Addressing Insecure Attachment With Meditation

This is a Dharma talk and guided meditation led by Josh Korda. This session integrates Buddhist insights with contemporary attachment theory, addressing the causes of insecure bonds with others, including attachment disruptions in adults that damage our relationships. The meditation to follow, imploys a guided visualization practice to provide a sense of security to replace damaged internal working models. This was recorded during a retreat in late October, 2018. Note: As this is a live recording, there is minor background noise.

Transcript

Well,

That will happen tomorrow and that's not going to change.

Buddhist Dharma was presented the first refined and,

I would say,

Even clinically useful or useful even today perspective of the human personality.

In the early Dharma was the first time we hear the idea,

This is some 2500 years ago,

That in very early stages of life,

Before we become verbal,

There's a development of personality that is sticky,

I.

E.

Coherent and consistent over human lifespan.

In this stage,

Which is known as Nama Rupa at the time,

You don't have to know that,

It simply is a stage of development where we,

How we perceive ourselves and others,

What we want from the world and our basic ways we attend to life with our minds.

In other words,

What's known as perception,

How we perceive ourselves and perceive others,

And attention what we want from other people,

What we want from the world,

And attention how we focus our minds on issues and problems is set.

Then in early,

Early,

Early canonical texts,

Not just the Abhidhamma,

Which is one of the core commentaries of the Buddhist Dharma,

But also another famous early text called the Vasuddhi Manga,

Which talks about human beings tend to settle into,

Or can be found as articulating three basic types of,

Or three basic overall tendencies.

To be sure,

In the early text it goes much deeper and more refined,

And we see this idea of categorizing individuals in terms of,

One is raga.

Raga means grasping or desirous,

And it's said in the text that this is,

And in the explanations of the text,

It's the kind of person who walks into a gathering of people and immediately is drawn to all the things that they can get,

Or something,

They're immediately focused on pleasure,

They're desirous,

They are usually fixated on specific people or objects,

They are always staying very close and preoccupied to anything that draws their attention.

Raga means essentially desirous.

The second category is dosa,

And that's aversive.

That's the person who walks into the party and immediately sees everything that's wrong,

That they don't like,

And will tell you about it.

This is somebody who finds fault,

Is critical,

Seeks distance,

Is never or rarely satisfied with others.

And then the final group,

Which virtually none of,

When Buddhist teachers get together,

Nobody identifies with this group,

But they're definitely there in the canon.

Moha,

Which is confused,

Somewhat plagued by both doubt,

Fear.

These are people who are overwhelmed,

Fearful,

And they generally tend to prefer fantasy over what's real.

So they might go into a party,

But they will immediately start to think of other parties,

Or daydream of being back at home and not of coming to the party at all.

And apparently the Dharma in these early texts says that through practice,

Through wise,

Wholesome,

Spiritual action,

Which means being essentially altruistic and kind,

And also through mindfulness,

One can transform from one of these three categories into a fourth,

Which is sada,

Which is somebody who's confident and filled with a sense of self-faith,

Faith in oneself.

This is somebody who sees the good in themselves and others,

Has the confidence to seek things that make them happy,

But not at the expense of others.

They live a balanced life.

And these are the people who are most likely to pursue the eightfold path.

So I like to bring this up,

Not just because it's kind of in its own way interesting,

But it almost eerily matches up to today's contemporary therapeutic insights,

By which I'm referring to attachment theory,

Which is without any question the most important,

Presents the most important contemporary insights into human behavior.

If you don't know what attachment theory is,

I'm just going to review it very quickly.

This is not going to be in any way complete,

But it's worthwhile to understand,

Because it'll lead us into the practice we'll be talking about.

So the insights of attachment theory go back to a clinical psychologist.

He was actually an interpersonal psychologist,

John Bowlby,

British Freudian at first in the 1950s,

Who did a lot of research with children who had been separated from their parents in the aftermath of World War II.

And Bowlby's research,

As well as his familiarity with Conrad Lorenz,

Who was a famous primatologist and a man who studied the behavior of animals,

Bowlby came to this stunning realization that essentially overturned all of modern psychology.

Up until Bowlby,

There was this idea that the core drive of the human being is to discharge pleasure and to essentially act out on primal drives of not only discharging pleasure,

But aggressive drives.

