Embodying Greatness With Fabienne Sandoval

Fabienne Sandoval joins Kris Delgado on the Embodying Greatness podcast to talk more about Attachment Styles, love, and relationships. Fabienne explains that there are three main Attachment Styles and shares the key stages of love we experience.

Transcript

Welcome to the Embodying Greatness podcast.

I am Chris Delgado,

Transformational trainer,

Educator,

And worthiness coach.

And you have found the place to be for getting real tips,

Tools,

And strategies that inspire and empower you to rise up to the frequency of transformation while you step into your self-worth and self-value.

And I want to personally invite you to listen to my no BS approach on how to embody your greatness by taking the self-love journey together.

All right,

And welcome back everybody to another episode of the Embodying Greatness podcast.

I have a special guest with me here today.

Her name is Fabienne Sandoval,

And she is an award-winning author,

Speaker,

And international life coach.

She works with clients internationally,

Helping them to discover their self-worth and growth into really their greatest potential through healing the wounds of the past.

And like I said,

You are an award-winning author.

So Fabienne,

Thank you for being here today.

I really appreciate you taking time out to stop by.

Thank you so much for having me,

Chris.

It's such a pleasure to be here.

Absolutely.

I'm so excited.

When we connected the first time,

I knew right away that you would be perfect for this podcast.

I know you talk about attachment styles and how that connects with self-worth,

Which is this whole podcast.

We've been talking about self-worth and self-value.

So I would love to get your take on how do you see self-worth connected with attachment styles?

Yeah.

Well,

That's a great question to kick us off with.

And I think that was definitely where we saw the alignment.

It was just like,

You were also working on the self-worth thing and really sharing that zone.

I'm like,

Yep,

That's totally my thing.

So for me,

What happened was in my coaching practice,

I used to see people coming along wanting to have certain things in their life.

But they always have this question mark above their head like,

Oh,

Can I?

Am I allowed it?

Is this okay?

So in a sense,

They had some kind of an insecurity.

And this is really where the attachment styles come in.

So through my training and learning and understanding of attachment styles,

I started to really see a big correlation that the people that were lacking in the self-worth,

The people that had that difficult time valuing themselves and putting a premium on themselves of being able to say no to things or being able to say yes to things or going after what it was that they wanted in life.

Those were people that were primarily an insecure attachment style.

And so what I mean by that is that there are three main attachment styles.

The first one is secure,

Which is about 50% of the people.

This is lovely.

Those people love being in warm and intimate relationships,

Vulnerability,

Communication that doesn't come very hard for them.

And they just enjoy being essentially in a loving space with a partner.

The two insecure styles,

Which some people can also be a combination of,

Are the avoidance style.

So these people really value their independence.

They really love being on their own,

Doing things on their own.

They really enjoy their work.

They get a lot of pleasure out of things like that.

But for them,

They're constantly trying to minimize that closeness with other people.

And so they probably don't have that many friends.

They probably don't have that many longer term relationships because they're always trying to put that barrier up.

So that's one of the insecure styles.

And then the other one is kind of like the flip opposite of that,

Which is anxious.

So anxious people generally are just really preoccupied with their relationship.

And it doesn't just limit to the romantic relationships.

But they also usually get this way with friendships as well.

Like,

Oh my gosh,

Why didn't my friend text me back?

Or,

Oh,

I did the wrong thing.

And now they're not getting in touch with me and making up these additional stories in their head where it might not be true,

Where the person just might be busy or just have stepped into a meeting and it's really got nothing to do with what you've said.

And so those anxious people,

They just have that higher propensity to be worrying about what's going on in their relationships.

And then,

Like I said,

There can be the combination of the avoidant and the anxious,

Like where that's about 5% of people where they're a combination of the two.

Okay,

That's awesome.

I love that.

When people,

How do people discover their attachment styles?

So there is a really ultra cool attachment styles questionnaire online.

There are a ton of them.

So there's like quite a few out there.

But the one that I highly recommend is by Dr.

Chris Fraley.

I can share the link with you so we can give that to the listeners.

And what they want to do is they want to choose the in depth one.

What that in depth attachment style questionnaire does is it allows you to see what's going on in all of your relationships.

So your relationship to your mother figure,

Father figure,

In romantic settings and in friendships as well.

And so it's really good to know that like,

You're going to be different in different areas.

So the first time I ever took that test,

I figured I found out that I was secure with my mother,

Which made total sense,

Like we have a really good loving relationship,

Avoidant with my father,

Which made sense because he had left my life when I was 14.

