Therapist Reveals Why You Struggle With Relationships & How to Let More Love Into Your Life
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Hey, it's a friend ml, and welcome to the male of his podcast. It's summer season, at least during the united states, and to prepare you for the season of summer vacations with friends piling into an airbnb with eighteen other people that you've split IT with, that big chair house, that long extended fiction with family, that motor home trip that you've booked with the kids, we're going to make you enjoy IT because you're about to learn all about attachment styles, what they are, how to identify them at other people, and what tools you can use to help all of you get along.

One of the highlights of our summer is that we always rent this beach, and my parents come from this again. My brother and his wife come from chicago with their two kids, and then all five of us and our two dogs pile into our cars and drive down to the speech house. And for one glorious week out of the year, we are packed into that house, and the eleven of us and two dogs and tow, we are joined at the hip.

So the question becomes, with eleven family members under one roof, how is a heck do you get along when you're all get together? I'll tell you a simple secret attachment styles. Attachment styles are really interesting, because attachment styles are nothing more than how you give and receive love.

And every single person that you know has a particular attachment style. So your mom, your dad, your brother, your sister, your kids, your spouse, your friends, your boss, every single human being that you know gives and receives love in a particular way. And this goes way beyond the five love languages.

This is something that has to do with human development. There are four types of attachment styles. And and what I love most about this framework is that when you know your own attachment in style, how you give and receive love, you will be less likely to be trigger by the people around you.

And when you understand somebody else like you, consider around a loud boysterous long table where the families gotten together and it's a big barbecue and somebody is pissed off at somebody else because they said some about sum mouse and somebody's roll in their eyes and that when drinking too much, you can scan the table after the conversation you are about to hear the am like, oh, that's avoided and attaching, oh, that's anxiety aching oh, that's just all that one's pretty secure. And when you can understand how somebody gives and receives love, IT will change absolutely everything about your relationships. why? Well, because you won't take things personally, which means you won't get triggered, which means when the, you know what, IT hits the fan, you're gonna the calm, centered, collected adult in the room.

And trust me, that makes getting together a whole lot Better. So how we gonna do that? Well, I have tracked down one of the world's leading experts on attachment theory.

Her name is doctor marisa franco. She's a psychologist, a professor at the university of maryland. She's also the new york times best selling author of the book on attachment styles and how they impact your friendships.

That book, IT, is called patton's and is not just your romantic relationships. You're about to learn. The attachment style impacts every relationship, your friendships, your work colleagues, your family, yourself.

Because attachment style is all about you and how you show up in relationships. And that's why IT impacts everything. So lets get you feeling secure and get doctor, mr. Franco, on the line people, doctor franco, I am so excited that you're joining us.

Thank you. I'm so in .

your urge, you discuss four attachment styles. Let's go through them and start with attachment style. Number one, which is secure.

Yeah, secure. You are comfortable giving and receiving love. You trust that other people love you, you can and bring up conflict very level head. Your skill is really perspective taking. When something happens in your relationships, you are thinking about the other person deeds and your own and how to baLance both of your needs.

So at the basis of somebody with a secure attachment style, you have an assumption that you are lovable and that you deserve to be loved.

Yeah it's kind of like you're on your own side.

Is there anybody on the planet like that? Just you can you enter this to the i'm not kidding yeah because IT feels like that's a very whole and a safe and healthy human being yeah and attachment .

is a spectrum, right? So nobody's fully secure, just like nobody's fully anxious, so nobody's fly avoided.

So the second one is anxious. So can you tell us what an anxious attachment .

style might be? So your core fear is that everybody's abandoning you. You tend to c rejection even when it's not occurring.

You just take everything personally. At the neurological level, research finds that you're amida, which is the part of your brain. Sociate with stress is more sensitive. IT lights up more than people of other attachment styles. Anigh sly attached people they rely, kind of avoided to put themselves. Their internal dialogue is like, i'm too much, you know, these feelings are OK right? They are very much in validate their own feelings and emotions, which is part of the reason why they really need other people to validate themselves.

You basically just described me, I don't know, you know, that this was a therapy session from male Robins. But doctor franco, we just have a diagnosis. Now let's talk about the third attaching style. avoided.

Yeah, so avoided people. They fundamentally don't trust others. They think if I get close to you, you are going to harm me.

So they don't get close to others. They don't initiate IT as much. They're more likely to end friendships, more likely to ghost on others, not as emotional. They don't put a lot of effort into their relationships, and they also feel very disconnected from other people.

And then there is the fourth one, I think it's called disorganized. Can you explain that one?

yes. So this disorganize its people that have really grown up in more extreme situations like abuse. And so they have to sort of pull out the whole x strategies to try to find safety. So it's it's sort of like they kind of flip between anxious and avoidance depending on how you're interacting with them. You know, once you get closer to them, they also may become avoiding and feel a suddenly to very much withdraw.

It's like they feel this duality like I really want to connect with people, but I also so patric, ed of action and IT puts them in a bit of a free state like there's a feeling that i'm kind of like paralyzed. I don't know what to do in the list. I don't know whether to come close or to pull away because I have both of these needs that feel so strong. Me.

that makes a lot of sense when you explain IT that way. So doctor franco, why do these four attachment styles matter so much?

So our attachment style really impacts how we give and receive love, and this, our ability to build healthy relationships with other people.

Wow, does everybody have an attachment style? Yeah.

we all have an attachment style. It's basically like we all come in to new relationships with a set of assumptions, and those assumptions define our attachment style.

