758. Anxious Attachment? Heal with Parts Work NOW to Find Your True Love
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Hello and welcome to Almost 30 Podcast. I am so glad you're here. My name is Krista Williams and I'm one half of the Almost 30 Podcast. I actually started Almost 30 with my best friend on our closet floors in 2016.

So we've been around for a long time. We have a book coming out this year called Almost 30, a guidebook for anyone that's about to turn 30 or really anyone that's navigating times of change. But we're a podcast that's spirituality, lifestyle, wellness. We like to really be curious and

and make this fun and interesting. And oftentimes we are vulnerable. And today's podcast is going to be a vulnerable share with me. And if you are an OG listener and you've listened to Almost 30 podcast, welcome. It's your girl. I'm so excited to be with you. You guys know my journey a little bit. So you're going to know a little bit about what I'm talking about in more detail than anyone that's new. But if you're new, I'll give you guys like the lay of the land of everything when we're talking about our conversation today. So today's episode is going to be about internal family systems, parts work,

attachment styles, and dating. And I'm actually going to be teaching this and talking about this because I just recently had a situation happen that helped me really work through this in a way that was so helpful. And so my intention in sharing vulnerably anything that I've gone through is to be as helpful as possible.

In life, I've always been someone that teaches from my own wounding, from my own experiences, from my own lessons and learnings. I never teach anything that I don't know or that I just know with the mind. It always has to be embodied. So this is a fully embodied teaching that was very painful to go through recently in a dating situation, but I'm hopeful it's helpful for you. So anyone that's new to the podcast, just so you know, I went through a divorce.

two years ago. So I was married and with my partner for 10 years. And then in two years ago in January, he moved out and I've been single ever since. So I'm a woman that's in her mid thirties, that's newly single, that's divorced, and that's just started dating. So I was in a relationship for a really long time

Previous to that, I was in other long-term relationships. And I've pretty much been a relationship girl since I was 15 years old. So I have been someone that hasn't really experienced dating much at all. And so this like new journey for me has been completely new, wild, exciting, interesting, devastating, fun, painful, gross, cool, bizarre, fascinating. It is like...

I'm very grateful for the humble, the humbling that it's provided me. I'm grateful for the expansiveness it's provided me. I'm grateful for being exposed to so many different people and perspectives. And I don't think I would have had much. It's given me much more relatability with people than I think I had before. So newly dating, woman in her mid thirties, on the scene, doing her thing,

in the world. And I've talked about dating on the podcast before. So I did a few episodes on dating. There's one called Modern Spirituality, or it's like modern dating for spiritual people. So I basically talked about my whole methodology with dating, how I'm approaching it, how I'm seeking to date. And I've talked a lot about in intros about how I'm really going about dating. I'm not on dating apps. I was for a little bit. I found it to be interesting. I found it to be

portals for bringing in interesting people and for bringing in lessons and karmic connections. And then in the end, it just felt a little bit gross and transactional and odd. And for someone that is as multidimensional as me, I didn't find it to be supportive. So I dropped dating apps. And now I just approach dating by meeting people in person and by, um,

matchmakers in Los Angeles. So there's these matchmakers that you guys can like apply to their sites and be connected to, and they'll connect you with people. So that's been my process just for people know, because I know so many people are going to be asking about that process as far as how I'm meeting people. Mostly it's out in the world and staying open.

But today's episode is going to be about internal family systems, parts work, attachment styles, and dating. So internal family systems, parts work is a psychotherapy technique founded by Dick Schwartz, who's been on the podcast.

And parts work is really powerful because it helps us to understand and contextualize our emotions and feelings. And it helps us to love ourselves more deeply than I ever thought possible. So for me, so much of my self-love journey and my healing journey was loving myself when I was perfect and

loving myself when everyone loved me, loving myself when I got straight A's, loving myself when I weighed a certain amount, loving myself when I looked a certain way, when I was successful, all these things.

And what I realized is that true self-love is really loving the aspects of ourselves that we don't want to love, that the part of us really resists loving. True self-love is a love and acceptance and honoring of all parts. And it's really seeing all aspects of us and all habits and addictions even as a supportive part of our process in our human experience. So internal family systems believes that some of our maladaptive and addictive behaviors are actually parts of us that are trying to protect us and keep us safe.