And of course,

We owe this original view to Freud.

Bowlby,

In his research,

Observing children,

Observing,

Not in a creepy way,

Observing clinically,

As well as his research into animal behaviors,

Realized that Freud's observations were off base.

In fact,

The core drive of all human beings is to connect,

To connect for caregiving,

To connect for security,

To connect for support.

And this observation is not only easily verifiable,

But actually makes sense the more the brain has been essentially studied from a neurological perspective.

We actually see how many core regions of the brain create pain and pleasure,

Depending upon how well connected we are.

We see the circuits that are dedicated to allowing us to connect.

And in fact,

We also can see from the development of the human frontal lobe,

Its sheer size is determined by the amount of social connections human beings have in their lifetime.

And if you look at species,

The more social they are,

The bigger the frontal cortex.

So the basic underlying gist is that by 20 months of age,

That's about a year and a half,

We all attain basic attachment settings,

Our internal working models that do exactly the same things that the Dharma says that Nama Rupa does,

And that these internal working models based on our early exchanges with caregivers and other adults determine our sense of security in the world,

Our expectations of self and others,

The way we perceive the behavior of others,

As well as the way we even use our attention,

Has been shown to be determined in these early stages.

Essentially,

If we want to have a secure base in life,

Which allows us to explore the world,

To play,

To express ourselves,

To take risks,

Not foolish risks,

But risks when there are opportunities to grow,

If we want to be able to balance our lives in a skillful way between relationships and things we'd like to achieve,

If we'd like to have a good balance between taking care of others and taking care of self,

We need to experience four types of interactions with adults when we're very,

Very young.

So what are these four things we need to experience?

The first is the infant needs to feel safe when she is with her mother or father or caregiver.

Safe means that while you're with someone,

You feel less prone to threats or dangers or bad things happening.

So when you have proximity,

You feel that you are less endangered.

You feel actually you can relax.

Safe also means the reliability,

Which is an availability of a caregiver.

Infants look for patterns.

The brain is a pattern-seeking organ.

We don't so much respond to anything as much as an ongoing pattern of behavior.

So if the child can predict when a parent is emotionally available and receive a sense of attention,

That child feels safe.

So that's the first category we need to have.

The second is we need to feel seen and understood,

Which means our emotional states,

And I talked about this earlier,

Need to be in some way grasped by another,

Need to be not only witnessed and comprehended,

But signaled back to us that they get how we feel.

The child's emotional state is noted by the mother or father.

In attachment parenting,

The most important moment has been shown to be that event where the child expresses something.

It could be frustration.

It could be irritation.

It could be joy.

It could be shock.

One of the universal emotions is expressed.

Shock,

Anger,

Fear,

Sadness,

Excitement or joy,

Disgust.

So there's more than five.

There's disgust.

So those are the basic ones.

And when an emotion is expressed,

The caregiver stops,

Sees the emotion and mirrors it back.

If the child is scared,

The parent goes,

Oh,

Or if the child is excited,

The parent might go,

Ha,

Ha,

Or something that says,

I get it.

Mirroring,

In essence,

The parent is reproducing the child's emotional state back.

And in mirroring,

A child,

An infant feels seen and understood.

And then the parent does something that's really important.

It's called marking the mother or father after they mirror the emotion,

Then they smile and they say,

I get it that you're angry.

And I'm just showing you an angry face,

Too,

To show you that I get that you're angry.

But I'm not angry.

Your anger is not affecting my mental state.

I'm capable of letting you know that I know you're angry,

But I'm not angry.

So if a child's sad,

The parent might go,

Ooh,

But then the parent might go,

It's okay.

And so that marking says,

I get it.

I understand.

It's okay to be sad,

But I'm not sad and I can help you.

So that's the crucial exchange in being seen and understood.

So far we have safe and we have seen.

The third is soothed,

Which means someone who will stay with us and if we're in distress,

Calm us down,

Make us help us return to a state of less activation.

So that's what we talked about earlier,

Limbic co-regulation.

When we down regulate our activation,

We become by being with someone,

We become calmer.

And the fourth category that we need or the fourth type of connection we need is delight and appreciation and encouragement.