So the four attachment styles we've already talked about secure, avoided and anxious and disorganized, disorganized. Can you give me signs of each attachment style? sure. yes.

So let's think about this practically in our relationships. If you're with someone the attached, you set a bounding with them, they accept the bounty. They don't try to push IT change IT.

They don't suddenly pull away because you said that they're comfortable being vulnerable. They can address you directly, but not confrontational ally. So let's say this is in a uh, friendship context, right where you know IT feels like the friendship has been one sided.

The security attach friend, we'll say, I love you. I want to be close to you and i've noticed i've been the one reaching out and that's been hurting me, and I want our friendship to continue. So I figured i'd bring this up. Um so those are some signs of secure the attach people.

So the north star here, everybody is to become security attached, not only because of the mental health, but the physical health, and just the fact that it's going to impact the quality of the life that you're living and how you feel as you live that life, and you deserve that. So can you tell us what an anxious attachment .

style might be? So you can tell us some e's anxiously attached. They're like hyper accommodating often until IT really blows up and then and then they become the opposite.

They're not necessarily good at setting boundary so they might agree to things. And then IT seems like they're resentful about IT their generous often times to get people to like them. They're attracted to relationships with people that don't seem to like them very much because they've learned that they had to earn love.

So you've seen actually touch person having these friendships with people. Are these relationship of people that kind of mistreat them because that makes them motivated to earn love? That's what they learned about love, that it's something that earned, not really given and then avoiding the attach people, you know, they're voided because they'd never vulnerable.

You you don't feel like you really know them when you maybe do have the moment of indonesia and closely they suddenly pull away and you're like, what the heck is going on they're really strugling with things like apologizing but uh actually touch persons going to over apologize avoidance touch persons going to say no this is not my false is kind of your thought um they just don't tend to put much effort into their relationships. So if you feel like man, this person i'm trying to connect with them, they're not really meeting me there. Whether um interesting ly attached people, their memory they tend to miss to remember things and remember things is more negative than they actually were. Um so that's really interesting quirk. Attachment theory and memory.

What about somebody who's disorganized? What are some of the signs that your in a relationship or friendship with somebody who has a disorganized attachment style?

Yeah so the disorganized attachment style is it's not organized, right? So IT feels like chaos. Sometimes they want you to get really close.

Sometimes they're pushing you away um sudden withdraw. Um they have trouble regulating their emotions because their relationships have not helps them do that. In the past, people have not validated their feeling, so so you might get more escalation, more anger. And so IT will I will kind of feel chaotic, like you kind will be like what is going on like I thought we were just connecting and they have a kind of very different interpretation of the situation. And usually with a disorganized teaching style, there is a history of a pret, pretty brutal background, like a history of some sort of abuse in childhood.

is IT easier to spot someone's attachment style in yourself or in somebody else.

Honestly, I think actually touch people tend to be so hungry for information as to how to improve. So when I talk anche sly touch people already even that they follow up with me and they like, that's me like i'm anxiously attached by clean i'm so afraid every abandon me. I think everybody's judged.

So I, I, I think of the things just they touch people, they here, you know the basics of attachment, and they kind of, you know quickly see themselves in IT. That's not happened to me as much with avoidance attached people, again, they struggle vulnerability. So I imagine IT would be harder to say. I avoided dly attached. Never had these struggles in the past.

I have a question about that because that's fast. If you are avoided tly attached and you're listening to somebody talk about attachment theory, given that somebody that has an anxious attachment style might immediately self diagnose, might immediately see themselves, what is an what is an an avoided attachment style person likely to experience as they're learning about attachment styles and considering themselves as they're listening to your .

doctor franco yeah discomfort um you know when when you get deep with avoid and learning attached people or you um try to get them to acknowledge some of their wounds, they feel very uncomfortable with that and kind of maybe we'll start listening honestly I mean some this is obviously depends and honestly, there is some research that finds IT. If you're in a relative of someone who is avoided IT but has humility, there is a lot Better outcomes.

Where's the if avoided person is like everything is you're fault and i'm fine and you're being sensitive and right um then that this can be really hard to to connect with that specific form of avoided attachment. But so there has to be no with an avoided attachment, a willingness to to to locate yourself and to be conscious of your patterns, which I think anxiously attach people tend to be more willing to do, you know, if you're having conflict with an avoided person, often they were ghosting, or they are minimizing or they are saying, like we're not going to talk about this, like basically ally anything related to relationships. And indonesia really scared s and avoided dly attached people like, you know, sometimes we think of anxious ly attached people as more sensitive in that they get really overwhelmed when the relationships not going well.

But so do avoiding the attach people. They just express. They express that sensitivity through removal, like it's, it's, they can, they can is so overwhelming emotionally by relationships, by intimacy. And so they are stonewalling, which is the sign of being emotionally overwhelmed there, being closed off. They're being dismissive because it's too emotionally overwhelming to look at some of their own patterns because fundamentally, what they attach, people have a lot of shame if you tell them they've made a mistake. They have this course believe that I am a failure, that I am deficient. They probably want to that that to you um right but any time you tried to offer a critique to avoid my touched person that that you might trigger that core wound of i'm a failure, I am deficient which is why IT feels they can feel so hard different working to attach person to hear some of their patterns and hear some of their dynamics jacor franco.

hold that thought. Let's hear a quick word from our sponsors and we'll be right back.

