Create A Secure Attachment With Yourself (Live Talk) 1/16/26

We don't learn about attachment theory to give ourselves another label, but to become secure. But secure attachment starts with us, with a secure attachment to ourself. This talk was part of a longer talk including a grounding and a meditation, but this track includes just the talking and discussion portion.

Transcript

All right,

Let's go ahead and get started.

So today we are talking about attachment styles and really how to break them and to create a secure attachment with ourselves and with others so that we can have healthier,

Happier relationships.

And today I'm gonna take a different take because I've done this about ten times and the story I wanted to share before we ground to give everybody an idea of this is,

Oh god,

Just about five years ago today I was in a high-level business mastermind around performance coaching and mindset and the coach in the third session in this group looked at me and said,

David,

What do you even want out of your business?

And I was like,

Well,

I want happy employees,

Happy clients,

Happy partners,

Yeah.

And he's like,

No,

No,

What do you want?

I'm like,

I just told you what I wanted.

And he's like,

So you're running a business,

You're working 40-50 hours a week,

You're learning all of these skills and the only things you listed is you want other people to be happy.

And I was like,

Yes,

Because if they are happy I am happy.

And I'm really glad it was a group coaching class because there was six-ish other men on the call and this performance coach all staring at me.

And one,

Who actually is a therapist out of the UK,

Was looking at me with just like such heartbreak and pain because what I had just exposed was that the most dominant thing where I was spending most of the time in my life,

I wasn't doing it for any benefit to myself.

I wasn't doing it at the time because I wanted to.

I was doing it because I was trying to please other people.

And the idea was that if I pleased other people and made them happy,

Then I would end up happy.

And that journey kind of skyrocketed right from that moment with that and a couple other examples of people who really exposed it to me,

Showed me that I was really,

Really anxiously attached.

But I never would have called it that at the time because my anxious attachment was being funneled into trying to have performance,

Trying to help people,

Trying to contribute,

Trying to do all of these things for other people.

So first,

We're talking about attachment styles today.

Not because attachment styles are perfect.

Not because the theory is everything you need.

Not because you need to go read a book.

But because attachment styles are a framework where you can start to understand your experience and how they interact together.

So they're not the end-all be-all.

And one thing I want everyone to avoid is using this to create a new sense of identity.

The way that a lot of people look and say,

You know what?

I'm not this.

I'm just anxiously attached.

As if that's something you are,

Rather than a pattern you are currently experiencing that you hope to let go of.

So with that in mind,

I want to explain this in a really simple way.

When you are a child,

You will search for love,

Affection,

And connection at all costs.

At all costs.

You will experiment.

You will try.

And you can,

One important thing to understand if you're a parent,

Is you want that attention,

Whether it's positive or negative.

If you have a choice in between negative attention and no attention,

You will choose negative attention.

Which is why a lot of children act out.

But you will constantly,

Constantly experiment with what gets you love,

Connection,

And attention.

And if you learn that you have to act in very,

Very specific ways,

And avoid very,

Very specific ways,

In order to receive love,

Attention,

And connection,

Otherwise you won't.

Then you will become anxiously attached.

Because,

For instance,

If I learn growing up that being sad or being angry,

My parents don't know how to handle.

I can't say it that way as a four-year-old,

But I realize that if sad or anger happens,

Then I'll be disconnected from.

And my parents,

When they're struggling and fighting,

I'll be disconnected from.

And I learn that if I'm helpful,

Kind,

And happy,

That they will connect to me.

Then I will develop a personality around being those things.

And I will come to believe that in order to receive love,

Connection,

And attention,

I must be certain things,

And avoid certain things.

That's anxious attachment,

In a heartbeat.

It means I can't actually be myself,

My honest,

True self,

In the moment.

But I can become somebody to relatively successfully receive love and connection.

And I will try to do that.

But if it gets worse,

If it gets worse,

And you start to say,

Wait a second,

I really can't figure out the code.

There isn't a way for me to get consistent love and affection that I feel good about,

That I feel safe about.

And in fact,

I'm gonna start to believe that I'm inherently broken.

And if there are some things inside of myself that other people see,

Then they're going to reject and abandon me.

Which often happens when you have parents who refuse,

Truly refuse,

To allow someone to be angry,

To be sad,

To be hurt,

To be this.

And they criticize their children,

Whether they realize that are not enough times,

That they start to believe that there's something wrong with them,

And that they can't show that part of themselves,

Or major parts of themselves,

Or else they'll be abandoned and rejected.

And as a result,

They start saying,

I need to keep my distance from people,

And not connect.

