Amir Levine (on attachment theory)

come on, I'm Chair, expert experts on expert. I'm Dan Shepherd, I'm joined by Lily Padman. Hi. Hi, we have the author of an incredibly popular book. Yes.

Read by Millions. Millions, indeed. His first book was attached. A mirror Levine. He is a psychiatrist, a neuroscientist.

And of course, a bestselling author. And he has a new book out, kind of answering, as he talks about attached outlining these different attachment styles. And then people were naturally curious.

Can I change mine? And so his new book is to address that exact question.

Secure the revolutionary guide

to creating a secure life. Please enjoy Dr. Amir Levine. This episode of Armchair Expert is presented by Apple TV, the new US home of Formula One. Starting March 7th, you can watch complete all access live

coverage of every Grand Prix, including practice, qualifying, and sprints all in one place. Watch every race live, only on Apple TV. ♪ He's in a chance for him ♪ ♪ He's in a chance for him ♪

♪ He's in a chance for him ♪ ♪ He's in a chance for him ♪ ♪ He's in a chance for him ♪ I'm on him. How are you?

I'm good. Did you have a good weekend? I did have a good weekend. Anything spectacular happen? Nothing spectacular, which is a good weekend.

Oh, hi. You know, relaxing weekend. I'm moving this week. Friday? I'm sleeping out Friday.

Oh, my God, Monica's been building a house across the street

for what five six years. It'll be six years. Wow, congratulations. Thank you. That's amazing.

Thank you. It's been a long time coming, so I am very excited. So this week is a big week. Because there's a lot of like moving parts and getting the stuff over. I wonder if any of your attachment theory stuff is coming up.

Oh, I hope I'm so obsessed with attachment theory. I'm so glad you're here because I'm obsessed with it. And I don't think I really understand it.

“And I think a lot of people feel that way.”

Like, they reference attachment theory a lot, but I don't know if we're all doing it correctly. There's a lot of myths and misconceptions. Okay, great. Well, we're going to.

Where are you from, Amir? Originally, I grew up in Jerusalem. Oh, guy, do you find this to be true that the Israelis, they tick up highest on the disagreeability? Category, we've had a lot of experts talk about that.

Oh, that is really disagree. Oh, yeah, it's part of our culture. Yeah, yeah, I like it. It took me time with Americans with considering being rude. Yeah.

It's actually just normal way of speaking. Like, they go like that. She's like, no, I don't agree with you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm like, I'll be considered so rude.

I don't know. That one would speak like that a year. Do you know Orna? Yeah. Just she worked at NYU in some capacity.

I think she does. I don't know personally, but I know her work. But you're at Columbia. I haven't Columbia. Yeah.

Well, we had her on. And I was saying to her, she has this wonderful gift of she's endlessly hopeful and empathetic. And also, and I asked her, I'm like, is this the Israeli site? You can also on a dime, be like, okay, disagreeable time.

Like you're very comfortable in the disagreeability. I'd say I'm high on the disagreeability.

“Not only that, I think that's how I got into Columbia to do my”

residency there. Really? Yeah. I went to medical school in Jerusalem and they said, don't bother.

They don't take foreign medical graduates. And I said, okay, I'll just go and at least I'll get to talk. To all these interesting researchers. And I read about the research and none of the people I knew about the research.

Because usually go and you go to Grand Rounds. You spend the day on the words. And I said, no, I want to meet with the researchers. Yeah. So then I met with one guy who seemed kind of like old and there's

none threatening. And I knew about his work. So I told him how much I liked his work, but I could have been approved. There's all these different shortcomings in his methodology.

And I said, I went on and I was like, what do I have to do? You're nothing to live in. Yeah, yeah. And at the end of it, he said, okay, I want you to meet with you more people.

He called a few more people around. He was the Department of Epidemiology, and they all got together and wrote a letter on my behalf to the head of the residency. Oh, God. And that's what I got in.

Very great. Oh, I love that. Well, am I right? Or at least to believe from this book that you were originally definitely aiming at being a therapist of some variety.

I still am a therapist? Yes. Yes. I was going to be a psychoanalyst.

“That's how I basically ended up where I am today.”

And then completely unexpected way because back then, in order to become a psychoanalyst, you had to do a year of analysis before going into analytics. I love this personal analysis. You own analysis like four times a week on the couch talking or whatever. They sit behind you.

You don't see that. Oh, wow. We've had numerous. In fact, we just had someone on who they themselves were a therapist. And they got to a point in their life where they had to return to therapy.

And how much there can be a resistance to that, even from therapist.

Yeah, for it said that there's always resistance.

It's kind of like built into the treatment.

As always, you're all the part of the work as a therapist is working through

those resistances. Yes. So during this year of therapy, you came to realize in some free association that you really still yearn for the biological. So I was going to do potentially epidemiological research.

But then during that time, I was looking forward to kind of research that I wanted to do. And I got some advice.

“And they said, you know, a researcher's life is a really hard life.”

I scientist's life is really hard. So you better choose something that you really interested in, because it's going to be a rough ride. And so I look to see what I really liked. And I've always had an affinity to basic science and to molecular research.

But I didn't really pursue molecular. I didn't have a PhD, but I really liked it. And it was the analyst to say, well, maybe you should be able to try. But he didn't really know what it means. I didn't barely knew it out to hold it by pet.

Yeah, yeah. But I found this one paper that I really, really liked about long-term memory and how long-term memory is conserved and epigenetic changes in the neurons in Applesia, which is a sea-slug that has enormous neurons. Yes, huge neurons.

And then I went. And again, I guess that theme of going and talking, so I went. And I talked to the last author in that paper. But he wasn't the one who masterminded it. So he listened to me for two minutes.

And then he basically said, let's go up a floor. And we went, that's where I met James Schwartz. Jimmy, my first mentor. I basically talked to him a little bit about my thoughts again, the same thing about the research and the ideas that I had.

And then he said, OK, we'll give you a try for three months and see how you fare. And then we'll see what happens after that.

So there I was going into the lab, which I've never imagined

that I would do behind the bench starting all these molecular experiments. Yeah. Now, do you think you had a primary question about life in humans that you thought was going to be answered

“in psychoanalysis or the pursuit of it and the practice of it?”

And that you saw in this epigenome work, maybe the answer lies over here, or not not even occurred to you. Do you think you had a driving curiosity like a primary question? I really didn't want to understand what makes human tick. And I really want to understand the brain better.

But I don't think that at the time I had a specific idea, I've always had this thirst for knowledge, which maybe will explain why I did what I did, because at that time I was almost done with my residency. It's been many years going through medical school

and then coming here and doing another year of internship to add to the tears. I had to repeat a year of internship. Then I did adult psychiatry and then child psychiatry all together in another five years.

So after doing all that training, you were 71 years old. Yeah, you're serious, you're aging back. And when we think, OK, it's time to make money, right? Yeah, I've helped and I've got all this private practice and started making money.

And then, wait a second, I still really want to learn more. And I'm going to take a salary which may just like a tenth of their amount. And just continue with my education and learning. But I didn't think about it that way at the time.

Now, looking back and can see, whoa, these are important years. We could have said money for retirement. And they're like, hey, they didn't regard to me at all. I just really wanted that pursuit of knowledge. That's what I did.

I went into the lab and then for many, many years, I did a lot of molecular biology work. OK, so I'll overshare with you. So I ended up doing Anthro.

“And I really think about why I did Anthropology.”

I think I was immediately drawn to the fact that, oh, there's no lot of different ways you can live. And I think that was comforting because I felt like with the single mom and all these other things that we didn't click so well with the culture I inherited.

And so I was quite critical of the culture I inherited.

And I wanted to know, do we have any basis to think that this is the way we should do things? So I guess I'm wondering for you, can you think of any kind of primary eggs? Definitely the pursuit of knowledge is a huge one.

And I grew up in that environment. I had a very unusual upbringing. My mom had an even more unusual upbringing. The education that you received was very, very progressive. They didn't care about grades at all.

They didn't have exams. They just would give them comments about what they did. Yeah. And so she lived in a keyboard. So it's like a commune. So they had to work a lot.

Also, are you culturally-- they didn't live with their parents. So they wanted everyone to be equal. So they sort of separated. It's kind of crazy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So she came from a very, very unusual upbringing. But I grew up in Jerusalem. I grew up with my parents. But she also, she didn't believe in grades.

And she didn't really care about school so much. So I could actually stay home whenever I wanted. For sure. And I did. I stayed home a lot and we had this huge library.

And I would read a lot with completing on censored seven. I would really come a sutra. I would try and make sense of it. Yeah, sure. Different books that I read at the time

that could barely understand. But I just read them anyway. And especially on days when we had exams, I didn't have to go because she didn't believe in God. [LAUGHTER]

It's crazy. Everyone said medical school. It was very unusual. And we and everyone would come home so we would read together.

And my mom, she was the editor of the equivalent

of Scientific American. Oh, OK.

“So there's also a lot of talk about science and popular science.”

So here's why I ended up also writing popular science and popular psychology. I really grew up with it. And by the way, I would say in probably the best motivated way possible, which is intrinsically, it's not about getting

the good grade. It's not about getting the test right. It's not about knowledge and knowledge. Also, to think about something original, something that can make people think differently,

or look at things differently. Were your parents divorced? They're not divorced. They're very, very long relationship to be asking because I didn't mention my dad yet.

Yeah, yeah. If you're asking about a motivation to understand human behavior, they're completely opposites. My mom and my dad. My mom was a single child who came from an Ashkenazi European

ancestry, Jewish ancestry. My dad was a Sephardic Jew to have 10 siblings came from a very poor family.

And he never even finished the fifth grade.

Wow. Yeah, horrible ADHD was bouncing whenever the teacher would come into the classroom is like, you out. Get off your desk and leave the classroom. By the fifth grade, he was done with the formal education.

But he was a very smart person and they're very unusual person, also. Exactly the opposite of this progress. They've been high on the disagreeability scale within completely high on the disagreeability scale, like off the chart.

Yeah. Can I tell you what he did once we were at the hotel and remember

“who the president of the United States was visiting?”

He was there with all his entourage and everyone surrounding him. They're all wearing suits. And I get nervous. So I kind of clutched onto my dad's end. And he said, you have nothing to be afraid of.