So that's apparent that doesn't only see what emotional state we're in,

Doesn't only make us feel safe,

But also appreciates our creativity,

Our efforts,

And really gives us the encouragement to push forward in life.

And when all of those four categories or four types of interactions happen frequently enough,

And they don't have to happen all the time.

In fact,

The great child psychologist Winnicutt said,

You know,

He used the phrase the good enough mother,

Which was basically meant to convey that a parent doesn't have to be always available,

Always attuned,

Always encouraging.

They just need to do it enough to set a pattern in the child's mind where the child feels safer,

You know,

Knows when,

You know,

It's likely to receive attention.

So when that happens,

A child grows up to be an adult with secure attachment.

This is a child who in a playground when the child is four will interact with other children,

Won't stick around.

The parents will go out and explore and will feel confident to meet other children and to play and will not be guarded and defensive,

Will not run away.

As an adult,

This partner will be very honest in their relationships.

They will partner with people who are trustworthy.

They're confident to state their needs right up front.

They don't have any problem setting boundaries because they can balance their life really well.

They don't flee or have any problem with intimacy.

They balance relationships with peer support.

So they not only have,

You know,

A capability of maintaining relationships with significant others,

But they also have good friendships.

And these are people who feel really confident to go out and express themselves in the world and seek to and set achievable goals for themselves.

And they tend to reward themselves for their endeavors.

They don't tend to motivate themselves through self-punishing or self-judgment.

They tend to be people who feel good about their efforts.

Now,

If the child only sometimes gets attention and understanding and encouragement,

But often doesn't and the child,

The infant can never determine when a parent's going to be available.

Or if the child is separated from a significant caregiver due to a divorce and there's no,

The parents don't in this divorce work out a way for the children to connect on a reliable basis with both caregivers,

Then what happens is a child winds up very often with anxious or preoccupied and adult attachment.

That's somebody who is drawn to fantasy bonds with others.

They are attracted to people who are not emotionally available.

They are very often living in the expectation of abandonment because that's the thing they fear the most.

Interestingly enough,

People tend to expect the thing that they most dread,

Perhaps as a form of defense behavior.

So anxious individuals,

Interestingly,

Unconsciously are drawn again and again and again to people who don't live in the same city,

Who have other partners,

Who are not emotionally available,

Who are avoidant,

Who are just incapable of creating a secure bond.

Anxious people have a significant degree of core shame,

A feeling,

I'm going to talk about this more tomorrow,

A feeling that there's something wrong or broken or unlovable in themselves.

They tend to be,

When they're dating,

Hypervigilant because dating is the very arena,

Or when they're in a relationship as well,

They're hypervigilant.

Hypervigilant means overly focused,

Overly guarded,

Overly at a state of alert.

The anxious person tends to over prioritize finding a relationship.

They tend to believe that a relationship is the big thing that's missing,

And yet unconsciously they sabotage them.

They find a solution not only by being overly fixated,

Vigilant,

At times even overly picky about who can meet their needs,

But they choose again and again people who aren't available for a relationship.

The third type of category is the dismissive or avoidant.

This is the child who grows up with a parent who is incapable of mirroring the child because their emotional state is just not in sync.

A parent who's constantly depressed,

Constantly anxious,

Constantly distracted and stressed out by work.

The parent exhibits an emotion that's never in sync with the infant.

The child does what's predictable,

Gives up on other people for getting its needs met,

Becomes entirely self-reliant.

If you see an avoidant child,

They're very easy to spot.

They'll go in a playground and they won't move towards.

.

.

I should have said that the anxious child,

By the way,

Will cling to the mother or father.

They won't explore.

They won't meet other kids like the secure.

The avoidant child won't cling to the parents,

Won't go out and play with other kids.

It'll just go off and find a toy or wander off and just try to be completely self-sufficient on its own.

In adult life,

These are people who prioritize their independence.

They set extremely strict boundaries.

They criticize virtually everyone they've been in a relationship as being too needy.

They're the first that tell other people that they're illogical and irrational,

That their emotions are too much.

They tend to be extremely competitive over symbolic capital.

The entire financial industry,

In my opinion,

Is filled with emotionally avoidant men.