So as an example, I was someone that was binging in my life. So I've talked about my body and eating journey many times on the podcast. But for anyone that's new, I was someone that was a binger and restrictor for a long time. Really sexy, really fun, really miserable. And anyone that knows that's binged, you know the possession when you get possessed.

by the urge to binge, and we can call that a part. So parts where it can be understood with a binging, as an example, we can see the aspect of us that seeks to binge or overeat food or eat too much or eat till we're uncomfortable as a part of us that's trying to soothe.

So for many of us, we used food as a coping mechanism. We used food to escape. We used food to regulate our bodies and our nervous system. We used food as a drug to feel good. I know that was a lot of my journey. I used food as a drug to feel good. I used it as a regulation tool. I used it to escape.

And so me as a younger person using food in that way was still using food in that maladaptive way as I got older. So when I started to be with that part of me that was binging, that little girl that was maladaptively trying to soothe, I was able to really be with her, love her, understand her, and then eventually liberate her from doing that because I now know new tools.

So in parts work, you really work with these aspects of ourselves. The brain really loves to understand things in a personified way. So when we can kind of pull things apart of us and see things as different aspects of us, it really supports us in our journey.

For a lot of people, parts work can really be supported and understood by the perception and experience of having multiple different feelings at once. That's how I like to explain it. Sometimes when we break up with someone, we can be like, there's a part of me that's really excited to be single and be free. And then there's a part of me that's really sad and grieving the relationship. Those different experiences are very different and they're coming from the same person, but those are different parts.

So there's one part of us that's really attached to the relationship and really loves that person. And then there's another part of us that wants to be free. So in parts work, we can kind of reach out and be with these parts and process how they're feeling, process their experiences to create a more holistic self, to create the true self, the soul. So the self is the soul. It's the undeniable aspect of us. It's the perfect aspect of us. It is the curious, compassionate soul

caring part of us. It's like our soul. It's the most beautiful part of our human experience. And I seek to be in self as much as possible. But in my journey with understanding and learning parts work and teaching parts work a lot with my clients and a lot of the talks that I do, it's been so helpful for me, especially in the dating process. And that's what we're going to be talking about today.

We're also going to be talking about how it relates to attachment styles. And attachment styles is based on attachment theory. And attachment theory was really used for children from a young age and how children related to their parents. So it saw that some children would be anxiously attached, avoidantly attached, disorganizedly attached based on how they would react to their parents leaving the room at different times. And now it's sort of been expanded and abridged

to talk about dating, to talk about work, to talk about all things of life. There is anxious attachment style, which is someone that gets really anxious or gets anxiety or gets really nervous or stressed or high blood pressure or a beating heart when they feel like they're losing an attachment with someone. In this case with dating, it's a partner. It is a

potential partner. It is someone that we want to be a partner. And there's also avoidance. So the avoidant is really scared of intimacy. They're scared of intimacy because they are afraid of what happens when they get intimate with someone. So usually avoidance have had overbearing or over functioning mothers. This is like a lot of the research of, um,

why men are oftentimes very avoidant. And then also they've maybe been burned in the past when they've gotten really close to someone and then they're afraid of that intimacy. So they're going to avoid.

Oftentimes, there is the experience too of a disorganized attachment style. And this is someone that has both anxious and avoidant. I would say that your girl is secure. I'm very secure. My girls know I'm secure in relationships. I'm now much more secure. But I would say I've been experienced and have experienced in my life disorganized attachments. So I remember in some relationships, it was so anxious. It was just like I was...

on, you know, that feeling of being unwell until you talk to the person. You're like, I cannot exist. I cannot live until I'm talking to this person with this person around this person. I need this person to regulate. And then I've also been avoidant. Being with someone for in a previous relationship that was very avoidant, I became very avoidant. It was just

it was shut down city. And so I've kind of experienced both. I've been both anxious and avoidant and now feel pretty secure. But that doesn't mean that things don't come up in different times in our life and in different relationships and in different experiences. And what has happened recently that I'm going to share very vulnerably in a dating experience was something that brought up an anxious attachment part of me. And I almost felt cliche. I was like,

Brats. Like I thought I had passed this. I thought I was secure all the time. I thought I was good. And I had realized that in my dating process since, you know, leaving my marriage, I have been very guarded and protective and I have not let anyone in. And I haven't let any man in since my marriage because I was scared and because I have a little fear of that. And because...

I didn't find anyone yet until this point with this person that I felt like I wanted to open up to.