Because if I connect too closely,

They're going to see the parts of myself that aren't okay.

And then they're going to reject and abandon me.

So I need to keep you at a distance.

I need to hold up my ground,

Keep things safe,

Because I don't believe that you're eventually going to see these parts of me and be okay.

And like them,

You're going to reject and abandon me.

So I'm only going to show you the parts of myself that I think are okay.

And finally,

There's anxious avoidant,

Which is a combination of both,

Which happens when no matter what you try,

You're punished.

If I'm anxious and trying to get your attention and connection and love,

You get angry at me.

If I'm avoidant,

Then I get criticized and blamed for shutting down.

So I will alternate back and forth in between strategies in a scared,

Uncomfortable way,

Because I don't believe there's any way that I can stably be a person and receive love,

Connection,

And affection.

That hopefully made sense as the three real attachment styles.

Now the trick is,

We talked about children,

But we carry these things into being an adult.

We carry them forward.

If you were anxiously attached,

And you learned that all I have to do is be helpful and happy and never be sad or angry,

Then you probably carried forward into being an adult that I am always the happy,

Helpful one,

And I'm never angry or sad.

And as a result,

You're constantly monitoring your environment,

Saying,

Am I doing the right thing?

Am I taking the right steps in order to be accepted and connected to with the people around me?

And if I'm not,

Or if they disconnect from me,

I'm gonna get super anxious,

And I'm gonna try to crack the code for connection.

And if you were avoidant,

You're by definition not actually seeking out connection,

Because connection is dangerous.

No matter what you tried,

It wasn't really good,

So you're only showing what you think other people want to see,

And holding back the rest,

And therefore can never really experience connection,

Because you never really allow someone to see you.

And if you're anxious avoidant,

You're cycling back and forth in between these two things.

Does this make sense to everyone?

And does anybody have any questions on that?

Because if it does,

We're gonna move forward.

But if it doesn't,

And there's a big question,

I'd be glad to answer it now.

Very clear.

Checking,

Because we've got a good group of people here.

So when we have these things,

And please feel free,

I'll keep talking,

But make sure you put in a question if you have it.

When you have these attachment fears,

It becomes kind of simple if you look at it one way.

One way of looking in a single sentence is,

I become anxiously attached if I believe that connection is possible.

If I crack the code.

If I do the right thing.

And if I'm not doing the right thing,

Connection disappears.

And I believe that connection is always going to disappear,

Because I never do things perfectly,

Consistently.

And I will always cycle back to saying,

Ah,

Maybe I can be a little bit better.

Maybe I can do it a little bit better.

Avoidant is,

I'm never really going to receive the kind of connection I'm looking for.

Because something is wrong with me.

Something is broken within me.

And therefore,

I'm only going to present a facade of.

.

.

I'm gonna mute that.

I'm only going to present a facade of what I think is acceptable about me,

But hold back the pieces that aren't.

And therefore,

With that understanding,

To say it in one more way,

So that you don't need to read a bunch of books and to see it out.

If you see a bunch of behavior in your life,

Where you are trying to find out what it takes for someone to love you,

And if they disconnect or not loving you at the time,

Then you blame yourself.

Then you're anxiously attached.

And if you are holding back,

Not jumping in,

Withdrawing really quickly,

At the first sign of criticism or too much vulnerability,

Walking away,

And finding yourself lonely,

But feeling more safe alone than in a state where you may be vulnerable and have somebody see the parts of you that aren't okay,

Then you're avoidantly attached.

And if both of those resonate with you,

Because you either cycle back and forth or do them in different parts of your life,

You're anxious avoidant.

And I want to be very clear from this point forward,

This isn't a fixed identity.

This isn't something that you are now.

And I don't want anybody walking away from this call the way that we do way too much in the Western world,

And take something that was usually designed for therapy designations for proper treatment,

Or for medical treatment,

And saying,

I am this.

A better way to say this,

Because I want to be very clear because this is dangerous,

Is I currently have and displaying or having or acting out the pattern of anxious attachment,

Avoidant attachment,

Or anxious avoidant attachment.

And I'm gonna find a way to choose a new pattern.

Because these patterns are really,

Really damaging for several reasons that I'm sure,

If it's a resonating with you,

I don't have to say,

But let's do a couple.

If you're anxiously attached,

Then you are chasing people to try to get love.

You're probably even subconsciously,

Which is the part I'm gonna get into next,

Avoiding people who actually love you deeply,

And relationships who would love you as you are,

Because you don't actually believe you deserve it.

It doesn't feel like love to you.

Love feels like love when you have to do the right thing,

Make it work,

Respond,

Bend over backwards,

And then when they love you,

You've earned it.