Here, there are all humans just like you. Let me show you something. Oh boy. And you two have a quarter and you flip it in the air and then you found the marble floor and you make it like this little sound.

And they're all looking down to see what had fell. It was like an instinct. And you see, we're all the same. Oh, I love that example. Yeah, I thought he was going to do something.

I want to get the president. I want to get the president. Yeah. Yeah. This is a weird question, but were you embarrassed by him?

Because he was so different. We were so different. I think it took me many, many years to know. Really more understanding what was going on in that relationship. He was not in easy relationship.

For many, many years, I saw it from really my point of view of like he was really difficult, stubborn, everything had to be done. His way. So like the opposite of what my mom was like with him, if I didn't make it to school, that was a big deal.

Thankfully, he wasn't around a lot.

“And that's how I was able to get away with it.”

But if you were around, eventually he let my mom do whatever she wanted to do. But he was very, very difficult later on. And actually, that's part of why I even wrote this new book, "Secure," because all of my understanding and everything that I understood about a relationship really shifted. And I sit now from a more secure place.

Because he was Marna Voiden. Oh, gosh. He was definitely somewhat avoidant. And I think also somewhat fearful avoidant, sort of like a mixture of it. Now that we know a lot more about ADHD, the rigidity in the game plan, how much different

that is for his experience in your moms or regular people's, definitely, maybe a little compassion. I have so much more compassion to him now. And then because of this whole process that I went through in understanding how to look at the world more securely, and that has helped me so much, because yes, he was difficult.

But I was not easy either, and how was this smart ass kid who was really highly educated, was reading all these books, be let old him. Yes, yeah. And correct that he's language and with like, do all these things triggered his insecurities. Yes, constantly.

Yeah. Isn't it so sad that we realize this all is your dad gone, my name is. He's gone, yeah. Yeah, I'm mine too. And I'm like, I just hate that I now have all this compassion for him.

Because I was the great challenger of him as well. Just like me. Yes. Kids, that's almost part of their role. Yeah.

All their names are telling me. It's normal. I know. But he can get fishes. I know.

For me, it's just sad. It's like, here's this man on earth that had this boy he clearly loved. And I could have adored him more, and that would have filled him up more. And that was on the table for me to do, and I didn't for all my many reasons. That's a bummer.

It's not like karma gets you eventually.

So now I have this little dog who's really, really cute, but he likes me, but he always

growls at me. He has a contentious relationship with me. Yeah. He's you. Yes, basically.

And I see how much I love this dog. And that also helped me, and again, it's those secure shifts that I've had in my understanding of myself and my life that really helped change how I see things. And so now I understand, wow, my dad really loved me. Because I see how much I love this dog, even though he's so mean to me.

Right, right. And I'm like, yeah, my dad really loved me, because even though I was mean to him, I know that he did, but then I had this idea, like, how do you feel about me when I was behaving

And now I know, because I can feel it in time.

Yeah, yeah. I don't even think it's ever anger. It's just kind of hurt. Yes. Even a second.

Yeah. That's what he's just angry about. OK, so at some point in your 65 years in academia and residency and all this stuff, you yourself come across attachment theory. And you're learning about it.

So just give us a brief as possible explanation of attachment theory, which started maybe in the 50s or something. Yes. I came across the delta-touch and theory by chance when you learned to become a psychiatrist, colleges, you know about childhood attachment, but I did know that adult have attachment styles

and that they attach. During that time when we worked in attachment therapy with kids and their mothers, I would love it so much. So I read everything that there was about it. That's where I came across adult attachment.

There's the anxious avoidance and secure and fearful avoidance. And at a time I was going through a breakup and he'd explained so much. Right. It felt like a light bulb running my head and like, wow, now I understand what went down in this relationship, why didn't work out and what also happened in other relationships.

“And so basically, do we really need to understand about these attachment styles?”

Yes. Yeah, let's start with the children. So with children, the way that he works, ball-be is the founder of attachment theory. And he had this idea that wasn't prevalent at the time because for it, all this thought that we attached to our mothers and fathers, for it blame their mother a lot, we attached

to the mother because she gives us sustenance and food. And it's a byproduct of that. But then ball-be who actually worked with children because Freud didn't really work with children. No, he didn't cook and sat in his room at all.

Yeah. Pretty much. He actually said, no, I beg to differ because he saw what happens when children get all of their material needs met but they were not giving the attachment that they needed. And so he said, no attachment is a basic need.

Just like food and water, it's not a byproduct, it's something that we need and then there's the Harlow experiments that show even in monkeys, how much they really need. There's poor little monkeys clinging to a claw instead of the wired mother versus the cloth mother. The wire mother gave food and the cloth mother, it was just that piece of cloth gave intimacy.

Yeah, but he was called a metal, but there was this cloth and the monkeys went to the cloth at the expense of food. They would eat a little bit and then to the go to the cloth.

“But remember what he said because if we don't really understand it so much in adulthood and”

it'll be did say that attachment starts in birth, it actually starts before and then goes on until we die and I would argue even after here we were talking about our fathers. Yeah, yeah. Wow, great point.

Basically, he said that but then came Mary Anne's worth who was more of an experimental

psychologist. So brilliant. She discovered these attachment style anxious, abundant and secure in children, in something that's called the strange situation test. Oh, tell us.

Tell us. So the strange situation test, it's basically you bring a toddler and they're caregiver into a room full of toys and you watch them through a one-way mirror. You can see it on YouTube, it's really remarkable. You bring them in, the child sees the toys immediately, I want to play, I want to play,

start pointing at things, they rush over, start playing and then they ask the caregiver to leave the room immediately, they drop are they're doing, they run to the door, they're getting on the door crying and then they ask the mother that caregiver to come back to the room and it's in that reunion, that moment where Mary Anne's worth identified the three attachment style, the anxious

aborted and secure and it's remarkable to see it's basically how effective is that bond

in regulating the child's emotion. Oh, interesting. Yeah, and it's very important actually that correlation is so important and also translates to adults, so that I'm sort of stressing it, I'm like really making a point of it. So basically the secure bond, the mother picks them up and immediately just like magic,

they just come down right away and then start pointing at the toys wanting to engage again. Anxious, not so much. What happens, what do they do? It just takes a long time to come them down, sometimes they come down and then start crying again, it's called the common compare time, so the bond is not as effective in regulating their

emotions and the avoidant, sometimes they don't even cry or even they do a little bit,

“they stay limp in the mother's hands, is it fair to say they're pissed at the caregiver?”

So you think, oh, sometimes they look like I don't care, whatever, but when you look at their blood pressure, their pulse, it's through the room, so they're blocking their attachment needs, but at the same time they're alone in trying to regulate the emotions, they don't know how do you realize the bond to regulate their emotions? They're all has to do with how good our people, children, and then adult in using others

to regulate their feelings and emotions. Do we know what the contributing factors are that end up in an anxious attachment versus the avoidant attachment? Are there patterns within that parenting style that produce that outcome?

because apparently there's something that's called the adult attachment interview, there's

same attachment styles in adulthood, but they have nothing to do with the other attachment

“styles, they're more romantic ones or other relationships, it has more to do, how we remember”

our childhood. Not so much the memories themselves, but how we narrate our childhood, there's the adult attachment interview, it gets scored by psychologists, and that can predict some degree the attachment is out of the child, so how well, if you're very structured in your narration of your past, then the child will be more secure in the strange situation test.

Is the parent? Yes, yes. Yes. It's pretty wild. So if they have a pretty coherent chronological story of their own life, that makes sense,

that coherent makes sense, odds are they're going to have a more secure. Yeah, there's better chances, again, nothing in this is like one to one, have a year, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. By course, that's predicted some degree the child attachment style, and then if you're

avoiding, then if you're like, oh, my God, I had the most amazing childhood, but then actually

when you talk about the memories, they're sort of like a discrepancy, yeah, then the child that's more avoidant, then the anxious jump around from one topic to another, but I still don't really know what to make of it. Yeah, right, this is very hard. So now, tell me how you, you're going through a breakup, you're learning about this.

So I mean, adults also have these attachment styles, anxious, abortant, and secure. Only we don't play with toys like that anymore, but it has to do with our attitude towards closeness and intimacy, on the one hand. And then on the other hand, how sensitive of a radar do we have for infractions in their relationship?

And what I mean from an attachment perspective is when all the sudden we feel that the other person is not available to us, because attachment is really a radar of availability of other people. It's a safety system, people think it's such a deep thing about bonding. It really is a very rudimentary safety system, it's how we feel safe in the world.

And so we survey the environment, and we kind of have an idea in our mind, and you too probably also have an idea in your mind where your loved ones are, and they're okay. But if I were to tell you that God forbid, and I even had saying that there's something that happened somewhere, you won't be able to continue to have this conversation, you'd have to stop and immediately check to see that they're okay.

So we have this surveillance system going in the back of our head all the time. People with an anxious attachment style, their surveillance system can pick up on very subtle changes of that availability and potential threat.

“But the research also shows that it's not the only thing they're very good at picking”

up. They're picking up and picking up a lot of different social cues. There's a downside to it, but it also comes with a huge upside, let's say if you're and I've seen it so many times with patients and just in people in the world, like if you're better at day trading, you can sort of really see subtle changes that other people won't

be able to detect. They're just very, very good at detecting. And then also one-then questions, and that's what I really try to do in this book, is turn around that whole causality thing, because oftentimes people blame their parents for their adult attachment style, and it's completely wrong.

But think about how hard it is to raise a child that has that level of ability, really superpowers, to pick up cues from the environment. It can be a little stressful for all parties in both. I gave an example in the chapter, because I really was trying to look for an example that people don't understand.

No, it's not only about danger, it's not only about sort of a bad thing, true. They can also identify danger, but in the book, I gave an example about a woman who has

an adopted daughter, and she takes her to the first day of school.

She starts playing with another girl there that she also finds out he's adopted, and then else, and she stops, and I can't believe I'm seeing this. These girls are sisters, and she saw, like in their facial expression, they weren't exactly the same, but you could sort of detect the similarities, and there's sort of facial structure in the way that they smiled, the way that they moved.

And she started talking to other people and said, "No way, no one believes her. The odds are staggered." Right. Exactly, but she kept at it, and lo and behold, they actually are sisters. Wow.

And what did she do with that information? The sisters are bonded. She found her daughter, her sister, I think it's years later, and they're as close as ever. So it's a really good story.