It is the new year and I'm sure y'all are dedicated to brighter, healthier, younger looking skin and done in a way that is actually healthy for our skin and for our bodies. And I have an incredible product line from a really impressive and science-backed brand. It's called One Skin. Probably heard about them. I feel like all my skin gurus out there are talking about it. And I'm

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If there's anything I've learned so far this year, hi, happy spring, it's that small habits really make a huge difference. I know it's corny, but it's absolutely freaking true.

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as women or people listening. But oftentimes when I would go on dates with people, I would find myself presenting just like a very specific version of myself and then kind of seeing how available this person was for me to be my full self, me to be in my truth, or me to be in my fullest expression of Krista. And this is normal. I think we often do this a lot of times when we're meeting people. We really see and meet them and figure out how safe

it is and how safe we feel being ourselves. And this is why with our best friends, people we've known for a long time, people that we have that great chemistry and connection with, we're really ourselves. We can open up, we can laugh, we can joke, we can banter, we can express anything that's on our mind. And this can happen immediately with someone or this can take a lot of time.

I would say that in my life, in my friendship relationships, I have this in varying degrees. I would say for most of my female relationships, because I feel so secure and I feel really good and I've done so much work on them, I feel really expressed. And

Just so you guys know, listening, I've done so much work on the female relationship. I have talked about the mother wound before on the podcast. If you want to listen to that episode, you can search mother wound almost 30. We have a few episodes on that. I've also talked about female friendships for a long time. I've talked about the female friendship for a long time. So it's been a part of my work and a part of my dharma in the past couple years to really...

feel good and solidified and safe in my female relationships. So it's not without work or effort that I feel deeply safe

seen and loved by the women in my life. It is challenging to feel safe as a woman with other women. If you've been bullied, if you've been abandoned, if you've been burned, if you've had people talk bad about you, if you've been around toxic women, it's been challenging. So through my journey, I've really worked on that over time in therapy and in everything I talked about in those episodes. So it's not without a lot of effort that I've created that relationship or that ability to be myself with women.

But when I come to dating post-divorce, I've really realized that it's been more of an effort. You know, it's been more of a journey. And that in my previous relationships, I really believed that men could only metabolize a certain aspect of me or certain sides of me. And that men would actually be only interested in certain sides of me and certain aspects of me.

And I think a lot of this is because media and culture. And a lot of this was because the way that I grew up in Ohio. So I grew up in a small town in Ohio. It was a football on Sundays town. It was a church on Sundays town. And it was a really gender split type of identity where men were

watching TV, watching sports. Men didn't really want to talk about feelings and emotions. Men were not interested in having deep relationships with women. Boys will be boys was kind of the phrase, that boys will be boys, and they are this way, and women are this way. Women talk a lot. Women gab. Women complain. Women are crazy, da-da-da-da-da-da. And men are emotionally shut down, unavailable, never around, but really cool.

And so these ideas I kind of had around women and men, I've really worked with and I am grateful to say that I've done a lot of work on, but still kind of a running a little bit in the background. You know, if I'm really honest about myself in this process, where I really didn't think that men could see me beyond being funny,

or intelligent or attractive, whatever the things were. You know, I very much hid my deep self, my mystical self, my psychic self, my very spiritual self. You know, some men had seen spiritual aspects of me in the process, but it was more from this, the lens of being a teacher or being a guide or educating them rather than having

a back and forth reciprocal deep conversation with them about spiritual topics, about tools, about practices, about rituals. And I hadn't been in a situation where I could learn from someone that I had been with as far as it went to the spiritual personal development space. I hadn't been with a man that taught me in that way. I had been with many men that had taught me about abundance or providership or, um,

communication or strategy or, you know, all of these other things, but no men had ever taken me very deep, deeply spiritually. I hadn't been led spiritually by a man yet. And I truly actually didn't think it was possible. You know, I always thought the woman would always be the spiritual barometer or the spiritual guide in a relationship. And I still believe that to be true, but I really didn't think it was possible to be met by a man or even taken deeper in a

going into dating, I, you know, had been thinking about that in a lot of the relationships I had been in. I hadn't had a deep relationship since I had gotten divorced, but I had dated people and it had been very like, you know, arm's length away and I hadn't really had any attachment things come up that much. I

I, you know, would have interesting conversations, meet people, go on dates, be dating, whatever. But there wasn't anything that had really gotten deep. I think because I was afraid of getting too deep and kind of being a little bit avoidant, to be honest. I think what I would what would happen, you know, from a parts perspective is I would have a part of me that would present in front of men. So maybe you can relate to this or maybe a part of you presents in front of other women. You know, who knows what it is?