Love freely given doesn't feel like love to you because it doesn't feel like childhood.

So you're not allowing yourself to have it.

You're going out and chasing,

Choosing people who cannot love you fully,

Trying to earn their love,

And depending on the cycle,

Ending up in a cycle of giving,

Giving,

Giving,

Giving,

Blowing up from resentment,

Blaming yourself,

And trying to do better.

And if you're avoidant,

You're never really allowing yourself to be in a relationship,

Any relationship.

You're holding back.

You're presenting a facade.

I don't care whether it's on Instagram,

Or whether it's in real life,

Or whether it's how you're responding,

But you're not allowing people to see you,

Which hurts.

Because if you don't allow people to see you,

Then you never actually experience love and connection,

For a very simple reason that every avoidant in the room is going to understand.

If you present a fake you,

And someone loves you,

You don't feel the love,

Do you?

You say,

They just love fake me.

They love the pretend me.

They love the person that I am acting as.

They could never love the real me.

If they knew what I was really feeling and experiencing inside,

They would run away screaming.

So this doesn't work very well,

Does it?

It's not a fun feeling.

It's not an enjoyable thing,

But it's a pattern many of us are acting out in our daily lives.

So,

As Jyoti said,

How do I come out of this cycle?

We come out of this cycle in a couple of really important ways.

The first and most important way is to recognize that it was,

In the end,

Never about anyone else.

Because if we go back to that moment in childhood,

We abandoned ourselves.

And what I mean by that is,

We reached a point sometime as a child where we said,

You know what?

I'm not good enough.

So I'm gonna present a facade.

Meaning,

I am going to abandon myself.

Or,

These parts of myself are not okay.

And I would rather receive love and connection from these people than love and connect with myself.

So the true core wound,

At the end of the day,

Is always internal.

Even if your parents are gone,

Whether you no longer live with them or they're no longer on this planet,

We are reliving this.

Even if the people who treated us that way are no longer there,

And the people in our lives now would gladly love all of us,

We keep doing it.

Because we decided.

We decided those parts of ourselves are not okay and are not acceptable.

And we're just acting that out in relationships over and over and over again.

And so we can focus on relationships all we want,

And a lot of practices do.

And I've done it in some versions of this class.

But for today,

The most important thing is to recognize that it comes down to reintegrating and saying,

I love the parts of myself that weren't able to be loved back then.

And challenging the assumptions of,

I need to be this kind of person in order to receive love and connection.

Because in the very end,

It's not actually about whether other people love and accept us.

It just means,

I don't love myself if I get angry.

I don't love myself when I'm sad.

To give two examples,

Just from Katarina,

My girlfriend and I,

Over the last week,

I don't love myself when I'm angry very often.

Because my father was quite angry,

And my mother always shamed and criticized.

And I learned that anger was just bad.

So I really beat myself up if I get angry.

Not so much anymore,

But it was a huge pattern.

And learning to love my anger was the path out for me.

Where Katarina,

When she feels helpless or uncertain or most specifically a failure,

Then she feels worthless.

And no matter how much I tell her it's okay,

Until she says,

It's okay for me to fail.

It's okay for me to make a mistake.

It's okay for there to be a problem.

And love that part of herself,

She's always going to run away and be afraid of it.

Because it's not that I'm going to abandon her.

I'm not going to abandon her.

And I'm sure many of your partners would look at you if you were able to make a straight statement of,

You know,

If I showed this part of myself you would run away screaming.

They'd be like,

No I wouldn't!

No I wouldn't!

But it's you.

You are the one who's running away screaming from a part of yourself that you've left behind,

That you've hidden from,

That you've said is not okay or not acceptable.

So if that makes sense,

I want to do a meditation on it.

And if it doesn't,

We've got about three,

Four minutes for questions here before we go into the meditation.

And if anybody's like,

I don't understand,

What is this?

What is the part that I don't know?

Let me know.

But I'm going to answer the questions that came in.

So,

I'm frozen.

That might be you,

Jyoti,

Because I think I have good internet.

But I can repeat whatever you missed.

Yeah,

Violet and Jyoti,

We're getting this.

Cassie,

Yes,

You can 100% develop these from trauma experienced as an adult.

It almost always roots back to childhood.

Because,

For instance,

Someone says they dated the worst person in the world when they were 18 and they were abusive and they were this.

Generally speaking,

We only allowed ourselves to date that person because that's what we believed we deserved based on an internal story we came up with in childhood.

But we might have created more traumatic experiences for ourselves that exposed that belief as an adult.