And we had reinstated a relationship,

But it was very difficult to kind of,

You know,

Make that sense of security there.

In romantic relationships,

I was anxious and with friends,

I was avoidant.

So it gave me this whole host of knowledge.

I got to work on all of these things.

I'm just limited to just the anxious side of things.

I've got to figure it out for all of it.

Beautiful,

Beautiful.

So one of the things that I say all the time in my trainings and even on the podcast is one of my favorite things to say of all time is with awareness comes choice.

So with awareness comes choice.

So once somebody is aware of their attachment styles and again,

To just to reiterate or repeat what you just said,

I think it's super important to have people understand that they can be different attachment styles throughout their life with different people that they're in relationship with.

So I think that that's a really key piece of information to know about yourself so that you can step into self-worth.

So you know,

How do you support people in growing their self-worth?

Yeah,

That's a really good question.

And based on their attachment styles,

Is it a certain,

Is it a different way for each style I would assume?

Yeah,

Absolutely.

Because each style needs has different needs.

So primarily,

The people that come to me are usually one of the insecure,

Insecurely attached.

And so they don't know that they're insecurely attached.

Most people don't even know what attachment styles are.

So that is new information to them.

But when they come to me and they start to explain about the things that are maybe not adding up in their life in the way that they want them to,

Like,

For example,

The main thing is this,

Just this,

I just don't feel like I'm dessert.

Like,

I don't feel like I don't,

I don't feel like I have the things I want to have in my life.

And I feel like there's blockages towards getting that.

And they may not say it quite as simply as that.

But it will usually be like,

Oh,

I feel like I have imposter syndrome at work,

Or,

You know,

I'm,

I kind of keep going in and out of relationships that haven't really met the person that I want to be with,

Or,

You know,

There'll be a bunch of different things that they will say.

And off of that basis,

Usually it's pretty quick once you have the understanding and the knowledge of attachment styles,

It's quite easy to immediately say to someone,

Okay,

Hold on a second,

Then,

You know,

Usually someone only has to say a couple of things to me,

And I'll be like,

So tell me,

Does this,

Would you describe yourself in this way,

And I will kind of go through with them,

Maybe if I see them more anxious,

More avoidant,

I will kind of show it and they'll be like,

Oh,

My God,

That's me to a T and I'm like,

Yeah,

Okay,

So it's not just you,

It's attachment styles.

And this is the whole world too,

Right?

So I think,

As you said,

The awareness is key,

Right?

Like,

This is something I say often as well,

Because until we have awareness,

You cannot make any changes,

Because you don't even know this thing is happening,

Right?

So until you have that you are never going to be able to make a change because you don't have the knowledge.

So the way that we work from a self worth perspective is one sharing the knowledge,

Right,

So that that person then gets to really deeply understand what their attachment style is,

How that how that like,

You know,

How the kind of the kind of ways that they would behave,

Right,

When they are feeling of when they are feeling maybe not loved by someone,

Maybe they're going to engage in like these protest behaviors,

Or they're going to kind of bid for their partner's attention,

Or they're going to engage in these kinds of habits,

Right?

So we can look at that and understand,

Well,

What does that look like for you?

Okay,

Well,

What would the more functional route be the more,

You know,

Secure option be?

What would that look like?

And so we're essentially bringing bringing the person back to that secure functional space,

Why that I kind of look at it is that avoidant and anxious,

Like both of them are like the either,

Either sides of the spectrum,

Right?

And so they're the kind of more dysfunctional ways,

Right,

Then they're insecure,

Like,

That's not necessarily doesn't necessarily feel pleasant to be in those,

In those roles,

Or to be navigating that.

And I know that personally,

From my own self,

And also all my clients,

I hate this.

And I'm like,

I know,

It's horrible.

Yeah.

You know,

When it becomes more horrible,

I think,

More painful,

Once you have the awareness of it.

And,

You know,

I work with clients who start going out,

And they start dating again,

And they're anxious,

And they're like,

This is horrendous.

It's been three hours since the person has texted me and now I'm like,

Out.

And so it's just the process of navigating it with the awareness,

We can change it.

And the way that we do that is building up your sense of identity and understanding like,

Understanding what the attachment styles are understanding what one you are and understanding what behaviors you need to like,

You know,

Kind of encourage yourself to do in order to move more to that secure stance.

And literally by doing literally that,

That creates more sense of self-worth.