But I had a part that would come out when I was with men on dates. And that part would be the part that was like, I am your dream woman. And your dream woman acts like this. She asks you tons of questions.

She's very interested in you. She is going to make the conversation all about you. She is going to be funny or charismatic or charming. And all of these things, and I'm saying these, and it could sound like I'm being very egotistical, but you can learn those things. Being charming and charismatic can be learned.

And sometimes it's like a trauma response. So it's not even like I'm like bragging, even though I definitely feel like pulling on those levers really helps me in my career. But you guys can all learn how to do that.

So there was a part of me that would present and she would be almost watching the men to see how they could react and metabolize what I would say. So I would kind of seed a little something. I would say something about my work or something about my spirituality or something about my life. And I would see how they respond. I would drop something as an example, maybe about my dad being sick. So my dad's sick. He has Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. And I would say a little something about that to see how they would reply.

And if I felt like there was a good response that felt like there was an opening, I would continue to share more. I'm not saying that this is a bad thing. I actually think this is a great strategy to create safety in a relationship for yourself and more importantly for your parts.

When we go into relationships, it can be important to make our parts safe. So the little girl in me that is so close to her father or the little girl in me that's scared and opening up with men, it can make her feel safe to share a little bit of information and for her to feel like it's okay to share more.

oftentimes when we go into situations and we share too much and we don't feel like we're being met by the other person, that can be really heartbreaking and that can be really sad. And we can feel like we're let down or we can feel like no one listens to us or whatever the story is. So I think that's actually a really beautiful strategy. But I was noticing that there was a part of me that would present as this like cool girl, like, you know, trying to win men over part. And it really wasn't

letting men into my heart. Because when we present with our parts, and there's really incredible, amazing parts, like that's a great part of me. There's also, you know, these other parts, like the addict part or the sabotage or the inner critic. So there's like beautiful parts, then there's more challenging parts. But when I'm presenting with a part, I'm not presenting with myself.

I'm not presenting with my soul and my heart. And I'm not saying again, we need to be that all the time, but we need to notice when we're not being ourselves or we're not presenting with the self, the true self. The way that we meet a whole person is by presenting our whole selves. So for you to meet a whole person, that whole heart, that whole partner, you need to present your whole self.

And this is why oftentimes we can be so let down in dating is because we're presenting half of us and we're expecting a whole person to show up. And I think I was doing that quite often where I was presenting a very specific aspect of me and I was being met by a very specific aspect of the man.

So I'm presenting this perfect part. She's charismatic. She's cool. She's whatever. And then the man would show up like, okay, I'm going to also present this perfect part. I'm going to say what you want to hear. I'm going to present what you want. I'm going to also do this thing. And then we have two people kind of being inauthentic in their connection. So what I realized is that I really wanted to have a deeper connection. I really wanted to experience more aspects of me and I really wanted to be met. And I felt ready to be met in a way that felt really deep spiritually. Okay.

So what I did is I told God, I want to meet someone and I want them to meet me in my power. And for me, being in my power is many things. But me being in my power in this instance was me being in a way of presenting myself that was on stage or at a retreat or something that was like in a deeper expression rather than just at a restaurant or rather than just at a bar or rather than just like out there.

at coffee. I wanted them to see me in a way that was like me and my channel, me like in leadership, me in cultivating this very powerful aspect of me. So on stage, speaking at a retreat, speaking at a function, on a podcast.

And so I was able to connect with someone that I met in my power. I felt really in my power in that moment. And I felt really great in that moment. I felt like I could be that side of me. And as a woman, you know, in my experience, and I don't know if you guys have this ever, it felt really good to be met in that way because sometimes I would hide that when I met men.

I would be scared that if they knew how successful I was or how much money I made or how very powerful I was that they would reject me, that they would be scared or intimidated or not be interested or not see it as feminine.

And again, I'm not saying I'm making 50 zillion freaking dollars or I'm the most powerful woman on earth. I'm just saying that this is like the story I'm telling myself and this is the view that I have. And so many of us have these subconscious beliefs that are really running around our power. I can't make too much money. I can't be too big. I can't be too sparkly. I can't be too successful because that means I'm not going to be feminine enough for a man. Or that means that a man's going to reject me because he's going to feel intimidated.