The self-esteem failures are compensated by grandiosity,

Whereas anxious people have core shame and tend towards,

Yes,

Anxiety.

Individuals with avoidant attachment tend towards monopolar depression and tend towards a sense of narcissistic self-importance.

They tend to switch off their emotions.

They tend to be self-numbing.

They seek distance from others.

They are extremely,

Essentially,

The type that tend to disappear the moment there's any intimacy expected in a relationship.

So I'm sure you've all met somebody that meets this criteria.

You're probably familiar.

The final category is the fearful avoidant disorganized,

The fearful,

As we might refer to them.

These are children who have been abused or were suddenly,

Catastrophically lost a parent to death as something shocking,

Traumatic happened.

These people have a painful ambivalence towards others.

They generally are frightened of the people they're in relationship with.

There are significant others,

There are attachment figures they are actually in fear of.

Because the anxious child,

Essentially,

And the anxious individual fears abandonment,

The avoidant fears being trapped with someone,

Fears intimacy.

The fearful individual just fears attachment,

Their partners,

To begin with.

The disorganized child was put in an impossible position.

Everything in the human brain is set up to attach to a parent for safekeeping and care and love.

But if that very person that you are wired to connect with is causing you suffering,

Is making your life more dangerous,

Is the very threat that you are.

Every time the child feels distress,

It's prime to go to the parent,

But it's the parent that's causing the distress.

What a horrific position to be in.

So this individual is prone to what's called freeze,

Or dissociation,

Checks out.

They are easily overwhelmed,

They don't have any coherent strategy for getting their needs met.

They have strong statistical tendencies towards addiction and self-harm.

And they very often wind up in relationships that are manipulative,

Where partners are both untrustworthy,

And often where there's some degree of occasional physical violence.

So here's the bad news before we go to the good.

If you look at a 20-month-old child and then meet up with that child 30 years later,

Which has been done over and over and over and over again,

There's been literally now hundreds of longitudinal studies in different countries,

And they all show the same thing over and over and over again,

Which is you are like 75% likely to maintain the exact same attachment style you had at 20 months throughout the entire course of your life.

Now,

If you're one of the people that I never get to meet and work with who's secure,

That's great news.

But for the other 50%,

Roughly 50%,

Is insecure,

Falls into one of the other three categories of anxious,

Avoidant,

Or disorganized.

That means there's a very likely chance that you will remain with the same anxious or emotionally self-numbing,

Avoidant,

Dismissive,

Or disorganized,

Fearful view of yourself,

Others,

And other patterns will remain through life.

If you didn't get the connection between early Buddhist and attachment there,

It's pretty straightforward.

The type we call the desirous,

Always clinging,

Is the anxious,

Preoccupied,

The individual who is always trying to get all their needs met from a thing,

An object,

A person that never fulfills their needs.

That's the very definition,

Pretty much,

Of the Buddhist category of raga.

Dosa,

The aversive person,

Is clearly the avoidant,

Almost exactly the same category of predilections.

Soho,

The delusional type in Buddhism is clearly a reference to what we now call delusional.

And Sada,

The confident person who can take risks,

Who balances their life,

Who is able to act in a spiritual way is clearly secure.

The only significant difference between the early Buddhist approach and contemporary attachment theory is that the Buddha didn't think anybody was born insecure.

He actually tended to believe that we all fall into one of the three insecure,

And that it was spiritual practice that returns people to a state of confidence,

A state of where they're able to connect.

And in many ways,

I tend to think there's a lot to that view,

Even though many,

Many countless clinical studies tend to show that there are such things as secure people.

So what's worth knowing is that these patterns,

Just like the Buddha said,

Are set very,

Very early in life,

20 months of age before you develop narrative memory.

We can go into therapy all we want and talk about important events that we recall,

But we will never be able to recall the most informative,

Influential events in our lives,

Because they happen well before the left hippocampus,

Which allows us to have conscious memories was formed.

All of the early attachment events that happen between caregivers and infants are stored in memory regions,

Right orbital frontal,

That we can never consciously access.

So no matter how much we try to talk about the early wounds and early abandonments,

And while they're very often true,

We never actually get to remember the earliest interpersonal events that had the greatest influence on our personality.