However,

Things that are beyond our choice,

So an accident,

An assault,

Something where major things got taken away from us,

Death,

Sudden death,

Accident,

Those can all create a new trauma which can have a new anxious attachment.

So,

If you chose to be in a relationship,

Chances are you just were living out something that started in childhood.

If something traumatic happened to you in an unpredictable,

Unchoosable way,

Then it could have developed later.

Karma.

What about family that is toxic and unsupportive and we need to let them go in order to have peace and love for ourselves?

We want families,

Life,

But sometimes it's just not healthy to stay in that situation,

Correct?

That's one of the things that we'll talk about today on a side note,

But so much of anxious and avoiding attachment is believing that I need to stay in crappy situations.

Because as a child you do.

You do need to stay in a crappy situation because you can't go to the parent store and ask for a refund because you've got a defective package and say I would like a new one.

Doesn't work that way.

As a child you had to say this is what I have and if my parents are defective then I'm screwed.

So I'd rather believe that I'm defective than my parents are defective,

Even though neither of you are defective,

You're just struggling.

But as adults we forget that we now can go to the relationship store or to the friend store or to the job store and say I would like new ones please these ones are not that comfortable.

And we can also say you know what I don't need to go to the family store to visit the family.

I don't need to do it.

I get to decide for myself and I don't need to put myself in situations that I don't enjoy or feel comfortable with.

And of course there's a long-term answer of working to let go of the triggers within yourself,

Which we do in a lot of classes.

But at its core,

Actually I'll do a quote from one of my favorite teachers he really helped me and you can look him up,

Joe Hudson with The Art of Accomplishment.

He was asked by a friend on his podcast,

What do you think about the people who say that if you need to set a boundary then you have a wound that needs to be healed?

And his response was yes,

But sometimes the most important path to healing is setting the boundary.

And I found that to be truer and truer over the last eight months since I heard it.

Because what he was saying is if you're struggling with your family there is a wound to be healed.

But probably the most important thing in healing that wound is to say I don't have to put up with it.

Because you're dealing with the resentment,

The anger,

The frustration,

The implications about yourself,

All of these things and stuck in between a I have to deal with this because this is crappy,

But knowing it sucks inside and that's the wound.

And if you can say no,

No I don't,

I don't have to deal with it.

And if they act this way I can say no,

I love you,

But no then that act in itself starts to heal the wound.

Because the wound for most of us,

And it's really important to think about this because it's actually what we're gonna do in the meditation,

Is you are not wounded because something happened to you.

You are wounded because you hurt yourself.

You abandoned yourself.

And this is worth repeating because this is what we want to focus on in the meditation.

You are not hurt because your parents were imperfect.

You are hurt because in your parents imperfections you said I am broken or I need to change or I am not acceptable.

And you suppressed,

Rejected,

Abandoned,

A part of yourself.

And as a result you're angry with yourself.

You're frustrated with yourself.

You're scared of yourself.

You can't trust yourself because you knew when it got hot you abandoned yourself.

And maybe you were four.

So sure you needed to abandon yourself.

It was the best you could do in a scary situation.

But until you rebuild trust and faith in yourself,

Not other people because you can't control other people,

In yourself,

Then the wound will never be healed.

So since we're already at 35,

That's what we're gonna do today.

In this meditation I want you to pick one piece of yourself that you know you have been avoiding,

Abandoning,

Rejecting,

Saying is not okay.

Something that you would want to express.

Something that you don't express or don't show other people.

And we're gonna travel back in time to when you said it wasn't okay.

What was the choice?

How did you feel?

And then we're gonna choose to love it.

We're gonna choose to accept it.

Hi everyone.

Just a quick note.

This is where the meditation was in the original live track.

And we're now transitioning to after the meditation.

So if you want to find the meditation and do that separately,

That's great.

But this will be the transition point.

I'll go ahead and put this up while I talk.

But I hope everyone enjoyed that today.

Because that's the trick.

Karma asks the best question.

What tips do I have to help your new beliefs stick?

Practice feeling those parts of you that you don't want to feel.

That's the only reason I show up here for Insight Timer and do these things.

It's because I used to think I had to do it all on my own in order to help others.

And now I realize that it's better as a community.

I may be the only one on this screen that's visible.

I don't like that.

But I'm doing this with you.

And this is the practice.

So when there are tips,

If you need a tip,

The only tip is to practice whatever held you back.

So if you say,

Like,

You know what?

I love my anger.

And then I start to get angry around my family.

And I'm like,

Nope.

And it ends up squeezing out in its different ways.

We talked about an anger class.

Rather than saying,

No,

I don't like this.