It's actually very weird as a woman to be told that you need to be successful and making money. And the more money, the better, the more success, the better. But then actually you feel like you're going to get rejected by men if you do that.

I felt like that's so much of my dating situation and circumstance where I'm like, cool in my life. And in my truth, I really want to make an impact on the world. I really want to do big things. I want to be in the greatest service possible. I want to make the most money possible. And that means that I might not be a fit for many men. Very weird, very weird feeling.

So I had the decision. I told God, I want to meet this man when I'm in my power. So I met this man when I was in my power, felt really good. And we had this really beautiful experience. You know, we had a really beautiful connection, a really beautiful, a really beautiful, yeah, really beautiful connection. And just so you guys know that I'm trying to be a little vague, like I want to be as open as possible with you guys, but there is a little bit of me having to be vague sometimes because I

You guys know a lot of people in the space. You guys know a lot of people in the world. So there is an aspect that I have to protect some privacy. So just so you know, I'm aware that you guys think I'm being big, but I have to do this. So met in my power, met in my purpose. We had a really beautiful connection. We deepened our connection over the course of some time and spent a lot of time together. And throughout this connection, I was able to

be myself in a way that I had not been in a really long time. I cannot remember the last time that I was able to be this much myself. And that means I was goofy and funny and silly and soft and sweet and...

open and loving and expressive and all of these things. And this person met me spiritually deeper than I've ever been met.

And I say that because right now at this moment, the depth of my spirituality is so great. So the ability to be met now is deeper than 10 years ago when I met my ex-husband or 15 years ago when I met my other ex or whatever. So the depth and the ability to meet me in my depth is so much greater. My capacity is greater. So this person was able to meet me in that. Amazing communicator, amazing facilitator, amazing...

kind, loving person. We just clicked. It was definitely a karmic relationship. It was definitely a soul tie. It was definitely something that was right away and very instant. And what I've also realized too, just like a little, you know, information on karmic relationships is that oftentimes when we have that immediate chemistry with someone, that's a karmic relationship. So karmic relationships often have that immediate chemistry because what's happening is your souls need the magnetism

of the feeling of chemistry to come together for you to work on what you need to work on in this lifetime. So we have chemistry, me and this person, because our souls are like, we are here to do something that is going to help them both.

And in this case, it was very helpful for me. And I'll be explaining that. But this chemistry was so beautiful because it magnetized us towards one another so we could have this beautiful experience and so that I could learn this lesson of parts work and attachments that I hadn't learned before. I could integrate this part of me that I hadn't learned yet before.

I popped into my favorite herbal remedy store. It's really a beautiful apothecary in Brooklyn, Anima Mundi Herbals. And I

I am just, I'm blown away. I was blown away by the purity, by the intentionality, by the selection, by the sourcing. It was just, I got lost. I got lost in there. I was learning so much. I had a day to myself. So I was like, I'm going to do something that I want to do. So I went over there.

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It's really a happy powder. I'm excited for you to try it. One of the key elements is the dandelion root, which is great for digestion and body's natural detoxification process.

I also really love their belly love powder. So this is a metabolism harmonizer. It's great for deep loading and detoxification. It has cranberry, it has garcinia, which helps support metabolism and promotes healthy cholesterol and glucose levels. It has mangosteen and ginger, hibiscus and more. It's phenomenal. So that one I just mix in water. It's beautiful. Just a great addition to my lineup. So

I'm really excited for you because this is going to open up a whole world, a whole world. Go to Anima Mundi Herbals and use the code ALMOST30 for 15% off. That's A-N-I-M-A-M-U-N-D-I herbals.com. Use the code ALMOST30 for 15% off. I just sent a huge care package to a friend in LA with a ton of Paleo Valley products. This is my go-to for...

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When it comes to bras and underwear, any intimates and also loungewear, I always turn to Skims. I am a believer. I am a fan. Krista and I have been

filling our underwear drawers with skims for years now. And I just have to give a little PSA. We all need a really good strapless bra. And I am loving the ultimate strapless push-up bra from Skims. Okay, so hear me out because I know we all had a moment with a push-up bra. You know what I mean? And I thought I would never go back. But hello, ladies. I'm done breastfeeding and my boobs need a little help.