There's very little evidence that any form of interpretation based therapy works in significantly changing people's behaviors.

So what this means is that you can go into a an interpretation based would be,

For example,

You go into talk therapy,

You're with someone who's very,

Very skilled and can point out patterns,

And it's helpful in that it makes you feel less alone,

You feel more your experiences normalized,

You're less.

You feel less unique in the,

The issues that are faced,

But,

And you also feel that it's kind of an understanding why,

To a certain degree,

We have the behaviors that we have so,

But still,

The interpretations will not change the way we act.

So for example,

In counseling,

Which I've been doing now for a good period good chunk of time,

I've worked with hundreds,

And I found that even though,

For example,

When working with people with anxious attachment,

Who know fully well they come in to counseling knowing fully well their predilection towards the gravitating towards people who are emotionally unavailable,

They can know it,

They can understand exactly who the most likely caregiver that wasn't available they can,

They can have a real sense of even the kinds of things because we give them tools of course to understand how to choose and select secure partners but still knowing all that the internal working model that governs the attraction keeps guiding them back to emotionally unavailable people,

And they continue for a significant period of time to seek love in the same disastrous relationships over and over and over again.

Now this doesn't mean they're trapped,

Because fortunately there are tools that can alleviate these internal working models,

What the Buddha called Nama Rupa,

These early shaped perceptions or core personalities.

Originally in attachment therapy the thought was that it would be the therapist themselves that would create this secure experience,

The therapist would give the client,

The person they're working with,

The things that they didn't get reliably in childhood.

So they would give to the anxious or avoidant or disorganized fearful client,

They would give that person safety,

They'd stay attentive,

They'd give that person,

They'd make that person feel seen and understood,

They'd make that person feel soothed when they were in distress,

And they'd encourage that person to persevere and would acknowledge that person's creativity and efforts.

So in other words the idea was that the therapist would become the ideal parent,

And keep in mind that phrase,

The ideal parent.

The idea was the therapist would become an ideal parent,

And in that interaction between the insecure individual and the therapist,

That attachment style that was set early on in life would be shifted in that relationship.

Well that is actually a really promising idea,

But there's only one problem.

Can anybody guess what that problem is?

Hi.

It's too late.

Nope.

I like the pessimist,

But no.

Pessimist close to my heart,

But no it's not too late.

People throughout life,

25% throughout life,

The brain is neuroplastic,

People can change.

Isn't it about brain Well the attachment patterns have been shown by Alan Shore,

Who's one of the most famous neuropsychologists to be stored in the right hemisphere,

But no it's not due to the bilateral brain.

But good guess?

Pretty close,

Pretty close.

Bingo.

Between these two that's it.

Essentially,

If you're lucky you're in therapy with the right person,

But you're not in therapy with the wrong person.

If you're lucky you're in therapy one hour a week,

But you spent 16 years of the most informative,

Influential,

Where your brain was engraved,

Countless hundreds of thousands of hours interacting with caregivers.

Now if they did a good job,

If they were available,

If they were,

If they can soothe you then they,

Then there's nothing you have to worry about,

But if there was an unreliable pattern of attention in those first 20 months,

That child had literally tens of thousands of hours.

And in those hours it couldn't determine a pattern of when it was going to get reliable attention or it felt a lack of understanding.

It felt never mirrored or very infrequently mirrored.

And so the most formative years when all the neuronal connections and the neurons are being built in the brain,

There's nothing like the first 20 months of life where the brain is producing hundreds of millions of neurons literally every week I think it is,

And we stop doing that after that age.

And those interactions are forming our expectations and are the way we view ourselves and we view others.

So by the time you're 34 and you're in therapy and you found the greatest therapist who's really attuned to you and you feel really safe with them,

But you're getting them one hour a week.

And by that point,

Think of the brain like a ski slope.

So there's these trails that have been set for 34 years that determine where people ski down at,

And you're going to try to ski down against those grooves that have been or trails,

And you're going to just try to go into this snow banks where there's no grooves.

It's fucking hard.

And the interactions with the therapist aren't enough.

