Connection Styles ~ Part 2 ~Serenity Wellness Podcast ~ E68

Expand on the awareness you gathered in part one around your personal pivots and how they move you into connections. There are different ways we all connect, and sometimes our subconscious is more in the driver seat than we might be aware. After over 20 years working in the mental health field, I have identified 6 different common connection styles. Learn about the pulls within each, what loops they create, and how we can move into trance-like pulls and pin-like focus.

Transcript

Hi there,

Welcome to Serenity Bonus Podcast,

Episode 68,

Connection styles,

Part two,

How we connect the latch of attachment.

Let's talk a little bit about the different types of connection styles.

You might see or hear that you're landing in more than one of these,

And none of them might resonate with you,

And that's okay too.

I try to name and break apart and develop the top ones that I've seen through all of these years,

But as I mentioned,

There are certainly other ones out there as well.

In addition,

I will be breaking these down more in terms of the loop systems I talk about in each of them in my other channel,

Serenity Wellness Tools.

So if you wanna learn more about the loops that I mentioned,

You can pop over there,

And that will give you some more information.

The first one I'm going to talk about is the chameleon connection.

An individual in this type of connection is coming in the connection in a place of need for self-identification.

They often might move through life kind of wearing a costume.

They might not have a lot of understanding or awareness of who they are,

So they shape shift.

They will move and mold into whatever surroundings they're in,

Whoever they're around.

It's like,

Who are you?

Awesome,

Thank you,

That's who I am.

This type of connection style will often lead to codependent looping.

I'm not going to talk a bunch about that here.

That's one that,

Like I said,

You can pop over to the Wellness Tools channel,

But codependent looping is where we get this entangled situation with our emotions,

The other person's emotions,

This almost like desire to be needed or to feel needed,

But underneath,

It's like we're dip-dodging away from ourselves.

It gives us a place to go instead of here,

And how it creates the codependent looping.

In addition,

It will create the surveyor behavior.

In the surveyor behavior within chameleon connections,

The surveyor is,

Because this individual is often in a state of confusion of self,

Like who are you?

Awesome,

That's who I am.

They're looking or in this place of need of self-identification,

You can hear how that might also indicate that they might have a little bit of difficulty in decision-making,

So they will survey.

They will go out and ask this person,

That person,

The other person,

What's your opinion?

What would you do?

This is what happened.

They oftentimes will have to give the full report.

It's not like the Cliff Notes version or the trailer version type of thing.

It's like,

Here's the full story,

The play-by-play.

Now,

What would you do?

Okay,

Now person two,

What would you do?

Sometimes they'll survey like 10 people and then take the percentage to figure out their own who they are,

How they feel.

And they will even play this out if they're connected with somebody,

And them and the person has a disagreement of some sort.

They will go out and survey friends,

Family.

What would you do?

How should I do this?

It's important to have support for sure,

And to be able to bounce things off of and talk to people.

Even therapy is really helpful for people,

But we also want to make sure that we are in tune with ourselves and not forgetting that we can look within for answers.

It's like when we overread self-help books.

Self-help books are great.

Meditation books are great.

Spirituality books are great.

But when we over-seek outside of self,

We lose sight of where answers are within self.

So finding that balance and noticing,

Are you a surveyor?

Are you in this chameleon type of connection?

The next type of connection is what I call a feeder connection.

This individual is coming from a place of need to have ego stroking.

Under the surface,

They often have pretty low self-esteem,

Low feelings of self-worth,

Maybe some difficulty in early childhood with relationships with parents in terms of feeling loved,

Supported,

Wanted,

Et cetera.

So their connection,

And as a side note,

It doesn't have to be for those reasons.

It can be for other ones,

But sometimes it can go back there.

Or it can be where they just have a very high ego attachment for other reasons.

Individuals with high attachment to ego often under the surface,

They're at a great place of suffering.

They have often low self-esteem,

A low feeling of self-worth.

So in the feeder connection,

Coming from this place of need of ego stroking,

They can bring more game playing into the relationship.

I'm not talking about role playing here either,

Guys.

I mean,

Game playing.

The manipulation,

The putting you on this game playing board that you maybe didn't realize that you have been placed on.

And it's maybe not most honest way of connection.

And as I mentioned towards the beginning,

Any of these were not showing up authentically because we're having an ulterior agenda in the background of what's happening here.

And again,

It can be subconscious.

We might not consciously want or desire to be doing this stuff,

But there we end up being.

With the game playing dynamic of the feeder connection,

It will bring in jealousy looping.

And the jealousy looping is a way to feed the game playing and to feed the ego.

If they're creating this dynamic or scenario in the relationship connection that is leaving the other person feeling unsure,

It will maybe create an anxious response from that person,

Which then strokes the ego.