What I love about what you're teaching us is I think that we've gotten to this point, especially when you look at content on social media, where there is so much of a push to cut people at your life to label that sort of stone walling is the word that you just use.

But you know, if you think about IT from the standpoint of somebody that has trauma in their past, or they have just on avoiding attachment style because of what the experience is a child, and that it's just overwhelming to feel those emotions like if you can come at IT from a sense of compassion, I love what you're teaching us because you're understanding you might be able to keep somebody in your life instead of just being like, that's IT you're out. You don't talk, you don't go deep your stone line me, you're ghosting me when really there's another side of this coin, which is, no, this is a person who, through their childhood, gets very overwhelmed by these emotions, by intimacy. Y, and they protect themselves by removing. This isn't about hurting you, it's about them protecting themselves. My kind of processing this the right .

weight after franco, you are certainly, certainly, and you know, I think if you want to be a relationship with someone who's avoided and is important, that you try to get your needs map in another relationship, right? Like not trying to depend on this one avoiding person to meet all of your need.

It's the more that your needs are met elsewhere, the more you can be flexible with the person that's more avoided IT, right? So the more that I feel like in another relationship makes me feel secure, another relationship I can be barely vulnerable. And d another relationship I feel um really loved and valued. Right then you kind of have your cup for enough to be able to be more flexible with that avoiding tax person who's like, you know, we had some intensity. Now I need to break there and I need to kind of pull away for a while um but I do think that we should chAllenge avoiding ly attached people to say that it's OK that you need boundaries around into macy and it's OK that into meat c cares you but you also need to fill people in like you have to just say be able to say, like hey, i'm a little overwhelm right now like I need like about a week and then i'll come back. I can we can talk about this right instead of not communicating any and just sort of um of ghosting on people because that that hurts people a lot.

Does IT hurt the person who's avoided when they ghost? Is that contribute to shame?

So what we see the pattern being like is animal sly attached. People think too much about other people and not enough about themselves. They attached people think a lot about themselves of their own needs and not as much about their impact on other people.

So um you know the anxious person being willing to completely sacrifice their sense self and do whatever their partner needs. And they are not actually happy. They still feel like there in a relationship with another person, which is not actually the goal, right? The goal isn't to be in a relationship at all costs. It's still like that.

Elevate helps to you express who you are earn you know makes me feel happier um but the avoidance attached person there ver it's like you negotiating with someone and they have all the resources and all the power like IT just tends to be the anxious ly attach person who adJusting to the avoidance person because he avoiding attacks person is like, well, i'm OK alone, i'm OK and and if I really need these relationships with other people but you will find that avoiding the touch people they tend to have like a 4MX， where while they are in a relationship, they don't appreciate IT. But then when it's over, they have that business that deactivating side moves away and they tend to look back on these relationships and miss them and feel low only and realize that they do also really need connection. So it's the avoidance attach person is kind of in this very stuck place where it's like one side of me really needs protection and another side of me is so afraid of IT afraid because I think if you get too close, you're not actually gonna like who I am. You're going to see me as less than deficient and a failure. So um once that piece of threats takes over and the ghost and they may actually feel relieved from being separated from the relationship at first, but then as that deactivating part sort of melts away a little bit there, they start to great to have a more sort of delayed grief process around the relationship.

Who can you have more than one attachment style?

Yeah yeah you can um like I said, in each different relationship you can have a different attachment style and IT makes sense, right? Because if someone is very anxious and he is like, I need all your time and attention and you need to be showing me that you love me all the time, right? You're going to be like, I need some space.

I need some me time of losing myself to try you really sure you in all these ways. And if someone super avoid in and they're very distant and you're like trying to connect with them, they're always pulling away to feel pretty anxious right where it's like, oh my god, like I feel insecure and do they actually like me? Um so so IT is a dynamic and in different relationships, we can see different parts of our attachment style coming out like I do believe all of us have a piece of us that is securely attached. The more we can access that self, the more will feel sick or in our relationships.

Well, that sounds like good news. So that sounds like, uh, within each one of us is a person or a self that is capable secure attachment? Or are you saying that if you can start to identify your defauts attachment style and see IT as a lens and an opportunity for growth and improvement, that IT is possible to change your default and style and become more secure?

yes. So like I guess it's called like internalize secure attachment where you have to start treating and talking to yours cells like that secure attachment that you maybe didn't have. So um you know willing you're feeling a strong emotion. Be able to tell yourself it's okay that you feel this way that I got right here with you um and you know what are you feeling and what do you need right now like being on your own side and being really, really loving toward yourself is like that part of the ways that we heal, part of the ways that we find to care. Attachment is like different things that i've done to define more security is like singing love songs to yourself.

And you know, when you're activated and triggered, realizing that that's not all of you, and that there's a piece of you that is still grounded, and what does that grounded part of you want to say to the trigger part of you, what love does IT have to give in this moment? IT also takes like was happening with the insecure attachment cells is they are reactive. They're um getting really emotionally overwhelmed and their based on that sense of emotional overwhelm, right? So the interesting touch person is like clink clinging, clinging and it's almost like reflexes.

They're not acting with intention anymore and they feel like they're a almost kind of project and the body attack persons also very high active. But instead it's to pull away, pull away, pull away, right? But if we can just like how and like feel those uncomfortable emotions, like, oh, my gosh, I feel, I feel so rejected right now.