Now Mary main the great attachment researcher proposed that if there was a tune therapist and if there was also the anxious or avoidant or disorganized individual made sure,

Made damn sure they wound up in a relationship with somebody who's secure being in a relationship with somebody who was emotionally available attentive,

Who prioritized the relationship,

Who wasn't dismissive of their emotions,

Then the 10 to 12 years of therapy where you need to make a dent in an attachment style would go down to about seven years.

So,

Seven years that's a five year,

We're,

We're,

We're cutting into it right that's pretty good.

But suppose,

Suppose you wanted to significantly change your attachment style six months.

Does that sound impossible.

Actually,

It turns out it's not a team of psychologists is led by Daniel P Brown and Sam Elliott at Harvard Medical School developed a tool,

Which allows people to create an internal working model of security so they actually get to know the secure experience internally.

Interestingly enough,

The lead psychologist who's absolutely famous in the world of psychology,

He runs a clinic for people with complex PTSD.

He's renowned and he also happens to be a Buddhist practitioner and he one day had this great realization that one thing that nobody had explored was what if every day somebody could have a secure experience in their life.

What if we could do that in meditation.

What if we could take advantage of the minds capability of visualizing and creating internally,

An ideal parent figure or an ideal figure.

That way we could actually have that experience that we only get one hour a week and therapy we could actually get it every day.

And we could exponentially increase the recovery and the healing of emotional wounds,

And we could actually significantly allow people to unconsciously know what it feels like to be secure and when they know what it feels like to be secure,

Not only do they make smarter choices when it comes to picking partners for their romantic life because when you know what it feels like to be secure,

You don't chase after excitement anymore.

Excitement is not a thing to look for in a relationship.

Excitement is okay,

But excitement is the experience of the child that is anxious who didn't get reliable love experience when she or he was with the parent who's finally paying attention.

The child who's secure,

Who has a secure attachment with a caregiver felt safe,

Felt seen,

Felt relaxed,

Felt confident.

So if you can visualize a secure figure who has all those four categories we talked about,

Makes you feel safe,

Makes you feel seen,

Makes you feel soothed or can soothe you and is encouraging,

Then you get a felt sense of the very state that not only allows us to choose people who will be reliable,

But it also is the sense that we need to explore the world and speak up for ourselves and state our needs and pursue our goals and to essentially act on our best,

Highest self.

It actually has been shown because they've actually done clinical research at Harvard using this technique and they've shown that in as little as six months to under two years,

Significant changes not only in attachment,

But also they did it with people with complex PTSD and they saw a significant reduction in pathological symptomology in terms of obsessive ideations,

Suicidal ideations,

Self harm.

So,

In short,

It works.

The good news is that this is very similar to Buddhist practice as well.

If you look at one of the Buddhist 10 daily recollections was Devadusati,

Recollecting some figure or being that has been angelic.

And if you couldn't in Buddhist practice remember anyone you would create an angel or angelic being from your imagination didn't matter in the Dharma whether you were visualizing something that didn't exist or someone who had existed.

Likewise,

These four categories of that create security,

Being safe,

Seen,

Soothed and appreciated are very very similar to the Brahma Viharas,

Which is the divine of those which are states of greeting others with kindness,

Compassion,

Appreciation,

Care.

So,

What Daniel Brown did in this ideal parent practice is simply take Buddhist meditations and use them to help healing people in therapy and he would see developed a whole script where simply he would guide people to visualize a healing figure that would help them address early internal working models that cause us suffering in life.

So with your indulgence,

I am going to lead you now to an ideal parent figure meditation based on their work.

So in this meditation just find the most comfortable seat you can and don't worry about posture or anything just allow yourself just to relax.

This is an entirely a visualization practice.

This is not about the breath,

This is about using our imagination.

So,

With our eyes closed let's just take our normal three breaths just to relax so take a full complete in breath and if you'd like lift your shoulders up just hold them up and then relax,

Drop your shoulders,

Breathe out,

Pull the shoulders back to open up the chest.

When you open up the chest that actually sets the core vagal vagus nerve cluster and tells your brain you're safe.

So,

Second complete in breath and either pull in or push out your belly whatever you feel is appropriate.

Just do something and then breathe out and relax.

Soften the belly,

Create a nice soft relaxed belly to breathe into.

And then the third breath is squinching the muscles in the face tight.