Oh,

Look how wanted I am,

Desired I am,

Et cetera.

And this jealousy loop and the game playing loop,

If the other person gets to a place of healthiness and understanding and decides to take their selves off the game board,

Like I'm not trying to play games in relationships,

Jealousy isn't something that works for me in what I'm looking for.

Jealousy brings in an idea of ownership and control in relationship dynamics,

Ownership control,

Not a form of healthy and connection.

So if the other person's like,

No jealousy looping here for me,

No thank you,

Not gonna be on the game board,

Taking myself off,

Done playing,

Well then this individual might end up abruptly and sometimes callously ending the relationship connection because they,

As I mentioned,

The chameleon is the surveyor.

Well,

Someone who is in feeder connection,

They are more about the spotlight.

So they walk around kind of needing the spotlight and have the spotlight held on them a lot.

So the surveyor has a clipboard,

Taking notes,

Surveying around,

The feeder connection,

They have the spotlight.

And so they're gonna get bored if they don't feel like you're on the game board.

And it doesn't mean moving into people pleasing behavior,

Accepting what isn't acceptable,

Ignoring your knowing and throwing away yourself so that the relationship will work.

It means be aware that that's what's happening.

Is that really what you're trying to do?

And where you want to be in a connection,

Or if you find yourself as you are the feeder connector,

Then slow down a little bit,

Maybe,

And offer yourself how I talked about at the beginning,

Some of that healing,

Some of your own love around your heart space so that the magnetic pull can change different directions and in a different vibration of healthiness and healing.

The next connection style is what I call the adrenaline connection.

This individual is coming from a place of need for body fuel.

They get into maybe cycles of feeding the adrenaline in the body,

Which is going to create more of a tendency to connect with individuals who will feed the anxious body system.

So they're gonna be one who is a little bit more prone to ignore their inner knowing,

Go more towards the,

Oh,

Look at,

No,

No,

No,

No,

No,

No,

No.

These are all the reasons this is not going to work.

We're just not in alignment.

And then they go right towards it,

Like the moth,

Towards the light.

And they might have another connection option over here where it's like all the yeses,

And then it's like push away,

Go over here.

And that is because of comfort and familiarity in the body.

The yeses might match up in all the things that they're looking for in a connection,

But that doesn't maybe feel familiar to them in the more maybe scattered or pain cycle way of loving,

Because that would be maybe,

These are bigger words to use here,

Maybe so not,

Maybe this big,

But that would be like a safer connection,

More in alignment with comfort and heart space.

And why we would be drawn more towards the nose is it's going to create more of the anxious,

Scattered,

Fragment of self type of connection,

Which can sound confusing as we talk through these,

Why would we wanna do this to ourself?

Remembering subconscious driver,

Sometimes we might not cognitively wanna be doing this,

And then we find ourselves there.

In this type of adrenaline connection,

It will create a drama looping.

A little bit of similarity with the feeder connector where boredom comes in,

And that can crinkle up the relationship connection for this type of connection style.

They are feeding their adrenaline.

So if there's a lot of boredom in the relationship,

Then they might get into drama looping or creating upheaval or concern or crisis orientation and mentality around the relationship or connection as a way to kind of like support the anxious body because the body's feeling anxious,

And so the mind is going to go around anxious thinking,

And it's going to quickly get us into drama cycle because it will bring in the jealousy looping as well.

But this is more like the drama,

The drama looping of the mind creates these ideas around jealousy that might not even be there where the feeder is maybe creating dynamics that will fuel a jealous energy in that connection.

No one can make us feel anything,

But we can create dynamics that will meet the breeding ground or cultivate a lack of trust in connection styles or connection dynamics.

This individual who is more in the adrenaline connection,

You can think about them as the caffeinator.

So we had the surveyor,

We had the spotlight,

And maybe this person is walking around giving everybody coffee.

They are highly caffeinated,

They're like,

Go,

Go,

Go,

There's not a lot of kind of settled down in the relationship.

It's a pretty stable place of anxious way that they are connecting and starting to develop the connection.

Another connection style would be calculated connection.

This individual is coming from a place of personal agenda.

Oftentimes their connection relationships are based off what can you do for them?

So they'll have like the whole map out of the plan of what they see you can do to this,

That,

Or the other.

Take care of them,

Sometimes people want like a caregiver,

Someone took that cross that I was talking about,

Like some people want like,

Oh,

I want someone who's just gonna take care of me to like be my parent.

Do you want a parent or do you want a partner?

So this calculation is often like,

What can you do for me?

So it's very calculated.

What can you do for me?

And then when you're done and your role is finished,

Well,

Then they will move on.

So this type of connection,

The individual,

The other individual or the partner can feel very expendable.