I don't appreciate this.

Thank you very much,

Karma.

Then you want to ask yourself,

What was the next reason why I couldn't be angry?

What was the next reason?

If that is,

I can't be angry because then I will be criticized and then I will feel ashamed.

Then you want to love the part of yourself that feels ashamed.

Because you might actually feel ashamed for being who you are and for anger.

And you want to practice that.

And then maybe the next time,

Karma,

You show up at family and you say,

Okay,

I'm getting angry.

And you start to think about saying something calmly.

And you realize that you were taught never to rock the boat.

And that if you were to rock the boat in your head,

You would feel guilty,

Which is different than ashamed.

And you would say,

Okay,

I'm going to deal with the feeling of guilt over expressing my boundaries and start to become comfortable with that.

And just to continue this story,

Because this is what I mean,

Is a lot of people think that they don't have the new belief,

But they just haven't chased the rabbit all the way down its hole.

Because the next time you go to your family and you're like,

Okay,

I'm starting to get angry.

I'm not going to overblow it.

I'm okay with my anger.

And I know that it's okay if I get criticized because that's them being uncomfortable.

And thank you,

Sherry.

And I'm not going to feel guilty for my own boundaries.

But my father gets really angry,

Or my cousin who's really big can be really tough.

And he might say some mean comments and stand up,

And I'm going to feel afraid.

And I don't like the part of myself that feels afraid,

And I'm going to try to avoid it.

And you know what to do next.

So each time,

These behaviors in our life aren't locked in by just one thing.

They're locked in by all the parts of ourselves that we're afraid to feel,

Said aren't okay,

And suppress and reject.

And they tend to go in a chain.

So just whichever one shows up next is the next one in need of love and affection.

Yeah.

And practice.

And you know what's one thing that I would say?

If you have a friend,

Practice with them.

Practice with them.

Find a friend who does this kind of stuff and get on a call and practice it.

Because,

For instance,

If you're afraid of boundaries,

Because you're afraid someone's going to get angry,

Someone is going to get angry.

We talked about this a lot.

I don't think Stark's on this call unless she joined late.

I didn't see her.

We talked about in one class that if you are afraid of people getting angry,

People are going to sense it.

And whenever they need you to do something,

They're going to use anger because they know you have no defense against it,

Subconsciously or consciously.

So if you're afraid of setting a boundary because someone's going to get angry and you're going to get scared,

Practice.

Role play with a friend.

Have them,

Actually,

You set a boundary in a mock role play and have them get angry.

And let that feeling of fear,

Let it show up.

Let it show up.

And thank you,

Holly.

And then feel it while your friend just kind of pretends to be angry at you being sad or afraid.

And then do it again and do it again and do it again.

And obviously,

There's always a disclaimer in what I just said,

Because everyone always goes like,

Well,

What if that person is violent,

Physically violent?

Don't do it with that person.

Don't set a boundary.

Get out of that relationship.

If someone in your life is actually physically violent in a way to try to suppress your autonomy,

Get out of that relationship.

Get out of that person.

Don't engage anymore.

You don't deserve that.

But if someone's just verbally trying to convince you of that you need to back down,

You don't want somebody to be able to control you that way.

And you don't have to have them in your life.

That's also true.

Get out of it.

But if you need to,

You don't want to allow it to be controlled.

And you can practice,

Practice,

Practice.

But there is no way.

One of the biggest things that I had to learn to do this work is if I could sum up my up until age,

I don't know,

25,

It's I'm going to crack the code.

I'm going to crack the code so that everyone treats me right.

Everyone's happy.

Everything goes well.

Everything does well.

It doesn't work that way.

And the more that you believe there's a code to be cracked rather than a boundary to be expressed and a feeling to become comfortable with,

The more that the people around you will know that all they have to do is get angry,

Criticize,

Do this,

And he will do whatever they want so they don't have to end up uncomfortable.

So we practice.

And when we're comfortable with our own anger,

Expressing it in clean,

Healthy ways,

And loving all parts of ourselves,

We end up securely attached.

Because when you love and accept yourself,

You don't abandon yourself in order to receive love and connection.

And you don't avoid love and connection,

Because you're not taking other people's rejection as confirmation of your unworthiness.

I'll say that again,

Because that is the crux of the class,

Is if you love and accept yourself,

You do not abandon yourself in order to receive love and connection from others,

Because you know you don't need to.

And if you love and accept yourself,

You don't avoid love and connection from others,

Because the fear of the rejection is no longer a confirmation of your unworthiness.

You know that person just doesn't like that part of you,

But if you like that part of you,

Then you're okay.