Because by nature,

Secure people are just naturally more warm and loving and they value themselves really highly.

I love that.

I love that you're saying this because again,

You know,

In the work that we do,

I think it's so important to really have people understand.

And if you're listening to this podcast,

Hear this.

Because,

You know,

This is all of this stuff is happening to us unconsciously.

And we're so busy learning how to grow up learning,

You know,

Going to school,

Educating ourselves,

Learning how to deal with family dynamics,

There's so much that we're consciously dealing with as you know,

Kids and preteens and teens and all of that,

That this stuff is happening unconsciously.

So being able to be curious at this point in your life on how or why you're operating just allows so much freedom of like,

Oh,

This is why,

Like,

There's nothing wrong with me.

This is my personality,

Or this is my attachment style or that,

You know,

And not to be confused with labeling yourself and keeping yourself in a box.

I'm not saying that,

But being able to identify that these are normal,

Natural things I just didn't learn about.

And now that I have this knowledge,

I can,

You know,

Practice and grow and expand and then turn it into wisdom,

And really step into my self work.

So I think,

You know,

What I really want the listeners to hear is,

If you don't know any of this information,

It's okay,

Because we were really never taught it.

And now that you have this and,

You know,

I'm going to encourage you to be curious and dive deeper into it.

And,

You know,

Personal development is such a,

Such a key to freedom,

You know,

So little tangent there.

But it's so true,

Right?

Like,

It is a freedom.

And,

You know,

I would just like really echo what you're saying,

Which is,

There is nothing wrong.

Like,

If you have an insecure attachment style,

There is nothing wrong with you.

Like,

We you don't need to be like,

Oh,

My goodness,

Like,

I say that because when I first found out about attachment styles,

Right,

I was on my journey of like,

Discovering more about myself and,

You know,

Really learning about like the ways in which I behaved in my relationships and having some deeper understanding.

And I felt like I've been on a journey for such a long time for many,

Many,

Many years of learning about myself.

And when I came into the knowledge of attachment styles,

I was like,

Damn it,

All the work I've been doing paid as not paid off,

You know,

This is not that I'm insecurely attached.

This is not okay.

And so,

You know,

Come on,

Like,

It's it's okay.

Like,

We can be kinder with ourselves that don't do what I did,

Which is get myself up over having an insecure attachment style.

It's literally a product of.

.

.

So initially,

It was like a product of your upbringing.

So depending on how you were essentially like,

Did you have emotional availability?

Did you have physical availability when you were growing up?

Like,

For some people,

They may have not had a great like,

You know,

Youth and childhood growing up,

And that might have been really difficult,

Maybe even traumatic for them.

Other people can still have an insecure attachment style.

And it just might be that like,

Mom and dad were working or like their caregivers were just,

You know,

Out a lot or traveled a lot for work,

Or like someone had to go away or they were divorced or a separation.

So it's like,

There's so many things that are just normal practice these days that create that.

So like,

We don't need to beat ourselves up about it.

But when you do find it,

It's such is such a key for like,

I can unlock this part of my life that maybe wasn't operating in the way that I wanted it to.

And now I have the knowledge and I can go ahead and change it.

Beautiful.

I love it.

I absolutely love it.

When you're talking,

I'm even having these little like flashbacks and memories of,

You know,

When I was younger,

I thought to do relationships like with,

You know,

With a partner,

Romantic relationships.

I think that I got all of my ideas and grand ideas from movies and,

You know,

Soap operas and that type of thing.

And then when I was in relationships with people,

We just had totally different ideas of how to even be in a relationship.

So again,

You know,

The way that you grew up,

The friends you hung out with,

The education that you got from your house and from school,

You know,

Media,

All of that stuff really plays into it.

And,

You know,

We always say it's like the water that we swim in.

We don't even know it because we're so immersed in it.

So,

You know,

Again,

I love that we're talking about this because I just think tweaking those little things and becoming curious about why you operate the way you do really,

Like you said,

No matter what age you are,

Then the knowledge has,

You know,

Will allow the freedom to come and then you get to choose instead of running on automatic that you don't even know,

You get to be the chooser choosing how you want to move forward.

So I love this.

Thank you for this conversation.

Oh,

You're welcome.

And,

You know,

Like what you were saying,

Right?

Then the thing is like we get pictured like in the movies and the TV series and everything,

This idea of what romantic love is supposed to look like,

Right?

And the reality of it is,

Is all that they are showing is the honeymoon stage of love.