Wow. You're right, though. We tend to petalize every single thing that we know about, and it's like, all these things are trade-offs. They all come with some benefit, or you wouldn't have gotten to this point.

I'm glad that you said that, because I would say that my biggest mission in this book for people to realize that attachment, and that's one of the biggest misconceptions, and when we look on social media, that people equate anxious and avoidance with pathology.

“That's why I'm so drawn to the science, because attachment, it doesn't come from the”

medical model of pathology and healing and curing pathology. It actually comes from social psychology and the neurodevelopmental model.

It's more about is it effective, or is it not effective, is the bond effective in regulating the emotions? Is it working for you? Is it servicing your goals or not? And from an attachment perspective, it's specifically, are you able to use this, it's something

that's called a secure base, is it giving you a secure base? Because the point of view of relationships from an attachment perspective, remember, it's like a safety mechanism, is for you actually to fed into the background. So you know, in the strange situation, when the Charlie wants to play with all these toys,

they're never wants to know what it looks back to see if the mother is there.

That's the point of a relationship, so we can kind of like check to see if they're there, but not to think about you that much. So you to be in the background, so we don't play with toys, but we have hobbies, we have careers, we parent, we have all these different things. So attachment is really linked to our exploratory drive, when we feel safe, we can explore.

So it's more related to that. Okay, so bring everyone up to speak, so you wrote with Helen attached, which was applying

“this attachment theory to adults and specifically romantic, because that's what he was initially”

about. Yeah, and so this book is enormously successful, and it also has a very peculiar trajectory as a book, in that it's kind of hockey-shaped in its distribution, didn't it just continue to swell over time, and there are some interesting catalysts like COVID and TikTok? Initially when we wrote a book where this running joke between us that he's only going to

sell one copy to the Library of Congress, and got that. I went through this breakup, and she's my childhood friend, and so instead of just, you know, how you talk about breakups, incessantly, so I said, you know what, instead of sort of wasting all that energy about talking about the breakup, let's make something good about it. Can I ask what your style was, was it anxious?

With this person, yes, yeah. It wasn't so much anxious, I didn't understand what was going on. And then that goes to this idea, like all these myths that we have, if you don't know about attachment theory, we have this idea that everybody loves the same, but science doesn't show that everybody loves the same.

We love very differently, if we're anxious, subordinate, and secure, we haven't even gone to it yet. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll get to it in a moment, but we love very, very differently. So for me, I was more like the anxious secure part, and then there was certainly driven more towards anxious when the other person stopped responding.

And they said, you know, when I really like someone, I actually think about getting on a plane and moving away to the West Coast. And for me, it didn't make any sense, because why would you want to do that? If you really like someone, don't you want to see a future together? Yeah, they don't want to think about being together, but avoidance would they don't like

too much closeness, and oftentimes when they feel too much closeness, they want to bulk, they want to run away. But I didn't know that that's 25% of the population that is scary for them, that it means that they feel a loss of independence.

Oh, I had a lair, because I think when I was younger, I probably year'll be the first to

acknowledge it, but like, these are all spectrums.

“That's what this new book is really emphasizing.”

And also, we are very fluid and context-dependent. So, I really want to depend on one way here and one way there. But if I had to say what I lean more towards, it's like a zero-fear of intimacy, being close, that felt wonderful. But I would be immediately overwhelmed with the responsibility of that.

And then this fear, almost in an OCD way, well, if I have to break up with this person, this is going to be so painful. And I'm now so afraid of this responsibility, of potentially hurting this person, then now I'm starting to feel a little trapped by it. So, yeah, it's a version of abortions. There's all these hues of it.

It is, yeah, exactly. You weren't afraid by the physical closeness or even the emotion of it. Yeah, you weren't afraid by that. None of it's scary. But somehow, it feels like, "Whoa, this is a big responsibility."

Definitely a tinge of abortions there. And also, I listen to some of your podcasts. I saw also, there are moments of change. And I really put a lot of emphasis in this book of those small moments of change. I think Monica, you brought it up in one of the podcasts about,

sort of, the glass of water story that you used to have. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, with Christmas. Yes, yeah.

That is like, why should I get a, like, no, she's getting both sitting here. Yes, exactly. Yeah, no, why should I do that? And they know, like, potentially, what does he mean? What pattern am I setting that?

The rest of my life, I'll be waiting on this person. Right, exactly. Are I getting taken advantage of that type of thing? And then the leap of faith of actually holding on.

“Do I think this person is someone who will exploit and take advantage of me?”

Because I'm nice this one time.

And then that was the kind of the breakthrough.

It was like, no, I don't think this person is that way. I don't need to have this fear. And that moment that shift, that's exactly how our brain changes towards greater security. I love that example. And that's what I thought I would bring it up because it's such an important.

It seems like, oh, yeah, but it's really, it's a major shift for our brain. So you were able to use what we call metacognition, which is like, thinking about a thought. And hopefully you got up and got the glass of water. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I haven't mind it. But then it starts all over again when you have kids. Got my setting that up for a pattern that I think is untenable for their life.

Yeah, they follow something happening in the kitchen. Like, oh, I don't want to get up.

“And then eventually, no, but maybe I should.”

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As I always say, it's like, my life now is stepping over the many bad thoughts I have

in root to who I want to be. But they're going to come up every time. It's like, oh, that's that thing. That's that. The thing about I'm trying to really show in this book is that it's not necessarily a bad thought.

It's more like this belief that every person should take care of themselves. And it's not a bad belief. It's just a belief that we then assign it blame or bad or sort of even give it a potential causal mechanism. But if we just examine it phenomenologically for what it is, it's a belief.

“And then you said, but is it working for me or is it not working for me?”

But some people could be in that exact same situation and probably have an anxious attachment. Oh, yeah. It's like, it's not like one equals this a different person and that exact same environment. Oh, yeah, of course, usually in the mix. Yes, of course.

Because there's so many different parameters that go into this mix. So you're right, some people will actually say, well, because I didn't have a mother that voted on me, now I have all these issues. And now I can detect threat when someone tries to pull away because I can identify it. Right.

Yeah, I'm so familiar. I know what this looks like. I think I have anxious. I was going to self diagnose you. But yeah, I mean, look, the way you would pray for your family members a lot here.

Superstitch, if I miss this prayer, they're going to die. But that's not really a attachment, or is it? I think it's more about how effective is the bond between you. Like if you reach out to them, how quickly can you come down? Anxious attachment is not necessarily just having separation attachment.

want to be loved. That other people will leave you. That other people will fail you. Yeah, you do have that. You do have that bond.

I've been in more peer-drived than parents. I've been friends with me. Yeah, it's weird because I don't have that at all with my parents. Right. But her otherness in her peer group.

So that's the beauty.

“And that's why I really wanted to, I mean, look, 15 years has passed through my last book.”

And a lot of new information was discovered in about attachment. And I really found that there's a potential here to help people flourish. Yeah. And actually, after I finished writing the book, then all these people started coming to me, asking, okay, help me become more secure.

But I didn't have an immediate answer for that because we never really learned about it in

the clinical world. Basically, Rachel and I took it from papers and tried to breathe clinical life into it. But I didn't have an immediate answer to how you become more secure. And then the answer came over time from the lab, actually, not from my work, from understanding the brain, not from cocaine use and, yes, exactly.

But really from understanding the brain. Yeah. So the first book helped you understand your attachment style. And then people want to know how to like change it. Right.

Right. And now this book, secure, is going to help us change into a secure attachment. As a neuroscientist, it's the kind of therapy I wish I could go into with people no more about the brain because most therapies haven't been updated. Some of it is not the blame of the therapies because the NIH doesn't really sponsor

them and studies about new therapies. But there's so much more that we know about the brain. It's kind of like the kind of therapy that me as a neuroscientist would want to have, but it didn't exist. And so over time, I didn't have this grandiose idea.

I'm going to create it, but it just over time just happened on its own and I created these tools.

“And the whole idea is, if you know that a part of your life is much more secure than others,”

that certain relationships are much more secure than why not then really increase the volume on that part of your life and just like shift the attention and the focus to sort of create a more secure life. And that really changes the brain on such a fundamental level. What you do is you merge together three different fields.

You're kind of you've all horrorious. You're like, if you're doing the neuroscience, you're doing the clinical psychology, you're doing the attachment, the attachment and you're creating what you would call now. This secure-priming therapy, but it's not only therapy and coaching, but it's also the way I started creating it actually.

I started creating a course for high school. Anybody could learn, I had a student and she wanted to do some sort of a science exhibit

on the social brain and she asked me, what would be the most important lessons and I came

up with five and then actually like three of them made it into the book and it was the things that I thought would be the most beneficial for people to know. And then I thought, oh, I can actually make a course out of this where people are actually learn if you really believe that you should only count on yourself. That's not a bad thought necessarily or it's not a pathology, but it's really more to

explain about how the brain responds to exclusion, our brain hates exclusion and I call it a cyberball effect and then I developed an antidote to it, how do we sort of then create the opposite because our brain loves hyper-inclusion or hyper-connectedness, how do we then orchestrate that in our everyday life? So these are these three lessons that I started to book with.

Yeah, so you talk about the science of the brain and part one.

“So what do we need to understand about how the brain works?”

So our brain loves exclusion. That was like the most important thing that I would start with. I call it the cyberball effect, the biggest thing is safety because we're not descendents of eagles or elephants or lions, yeah, we're not doing any of these like primates who live for a long time in the middle of the food chain and it was only when I was on the safari

in Africa. You realize how it fucking vulnerable we are? Because we went, they took us, most of the time we were in those like vehicles and you feel like it's okay, you know, one time an elephant's charging it out, they were screaming scary.

But at one time we walked outside in the wild. But they had the guy with a rifle behind us and a guy with a rifle in front of us and we had to keep a single file and the no point could we have actually opened the gap. And if we did, they would tell us immediately close the gap and then I realized, wow, when we were there, there's no people with rifles in the front and then it's not about just like,

oh, I like being hyper included, it's so nice, I love it, it's so, so comfy and warm and cozy.

It's more like if you're excluded, then you can feel prayed any second.

You're dead. Yeah, you're dead. And the fact that we're all close to each other here, for example now, so if a predator came, I have 66% of survival better than if I were to remind myself because they're going to go after you.