I feel so abandon right now. Like, where do you feel that an emotion in your body? How can you mean into feeling IT more deeply? Allow yourself to feel IT, right? Because this acting out behavior is a way to try to cope with a very difficult underlying emotion. And you could, instead of using this acting up behavior like the test person demanding things of the other person, or cling to the person, or the void test person sudenly pulling away, you can develop your own tolerance for that feeling or emotion that's very uncomfortable, so that you don't have act out in your relationships to protect yourself from IT.

I want to focus on avoiding or disorganized right now, because I really identify personally with anxious attachment. And since you already said that somebody with an anxious attachment style is kind of prone to self diagnose and want to fix IT, now is be thinking that i'm thinking about avoiding now and i'm thinking about disorganized because as you go sing a love song to yourself, I personally like, that sounds beautiful.

But doctor franco, can we talk to the person who's listening right now who just had a visual that is the stupidest thing i've ever heard? No, i'm serious because I, I, I think that for people who are already like, yeah, I I am sick of being hydrated by my emotions, I am married to somebody who is avoided. I realized in researching the show, doctor franco and getting ready for this interview, I didn't understand attachment style, and yet I ve been talking about IT in couples therapy for two years because i'm anxious and my husband is avoided. And the shame piece that he feels and puts on to himself is something I was unaware of, like i've been raping that all you know, i'm erd really quiet because, and trying to draw out. Could you explain why IT is so important for happiness and confidence and success, these things that we all deserve to learn how to change and grow today, more secure attachment, particularly for somebody who's avoided or disorganized yeah here's .

the think about avoidably attach people. They think they're super independent and don't really need anyone, but that's a defense mechanism against an underlying need for connection that they don't think they can actually fulfill. And I think if you're being really honest with yourself, me, no matter what your teaching style is, you'll see that you a part of you really does crave connection.

And if you felt like you could find IT and feel comfortable and safe with IT, I would do would feel a lot safer for you to admit to yourself and I also say that you will not know how beautiful connection, deep, profound sustaining connection is until you find IT. Um that's the only way that you'll be able to judge whether you need connection in your life or not, right? Because you're thinking you don't need connection, but fundamentally, you don't even know what connection is because avoidantly attached people, when they're in relationships, they're not actually vonderful.

They're not sharing anything about themselves. They're not very like authentic C2Be rea l. And so that is they're connecting in a very shallow way. And they are saying and they are saying I don't need connection.

It's like I don't need that, which is you know arguably a natural and deep connection, right? It's not revealing and you're not actually be known by other people and they're not knowing you and you're not. You know there's not this giving in saving of love that happening.

It's kind of just like we're two people that are you know in each other other's presence, right? And so what i'm saying is that there's this this junction between what the avoided person doesn't think that they need and what connection actually is and connection actually handy, and how connection can make you feel life and seen and centered and grounded and supported and lighter, right? Like those are all the things that true connection will give you, that you will miss out on if you are very avoidance.

talk your Frankl if you've never experienced that, and here you are, and your decades into your life and you've always had the experience of being on the outside right and keeping your distance and not trusting people, because both your childhood taught you that you shouldn't and can't trust people right?

And that your own behavior of opting out because of your attachment style has only reinforced that because you're never stepping toward people. How on earth do you begin to change this? If you've never .

experience this, you have to reconnect with your own emotions. You can connect with people if you're always suppressing your emotions, which is what avoided people do. And IT starts. I mean, obviously therapy, you know, I think therapy really there there star is that focus on attachment style specifically. I think a lot of a male therapies who see a lot of men tend to do a lot of avoid and attachment work, because this is part of how we socialized men. And there is a gender difference when IT comes to touch from our our women are at the slightly more likely to be anxious en are slightly more likely to be avoided.

right? So let's just say for somebody listening right now, literally doctor franco o is about to go OK turning this off. Um we're talking to you and for everybody who has somebody in their life like this.

And i'm glad you said the the piece about the research showing that women tend to be more anxious and men tend to be more avoided. And the only reason why i'm saying this is because as you're very well aware and you wrote about in your book, when IT comes to friendship, women are way Better at naturally farming communities and men. Every year that you get older, you actually get further and further and further away from those connections of sports teams and fatter unities and work.

Friends and men become more and more and more isolated in. And and we know we tend to be Better as women connecting and staying with in friendships were were airing emotions, and men typically do not. And so I wanna speak directly to somebody who may be hearing and learning about attachment theory for the very first time they're considering, holy cow, I think i'm awaiting yeah I don't like to talk about my feelings.

I don't have a lot of friends other than the person i'm dating or family connection. I don't have this kind of intimacy in terms of emotional support. What is an exercise? And can you and I role play IT for somebody that's listening right now to to just dip your toe into the water of trying to experience this connection to your own emotions that you're talking about?

Yeah, yeah. We can. We can definitely do that. One thing that I also just wanted to share briefly, avoiding the it's hard to get awaited people to to buy into this is the physical health implications of your attachment style um that execution attach people both actions and avoided more likely than secure people to suffer from mental heal issues anxiously attached people have the highest rates of mental health issues um everyone in attachment, everything attached somewhere between secure and anxious and secure people have the best mental physical health right because avoided people don't access their emotion and manifest physically to have you avoiding ly attached in your experiencing migraines, headaches. You don't know where you where they came from geo and testing al issues stomach authors and there is like really no you know you have no idea where this coming from and you're like what is happening to my why am I chronic pain right like that's connected to emotional suppression and not releasing your emotions um so that is my my last plug for finding secure attachment. Is your your health really like your physical health and how long you live um that's in part predicted by your ability to reconnect to human connection.

