregivers,

Who failed to be responsive and available 50% of the time, were

still able to raise healthy adults.

So one out of every two times that your child is looking for

connection, mother is not responsive.

Right.

Available.

And they still can raise secure, securely attached kiddos.

Right.

The difference between happy couples and unhappy couples is

not that we don't make mistakes, it's that they're able to repair.

Same with mother child or parent, child, caregiver child.

Mm-hmm.

Dyads.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Rupture is extremely common.

Mm-hmm.

And so just like you're saying, the skills of repair are vital.

Mm-hmm.

That's where it's at.

And I wanna just name that a rupture isn't just a conflict, it's

also any form of disconnection.

Mm-hmm.

Due to unavailability.

So that include things getting out of a partner's control or like growing apart.

Uh, and I think what you were naming in terms of what's needed for really

good repair is really important.

It's not just an apology, it goes beyond an apology.

Right.

There's validation, there's acknowledging impact, there's making a

plan for doing something differently.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

That last one, I think so often gets left out of the conversations, right?

Because if we get an apology and even if they really empathize and validate

really well, we feel heard, that's good.

But if we don't have any sense that anything will be different in the future.

It's very hard for us to reconnect and feel safe.

Of course.

Yeah, of course.

Yeah.

Because there's the, your system doesn't have any evidence

that it's gonna be different.

Right.

It's like, why would I

expect anything different?

Right.

The danger's still present in some ways.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

And I think, you know, with secure functioning couples, Stantec and talks

about how they're really able to diffuse conflict, uh, so that neither person

stays in a heightened state stress state for extended periods of time.

Mm-hmm.

Because then your system just starts to associate the other person with threat.

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

So repair is where it's at, y'all.

I think that, uh, 12 step groups do this well.

They talk about amends, making amends, and, and they really

emphasize an amends is not an apology, that the, they're not the same.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

It may include an apology, it also may not actually mm-hmm.

Uh, repairing something.

Sometimes we do that without even speaking to the other person,

just by changing our behaviors.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, so that's, I I think probably one of the most important skills that

we can develop, uh, to be a part of a secure functioning relationship.

I think one of the other ones that comes to mind for me as really important

is developing our own capacity to make a distinction between what's

happening and what is our projection or what is our old stuff, what is

our story about what's happening.

And often it helps to have the support of a good therapist or

coach or friend, someone who can be in your corner to help you.

Cuz it can be hard to tell, especially with these kinds of, uh, implicit

memory or implicit associations that go beyond our, our language centers,

our, our kind of conscious level thinking can be hard to tell sometimes.

Is this in my head or is this what's actually happening?

But the more that we practice making that distinction and understanding even to

understand not everything I think is real.

Mm-hmm.

Right?

Mm-hmm.

Sometimes even that can be an important, like, oh, I don't have

to believe every thought I have.

Right.

Is huge.

We can lean into that.

Totally.

Yeah.

And with secure attachment that's associated with something

called mentalizing, which is what you're describing.

Mm-hmm.

So the capacity to not be embedded in an experience or kind of fused

with it as though it's truth, but rather to, feel about our thinking

and think about our feeling.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

We're able, we have enough observing ego to step, step away internally

from what's happening and kind of see more of what's happening.

Yeah.

I love that.

Mm-hmm.

And I, I like what you said about thinking about our feeling and feeling

about our thinking, because oftentimes thinking about what we're feeling

helps us give words to, or make sense of our experience rather than just,

well, I just feel angry right now.

Mm-hmm.

It's like, okay, let me give some shape and context to why do I feel angry?

What's coming up?

What is this related to?

You know, both in the present and potentially in the past.

Mm-hmm.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And I have one thing we'll go over in a little bit around, um, that

process of essentially developing a, a coherent self narrative.

Mm-hmm.

Which is what you're pointing to and is like one of the

foundations of secure attachment.

Mm-hmm.

Um, I have one other secure functioning kind of skill, but I'm wondering

if there's more on your list.

No, go for it.

Okay.

One other one that I think is key is learning effective communication skills.

Yeah.

Right.

So in insecure attachment, the tendency because of the, the fear, uh, experience,

because of assuming that others can't be there for us in the way that we

need is to communicate indirectly.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

So if I'm example of this might be, I'm feeling really anxious, instead

of saying, I, I feel you pulling away maybe I, um, become critical or

demanding or, um, start saying, well, you never take me out anymore, right?

Mm-hmm.

Or if I'm more avoidant, and I'm starting to feel a little bit

overwhelmed, instead of telling you that I might disappear for a few days.

Right?

Yep.