No, he's going to get picked off back there behind that wall. No, no, this way they hit one out that door and he'll be saying it in there. And they're not taking to account, the fact that we can warn each other, we can try to fight them off together. We have a 360-greet view right now between our combined, so we can alert each other.

And you see it in so many different social animals, even you see it in social birds. Peck, peck, peck all the time and every once in a while they swoop up. They look for food and then to look to see if are they going to be prey. But then if they have more birds around, they will swoop up, they will look up a lot less. They bring compute it into the mix and our brains also compute it into the mix.

You're not in New York, but like walking into an empty submarine car in the middle of the night. I don't know if I will do that, I would go through the subway cars, there's more people. Or like an empty alley, we instinctively feel it. It's a safety thing.

You intuitively do that math. The birds know like, oh, there's three of us.

I should be looking up a third at the time, even though they don't know that.

Yeah, exactly. And there's a hundred, so I was like, oh, I got like up one percent of the time. Because it was usually advantageous to do that and then those who didn't get that social monitoring, sort of upgrade, they couldn't really compete. There was such a huge advantage because they were constantly looking up and we were all

eating while they were looking up and then we get into so much fun stuff. It's like the birth of lying comes from this. There are calls for chimpanzees to say leopard in this and that. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they would make a fake call so they could go fuck the high status female.

Why the alpha. Yeah, it becomes very intricate in humans and also in other social and also even in some birds. We haven't upgraded the system because we compare ourselves to others and there's a whole chapter involved to why we compare and why we can help it.

But part of our ability to compare, it's really about assessing the other or the stronger they are. They're not stronger than me, but also we have this upgrade that we can determine.

“I think are going to work well with me or not.”

And that ability to compare to evaluate it's key for us as human. This is theory of mind stuff. Yeah, yeah, I can think about how you're thinking. I can assess your thoughts. Yeah.

And are you going to be there for me? Yeah, I can get her a cup of water because she probably has my back and she'll also get me a cup of water later. It'll be reciprocal. So we have that ability to assess and that's a key part in becoming more secure.

And I even have a question there, there's like, oh, assess how good is your collaboration. And then also rate how close you are to different people and then see, those really good collaborations, also the people that are closest to you because if not, maybe you want to think about changing your priorities, your relationship priorities and the process of becoming more secure.

Yeah. Interesting.

So the cyberball effect is based on the cyberball experiment and basically what

happens, you're playing a game of catch with two other people on a video game of very rudimentary, rude video game, two-dimensional. And all of a sudden, they stopped throwing the ball in your direction and the brain hates it. And psychologically, we hate it.

The sea areas of pain, distress, scrutiny in the brain, they all sort of like light up. It was on fire, is that what's happening? Part of the amygdala, other areas of self-scritteny, it's all like threat and what's happening and why is it happening potentially also pain not to different from physical pain.

It's very, very distressing and psychologically they looked and they found that certain domains are being affected that I personally was very surprised by it.

“We feel that life is less meaningful, less in control of our life and less self-esteem.”

Oh, yeah. And less self-esteem.

The things that I always thought, like, my self-esteem is not related to or how much control

I have over my life or that life is meaningful, what does it matter to who is interacting with me? It's things that come from within, they don't come from within. And they found the opposite of the soluble effect when you actually put the person in the middle and now I'm in the middle and I'm putting the ball to you, you'll throw it back

to me. I'm throwing the two, you're throwing it to me. I'm hyper-included now. So basically, you see the opposite, you feel that life is more meaningful, you feel more self-esteem, and you feel greater control in your life.

So these are amazing things that we can create by hyper-inclusion, but then the question is how do you create that? Right. How do you create that? How do you create that?

How do you create that? So that's when I came up with these five pillars, the five pillars of secure life, which consists of consistency, availability, responsiveness, and then you also have to make sure, it's not enough, it's like, oh, I'm consistent, available, and responsive.

“You have to make sure that the other person experiences you as reliable and predictable, and”

that creates carp. So it's like a two-factor authentication, it's something that happens in the relationship. So if you learn to be carp and you can also teach others to be carp with you, then you can really create that hyper-included, and it's not that hard, it's actually pretty easy. That's when I try to explain to people attachment, it's not a very sophisticated system,

it's a monitoring system. Like, if you give it what it needs, remember, I told you, you are supposed to disappear into the background, you just have to learn how to strategically give that. So you don't wait until a child is super hungry to feed them, or super tired to put them to sleep.

You kind of try to anticipate what they need and sort of give it to them, and then you can sort of coast. Yeah.

they don't have to think about the fact that they're there. They're not worried about that relationship, it's just there, it's constantly you and Aaron, there's people like that, and then you have people that you're like, do I need to check in on them, or maybe that's just me, because I'm anxious, but people who are more on the fence of, are they there?

Yeah, they're not carp, so what happens is they push your button, they activate the radar,

but like I've said, we always have these people that we know that they're there, but

what I find is that oftentimes people tend to ignore those people, because there's no drama, we tend to shift more to where the alarm goes off, so let's see where it goes off. You're like inversely rewarded for being carp sometimes in some relationships. Yeah. And then what happened, in the course of writing this book, and the course of this work, I really

learned to fall in love with the secures of this world, because there's just so good in relationships, and so what I really try to teach my patients and my students, and when I supervise, is to really shift the focus and find those people, because we really ignore

“them instead of like, why is this person not texting me?”

Oh, but this person text me all the time, why should I text them? Why is there more energy there? Yes, exactly. And so you create that shift, and then what happens is we come to the final tool, which is when you start to pay attention, and it's not in the big things, it's in what I come to

call the seemingly insignificant minor interactions, which is also short for cities of every day life. It's in these little moments like that glass of water moment that a lot of major change can happen, because it re-challenges your brain, if you have this belief, yes, I really have to work hard for people to interact with me, and need to get there attention, otherwise

you wouldn't want to be with me, they wouldn't want to necessarily reach out to me. That's more of the interesting. Instead, you get all these experiences, all these seemies that are counteract in that

world belief, because really attachment styles are basically a kind of a world belief, which

is setting some ways, and then our brain sifting information based on that word belief. What I'm asking you to do is don't sifting information based on your world belief, look

“here to your right or to your left, and there's additional information that can change”

your brain with those little theories. So one of my issues with, like all this stuff, again, is trade officers, positives, or negatives, but in the mass-top psychology genre of social media, what I seem to see the most of is identifying somebody, you know, everything's about another person's problem. You know, if you're with a narcissist, and then also from childhood, yeah, so either

childhoods to blame, or these other people are to blame, or they have terrible pathology, I don't find a ton of it about how about you make yourself the thing that you think you deserve, and then just kind of see what happens down river from that. For this is priority number one to make sure you're a carp. I'm so glad you asked that one of the reasons it was so important for me to write this

book, because it's just like, I don't see things that way anymore, instead of going

back to this idea as a child, so like, no, but you can see things differently, so here, maybe try to look at it from a different angle. These are little tricks to fool your biology that wants to go in a certain way and make it see things a little bit differently, so the brain can see, well, all things have looked different.

“So I'm not even saying, like, you have to take accountability.”

I'm not even going there. I'm just saying, look, but the thing is, anxious in the void and have to use those tools very differently, that's where it gets a little bit more tricky. Well, this is where we get into one of my favorite AA scenes, which is like it's easier to act your way into thinking different than think your way into acting different.

So maybe explain a little bit what's happening biochemically in with neurons, and why does this work with neuroplasticity and neuroplasticity? Yeah, exactly. Because we have this surveillance system that was, in some way, maybe very sensitive and maybe the opposite.

I'm constantly suppressing it. And then it starts ruling our life. If we get triggered, then two different things happen for anxious and avoidance. For secure, the thing is they don't really get triggered that often. They just don't see a lot of threat.

So even maybe I think there would be the last people to know someone cheated on them. They're going to see the signs. It's just like nothing that they'll see or even at work that can give you so many different scenarios. The other day someone emailed me and they said, "Hey, when do you have a time to talk?"

And then my sister said, "Oh my God, you probably got fired." And I said, "Why would you say that?" She's one of the favorite we can talk. Sure enough, so you got fired. Yeah.

And then more research recently have shown that it also affects how we interact with our health representatives. And even if we have a chronic illness, like pharma malgia, how much pain we're going to be in. In fact, how we shop, secure people, don't care so much about, they don't care so much

about logos, how are you laughing? Just a lot of shopping so much. But you can love fashion that he's maybe less about status and more about, or maybe it also about status. It's a good idea.

It's a good idea. I don't want it to be, but it is in the mix. You're such a good girl.

I think I said it's in the beginning, about 25% of population are avoidant, about 20% are

“anxious, and about 50% are secure, and a very small percentage are fearful avoidant.”

These are just like variations on the norm.

There's different studies that show the amazing advantage to have that variability within

the population. Then one study where they had like a little smoke, come out of a computer, and a group of people, and the anxious ones were the first to notice it, and the avoidance were the first out the door. And even a lot of other people follow, but you can see there can be an advantage, because

you know, like, you know, I'm out of here. But I want to go back to what you said about this whole thing on social media, we're pointing at others. I just think that it's the wrong conversation, or the wrong way of looking at it, because there's this whole potential, and that's the beauty of the science, that we all have these

secure people in our lives, and secure experiences from our own childhood, that we can tap

into, and become more secure, and the opportunity, and the advantages for being more secure in that way. Really flourish. I want my patients to flourish, and I do want them to heal from trauma, and I'm not saying that's wrong, but I want to take it as step further.

“I think that this science is really understanding and combined in neuroscience with the”

attachment, really can give people the opportunity to flourish. I just stumbled upon this chatting with my brother in New York. We took a trip for three days before Christmas. And we were discussing, there's a lot of good social science behind. Although I don't believe in the secret, the book, I do believe in an aspect of it, which

is your focus and attention can create a bit of confirmation by us. So if you're looking towards the future, and you're thinking of only the ways you're going to fail, those are the ones you're going to focus on, and you're going to see proof of that more often, then you will see proof of a different theory that you're trying to serve us.

So I was talking to my brother, I was just telling him honestly, I'm writing this memoir, and I feel a bit guilty because it's really the highlights real of the bad stuff because that's drama, that's everything, that's a good book. And I said, but when I'm being honest, that probably an all-year and eyes combined stuff

that might have maybe been 0.2% of our overall waking experience, that's amazing, actually.