One other thing I would love to add in my own experience, and then you can talk about a doctor, franco clinically, is just seeing that my husband is now very clear that he was not only suppressing his emotions, he was named ing them with a daily weed and alcohol habit.

Yeah, you will definitely see that.

What i'd love to do next is really dig indecent tools for people who are starting to realize that they haven't avoided attach this file. Let's do that with.

So what's the first thing that somebody that is just realizing, I think I might have an avoided attachment style should do today?

Yeah so the avoided the tough person. We are goalless to help them reconnect with their feelings, reconnect with self expression, basically find their most authentic self, instead of pushing IT away all the time.

So, you know, clinically, that might start very simply with being like, what sensations do you feel in your body? Is there a tingling sensation anywhere? Is their pressure on your chest? Is there a lump in your throw? Are you feeling like a headache? Um asking them, you know what sensations are you feeling in their body and then you present them you can can a google the feelings will or put IT in the show note s or something with this this wheel of feelings where they can choose from all of these different feelings that they might they might feel comfortable labelling this sensation that's going on in their body with a certain feeling that's on this feeling well.

So what feeling would you choose here that represents this sensation that's happening in your body? So it's sort of like a it's sort of like a language like it's kind of like learning a new language and it's a practice of being able to, throughout the day, reflect and ask yourself, okay, like what is IT that i'm feeling right now? Here's a list of feeling, which of them, when I go through this list, you like, they might resonate with me, which of them stir something in me? And then I think we can encourage, like avoiding tly attached people, to literally do anything self expressive, anything self expressive.

So will you journal, do you want na make art? Um do you want to sing? And i'm saying this and like I don't know if avoiding the attach person's going to buy in, but anything that in your mind is self expressive to you IT could be ori what is this organ peace mean about um your own experience that you're going through right now? I think that um is also really, really important for that reconnecting with the feelings process. I also think if you're avoided dly attached, there might be one person in your life where you're less avoided with that because of how safe they make you feel. Is there another .

word for safe, doctor franco? So you know, if somebody's kind of knew to clinical or therapist language and you're avoided or disorganized, but there is that one person that in our world we're talking safe, but if you're avoided or disorganize, how would you avoid or disorganized person kind of describe how that person makes them feel like themselves? Yeah, are they more? Do I feel like I can be myself around that? You know, I mean, like how might they describe that feeling?

So what is going to make an avoided person feel very safe is if you don't take their actions personally, if when they pull away um you, they can come back and you'll kind of accept them if you respect their boundaries like they say you I can hang out right now if you do this right now and you are sort of like OK when you're free, when you're comfortable, you're willing to kind of move at the speed of a widness like you can move to as an avoid inch person.

They need time, they move slower and intimacy avoid attach person, you say IT takes longer for me to build trust. And the ancient sly attach person, like i'm a drag you alone on this, a journey at my speed. If you're not going to get my speed, I feel like you're gonna bad in me.

So the avoided person, once someone that's going to be able to work on their timely, so that person that feels safe to them will usually be someone they have known for a very long time. It's someone where they feel like they can express boundaries with or or their need for separation or autonomy with, and that person can be OK with that. And accepting of that is someone who they feel like is not judgmental.

You know, if they do share, this person isn't trying to change the way that they feel, they're just willing to kind of listen and expect the avoided for where IT is. We have to make them feel safe enough to be willing to pull down these defense mechanisms a little bit. And yeah, I think the winner person will also feel more I think of safety is like how do you feel after hanging out with people? And the avoided person might win, hang out with other people because they would never feel really authentic around people.

They may feel drained by social interaction, but with the person that feels safe, they might feel. And this is hard, because avoiding people are and always in touch with their feelings, but that is exhausted. Instead, more be charged after someone, the company.

This is so fascinating, I want to go through a couple quick questions to further help people reflect on what their own attachment style might be. So how does each attachment style deal with anger?

So john Bobby, father retest, from theory, he talks about two types of anger, anger of hope, which means I use my anger as a signal that I need to heal something in this relationship. So his example is this child that, you know, he was sick when he was really Young, and her mother after a loan at the hospital because the hospital restrictions, and they are watching the video of her being alone at the hospital and she's angry.

So SHE turns her moment as mummy, whereas you, where was you you know, it's a vulnerable anger. It's i'm angry somebody to be vulnerable admit that i'm heard where is anger of despair? All the argues is IT would insecurely attach people express.

And as he describes this child, regi and regi had different care takers growing up, and one of them was a nurse. He left to get married. SHE comes back.

Regis, like, I hate her. So read is angry at his anger manifesto, let me destroy you. Let me get revenge on you, so that I don't have to deal with this strong emotion. I have to cottle the strong emotion by destroying this relationship and getting revenge and it's undamned tally because the insecurity attached person is not aware that it's possible to express yourself vulnerably and get your needs back.

Really they think, you know, either i'm not talking about this at all or i'm going to have to attack you and put you down because there's no middle ground of me tearing vulnerably that I heard and you listening to me. That's impossible in the eyes of insecurity. Attach person. So what we see now in anxiously attached adults is they don't express their needs. They get completely overwhelmed because they haven't created that space for them to feel safe until they blow up and they kind of make these demands and they'll put you down and they'll you a comply.