Uh, so with secure attachment, we need to learn communicating

directly, a assertively, a kindly, uh, instead of avoiding communication

altogether or communicating via what are called protest behaviors.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Things like refusing to return a text because you're angry

that you think they pulled away.

Mm-hmm.

Um, so in particular, I think it's really important to learn how to

express needs for closeness, distance, or attachment, reassurance directly.

So let me give you an example.

Instead of disappearing for a few days, you might say, I'm noticing,

I'm feeling really overwhelmed, and I need some alone time in

order to be fully present with you.

I would love to reach out tomorrow to schedule another time.

Would that work for you?

That's great.

Yeah.

That's very clear.

And even in doing that, you're demonstrating staying connected

while taking care of what you need.

Right.

And that mutuality that we were talking about earlier.

Right.

I know that you have a need for being connected and knowing that I'm not

disappearing and I have a need for, uh, having some alone time to help

process my overwhelm and kind of let my system regulate a little bit.

Right.

We're naming both and making sure that we can both find a way to get our needs met.

Yes, absolutely.

Yeah.

Another example might be instead of texting a few times in a row, uh, and then

like I mentioned earlier, kind of refusing to text back if, if they don't respond.

Right.

That kind of protest behavior instead saying, I'm noticing, I'm feeling very

anxious because I haven't heard from you.

I could really use some connection and reassurance.

Mm-hmm.

Are you available to have a phone call later?

Mm-hmm.

Beautiful.

Well, I think we probably could spend another several hours going into more

skills that you could use to be a part of a secure functioning relationship.

Sure.

Uh, so maybe we'll leave it there for now.

Uh, and, and keep going.

But even, I think having this lens of what are the skills you need Yes.

To be a part of a secure functioning relationship.

Things we talked about and and beyond, you can start looking for what are these

things, and where are the places that I could practice some of these in my

friendships, in my romantic relationships and my dating in my whatever relationships

in your life you see opportunities for practicing some of these skillsets.

Right.

Well, shall we loop back around to that piece I was naming of

developing a coherent self narrative.

Let's do it.

Okay.

So that's kind of fancy talk for, um, being able to name how your past has

influenced who you are today and how you're showing up in relationship.

Okay.

And so the reason this is important is there's a lot of solid research

that shows that secure attachment is associated with that capacity to tell the

story of why you are who you are today.

Mm-hmm.

Um, so let's just go a little bit back into, uh, the attachment History Annals.

We, there was a woman named Mary May in the eighties who developed

something called the Atta Adult Attachment Interview, which was a form

of attachment priming and used to kind of assess people's attachment styles.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

And, um, the aai, it's an interview that asks, uh, questions like, which

parent did you feel closer to, and why Did you ever feel rejected as a

child when you were upset as a child?

What did you do?

And then what would happen?

Okay.

So all of this evokes the person's internal experiences

or beliefs about attachment.

Mm-hmm.

Right?

What was really fascinating about this is that they found that by interviewing an

adult using this tool, they could predict with startling accuracy, the attachment

style of that interviewee's unborn child.

Wow.

So later when they had a child, they would actually test that child.

And it would match Wow.

With startling accuracy.

That's amazing.

Isn't that amazing?

Yeah.

Um, and what's even more interesting to me about this tool is what predicted the

unborn child's attachment style was not the content of the interviewee's answers.

It's not what they said, it's how they said it.

Mm-hmm.

How they engaged in the interview mm-hmm.

And with the content.

Mm-hmm.

So those who were securely attached were able to answer questions in a

way that was coherent, collaborative, consistent, and showed, um, a valuing

of relationships, both in the way they treated the interviewer, but

also in terms of some of the, the, um, things that they were saying.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

So they showed a balance of emotion and objectivity that thinking about

feeling and feeling about thinking that we were talking about earlier.

Mm-hmm.

So the point of all of this, I think, is that it doesn't actually matter as

much what you've gone through, whether you've had attachment wounds, it matters

whether you've made sense of that in a way that's allowed you to integrate it

such that any attachment trauma is not driving your nervous system anymore.

Mm-hmm.

Your adult self is able to make sense of all of it.

Yeah.

So all of that is just to say, to develop more secure attachment, we need to go into

our experiences and learn to put words to them, learn to feel what happened.

Uh, I think this is why therapy is so powerful in some ways, because

that's part of what we're doing.

Mm-hmm.

We're, we're connecting the dots, but in an environment where hopefully we're

safe to not just think through things, but also feel, feel through things.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Yeah.

That said, you know, not everybody has access to therapy.

That's not the only way to develop that self narrative.