You know squinching the eyes,

The forehead,

The nose,

Ugly pinched face then breathing out and softening.

And let's just take one last fourth complete in breath and just tighten everything squinch your toes,

Your knees,

Buttocks,

Fists,

Legs,

Arms,

Everything tight.

And then breathe out with the out breath just imagine your out breath taking with it all the stress it can clearing out allowing us to find a really useful state.

Now I'd like you to use the power of your mind which is by far and away the most powerful tool in the known universe.

Which is capable of visualizing and doing anything it wants.

I'd like you to travel back in time.

We're going to go back into one of the earliest memories you can confidently bring up of a time in your life when you were young and you wanted to feel someone present an adult who would stop and really pay attention and really sit with you or be with you and help you understand what was going on.

Somebody who would make you feel safe,

Someone who would help soothe any fear,

Any confusion,

Any doubt they would be willing to sit with you as long as it took without any impatience and they would listen.

And most of all they wouldn't try to change the way you felt as much as they would just give you that receptive caring,

Empathetic,

Hopefully the experience we got this afternoon from our group share.

So I'd like you without any conscious overriding just allow your imagination to start to visualize any adult figure who would be ideal for these needs.

If you're six,

Who knows they might be in their 30s or 40s or they might be a grandparent's age.

Don't steer it.

Don't try to just allow your imagination to create someone and this could be partially based on people you know.

Try to involve your imagination as well.

Keep,

Create a figure in your mind.

Have a sense of where you are.

Are you in a childhood house or perhaps you're outside looking?

One individual I worked with imagined walking up a flight of stairs into the second floor of their house which was scary for them.

Many people often visualize their bedroom or living room from childhood.

I very often when I do this practice see the living room where I grew up.

Would this ideal figure be sitting with you?

Would they be standing?

Would they be facing you?

Would they perhaps be looking in the same direction with you?

If you can't in your mind see an ideal figure,

A face,

Or get even a sense of what they might look like,

How they might be dressed,

Just see if you can feel what it would be like to be with someone at this age when you were vulnerable,

When you were seeking care but couldn't find it reliably.

What would it be like to actually have everything you wanted?

This ideal figure,

This deva in Buddhist language is really dedicated to you and doesn't want to go anywhere.

He's willing to stay with you as long as it takes.

And if there's sadness or anger or confusion,

They see that and they don't have any problem with whatever emotion or state you felt.

This figure,

There's absolutely nothing missing,

Nothing broken,

Nothing wrong about you.

If you do get even a glimmer of a sense of what this might be like,

See if you can find any area of your body which expresses that state of security.

For me,

It's very often,

Many people it's in the chest,

The feeling of the chest relaxing.

Some people feel their throat less tight.

For me,

It's almost invariably the belly,

The abdomen.

It's most important to find the somatic embodied signal that lets you know what it feels like to be in the presence of someone who makes you feel safe,

Seen,

Soothed,

Appreciated.

Even the slightest glimmer of ease or slight tonal shift.

Right?

Right?

If you like,

If you have a sense of what another ideal figure might be like.

Many people do ideal parents where they create a sense of two secure figures.

You don't have to,

But if another figure suggests itself,

A complementary figure,

The more you can,

If possible,

Visualize a face or at least the felt sense of being with an ideal caring figure.

That's where the emotional mind tends to be most responsive.

Right?

Right?

So,

At this time,

Just gently let go of any image or visual that you've managed to conjure,

But see if you can keep with you the felt sense in the body.

Whenever you're ready,

You can open your eyes.

So,

I grew up with a mother who was fairly capable of creating a secure bond.

She was very much a workaholic,

But every night,

Reliably,

At the exact same time,

She'd sit with my sister and then with me and would check in with us,

Really pay attention to what we were feeling.

She was very encouraging.

She'd read to us,

And it was a really set pattern.

So,

In interactions,

Relationships with women,

I've been able to be very,

I've been,

You know,

Able fairly to be trusting and to balance my life and to choose a pretty good partner.

Yeah.

And my father and I was an entirely different story.

He was a,

At times,

A very loving,

Funny painter,

Abstract painter,

Who had a great sense of humor and at the same time was a violent,

Dysregulated drunk where,

When my mother was pregnant with me,

Was in the hospital in an induced coma.