They might try to cycle alyse you tell you about yourself and all of your problems, right? IT is just, you know, they're going to a character assassin you a little bit if you bring up a problem with the interests ly attached person, they're gona go into super self like i'm horrible, i'm awful. I've done everything wrong and in some ways they make IT all about them in that sort of response, right?

Like it's like, hey, you hurt me and I am stuck trying to reassure you because of that. You feel like I I am like attacking the very core of your being by telling you there's an issue in this relationship, right? So so you'll see those courts of polls with the existence touch person, but the avoidance a touch person, they're angry, honestly, they're probably not telling you.

And then they leave and they just withdraw. And like, what the heck happened? I have no idea. I not everything was fine. But again, the avoidance attach person feels like if I express the need, you reject me and maybe even shape me so they do not express the need, and then they can withdraw or pull away.

And when you try to approach them with the need, they might tell you your too sensitive or you want too much or your too fragile or you need to learn to be more independent, right, like this very natural and Normal, giving an exchanging of needs that happens in any interrelationship in their eyes to need is to is to be weak, right um so they they apply that to themselves and they apply that to anyone else around them. So so they just kind of get angry by pulling away. But then if you get them to engage, they're also kind of blame at all on you.

So sometimes you'll see the avoided person being like, you know, it's your fault, i'm not attracted to you or you need too much or you're being too sensitive, right? I'm avoiding dly touch. People again have a lot of trouble than being falt because of that core fear um of being a failure and being deficient.

And so when you try to address anything, that core fear gets sort of rubs that I am a failure to you. So they need a lot of softness on asleep, like avoiding ly attached people if you need to address something with them, making sure you're acknowledge ing everything they did. Well, you know, I love that you did this.

I love that you cooked for me. I loved and appreciated that you responded to my text message this morning. And I would just add that if this additional thing could happen, it's going to make me really happy, right? They can, if you try to bring them too much emotion, they are getting very overwhelmed.

So if you want to try to approach the evolutionary attached person about Michael, trying to remain calm, trying to main, grounded and meaning all the things that they're doing, right, and then just say, and I would like to bad, what would make our relations even Better, as if you did this additional things, that's point. I think sometimes the interests ly attached person is like the avoidance attached person is not meeting my needs. They're not necessarily at where you want them to be, but if you want them to keep growing, you have to make sure you're recognizing those improve. Because if you leave them in that place where they feel like there are failure, they're going to be paralyzed. They are going to feel like no matter what I do, I can meet this person's expectations and then they're in a sort of the draw.

One of the things that I love about learning about attachment styles, IT, feels like it's another lens or framework through which you can view your relationships and not make them so personal, you know. I mean, like we tend to look at the way that other people behave as a direct reflection of us. And as I listen and try to absorb everything that you're saying, doctor franco, i'm learning more and more that a lot of times the way somebody reacts, particularly in stressful situations or situations where they feel trigger has nothing to do with you and everything to do with their own internal wiring.

And exactly because what's happening in our body is more compelling to us than what's happening in the world, which means that. If you are telling me even very kindly and politely that like, hey, you know, you hurt me and my body suddenly on fire and i'm feeling like i'm a failure and i'm feeling so overwhelm great like IT doesn't matter that you would approach me very kindness insensitively.

What i'm going to respond to you is the fire that's happening in my body right? Like that. And that's even what i'm going to remember about the experience more.

So you know how you approach me in the realities of the external circumstance. And that's why attachment style is so tRicky, right? Because there's all these signs for all of us that people are loving us on any given day.

People are smiling at you. People are holding the door for you. Cars are stopping when you want across the street. People are text you to check in.

People are like in your instagram, right? But you know, if you're attachment self as people don't love you, you're not gonna read and take in anything of that. It's not just about what's actually happening and it's so much about how we're pret. What's happening in that interpretation process is our attachment sale is our interpretation of what's happening the what's happening in the objective world, reflected through our lens of our a catchment style.

And so that the ad is why I can get so tRicky to get out of your tech and side because you see in the world all the things that match reality, right, like the avoidance a tough people thinks are untrustworthy, and you're trying to show for them so much and be reliable one time something that happens and you're not able to be be reliable to them, right? And all of us said, and they like, oh, it's true, you can trust people. They're all going to betray you, right? And it's like that person just being human, you have to let people be human. So that's why, like there's just this huge confirmation bias when IT come to attachment style that can make IT very hard to to get out of and why it's so helpful for me personally. I think for everybody to learn about and understand our attack themselves, to understand our lands, understand that this is a lens and it's not just the objective reality of the situation, because through that understanding, we can.

we can change. I am curious to attachment styles attract opposite or the same types. I mean, how does that work? Because I often hear people going, I just keeps dating the same loser over or or you don't have saying, like I want away good people that are emotionally .

unavailable yeah so let's think about IT, right? You you're dating someone and their hot and cold and all of suddenly pull away and they don't answer your text when they say they will and if you're secure, great you're like bye like I feel happy about myself if you're not going to treat me a way that reflects that i'm to and someone else who does right like they're not willing to endure pain for the sake of deanna relationship.

So who is going to end up with a more voidness touch person is the person that is like, I am enthused by your inconsistency and I have to get you to like me now. And that's my purpose in my journey. In some ways, the highs and the lows really exciting, right? Like the anxiously attach person is going to be more likely to put up with some of the intimacy corks of the avoid void attached person, right again, the actually touch persons kind of willing to sacrifice their own sense itself to be in a relationship.