It's like,

You've done your role,

Now goodbye kind of thing.

And the looping system this brings in is the pusher looping.

In the pusher looping,

We're really have our ideas around something and then we will push that onto the other person.

And this is where people can kind of bulldoze over boundaries.

If someone says no to something,

They'll convince them of all the reasons that it should be a yes.

Or if someone has a difference of opinion,

They will push and push until they try to mold the person,

The molding into their own style or their own opinion.

There's several different things around the pusher loop.

And so I'll talk about that over in the other channel.

You can get into the pusher loop here.

Calculated plan,

I have an agenda,

I need to push this agenda on you and you need to conform mold into what I'm saying.

And when you're finished and your role is done,

Bye-bye.

It can feel very cold,

Very calculated.

That's why I named it that.

But it could feel like it's just like their agenda.

And when the agenda is done,

So are you.

This person would be carrying around the scorecard.

So they're gonna score you based off of what you can do for them.

And if someone else has a higher score,

Well,

That's the direction they're gonna go.

Then there is the desperado connection.

This individual is coming from a place of need of emptiness.

They may find in their daily life that they have a high avoidance of one-on-one time with self,

A kind of quiet personal healing.

They might really jump from relationship to relationship,

Or they might also notice that as soon as someone gives them any attention,

Then they're like,

Latch on,

And now they're gonna marry the person kind of thing because they are just seeking,

Seeking somebody to fill this sense of loneliness and to help to fill in space so they don't have to be with self.

This can get into high people-pleasing looping where we forget who we are.

We will lose sight of pretty much anything.

They're very willing to throw away self at all costs if it means that they can get this connection.

It might not even really know the person a whole lot,

But it's like someone gave me some attention,

And that's where I need to move into and develop this connection.

And they will walk around with a broken mirror.

It's like this fragmented sense of self.

They can't see clearly who they are.

The self-worth,

Self-value they have,

It seems so broken and so incomplete that they can't see a full mirror unless they feel that they have a connection with somebody else,

That they don't feel like they're a complete sense of self without a connection with another.

One last connection style I'd like to share with you is the united connection.

Individuals in this type of connection are coming from a place of need of nothing.

They're not trying to connect based off of need,

A need for something,

An agenda-focused priority of some sort.

They've done the inner work.

They know that humanness is a slippery,

Slidey slope,

And so they don't have these attachments to high expectation or control.

They can connect based off a desire and a want for a connection versus a need.

A need brings in clingy control,

Where if we're in a place of healthiness and we're in a united connection,

We feel a sense of understanding and acceptance and embracing the individuality of ourselves and the other person.

We can respect that we're not going to be molded as identicals,

That there's going to be differences and there's going to be similarities,

That it's important to cultivate and embrace our individuality.

And this type of united connection,

They are in the looping of building up.

So it's looping about supporting one another,

Building each other up,

And it's a looping system that has pathways out in lots of different directions,

And then you can loop back into the togetherness.

You know,

Maybe someone likes to kayak,

In that example I gave,

And this person likes to craft.

So they have their inner loop,

And then this person's going to go and do some kayaking,

And this person's going to go do some crafting,

And then they're going to come back together and not feel like they've lost a connection or that it means all the stuff that people will bring into their mind when people want to cultivate individuality in a connection,

Which is healthy,

Because then it doesn't bring all the other stuff that I mentioned.

When you're having this type of connection,

It's more the subconscious stuff.

You've given yourself time to work through a good bit with understanding that there might be more there,

But because you've done some work there,

You're not placing it on your partner to fix it all.

They can support it,

They can hold space for you,

But there can be open communication because you're building off a groundwork of trust and of respect.

And when you have trust and respect,

Then it will open up comfort and vulnerability,

And that's where we're respecting life as a slippery slope.

We don't have to have expectation or this illusion of perfection,

And we can still hold space and work through things as a team,

As a partnership.

And these individuals,

In terms of what you might find them carrying around,

It might just be like a cozy blanket.

They're able to just provide coziness in terms of relationship with self and relationship with another.

So those are some of the relationship connections.

And now I'd like to give you just some thoughts of what you might do around this information.

The biggest tool is awareness.

That really goes for any of the episodes.

I know I share a lot of wellness tools in them as well,

But awareness is our biggest key and biggest tool,

And I know I've mentioned that before,

But with today's episode,

Your biggest tool here is awareness around these concepts so that you can slow down and notice where you're at,

How you connect.

And in the awareness,

You want to be on the lookout if you notice that you're on a repeat cycle or repeat pattern.

That will really be an indicator of subconscious driving.