And you know, why wouldn't the same premise apply to looking backwards as it does forward? Like, you and I could construct any story we want. We have enough info back there to come up with any story, and perhaps by us focusing on these things that were no doubt, norley, we're kind of excluding all the other stuff that would confirm no, we actually had a very blessed lucky childhood.

The way that just described it here is a big part of the essence of the secure primary therapy is really recasting your past from a more secure place and really looking at the other influences and the other people that were in your life. Even the people were things were difficult that we started the conversation. I was able to see my part in it also, and really also see other times when actually my father really loved me and gave me attention and that moment

when we were in the hotel lobby, when he threw the coin. And actually that shift is huge for our brain and he can really help us. It really changes also who we are in the here and now.

“Remember that narrative and how we create the narrative? It's richer and it's more true.”

It's more true. Yeah. And weirdly, I'm dealing with it now. It's really crazy that I can intellectually understand that and yet I do have this fear of letting that go. I know, I think it's so interwoven in my core identity that to let go of it would be threatening to my identity. And we live in the world that's really ruled by 40 in psychology, but everything is because of these things happen to us in childhood, but actually the science shows that the attachment

styles that we have is children predict less than 10% of the attachment styles that we have in the adults. Whoa. That's a huge. And a lot of what really changes our attachment style happen later. Well, that's mind blowing. It's counterintuitive and it's encouraging. Completely encouraging because you can change your attachment style and you can evolve. And that's why actually I thought that he was fair to write this book because the science shows that you can change it. Yeah,

I want to know a little bit about neural pathways. What happens when you dwell on those five, you know, for me, two terrible stepdands? I had four great teachers. Why aren't I looking at the four great topics? I should go to a brief that example because I listened. I did my homework. Such a good student. Yeah, I'm telling you. I feel he used AI, though, to scan all of them. Oh, no, I like that. No, no. He didn't really in time. It was in a 2000 hours.

No, no, actually. He was fascinating, I have to say. And I love that story of the math teacher who recognized with geometry. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We had the little blocks. And we were like, then you asked you to sort of teach it out of their students, change my life. Something that happened in a moment. Someone did something really good by my brain. He changed my brain to the different

muscle analogy not good or is it good? When we use certain thoughts that emboldened certain pathways. Oh, definitely it describes it really, really well because what happens are currently, is that our memories lie in our synapses in the structure of the synapses. Usually LTP, long-term potential is like electrophysiology that we strengthen memories. The synapses get tighter and there's more even there's acting growing in the synapses through kind of like build the

“structure. So that's why the analogy of the muscles, the actual molecules, some of them are the same”

molecules. And then when memories weaken, which is very important part because we also have to forget and forgetting is an active process in the brain and active molecular process. Synapses actually weaken. They get further apart. That's why I brought up the Hossemi's thing because people when you go to therapy, I think I have to talk about my childhood really difficult events that happened to me, but really the other new for change in the brain are through those

synapses because every interaction gives you a moment a chance to rewrite something to strengthen those

synapses or weaken those synapses. And that's basically the synaptic plasticity idea.

It's such an empowering way to look at it all because you have absolutely no sway over what happened to 30 years ago. That's done. But also I mean, you think about it, we're social species. We're not particularly strong animals. We're actually pretty weak. We live in every niche on this planet just because our ability to sort of collaborate and cooperate so well. So it doesn't really make sense that we'll say like stuck in something that happened to us really early on. What advantage is there

in that at all? It's just like it doesn't make sense to me. We need to be socially versatile. And we are extremely socially versatile. Much, much more than we give us of credit for because of that Freudian biology. You're so right. When it hits me, the mouse is I'll be watching some documentary on chimpanzees. And you know, they're probably our closest thing to look at. Oh yeah, they are. And these little babies, they get fucked up. But these animals will come through

and they'll be thrashing the jungle male. I throw 13 feet and everything. And I just have watching that and I'm like, it's curious to me that they're so resilient. They go to what we would call capital T trauma. Almost daily. Oh yeah, their lives are vicious. They still persevere, right? And I look at that and I'll go as much as I do like honoring what has happened to us. We also have forgotten how fucking resilient we are. You can't live with this many members of a group

“and not be traumatized. And that brings. So that's what good bears need to. That chapter 10”

about causality? Yes, I've circled that one. I wanted to talk about that. And you want to tell us for a man, a woman who is a child had terrible separation anxiety. But unfortunately for her, her dad had to travel a lot for business. And so whenever he would travel, she would sort of cry and really sort of hold on to his leg and like really don't go, don't go and then she would have our time falling asleep. They were trying to be sure, but he had to go for work. But they didn't

know she had separation anxiety and there's actually good treatment for separation anxiety and children. He says like 4 to 6% maybe have that. Yeah, it's very prevalent. Eventually she learned he's not going to work and I'm just going to bottle it up. They thought he was like the two was fine. In many cases, he does go away. So it wasn't unreasonable to think that. But she really kept that fear inside for many, many years and she couldn't fall asleep. She just kept the brave

face. And then when she was an adult, she had a really hard time in relationships. She would

be in a relationship, but she would always want to leave. Every day or like should I stay or

should I leave? Should I stay? And she would keep even boxes packed because no, no, no, I shouldn't pack them because I'm going to leave. And that happened in several relationships. She was afraid they were going to leave. Like she was trying to get out of it. And he's safe and like she just like, no, it doesn't feel right to me. I don't know what's going to happen here. It doesn't feel right to me. I don't know if I belong here. Is this the right thing for me or is it not the right

thing for me? And so as a someone who learned psychology and learned to do therapy, then you said, well, because as a child, even though your parents were loving and cared about you, still there was a basic experience that relationships are dangerous. Relationships are source of pain and anguish. So I'm going to be very careful. I'm going to approach this relationship. In the truth is, I would have given this explanation and I would have stood by that explanation until I became

a scientist. And once I became a scientist, I said, wait a second. When you're a scientist,

finding causality, that's the holy grail of scientific discovery. That's so hard to do. Then you want to explain the difference between correlation and causality. I think people think they're experiencing causality. We think in causality. But oftentimes, people find things actually correlate or confound the best example, because I love that example when you talked about

“how you came from a family of little means. So you have to sort of fan for yourself. And you”

have to sort of make sure that you're taking what you need. And so the best example is that Marshmallow test that has been disproven. Who did Marshmallow? Oh no, I don't know.

What? Tell me. Tell everyone. Yeah. So the Marshmallow test they took children and they put a marshmallow in front of them. And they told them, if you wait for certain time, then when we get back, you'll get two. And so the way the certain time and some kids were able to wait and got two. And some were unable to wait. You can see them like sitting on their hands, singing, trying to sort of distract themselves. And then they found that those kids who didn't have that impulse control,

then they didn't wait. They didn't fare as well. Later in life, as the kids were a better impulse control. And it was a whole theory about impulse control. And how great is the time it is. And those all of that. Lund behold, they did a larger study with a larger cohort. And they didn't find any of that effect. And not only that, they found that the original studies were confounded by socio-economic status. Oh. So of course, he would make sense. Of course,

he would come from a lower socio-economic status to jump at that much below in the evening.

“And there ain't no two coming back. Yes. Exactly. Yeah, that's why. And everybody knows that”

socio-economic status is the biggest part of it. Yes. Oh my God, they've been lying. That's this whole line. Oh my, there have been thousands of books written on the shoulders of the marshmallow. But that's the beauty of science, when I work with single mycules, I can give you a standing example. I work with mice and Applesia, much simpler animals. Even those when we think we found causality at some point they thought pkm zeta, it's like a molecule. That's their reason why we have

long-term memory. It's responsible for long-term memory. There's a big splash in science, paper, and everybody believed that and they gave this medication that inhibited pkm zeta, they could

erase memories, prevent them from happening amazing. And it's all done in mice. Very simple,

fear memory stuff. Several years later, another study came out in nature sort of science rival. It's like, no, sorry, we actually were able to knock out pkm zeta for mice. They remember perfectly well. And not only that, we gave them the medication that you thought and they don't have pkm zeta, which they thought was specific. It did disrupt their memory and that medication is not specific. It actually completely, I'll just say it in a way that will make it's more simple. It completely

“fucks up the brain. So that's why they insisted, but not exactly the same, but why it's”

brain exciting of which memories apart. Yes, exactly. Something like that. Yeah, like I we hit him in the head with a club. It connects us the memory. Exactly. So even a single molecule in simple animals is so hard to establish causality. How can I really stand behind such causal inferences? Like in mice, even if you take them, if you expose them to a bully, I don't know how long they put them there, and they beat them up. And then sometimes some of them, I think maybe 50

percent will really suffer and develop symptoms of depression anxiety. Another 50 percent will

completely like nothing happened. Right. So we don't know. That's a simple or animal in a much more controlled environment. You still don't know. My therapist actively does not like talking about the past because a lot of the evidence-based therapies really focused on the here and now. They really evidence-based therapies for depression or anxiety. And I really try to create something that will help people become more secure while focusing on the here and now, while creating these small

interactions that gives your band-in-other chance. Exactly. Stay tuned for more of our share experts. If you dare. Okay. So let's talk about secure mode and what life actually looks like daily. Oh, we didn't finish AM. What did we think about it? Oh, they did. And when I became a scientist, I was like, yeah, I mean, I can get that story and it's good, but it's not fact. I mean, you can think about it as a narrative

that can potentially help people. And I can say, you know, maybe there are echoes from the past,

“which is fine, but the truth is we can work in the here and now to really instill meaningful changes”

that will really help you. And that's what we did. Luckily, she had a very secure partner.

That's always good because that's not like the first change because they're like, I told you,

I fell in love with the security of this world because they're like having a built-in relationship coach in the relationship. It can be in friendships and romantic relationships and can be at work, can be in so many different areas of our life. So those relationships are really, really important. And then it didn't take it personally. And it's easier for secures not to take things personally because they don't sense danger. So it's like close times easier. And so yeah, I understand this

something that comes up. And so she was able to learn to open up to him and talk to him about her fears. And then slowly to unpack the boxes, all the angst that prevented her started to sort of melt away and it worked really well. But it worked in the here and now. And it really didn't depend so much on understanding the past. Yeah. But there is something to be said about recalling past events in therapy or in general with even with friends. What actually does happen

know is that from a neuroscience perspective, when we recall a memory, we to some degree disrupted. We know it in like in animal models. When they recall a memory, you can prevent a new protein synthesis, and maybe getting to technical, but that new protein synthesis in order for long to memory to resuletify a new protein synthesis. You completely erase their memories. So basically by recalling something, you disrupt the memory and you have a chance to not just create a causal connection.