From a bar fight was very often on the run from,

You know,

Police would come literally due to some interaction he had in a bar.

And so,

Very early on,

The only,

I had extremely disorganized attachment with men,

It was very difficult for me to trust.

I was often fearful even of friends and would very often choose friends who were,

Would reproduce the same kind of insanity and hung out with a lot of,

You know,

That's how I hung out with a lot of,

You know,

Dysregulated punk.

They weren't like crusty punks because it was before crusty punks,

Kind of like proto crusty punks.

You know,

And a lot of drug use and it took a long time.

I mean,

I was lucky,

I found a really compassionate kind of professor in school who really took me under his wing and was safe and saw something in me,

And then went through years of Buddhist therapy with two different figures who created safe interaction,

But still,

Even after all that and even after,

I mean,

So much therapy,

Still when I do this practice,

I can effortlessly visualize an ideal mother figure,

But an ideal father figure,

Oh boy.

It's just so foreign from what I experienced that trying to visualize,

I can get a sense,

But the,

It's so hard to visualize being with an older male figure that is in any way,

Kind of compassionate and caring.

So that's a long way to way of saying this practice is one that we have to do on a regular basis,

But it does work.

It significantly changes the way we not only feel about ourselves and others,

But the choices we make and how we live in the world.

So,

Thank you for listening.

Reviews

This was an incredibly insightful conversation about how meditation can help to repair insecure attachment as an adult. I will be exploring more of this through my daily Vipassana meditation.

I have been looking for this talk for the past 6 years but didn’t think anyone was pulling together these sources of inquiry. A thousand thank yous for moving me forward 🙏🏼

This is wonderfully enlightening - thank you! 🙏🏽💫

I visualized sitting looking out my childhood window with parental figures standing just behind me -standing side by side they each hold a gentle hand on my shoulder blade. Each parent being a wing for their angel.

Amazing insights, thank you 🙏

I appreciated the detailed connections made between contemporary science and Buddhist teachings. Thank you.

Difficult to describe in text the joy in discovering the practice that’s right for you. Yeah, that. Very grateful, thank you

One of the most informative and healing talks I have ever listened to. Thank you, I think this will have a profound impact on my life 🙏

Bingo! Here’s the answer to transforming that insecure attachment pattern that’s plagued me all my life. The hardest part is the daily practice because I’m so often disorganised.
Small steps, taken as often as I can, when I can.
At age 65 I still haven’t given up trying because the alternative is just too painful.

Excellent, informative, and insightful. Certainly identify. Imagining ideal mother, a sad moment. Thanks 🙏.

I cried so hard during the visualization practice of envisioning an ideal mother and father because it was so hard for me. I can’t believe all of the stuck emotions that came up. I always knew I had something “wrong” with me because of the failed relationships I have had but never thought there was an actual name for it (anxious attachment) until just 1 month ago! After my recent breakup, which hurt badly, I am so interested in doing the work to heal this attachment style so that I can be a better partner, while still being me, and also so I can attract a better partner. Thank you so much.

This was extremely helpful. And evidence-based practice that is accessible and can help shift our attachment style towards being more secure. Exactly what I need.

Great explanation of the way we are the way we are.

Thank you for sharing this. It was very supportive of growth and understanding.

Very relevant and informative. I must listen to this a few more times to let it all sink into my anxious self. Thanks!

So helpful and just in time when I am beginning to understand what is and how to work with - THANK YOU SO MUCH - with love and light 🙏🏽💖🙏🏽

An absolute game changer- I’m an anxious child (or now an anxious 65 year old adult). You have helped me feel confident about the possibility of real changes ✨🙏✨

This was really good. There is a lot here to integrate, and I’m very grateful for the practice. Thank you. ❤️

^Update: that review was 4 months ago. Today I listened again, and… This was probably the best thing I’ve heard on attachment styles, and the meditation at the end was both brilliant and soothing. I feel more at ease than I have in a long time (many many years). 🙏🏼💕 Please consider breaking out just the meditation part for a shorter meditation-only track that can be used more frequently. Namaste.

Illuminating! Thank you. 🙏🏻 Helpful visualizations to free old patterns.

Wow! This was completely moving and an incredible visualization.