The security touch persons is not avoided tly attach people often need anxiety, attack people as the gu that will kind of keep them in relationship to each other. So that's why we see a lot of england and bently touch parents. And you hear a lot of england touched people that are like, I need to earn their love if they give IT freely.

I you know, i'm not attracted to that. Or if someone's totally secure available, they're like, just not feeling IT, right? Because they they confuse them being triggered with them being in love.

Oh, what can we talk about that confusing being triggered with being in love? Doctor franco, let's impact this.

Yeah so so if you're anigh sly attached and you're triggered, someone's trigger ing your wounds of abandonment and you're feeling high or so because of that, you're feeling very strong emotions because you're feeling triggered and wounded. It's like heart. Heart is like a high roof the most, and so is excitement, and so is thrill, right? And so IT can be easy to feel like I like this person because they are making me feel high arouse, which is high ousels present in pain, higher sls present in excitement.

And so you're being pulled in you know it's funny when I was like more to attach to people be like I would want to be with this person until we'd want to be with me and then I would feel like, oh, now i'm less excited for some reason, right? And that's a sign that I I was being pulled in by this wound of abandoned me, that they were trigger that made me want to find my sense of self again through getting them to like me was like I trying to get my sense of self through being in the relation with this avoided person. Um but you know in finding more security, it's more alike.

I don't like feeling trigger. I don't like feeling like someone is going to be on me and they're not going to show up for me. I no longer feel like that sexy or endroit ling because I have a more positive sense of myself, and I look for relationships that reflect my own positive sense of myself and I and secure person is like on their own side, and they're wanting to take care of themselves and make themselves feel safe, right? And so they're attracted to places that make them feel grounded and make them feel safe in that way.

Let's put the shoes on the other foot and talk about that same trigger versus love from an avoidance attachment person. What would they be feeling in terms of how they collapse a situation that's trigger ing with love?

So here is the confusing thing about attachment. When you're falling in love, IT can sometimes replace your attachment style a bit. So you may I may take you a year to kind of figure out what someone attacks like. Everything can be going great and you're connecting and there's a lot of intimacy building.

And then a year in one, once you start living together, you're just like, who is this person like all of us that there so close off, all of us said in there so demanding of me like what the heck happened? It's because, like all of the like chemicals that are released, this cocktail of chemicals when you're falling in love can be so powerful that they might replace some of your underlying wounds and trigger and make you feel cold into this relationship, even when you're afraid of intimacy. So you can Carry both of those things at the same time.

So sometimes you'll see like people feeling secure with each other for a year when there's all of this cocktail of emotions of weighted touch, people feeling comfortable with connection and intimacy, right? And then after a year, after some time, all of a sudden those avoiding feelings to come up, and of the know, all of the sudden they are like my partner expect too much out of me. And so that that is the really confusing thing.

That's why so like hard and over this part on the back, all of us who are just able to sustain healthy relationships because it's so it's so so, so hard. So I think that you know what what we can kind of tend to see and and I think the avoided person, their temple let for intimacy is that people aren't gona respect their boundaries, is that, you know, they can't necessarily trust people. So when they actually the attach person is like pushing too much, not respecting their boundaries and demanding a lot from them, again, they that part of their template for intimacy, it's not that someone's going to be loving and you know, hear them out and take their perspective into consideration. So the insecure attachment IT kind of fine tunes our expectations in relationships. So that insecurity attached people, because their expectations of others are that other people who relate to them in insecurity attached away, they're more willing to accept when someone does so in their life.

It's interesting because as you're talking more thinking, boy, you see this play and friendships to all the time, which is, of course, what your book is about, that you know, people collect best friends, best friends and then all a within a year now we're collecting a new best friend, and the other one sort of faded away. So what are some other tools that people can use starting today to to begin the process of building a secure attachment with themselves by .

insecurity attached people?

Okay, I really hide and doctor tankle and your schedules very busy, so I know you don't have time to hang out with us.

Yeah.

how do you know a security attached person? Like, let's just scan a room. What am I looking for?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's going to, I think, take a little while for IT to reveal itself. But like, is this person being vult able with you, but not over sharing, which is a new ones that kind of hard to to interpreter to understand, right?

Like, I don't know, are they sharing your life stories with you, their whole life story and their deep seated try on the first day? Or they like sharing why the day was hard. They had a struggle today, right? That's that's the sort of appropriate vulnerability that we see in the security touch person.

The security touch person is more loving towards you, the affection IT towards you. They tell you how great that you are. Um if you bring up an issue with them and you're like, yeah, I look to here from you more you're a friend games important to me they are like, yeah i'm going to to make you feel more love right? There are responsive to your needs.

They don't try to shut your needs down or tell you that you're you know wrong. The stream of tech people has a positive view on others, right? If you hear things like nobody can be trusted or everybody going to know, that's a sign of more insecurity. People a secure person is, I don't know, they see the best in people um if you hear them talk about some of their passed relationships that didn't work again, there's that new ones that yeah this part was good but this part I really struggled with. They did have more empathy for people to be honest um that is something that link to secure tached empathy authenticity.