There's also self-help practices like journaling, meditation, 12

step recovery, um, making art, et

cetera.

Mm-hmm.

I was listening to a wonderful interview with Bessel VanDerKolk recently, and

he was talking about the way that healing trauma is very much about creating

a coherent self narrative and that oftentimes one of the very painful things

about trauma not only is the event itself, but the way it disconnects us from our

community, our loved ones, our family, and our brain almost has to create this, this

disjointed, incoherent narrative of self.

And that part of the, the process as you're talking about is this integration.

I imagine that with insecure early attachment injuries,

it's a similar thing, right?

It's a form of trauma that we have to heal.

Yes.

Uh, that through creating this coherent narrative, understanding our

experience, making sense of it, and uh, understanding how it impacts us today.

Mm-hmm.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I mean, I think there's some evidence showing that, um, attachment wounding

is, you know, what might be referred to more as developmental trauma

versus big T incidental trauma.

Things like war or, um, say a natural disaster, developmental

trauma that can actually be harder to treat, it can actually have a

more lasting impact on the system.

Mm-hmm.

Um, and so I think you're right on it is a form of trauma.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, and so developing that coherent self narrative is really important.

This also connects to one other point I wanted to bring up, which is, befriending

your nervous system is a big part of healing, uh, attachment wounds.

And so in trauma, what happens is we lose the capacity to

regulate our nervous system.

Bessel VanDerKolk actually, uh, one thing that he has said is trauma comes

back as a reaction, not a memory.

Mm-hmm.

And I think that's especially true for attachment, especially early attachment.

Uh, right.

So these attachment styles, they're kind of just these trauma memories,

these webs of, of neural wiring that get activated in certain situations.

Right.

And we don't always realize that they are trauma reactions based on the past.

Cause we don't have a memory.

Mm-hmm.

We just have the reaction.

Yeah.

Uh, and so this is where really getting to know your nervous system, learning how to

detect when it is dysregulated, and also learning tools for self-regulation, but

also co-regulation is a really important part of developing secure attachment.

So in terms of befriending your nervous system, I really love polyvagal theory.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, and we won't go into depth about that.

another episode probably is coming about that at some point, but I can

point you to Deb Dana's audio program, befriending Your Nervous System.

That's a really wonderful way to learn how to track where your

nervous system is and how to care for yourself in different states.

Again, working with a therapist is great if you have access to

that, particularly someone who understands how, how to support a

traumatized nervous system generally.

Um, you know, part of what Bessel VanDerKolk's work points to is

that trauma's in the body more than it is in conscious thought.

Mm-hmm.

And so working with somebody who can work with the body which means they

probably would do more than just talk about what has happened to you.

They might do something like EMDR or a somatic body-based therapy.

Our team, we have people who do both of those.

Also, drama therapy, which incorporates the body.

Um, so really just looking for somebody who does a little bit more than talk

therapy and is trauma informed mm-hmm.

Can be really helpful for that.

Yep.

Brilliant.

Mm-hmm.

All right, so number five is practice.

Mindfulness.

Mindfulness.

Mindfulness.

I'm sure you haven't, uh, heard this recommendation before.

What is just

mindfulness thing?

We are in a mindfulness revolution.

So you have heard of this, dear listener, I will not bore you with the basics.

I will share with you that studies do indicate that mindfulness is

negatively correlated with attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance.

So in other words, people who show more fears of abandonment or closeness

tend to be less mindful overall.

Got it.

Does the reverse correlation also occur that people who.

Demonstrate more mindfulness, show less anxiety, and

I didn't find that exact link.

Okay.

In the research, I, I think what I found is that more research is needed to

establish a causal relationship between mindfulness and secure attachment.

Mm-hmm.

Got it.

That said, mindfulness strengthens the prefrontal cortex, which in

turn helps with the following.

Okay.

I'm gonna read you a list.

I want you to also hear this through the lens of attachment.

Okay.

Okay.

So mindfulness, uh, strengthens the following capacities.

Body regulation attuned communication.

Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Those are both important for how we connect with another human.

Very

good emotional balance.

Yep.

Response flexibility.

Response.

Flexibility.

Yes.

Like what does that mean?

Means like, if I experience something, uh, I have more than

one option in terms of my response.

Mm.

Got it.

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

Uh, fear modulation.

Okay.

Empathy.

We could turn our fear up with our mindfulness.

Yeah.

Actually, yeah.

No, I, I tease, but that's true.

That's

true.

Yeah.

Uh, a healed nervous system isn't as nervous system that's never afraid.

It's a flexible nervous system.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Fear is sometimes really important.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, empathy.

Mm-hmm.