I think it's actually more powerful to change the actual memory to edit it, to suit the

“mu more now, to where you're now. But that's why everyone's of memories of the same experience are”

very different. Very different. But because over time, they're thinking about it in their chain. Because of the editing constantly and can be affected by how other people talk to you about it, how you recall it, memories very vulnerable in the good way, I think. I'm with you and I am concerned about modern psychology for all the reasons we're listening. One thing I found about going through my past when I actually did real therapy starting five years ago, I guess. I was telling these

stories that I had told a million times. But in this context with this man, I do believe I was

feeling the emotions attached to those feelings that I had never let myself feel. And I feel like

I got to actually cry when I was telling the story for the first time. And I felt like I was allowing myself to experience and grieve for something I just never made space for because I thought it might have killed me. So for me, I felt like there was utility. And then I had delayed the emotional response

“to some of these things for so long. And that once I had the emotional response, they got”

smaller. I knew somehow on the other side that door was crying. And I was just not going to go there. And then once I did that part, I did feel like it liberated me to go forward. Completely. So that's the second. The first part is the sort of we editing those memories. And the second part is that when you sit together with someone that you trust and how often do we get to talk about those really difficult moments or intimate moments and recall them with someone

that you fully trust, that you have a very unique therapeutic relationship is unlike any other relationship in the world that you can open up. And they're there just to listen and to help you and to understand you. And if you feel that connection, they give you the secure base to be able to process some of the information and really change it in a way that now actually feels more secure. So that's the thing. And actually a lot of studies show that doesn't really matter so much

the modality of the treatment. You know there's CBT. There's IPT. There's all these different types of treatments, but actually it's more about the fit with the therapist. So again we come back to the attachment thing. How well do you feel that you connect with someone and how much

attachment is powerful? I like to say that attachment is both of the base of suffering and healing

“from suffering because remember the strange situation, how effective it can be in regulating our”

emotions. So we have an attachment hierarchy in our head. We all have it. And I know that something bad happens to me. I know exactly who's number one. I'm going to go to who's number two. You see you're all nodding because you know too. Yeah. I know exactly who to go to. And that's very important for our brain. And then if I'm securely attached to them most of the time, a single work from them or a sentence or even a hug will calm me down immediately. There's just no Xanax or clonopin in this

world that can be as powerful. And no wonder because it works on so many different neurotransmitters all together like opiates, oxytocene, dopamine. You name it. It works on those. And other things

that we haven't discovered yet. It's so powerful. But the opposite is also true. In secure attachments

can be the most powerful instigator of emotional distress. So attachment is the basis of both suffering and healing from suffering. And part of the reason why I wrote this book is kind of like to really try to shift people towards getting better and making things work for you better. And then being stuck in that place where you brain constantly surveying and feels that danger. So interesting. Another part of the book talks about biological diversity and hidden sparks

of talent. Please tell us about that. When you become a molecular neuroscientist, you see the normity of molecular diversity that we all possess and how different it is. And we know it because we all look a little bit different. And we all have these different abilities even in just in the way that we can flip our tongue or like even with our thing. All these different things. But also it goes way, way further than that evolution loves diversity. It's really one of the best

survival mechanisms. But we don't really fully appreciate how diverse we are in also in our talents. And not only that, oftentimes, especially people with insecure attachment, sometimes they're biggest talents. They perceive as impediment. But here, like a hidden spark of talent that someone

how it can really profoundly change your world. Those dominoes. If I'm actually good at math,

“maybe I can be good at other things. Right. And so I find that when people can learn to identify”

both theirs and other people's hidden sparks of talent, it really changes the way that they look at others and themselves. So for example, if someone is actually very, very generous, but they give to everyone. But his wife doesn't like that he gives to everyone. Be they also gives to you also a lot too. You can't just decide, oh, I want you to be generous to me. And so it'll mean to everybody else. It doesn't work that way. It's almost like a hidden spark of

talent. So when you learn to look at things that way, you say, oh, wow, actually, I see that. I don't have to resent that he gives and it gives and it gives. I'm also the recipient of that giving. So I can see that as a hidden spark of biological talent. As you said, it's a system that's scanning how available someone is. So you could misread that as a lack of availability, because they're available for other people. Yes, exactly. Now you're just like talking from

the attachment logic, because that, oh, am I being left out? scarcity. But that's where we can

really learn to transcend our biology using metacognition, basically. So metacognition,

I would think about our thoughts. So it's like, wait a second. Yeah, I mean, I have that type of effect. Am I feeling, but hey, look at, and that's where it also, it's good to have. I call that secure people in your life, the secure buddy, where, like, if you get upset, and that's what I do, like in the secure therapy. I just really, real time sometimes with text. You also do a recipient of it, and it actually doesn't take away from you. And you teach them a secure way of looking at things

that secure love is actually bound to fall and not scarce. Remember, secure relationships are not about being attached with the hip. All it needs is like a little bit more acknowledgement. So a little bit more texting. The other thing is, it's actually like, well, I wish you were here.

“Well, actually, also remember that hyper connectedness to always given opportunity if possible to”

include, oh, it's too bad you can come. Everybody talked about you. Everybody mentioned you. So there's psychological way of including people, even if they're not there. Yeah, everybody talks about you. Oh my god, everybody wants to like, how come? And then even in the middle of the dinner, hey, this food, you would have loved it. So like, you include it, even if you're not there. It's easy to do it. Yeah, I feel like just telling people you miss them is so huge. Because I'm thinking

about you. I know you're not here. I'm thinking about you. Exactly. I know lovely way to include. Yeah. Was there anything I've left out that you would want to cover? I don't know if actually,

actually, really defined. I shouldn't have done it. I always tell you, like, put myself on the

head. I should define the tattoo cells early on. Yeah. Did I define it? Just in case if you want to do it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it all has to do with how comfortable we feel with the intimacy and closeness, but also how sensitive radar we have to potential danger in your relationship. So if we have an anxious attachment style, we love closeness and intimacy, but we also have a very sensitive radar to a potential danger. If someone doesn't become available, we notice it right away.

And that can lead to thoughts of like being rejected, taking it personally. So that's the anxious attachment. And then secure attachments are people who are warm and loving and they love a lot of closeness as much as you can give them. But they're also not sensitive to danger and their relationship. So if you don't give them that much closeness, they're fine with it too. They just don't see oh my god, something is wrong. They don't like many more. No, we just goes over their head.

So that's secure attachment. And people have an avoidance attachment style. They also want relationships because we're social species, but they just don't feel too comfortable with too much closeness. They want you, but they want you for a little bit of a distance. And so they find ways of creating that distance so they can feel more comfortable. What might that look like? Because when you save the anxious attachment, I am immediately, I think we all can. You can think of like your

big friendship group. And you can think of the ones that are like really upset monitoring when they've been invited when they've not. And I mean, this is a brag, but it's like, I don't notice that, right? Like I don't notice on Instagram. It's not a bag. It's just something this group was at dinner. It doesn't even cross my mind. So to me, that's a very obvious example. So what is the avoidant one look like? I'm glad that you said that you don't notice that because

secures don't notice it oftentimes, but if they're asked to do it, they will do it. Yeah,

“have avoidance. They have a hard time with it because they have this worldview that you have to be independent.”

You have to be self-reliant. And they are to themselves. But they don't understand. We said there about 25% of the population. They don't understand that they're the minority. They're not the majority. Most people need other people to help when they're in time of need when they come to you. So when you come to them in time of need, it's like, what do you want for me to care of it? But then it actually triggers your-it's even more. It's like, no, no. Now you've become the center of

their problem. I'm coming to help and you're not helping me. They forget about the bad thing that happens to them. And now you're the bad thing that's happened to them. So they fall into these

report. You need to understand that when people come to you, they can deal with it on their own. Yeah. That's one thing. The other thing sometimes they create a lot of closeness. Well,

it's been really amazing. We can together. Everything is very intense and fun. And then comes

Monday. And they need their time. Okay. We've had enough, right? They have this idea that they can carry it forward. Like, credit. But attachment doesn't work that way. It's a radar. And so they actually disappear. They do the opposite of what they intended to do. They actually increase the change that Delta and now you actually even more what's happening while you're not answering. It feels like love bombing. Yeah. They don't understand what's happening. Yeah.

Like, why are you disappearing all of a sudden? So remember the consistency available,

“responsive, they don't even understand what's happening. Like, yeah, don't you feel filled up?”

Yeah. And then the last thing that happens is that sometimes when they get too close to quickly, they don't pay themselves because they don't like, no, I want this to happen. I want it to work now. I've looked for all these people on. It doesn't work. And now I want it to, they get very close real fast. Because I think all the other people that I met, they weren't the one. This person going to be one, I made just swoop in and going, like,

full force to make it work. But that's exactly what they don't need to do,

because the problem is not that they weren't into that person. They were into all these other people.

The problem is that there's too much closeness for comfort. And then they have these deactivated strategies. Like, oh, I don't know if I like this person. I don't like how they chew. I like these sort of all these little things that they just had toenails. Yeah. There's these deactivated strategies. They have to learn to pace themselves. And they have to learn not to get I call it the closeness overdose. Because then they're going to tell, like, no, this is

suffocating. I don't want you anymore. And then again, they create this sort of push pull. So you can teach them how to sort of engage in more carpentineies, basically. Yeah. Yeah. Did you want to say that? One of your criticisms of your own book attached would be that you didn't necessarily give the avoidant. I'm glad you're brought that up. Yeah, the avoidant group.

There's much compassion as maybe they deserve. I feel this is my, like, amends. But it's not entirely

my fault. This book, I'm, is definitely my immense to the avoidant. And not just mine. I have to say also just a research in general. Because research is also biased. And the question that people ask are biased. And I feel that in this book, I really present a much more biological explanation of avoidant. Not necessarily, you know, again, blaming the mothers like that the Europeans were not responsive to you. I don't think that's the case. And I really make it a strong case of it.