Like they are not showing necessarily like the other two phases of love,

Which is what we move through when we are in love.

And not everybody moves through all three of the stages.

So the first stage is the honeymoon phase,

Which lasts usually anywhere between six months and two years.

This is where you only see the light side of a person.

You're like,

Oh my goodness,

Like roasting your glasses.

There is nothing this person can do wrong.

Like they're amazing.

They're the best.

Then you move into the power struggle stage.

And this is where you're then starting to see those darker sides of this person that you've fallen in love with.

You're like,

Oh,

Oh,

They go all the way on the floor.

Oh,

They don't take the rubbish out.

Like,

You know,

You start to notice all the things that you don't,

You know,

You don't enjoy about them as much.

And there's that stage.

And then that's where kind of each person is fighting more for their independence.

Like you've been so kind of coupled up and almost dependent at the beginning,

Right?

Or even codependent,

Right?

In some respects that you then start to move into that power struggle stage where it's like,

I want to be myself also.

And you're trying to fight for the independence of who you are,

But also navigate that in the constructs of a relationship also.

And then this is where people break up a lot because they can't establish the right kinds of boundaries and foundations or things that really work.

And it takes a lot of work when you're in that stage to really navigate through it,

Right?

To have that ability to understand and communicate with one another and like really hear the other person and work together as a team.

And then once you can navigate out that stage,

That power struggle stage,

That's when you can move into the mature love stage.

And that is when you're operating from that kind of healthy place of interdependency.

You recognize that you're stronger together as a team,

That you can kind of take on the world in that way,

That you can be close and you know you've got someone there that you can rely on and come back to at the end of a hard day,

Et cetera.

But you also can totally go off and like be independent and do the things that you need to do.

And you're not kind of too preoccupied with the relationship,

Things like that.

Yeah.

I feel like I should have you back and do a whole other episode just on that because I could go on and on and on and talk about that too.

So we'll make that happen as well because that in itself is such a fascinating topic that I know,

Absolutely know my listeners will want to dive deeper into.

Let's do it.

Awesome.

So to wrap up,

Again,

I feel like I could just talk to you for hours and go down the rabbit hole in all of these things.

So I love when I find other women that I can do that with.

So we will definitely have that happen.

But I want to talk really quickly.

I know that you already have a book that is published and is already out.

And I believe that you're working on your second one.

Do you have a release date yet for that?

Yeah.

So it's actually super exciting.

So the book is due out this month,

February 2022.

Fantastic.

I'm not giving the date away yet.

Everybody that's in my community knows it's coming out this month to be excited about it.

It's been long awaited.

It's taken me a while to get this one really closed up and finished.

But it feels like the perfect timing now.

So I'm very excited.

The second book of mine that's coming out this month is all about love.

And it's all about my journey to kind of going on this journey of becoming a student of love.

That's the way I describe it.

Like,

Well,

What would that mean?

What would that look like?

Where would that take me?

What would I learn from that?

And so that's what the book is all about.

Beautiful.

All right.

Well,

We will let our listeners know when it drops.

And,

You know,

Last question,

Since you have the book coming out and all that.

Tell my community how they can become part of your community.

Yeah,

Thank you so much.

So they can follow me on Instagram.

That's where I post ton of valuable content and things all about,

You know,

Stuff like what we've been talking about today about attachment styles.

My theme this month is building conscious relationships.

So there'll be a ton of stuff up there.

My tag is Fabienne Sandoval.

So you can just find me on Instagram.

You can also find me on Insight Timer as a teacher if you use that stuff up.

And you can also find me on my website.

So Fabienne Sandoval.

Com.

Beautiful.

I will make sure that we have all of the links below or wherever we are putting this in the notes and all of that.

So again,

Thank you for being on here.

I will definitely talk to you off here to get your next your next appearance on here because I'm going to scoop you up.

I absolutely enjoy having you on here.

It's amazing.

Giving my listeners a whole other realm of information to think about and ponder on and work on is absolutely,

You know,

Amazing.

And it's one of the things that I'm committed to having happen and growing this community.

So thank you for being here.

It was such a pleasure.

Thank you for having me.

It was amazing.

And I'm so so happy to have been here and shared this time with you.

Thank you,

Chris.

Beautiful.

All right.

And with that,

To the listeners,

Don't forget to go out and create something amazing today just because you say so.

Reviews

So good to hear your insightful take on attachment styles Fabienne, and the way you respond to the Q&A format makes it interesting and different. Love your commitment to this topic, it is so helpful!