Am I going to talk about how I am so much Better than everyone because that person made me feel inferred the secure first we'll just say that first made me feel unfertile instead of being like how to care about them either all the reasons why, like i'm so much Better than them anyway, right now there is a sense that you're getting your hang out so that kind of more authentic, I don't know. They also just make your nervous system feel commerce. See, you're just going to feel a little bit more calm in their company. So though there are some signs that you ve like found a secure person and the secure person, whether in friendship or in romantic relationship, what's going to happen is like they're going to keep treating you in a way that's counter to this internalized set of assumptions that you have this internalize template and over time, your temperature is going to start to mold and change because they're giving you evidence that your template is not necessarily correct. Um so that's awesome.

I love that. And is there anything that in the meantime, you could add as a habit or something to do every day that would help you to start to reconnect and build that connection with yourself while you're scanning the world for more secure people to bring you?

Yes, I want you to save a moment of acceptance that you experience every day because insecurity attached people, what they they struggle this feeling safe and relationships and no matter what that relationship is, they are coming to the they're coming into the game with the baggage of this is not safe in different ways, right? So if you're insecurity that and something happened for you today that made you feel accepted, I went you to write IT down.

I want you to focus on IT. I went you to have think about IT until you feel some emotion, you feel the acceptance, you feel, you know the love within your body. Um you have to be able to save and receive those experiences of safety and accepts that as an insecurity attach person, you usually just ignore and usually not even .

to register so can I see if some of these examples, like when a friend comes over for dinner and they bring cinema roles yeah knowing that they brought you something, a small gesture like that acknowledging that that is a moment. That's something .

like that absolutely but I can even be so small as like, oh, my friend sent me a voice note today they care about me or my friend commented on my picture that they like IT like like practice. They get a practice to receive love like that really what i'm getting at here um receiving love is not easy um it's something that we need to practice.

I hate that is not easy.

I know, right.

And is that the bottom line, when IT comes to attachment theory, that the importance of attachment theory is that when you understand your attachment style, you now have a lens through which to really look at yourself and your inability to receive love, and now you can go to work learning how to become secure so you can let love in. Is that with this is truly about at .

the bottom line that's so beautiful? Now, yes, I love that. I love IT. Yes, I think people can receive the depth of life. This is a .

recent breakthrough for me. I it's only IT makes me really sad, doctor franco, to know that i'm fifty four and that I would say it's only in the last two months that i've noticed how much I stone all love that i'll pred out. But I block actually receiving IT and so i've started visualizing gali doors and a kitchen you know, that swing back and fourth, yeah, as a tool to help me catch myself when i'm the one putting up the wall and not receiving those gestures that are in your life every day a stranger smiling, you know, leaf falling from a tree in the shape of a heart is beautiful or your pet greeting you just these moments where love can blow into your life. And how much I was not even receiving them until recently yes.

yes, yes, yes. It's wild to me how hard IT is to receive love. Health threatening IT is I think it's so, it's so threatening if you are avoiding tly attached because to receive love means to admit that you need IT in the first place.

So IT feels like such a voter's act. And for the ancient person is leg receiving love implies that you're valuable, your your valuable as a person. And if you struggle anxious attachment, you have this unconscious struggle with having load self steam, which means that, like if people try to treat you like you're valuable, IT doesn't match up with how you kind of feel about yourself internally.

And that's why IT feels threatening. IT questions calls into question your sense of predictability about how the world perceive you and how you perceive yourself. And I can feel like pressure, like go.

This person values me in this way and I can actually live up to that. It's like you have been posted germ and all of your relationships. If you're actually attack for both the attack ens out, that's really, really hard to receive love. IT is a trigger, I think IT it's own right when people try to love us. And so being able to work on the practice of receiving love, I think, is really important for finding more security.

Well, doctor franco, thank you. Your work is an active love for all of us. And I will tell you that I love you for spending the time with us and pouring into us and a thank you so much because I feel like this is a really important and hard thing to rap your your mind and your heart around, but it's truly life changing. If you can lean into this and see this as a way to let more love into your life, both from yourself, from people like you that are sharing your wisdom, and from just the unbelievable amount of people that are out there in your life just waiting for you to let them in.

Thank you so much. Now that is so beautifully, pud, it's been a fascinating, amazing revolutionary conversation.

Well, I can't wait to have you.

Thank you.

Wow, when I started this interview, I did not expect attachment style and attachment theory to lead us to the topic of your ability to let love in. And at the end of the day, that's what I want for you, because that's what I want for me. That's what life is all about.

Life is about love, and the purpose of your life is to express and receive love. So for those of you listening, in case no one else tells you today, let me be the one to say, I love you. I do, and I believe in you and your ability to create a Better life.

That's why I am here. I am securely attached when IT comes to you, my friend. And what did SHE say about securely attached people? They are securing themselves, and they can love themselves and love others.

And that's why I can say that and truly mean IT. So you now know a little bit more about yourself, and I want you to use that to go improve your relationships and create a Better life because you deserve IT. And so to wide, alright, i'll see you for a few days.

Wait, grab the cat is eating the cake. You got to get a photo. And oh my god, IT wasn't .

too like, no.

okay, sound like that already. Oh, man, past me to think is girl. I'll even click at woman, team, team, team, team, team OK, here you go. OK, 嗨。

Hey.

we did at high five bomb back to the show. This is the attitude for everything, honestly. Oh, and one more thing I know, this is not a blue per.

This is the legal language. You know what the lawyers, right? And what I need to read to you, this podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes.

I'm just your friend. I am not a licence therapies. And this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist or other qualified professional. Got IT good. I'll see in the next episode.

teacher.