Insight.

Mm-hmm.

Moral awareness and intuition.

Okay.

Sounds like a list of skills that would be helpful for a

secure functioning relationship.

It does indeed.

So, even though the research doesn't say mindfulness equals

developing secure attachment, it says it equals all of the things that I

think are pretty clearly attached.

Mm-hmm.

Attached securely attached to secure attachment.

Also, you know, there's just so much positive research about mindfulness.

It's, it kind of comes back to like, it's good for you do it.

Mm-hmm.

You know, like even if it doesn't, you know, we don't have proof that

it develops secure attachment.

Mm-hmm.

It's a good idea.

Mm-hmm.

are there specific kinds of mindfulness that we might point to here?

Cuz obviously that's a, a broad word that is, uh, I would even go so

far as to say probably overused at this point, uh, in general society.

And I, I would imagine that certain interpretations or certain practices,

there are maybe more linked to some of these outcomes than others.

Is that true?

Yeah.

This is a great question.

So mindfulness is different from meditation.

Mm-hmm.

Right?

There's a lot of things that we can use in order to cultivate the capacity to be,

uh, present in this moment with what is.

Okay.

Yeah.

And maybe we just pause on that for a second.

I think that's a wonderful definition of, of mindfulness for our purposes, right.

To be present in this moment with what is mm-hmm.

Right.

Is that, is that fair?

Yes.

Uh, that is, sounds simple, but is profound.

Hella hard.

Hella hard.

And, you know, it's like, okay, great.

In, in some moments like, yeah, this is, this is easy.

I'm present with what's so, and in some moments it's like now.

Mm-hmm.

It takes, takes everything we've got.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

So, okay.

Uh, didn't mean they're not please keep going.

Yeah.

So I mean, I, how do I answer your question?

I mean, I think whatever your mindfulness practice is, whether

that's meditation or chiang or art or breath work or I don't know what else.

Cooking, right?

Yeah.

I mean, I think what you said a moment ago about how literally

anything can be a mindfulness practice.

Literally.

I just heard myself literally anything.

Parks and Rec, what's his name?

Oh, man.

Chris.

Chris Traeger.

Chris Traeger.

Yeah.

Literally, literally anything,

uh, anything can be a mindfulness practice.

Right.

I, I mean, some of the mindfulness practice that I've

really enjoyed mindful eating.

Yes.

What a fun thing to sit there and savor your chocolate croissant.

Mm-hmm.

Or whatever you're eating.

Uh, your Tempe, your Tempe, your meat,

Mindful walking, right?

Yeah.

Mindful just sitting and watching the birds.

Right.

Um, all of these practices, you know, in that sense, we can

literally take anything in our daily life and have it be a mindfulness

practice if we want it to be right.

Absolutely.

It doesn't have to be, I don't want people to get like neurotic about it.

I know that's, I hear it in my head cause that's what I would do.

Sometimes you don't need to do that, but you have the opportunity

to say, okay, I want to practice mindful driving while I'm driving.

I'm not gonna listen to things.

I'm just gonna drive mindfully Right.

To my destination.

Yes.

Yeah.

And you can do, uh, relational meditations.

Mm-hmm.

They're relational mindfulness practices.

We did one of those before this episode.

Mm-hmm.

We sat and, uh, just noticed small changes on one another's face.

Um, and so you can also, you know, utilize these mindfulness practices in

relationship if you're kind of worried about using it as a, an avoidance tactic.

Mm-hmm.

in terms of resources for mindfulness, my favorites are Headspace.

It's a great meditation app, and the Center for Mindful Self-Compassion

has a lot of wonderful resources, including a lot of free meditations.

Uh, mindful Self-Compassion in my mind is a secure attachment priming practice.

Mm-hmm.

You are practicing, relating to yourself as a compassionate, loving,

uh, secure base, essentially.

Mm-hmm.

Um, so I highly recommend that, uh, for building secure attachment.

Mm-hmm.

Also shout out to Thich Nhat Hanh.

Mm-hmm.

Wonderful, prolific Buddhist monk author.

He's got a lot of stuff, you know, he's written, I don't know how many books.

Yes.

But a lot of wonderful resources about mindfulness in, from a

Buddhist perspective mm-hmm.

Uh, and how to bring that into daily life in, in all kinds of different ways.

Yes.

Beautiful.

That wraps up our two-part series on how to develop secure attachment.

You can find the show notes with links to all the resources we've mentioned

in this episode@relationshipcenter.com slash podcast.

And if you love today's show, go to relationship center.com/newsletter.

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Until next time, we love you too.

Bye.

We are being mindful right now.

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