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So it lifts my boobs and also my mood. I really love this one. And I just wanted to give everyone permission to get the strapless pushup bra of your dreams from Skims. It's the ultimate strapless pushup bra is what it's called. I truly feel like the hottest mom ever. I'm getting back into my groove. So shop the Skims ultimate bra collection and more at Skims.com and Skims New York flagship is open on Fifth Avenue. Just so you know, when you're in New York City.

After you place your order, be sure to let them know that we sent you select podcast in the survey and be sure to select our show in the drop down menu that follows. That really, really helps us out. Go to skims.com. Check out the ultimate bra collection. So we're having this really beautiful, deep connection and experience and I'm being met in ways I had never been met and I'm being taught in ways I had never been taught and I'm able to be myself in a way I had never been. And, um,

I was with this person and we were out. And they said to me, they were like, one thing I love about you is that you're so sweet. You're just so sweet and you're so sweet to me. And I was like, what? I was like, blink, blink. I am... If you guys met me, people think I'm sweet. Sure. It's just not the first thing I think about myself. I think I'm like...

I think I'm powerful. I think I'm whatever. I think good things about myself, you guys. Also, by the way, because I really work on it all the time. So it's not just for nothing that I think highly of myself. It takes work and I'm proud of my work, okay? So I think I'm powerful. I think I'm funny. I think I'm cool, whatever. I think I'm a lot as well. And so when he said this, I actually didn't get...

butterflies or anything, I actually got a little triggered. And for me, being triggered is not, oh my God, freaking out. It's not unconscious. It's noticing that I'm feeling a type of way about it where I'm like, ooh, why did that not hit me in the way that I thought it should? Why did that hit me like fear instead of openheartedness, instead of love?

Why do I feel uncomfortable with him saying that? I'm like, oh, that felt a little funky. That hit a little different. So I let it kind of sit and marinate. And I said something later that night. I was just like, hey, I want to share something. When you said that I was sweet, it kind of made me scared. It actually made me feel vulnerable. And it made me feel like you're going to take advantage of me. And what's happening in this case is there's a part of me that felt scared to be called sweet.

There's a part of me that got scared to be taken advantage of. There's a part of me that feels vulnerable being sweet. So this part of me, this little tender girl, this sweet little being that so many of us have, the inner child, we'll say in this case, was out. And she was playing and she was being recognized by this person. So she was seen by this person. I let her out. She was seen. She was heard. She was expressed.

And that is scary sometimes. That can be frightening. That can bring fear. And so I actually had a protector part that was like, this is scary. I don't know if this is good. The little girl is out. She is being seen by this person. And in the past, we've been abandoned. We've been taken advantage of. We've been hurt. So we need to be mindful because the little girl is being seen.

So that trigger for me was my little girls out and then recognizing that he had seen the sweetness of my inner child and being like, oh, that's a little scary. Because with these other dudes, I've been putting on a front and they're just metabolizing charisma. They're just metabolizing flirt. They're just metabolizing me in chemistry, vixen mode, whatever mode I'm in. And so for a man to see the sweetness in me, to see my inner child can be scary.

So for anyone that's listening when you're dating or when you're in relationships, we can think a lot about that when we feel the most vulnerable or the most connected. Oftentimes from a parts perspective, one of our little children or inner children or an aspect of us is present and out seeking connection. And that's when we feel most vulnerable. When we feel most connected and vulnerable, oftentimes it's because we are having an inner child that is out, that is looking for connection or healing from the other person.

So in this case, my inner child, who was not out at all really with any of these men, now had the opportunity to be out with this person, to experience love and connection from this person. And it felt really good. It felt really good to have her out. It felt really good for her to experience this relationship and this man. And where my inner child is out with some of my friends very safely and securely, I

It hadn't been experienced yet with a man in a long time. I hadn't really felt that in a really long time. And I hadn't really had her be with a man in a long time. And there's a whole journey and experience of that and how it relates to my dad's sickness and my dad dying. But we'll stick with this for now.

So he says, you're sweet. My little girl's out and I'm having the experience of realizing that my inner child was out and that she was being present and that the protector part was warning me. Protector part was like, girl, be careful. This man, we don't know him. We don't know him. We need to be mindful. And so I'm like, okay, I see you. So I, we have a really beautiful connection. And then, you know,

basically what ends up happening eventually at some point, whatever, I'll just cut that to what it is. His avoidant tendencies started to come out, tale as old as time. And my anxious attachment comes out, tale as old as time. Tale as old as time, the men being avoidant, the journey and truth of avoided men, swear to you, I just attract them. And

But what I realized in this process when I was feeling so anxious because I wanted the connection with this person and I was confused and I felt lost and I felt just sad. I was like, wow, I felt really connected to this person and now I don't.