You know,

If we find ourselves different face,

Different body,

Same situation,

It might be a strong indicator that we're not giving space and time to work on self,

And then not to bring in too much energy stuff here,

But you know,

When we do that,

When we ignore self and we just keep repeat,

Repeat,

Repeat,

Often the repeat cycle,

Source,

Universe,

Whatever word fits for you,

If you have a religious word,

That's cool too,

Whatever word fits there for you,

Will come in and the next round is a louder message.

It's like leveling up on the game board of,

Do you get this or don't you kind of thing,

But it comes in as this broader,

Louder message each time we repeat.

It's like a thud against the head kind of thing.

Are you paying attention?

And how are you gonna do this round?

Are you gonna let yourself love you and pay attention to you or back to repeat?

Different face,

Different body,

Same story.

Another key here is to not personalize things.

All of those different connection styles that I mentioned,

They are subconscious drivers for the most part.

Sure,

There might be individuals out there who are intentionally creating relationship connections that are manipulative and with an intention to harm.

That's really low on the number there of people who do that.

Oftentimes it's these subconscious drivers that are fueling pain in their own heart.

So if you're on the receiving end of one of these connection styles and find confusion there or personalization,

Try to remember,

I know this is hard for people,

But just try to remember it's not about you.

You find your healing around that and recognize that that person is where they're at.

And you don't have to change that or try to understand it completely.

You're not their therapist,

Right?

You're not there to do all of that.

You're here to take care of you.

So try not to personalize and instead use that energy to go within and to see what healing you can have around things.

Because even the most challenging and difficult situations and relationships are teachers for us in some way,

We understand something about ourselves within the process.

It's not to say we are accepting things in this example.

If this is your first time tuning in,

It's not like I'm saying,

Oh,

If you experienced abuse,

Well then take that and what did you learn from it and that's what you're supposed to just do with it.

But it does give us an idea and understanding of ourselves and healing that maybe we can offer ourselves so that we can change the magnetic pull that we're in around this and our way that we connect.

When individuals find themselves getting into this personalization,

It's like they give the other person then somehow this,

I don't know the right word I'm looking for here,

Like the puppet master role in their life.

Like,

Oh,

Well that person ended the connection or they treated me this way.

And so therefore that means I'm not worthy,

I'm unlovable,

I'm on this,

I'm not this.

And it's like,

Well,

Hold on.

How did this person get all that control that they're the judge and jury of your life and who you are?

And this personalization will get us into where we'll just hand over who we are to someone else's idea of who we are and how they see us.

And we might not even be talking to the person anymore,

They might've been really harsh and we recognize it and we could still hand over.

Who are we?

Will you tell us?

And that's how we'll see ourselves.

So spend some time and awareness,

See where you're at,

See what type of connection style you might land in or that you might find yourself on repeat in.

And then ask yourself some questions.

You can even jot these down in a journal if that's helpful for you.

But some of these questions might be,

What are you ignoring in yourself that gets you into this type of connection style?

What areas of pain,

Of sense of self are you trying to replace through the connection with another?

Sometimes it's easier for people to look at what they'd be carrying around first instead of the dynamics of the relationship connection.

So would you be carrying around the clipboard,

The broken mirror,

Et cetera.

You might also ask yourself if these are learned patterns of connection,

Things that you have picked up through how family members love,

What you saw through friendships and love,

Or even what we have been indoctrinated in through society and what love is supposed to mean.

We are thankfully changing a lot of that.

Belle Hooks wrote an amazing book on that.

She has recently passed,

But I will put a link in the description box below if you're interested in reading that and how it's about a lot about like society's indoctrination of love dynamics and the patriarchal society dynamics that that creates.

Just leave that there.

This isn't the podcast for that,

But I will put that book down there if you want to look at it.

But where did you pick this up maybe?

This form of connection.

What are you skipping away from self in that creates this relationship connection?

And then sometimes people will even write down so that it's clear in their vision and in their heart and in their mind,

What really are the areas that I'm looking for in a connection and what are my deal breakers?

No judgment over here in the deal breakers.

It's just recognition.

People are where they're at.

We're not here to mold anybody.

We're nobody's boss.

It's free will.

And if it's in an unacceptable for you category,

That's okay.

That's just where you're at and where they're at.

And it's just not something that will work in unison together in a connection.

Hope that information was helpful for you.

As I mentioned,

You can pop over to Serenity Wellness Tools on YouTube where I will break down these looping styles as well as some other tools that might help you in daily living.

Thanks so much for stopping by and I look forward to seeing you again real soon.

Have a good one.

Reviews

Spot on identifying patterns of being. Very helpful. Thank you:)

This was very interesting for me. Looping styles made me think about a few of my relationships and if they were actual true and serving a purpose for each of us. Not always the case for me so I’ll be taking a closer look into these.
Thank you planting seeds we don’t know if we need to nurture or remove.
Blessings! 💜

More food for thought! Thank you!