“But I really think that we presented the data, the science in the show. They have a wondering,”

"I, they don't take care of you so well if you're sick." And so we just rode it out there. But then over the years, working with avoidance. Ah, they love it at me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I just love it at me. When someone gets sick, I'm like, just go deal with it, man. I do. Yeah, we all get sick. Yeah, we all get sick. You see, but you see, but you see.

I was sick, too, but I didn't fucking bother you with it. Right, exactly, because they don't. They don't bother people. Yeah, exactly. Um, so guilty of it. What's happening, biological with me? So, biologically, I give an example in the book of C. elegance, which is like a tiny warm that you're assigned to love because they have, again, huge neurons. Yeah. So they can be manipulated and experimented on. So in C. elegance, they found that they have two types of feeding

behavior, solitary feeding behavior, and social feeding behavior. Yeah. And so they eat E. Call I. Thank God. We don't want to. I know. So when the social ones, they detect E. Call I, you see like a whole pile of worms of voracious E. Yeah. Thank you. And then eight,

“I know I'm sorry, but it's important because the solitary one, once swims in that direction,”

they swim the other way. They're chemotactically repelled by the other worms and it's a change in a single amino acid in the single protein. They can switch solitary to social and vice versa. Yeah, it's Mary. So, uh, the case that I'm trying to make is that this preference for closest in distance. A lot of it is also biologically driven. And we can see it everywhere around us, like even you can see in pets. Some people say, some dogs are like cats. They don't like to be that close.

They actually will stay away. Like, okay, I like you from a distance. Some cats will stick to you and they actually are not that separate as you would think. You can see it in birds and you can see it in people. Some people feel more comfortable than more closest. And there's a big, big, big spectrum. But if you can also focus on the hearing, now it makes these changes that it can really lead us to be insecure mode. It's a way to flourish in the world to feel safe, to not worry all the time.

It's so much so. And that's kind of like, chapter four in the book. I write about energy and the brain, because you really have to understand that the brain is a huge energy gusler. It can't really get reinforcements. It can only deal with the amount of energy that he gets. It can't increase the blood flow all of a sudden, like our muscles can or when we eat. That's not possible for the brain, because it's in case in the skull.

which is 20 percent, which is a huge amount. The brain is 2 percent, but he's taking 20

percent in the children. Even more like five-year-olds, it's like 50 percent. It's kind of crazy. And then all that you can do is you can divert energy from a one-area to the brain to the other. So if you feel safer and especially those pre-frontal areas that are we think and abstract and create these are the ones that are most energy heavy. So when you create a safer like a secure mode environment for yourself, you can free up that energy to sort of be diverted more to thinking,

like the child in this strange situation, like playing doing things. It's not just about, "Oh, this is nice to me, I don't really have to worry about what the other person is doing." It's really more about this freeze-up energy to actually achieve more. Yeah. And then the last thing, and this is now stemming from immediate defensiveness.

“Obviously, it's also, I think, tempting for us to label ourselves one thing across all domains.”

Right? So it's like, I could be avoiding, in caregiving, of an illness. And then, if you call me for AA, I've got unlimited time for you. I think that's the promising part of this whole book, our versatility and our ability to sort of like to change to understand, to accept certain things, and also knowing, so if you're not such a great person when you get sick, then why shouldn't I call someone else? No, I'm serious. Why does one person have to do everything?

All right, all right, all right. You definitely make any sense. Yeah, yeah. Okay, great.

I mean, this is awesome. Please, everyone, check out secure the revolutionary guide

to creating a secure life. This is just so encouraging and helpful. And I really appreciate it. Thanks so much for coming. Yeah, thanks. Yeah, it was fun, actually. Oh, because it was nervous about it. We enjoyed it. We came to be fun. All right, be well. We all be willing to join this episode. Unfortunately, they made some mistakes. When's mom and dad arrived? They landed like 340. Okay. Like 5, 530. L.A.X.

There's no good burbank. Mm-hmm. Which is sad. We got to expand Burbank. I know, but only tell the destinations we want. Yeah, because then it's going to become the same

“situation, which we don't. I will support an Atlanta route if you support an Nashville, right?”

Yeah, there is a Nashville. They had one flight, one time to Atlanta at a Burbank. The single flight in the history. Yes, Cali and I took it home for Christmas. Was it air came or? No, it's Delta. Yeah, and it was like a lot of years ago. They tried it. I guess they decided it. I'm not going to call them out, but I am going to say what is really weird is how much these airlines jockey for quality. Like, if I go back 15 years ago, what I would have listed is

like the best quality airline. Like the cleanest most up-to-date everything. That is shuffle dramatically. And I don't really understand that. I want to know what forces make these ones that were kind of good, just tumble. Yeah. I guess it's management. Like, I'll just say someone at Delta has turned that thing into a real wonderful airline. It's a great air. But I used to have to fly it nonstop.

They absorb Northwest. Right. And I always had to fly Northwest because that was Detroit. It was a hub

for Northwest. Basically, the Northwest love to fly anywhere where you might get a snowed-in and have to get a hotel room. Yeah. But, you know, it was just, it wasn't, you know, whatever. Well, Delta probably is they took in. They're like, we're making it good. I just want to tip my hand to them. They're not as fun though. I want to tip my hand. They have really up to their game,

“I think. They're not a sponsor, but they are my preferred airline,”

except we did fly Emirates to India and that. That was nice. Really nice. Really, really nice. Are you excited about anything? It's a very exciting time for me. Oh, go ahead. MotoGP returned last weekend. So we had our first race of the year after four months lay off. Informing the ones been gone for three and a half months. They've been in their winter break. Right. Right. That returns this weekend. Oh. So I have, I'm coming out of my

three or four months fast of racing and I'm pretty excited about it. That's fun. Knowing that you don't have something like this, right? Where it's multiple events over the course of a weekend. And I may or may not partake in all of them, but just knowing if I wanted there's a lot of stuff on Friday. I could check you with Saturdays a big day. And then, of course, the race on Sunday. Yeah. That is the power of having something to look forward to.

Is Jackie. Yes. That's huge. Speaking of that, we really dropped the ball on the Olympics this year.

And you know, I read a thing that it was the most viewed Olympics in like 16 years or something.

“What? I was a little shocked to see that no, it was a hugely successful and watched Olympics.”

I'm surprised by that, too, because I don't, not because I wasn't interested, but because no one I knew was talking about it at all. And even on podcasts and stuff, I wasn't like hearing about it. I tried, right? I was in Miami when they kicked off. Aaron and I were excited to consume some Olympics and do some napping while we did that. Because it's good napping material. Because there's a lot of downtime. It's like someone does a run and you hear, let's talk a

way for scores, whatever. And so when I, this is terrible, the admit. But when I checked in, I was having this feeling of like, because I was watching on YouTube TV, right? So I can see every single thing that's happening. It's all there. And I'm like, did they take some events out of the winter Olympics? Like, what is it? I like, I like snowboarding, aka Sean White. I loved watching him perform every year. That was an exciting thing. But I'm watching, like, the first

thing I watched was people across country skiing for like three hours. Yeah, I was like, I don't know. And then another one was like, they were kind of across country skiing, but there's a little bit of downhill. It's like, still not very hair-raising. And that was like, what is my, I don't know.

I've got confused. And then I just never went back. Sure. I like ice skating. Right. A lot.

But I can't even forgot about ice skating. I'm skating is the main one and not for me. Yeah. I did watch a couple clips. And there was a whole story about this Olympian who was in the Olympics, maybe a couple of Olympics ago. And then she was really, really young and was mistreated. And I was like, you know what? I'm like, not doing this anymore. She'll light back into her own hands. Yeah. Good personal story. Yeah. And then she's back on her own, like, you know,

with two feet on the ice, yes, and she won. Oh, great. And it's like, great. And normally, I'd be so into all of that, but yeah. I don't know what happened. I don't either. But I was, I was saddened that I wasn't interested in it. Hockey was fun this year. There we go, Rob.

“Thanks. Yeah. That's what I should have been watching. Hockey was men and women, US one.”

Yeah. That's right. I did hear about that. Boys and girls in over time. The first time

US beat Canada since the 1980s. And like, I take away everything. I just said, well, no, you can't, you can't take away that you didn't care. I'm like, either did I. And I don't know why. My critique would have been to start day one with some more exciting stuff than the cross country thing for three hours, maybe. But I bet there are people who are riveted by cross country skiing. Of course, there there are. And there's people that watch the walk, the competitive walking.

Yeah, there's people. This is a lid for every pot. Yeah. I forgot to tell you the other day that something weird happened. I almost got in another person's car. Oh, tell me. It was strange. I was leaving a place with Jess. It was at night and I bad eyes. And I was a little sick. I don't know if that is anything to do with it. But we're walking and I start to get in his car and he was like, that's not mine. And I was like, oh, silly me. Yeah, silly me. And then

I'm walking up further and you know, there's his car with the light, like he had unflashing the light. Yeah, he had unlocked it. So the lights come on. And so like, go to get in the car. And then there's a man standing there. And he says, that's my car. And I was like, oh, oh, oh my god, I'm so sorry. And I was already over two wrong cars. Yeah, I look over and Jess is across the street. You're on the wrong side of the street, Monica? Well, we were both on the wrong side. And then

in that interim time when I saw the flashing lights and thought that was his, he had crossed. Were you tipsy? I, it was not that. It was really not that. I, I was so, and I was like, what's going on?

“Yeah, because I, you lost me at wrong side of the street. Well, I think like you should have”

your bearings of what side of the street you guys parked on. I get, I mean, I'm not very good at that. I don't know. We were both walking on that side for a while, like down the sidewalk. And then he just crossed in the middle. Uh-huh. Where the car was. I guess. No, no, this, he dropped me off to get in line. Okay. See, I knew there was an explanation. I mean, you didn't remember what

just FYI. I'm not going to directions. I'm not paying that much attention. If I'm not driving.

Right. Right. Um, but he did drop me off to get in line. So I did not muscle memory, no, where the car was parked, that type of thing. Well, that explains that. Yeah, but it was, otherwise you're in strokeville. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Well, anyway, the man, it's just, he was right there. And he was like, um, that's my car. I was like, oh my god. I'm so sorry. Your car at the side. Nice. Nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And he's a wash. Is that what you were thinking? Nope. Okay. It really needs a wash. I just thought, look, these two hands some cars. Yeah. Great. Very beautiful car. What are your plans

with mom and dad? Yeah. My parents are coming today. I'm doing a tour of the rape treatment center.