So the learning and lesson that I had was that the anxious feeling that I was feeling was my inner child that felt safe with this person, feeling like she could only experience that expression and that sweetness and being out to play essentially through this relationship. So she was trying to find attachment. She was trying to find secure attachment outside of myself.

So my anxious feeling was my little girl that got called sweet by this man that was now being abandoned by this man, feeling lost and confused because she no longer had the attachment with him. She no longer was securely attached to him. So when I spent a whole week in process of therapy and counseling

you know, with my healers. And it wasn't this dramatic, but for me, I take my work seriously. So I'm like, wow, I really need to be with this part of me. I'm so...

I'm feeling uncomfortable with this part of me that's feeling alone and feeling scared. And then my work all week was basically to integrate, to love, honor, and accept this little girl that is so sweet and tender and beautiful and let her know that this experience of being playful and sweet and having a beautiful time with someone actually was a gift that I got to experience.

So not only did this man get the beauty and the blessing of being with my inner child and this tender part of me, but I got to experience that too.

I got to feel what it felt like to be sweet and to be tender. And it felt like for my inner child to come out and play and to be seen and heard and loved. And when I really could sit with her and be with her as the inner mother, as the self, and this is the parts work part, the self, the inner mother, and create that secure attachment with the anxious part of me that was going outside of myself and

for attachment, when I could have her come into me and say, baby, I got you. I'm right here. It is so beautiful that we've been out to play. I'm so grateful that we experienced this connection with this person, that we know that it's possible to feel and experience deep intimacy, but that actually was experienced because I allowed it and gave permission to it. And now I feel safe enough within myself to allow it to be experienced with other people.

It wasn't this man that gave me that experience. It was my internal system, my parts, myself, and this little girl that gave me that experience. So while they evoked that in me, this karmic relationship evoked that ability in me, it also evoked the healing.

So as painful as it was for me to be in the experience of processing, you know, someone abandoning my inner child, it was so beautiful to really heal the aspects of me that had been so in belief that I only was able to experience sweetness through connection with a man that I couldn't experience my sweetness and my tenderness at any time.

And really giving this little girl permission to be secure within me and then secure in other relationships and knowing that it's possible for me to let her be soft and sweet at any time. And at the highest level, what I think is really helpful for this is to think about those attachments that you have. If you have an anxious attachment style, if you have a avoidant attachment style, if you have disorganized, you can think about those as parts.

protective parts of you. So the avoidant often has a avoidant part of them that's coming forward and that's taking the reins and taking the lead to keep them from intimacy.

So when we can be with this part of them, and I'm saying them as men, I mean, women can be it too. So when we can be with that avoidant part of us, that part that's trying to protect us and just say like, hey, it's all good. We don't need to be scared of intimacy because I'm here as the self, as the inner mother. It's all good. I'm going to create that safety within myself. So when we can see both attachment styles as parts,

learn to love, honor, and accept them and learn from them and help give them a more better way of functioning and being, things can really change, shift, and grow. And we can really become in secure relationship with ourselves and secure relationship with others. And it's been such a beautiful healing process, definitely painful. And I'm so grateful for

Definitely painful. It wasn't a fun week. My phone was blowing up, all my friends, my therapists. And I just felt like it was something that although is vulnerable and sometimes I don't love to share things as openly like this, I felt like I really wanted to share it with you because it was so profound for me. So when we look at internal family systems and attachment styles, it can be super helpful. If you want more information about both of those, you can listen to more episodes of those on Almost 30.

I hope this was helpful. I love you so much. There is 700 plus more episodes of Almost 30 available for you to listen to now. We have our book available for pre-order. We have so many pre-order incentives. It's insane. This book is my life's work. It is so good. It is $30 to get everything I've ever learned and taught in my life at almost30.com.

slash book. You can connect with me at itskrista on Instagram, itskrista.com. It's I-T-S-K-R-I-S-T-A. And you can join me at one of my retreats. I host retreats all over the world in Ibiza, in Switzerland, in Oceanside, in New York, maybe Fiji this year. And I like to take women through transformative experiences. I love you so deeply. I hope this was helpful. Share it with a friend if so, and I will see you soon.

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