It's not funny. Okay. Well, you're laughing pretty hard. It's not. I'm not just for the record. It's not funny at all. Right. But I am, I had planned to do that for a while. Okay. And I was like, oh, I can't cancel it. Like, that's from one bad. Yeah. And two, I want to do it. And the, but it's like, I don't know that my parents, that might not be for them. Yeah. I don't know. It's like a fun neuroambocation. Let's go to the rape treatment center. Right. Yeah. I don't.

“And is it psychological treatment? That's what they're offering or”

no, they offer, visit. Like, it's like, yeah. Like, it's kind of like instead of going to a hospital. You can go to the rape treatment center. Oh, great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And get your exam. And there is like psychological resources and legal resources and things. And it's a really cool thing. So I, I'm going to do that. But I think I'll probably leave them at home for that. Yeah. Let them, you know, lounge around the house a little bit. Yeah. Maybe that's when I'll take

your dad out for a beer and ask him about his previous girlfriends. I forgot my objective for this trip. So I know about past lovers for your parents. Right. That I was going to ask them. Yeah. They're dating history. I'm not sure. We're going to have time for that. Yeah. So I think that's really, we're just going to like be. They're very, very excited to see the house and stay in the house. Because normally my apartment was so small. You know,

they, they said in a hotel and they came to visit. And they would just come in and get ready and

“you'll leave to go somewhere. Yeah. Exactly. Now your mom can watch her YouTube. Should she will?”

Yeah. She will watch you. I wonder what she's, uh, what she's got her bangs into right now. I wonder, I mean, is there any trials going on there? I mean, I'm sure she is very knowledgeable on everything that's going on with Epstein. Sure, sure, sure, sure. So that's probably the main, the main thing she's consuming right now would be my guess. But I don't really know. I will find out. And yeah, and they'll get to like go make their coffees and stuff and it'll be really nice.

It'll be really nice to have them. I did my final walk through the apartment today to turn it back over. Yeah. Was that experience like, um, it was good. I mean, it was good. It was sad. It's sad to say buy to something and the chapter. Yeah. It was also weird because empty and I haven't seen it like that since I got it. Oh, yeah. Like, I remember going to see it and Lincoln came with me, I remember. For the first walk through. Yeah, to go check it out. Um, and that was a long time ago. I thought,

I know you already know this, but I was sad to leave our old house. Yeah. And I thought I was going

to be really sad. And then we laughed and I never thought about it again. I've been shocked with the

fact that I don't think about it at all. Yeah. Because it held a very, it's like the epicenter of some of my favorite memories and experiences. Yeah. I have such warm feelings about it, but I don't at all miss it. And I thought I was going to. But don't you think that's kind of in keeping with my personality? Yeah. Um, because like same thing with relationships, like you still have an affinity you let you like love the time and the people, but you're not like an act. You're not like missing

them. I mean, you've told me that. Maybe that's incorrect. But we'll elaborate. Give me an example. Uh, I guess that's just something you've told me that like you don't yearn for any past relationship that it's like, I don't yearn to be romanticly at all. To be with them, romantically involved with any

“of my exes, but I still love being friends with them. Yeah. That's what I just said. You still love the”

people that you're seeing that when I walk away that they're dead to me. And I don't everything you know, but that you, you still have an affinity and a fondness. And there's like all these positive associations that you, you love them as people. But yeah, you're not like, oh, I want to see

I was always saying this in reference to a lot of people have a pattern of hooking up with

exes, right, which is great. I don't care about. I'm not suggesting I have a moral position on it. No, no. I just have not had that. I've not had a pattern of hooking up with my ex girlfriends. Yeah. That part to me when we sever has doctors. Yes. The romantic part. But the friendship part and the missing them and wanting to connect with them for sure. I still have that. Like I'll randomly carry my girlfriend in high schools with for like five years.

She will, she knows what we've seen. I love the same kind of music.

She'll find a new album. She'll send it to me. Yeah. And I love it. And then we'll have like seven

exchanges about it. Then I go, oh, carries still so fun. And so engaged in devouring life and finding new things. And I'm proud of her. She's maintained the essence of who she was when I met her that I found. So appealing about her. Yeah. And then I'll talk to Bri and she's on fire for innumerable things. Like I've said innumerable, which is questionable. Maybe it's your new word. I hope not. And I get this swell of excitement that she is still held on to that spark.

Yeah. And but that's different. You like that's different than what I've been what a lot of people feel like that there's. But I do have what you're saying about objects, which kind of shocks me because I have coveted objects so much my whole life. And then when I don't have them, I don't think about them anymore. Right. Which is a little shocking to me because I wanted them so bad or I coveted them so bad. And then when they're gone, I'm like, and I don't even really

“remember that I cared about objects. That house is a big, big object. It is. And it's like it's it's”

symbolic. It's a marker of your life and in your accomplishments. Yeah. And it can represent so much. It does. And then I see videos of the kids playing in that little area we had between the kitchen and the living room. Yeah. That was like their zone. Yeah. And I go, oh yeah, I love sitting on the couch and watching them be little babies. Yeah. But I don't need to walk back in there. That's the weird part. Yeah. It wasn't like, it was like devastated. But I was like, yeah,

this is like the end of the era. And that's a chapter that's happy and sad. Yeah. Just when new things started, it's like, yeah, there's no going back. Like there's no, it's just, it's just a reminder that like time keeps moving. And you can't pause it. You can't go back. And that's, you know, we have a guest today after this fact check whose book is about consciousness. Yeah. And so I'm really locked into this book and thinking about life and consciousness.

And yeah, many of the experts that he interviewed for this book tried to explain that like thought is

“there was a traditional way of thinking, which is like a Renée Descartes, which is like, I think”

therefore I am in thoughts are one thought built to top another and it's kind of one thing leads to another. And there's other people who think more like it's a stream. There's no marker of this

thought led to this thought. There's just this. And you'll never have the same thought or consciousness

ever again is a fascinating thing. And it's what you're saying. It's like life's moving forward. And it's taking with it everything that preceded it. And so it can't ever be the same because more things are preceding it. And the way we rewrite memories every time we think of them, yeah. Like your brains evolving nonstop, your experience is evolving nonstop. And that can feel scary and maybe untethered. But it is the nature and facts of life and I think the discomforts

“when you're fighting that. Right. I think it's it's you can feel untethered, but you're also just”

reminded of mortality. It's like, oh yeah, like that phases over. Now I'm in this phase. There'll be another. How many more do I have? Not very who know. We know the ultimate phase. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So, but and then sort of ding ding ding, with relationships, probably like people who do hook up with their exes and stuff. Like it's probably more about that. Like wanting to go back in time as opposed to like a missed this person. I mean,

I miss that time of my life. And that person is connected to that time. So, I want to like,

“click into that. Yeah. And I think, yes, that's the Esther thing, which I think is like,”

people are cheating on you with themselves. They want to visit a version of themselves from the past. Yeah. But I think the easy cycle to get into with going back to exes is with some time away when you come back, you can revisit the initial easy uncomplicated phase of it. And that is very pleasurable, but the complications arise immediately after. Yeah. But I think you succumb to the joy of getting to relive the part that was easy, the falling and love part.

Yeah. And then I just think quickly it ends up exactly what it always is. Yeah.

And I think that's the cycle that's appealing. It's like, oh, I want to go back to the original moment. All right. We fell in love and it was so easy and. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Complicated.

“Complicated. Um, should we do some facts? Stay tuned for more our share expert. If you're there.”

Okay. A mirror attachment. Had you read this book? I mean, this book was wildly popular. So popular. I'm not read it. I just heard so much about it. You have. And I looked into the theories and stuff. I wasn't aware of the book. I was aware that people were talking about attachment

theory a lot. Yeah. But I just assume that's in the same way people are talking about ADHD or

whatever that was just the thing we were obsessed with. It was like I see, but I didn't realize it was just a specific origin for it. Yeah. I find it very intriguing. You do. Yeah. Yeah. I talked about it. Yeah. I found myself talking about it a bit. It's just interesting that we all do have ways of relating to others that are kind of predictable, well-worn. I thought the thing that I was most interested in is a love anything that's counterintuitive, which is your attachment styles of

child has nothing to do with your attachment styles and at all. Yeah. You would, I would have thought it just lied into your permanent, may set this attachment style. Totally. Yes. Yeah. I thought that too. It made me think about a couple people in my life that have very secure attachments. Uh-huh. And I was like, huh. Yeah. They don't, they're not threatened. They're totally good. Yeah. I'm taking stuff personal. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty admirable. Yeah. Okay. Now, he told the story of his dad,

like, you know, throwing the penny or the coin when the president was in town. Oh, uh-huh. Now, I was trying to figure out which president it was. And I can't figure out a mirror's age. That's not known on the internet. I didn't, I couldn't, I didn't see it on the internet. Maybe raw, maybe you'll see it. But I didn't see it. So my guess is going to be it was in the 90s. Yeah. No public information. Uh-oh. How on earth could you be alive as an error of the internet and your

“age not be known? Is he 50 around there? I think. Because there's a mirror Levine born in April”

22nd 1975. So he, he would have probably been talking about Reagan or Carter. If it was in the 80s, but it was in the 90s could have been Clinton. But he would have been more teenager. Right. Versus a little boy. Yeah. I couldn't tell exactly his age. I mean, I guess he was small enough that he was a little anxious. Uh-huh. Harder visited in 79. So four years old. Yeah, four years old if he was born in 75. Maybe. Maybe. Clinton started his visits in 94. Where was he visiting?

Uh, Israel. Oh, Israel. The 1980s saw high level diplomatic tension, particularly under Reagan with key meetings occurring in DC rather than Israel. Oh. So maybe he didn't really go there. Right. I'm sure Carter went there. Yeah. He was the great in 79. Yeah. He went to a bunch of places. Presidents hadn't gone on and on. Right. He's known for that. I'm Georgia. I'm peanut farmer. Yep. This has no U.S. President made an official state visit to Israel during the 1980s.

It's a Carter 79 and then Clinton in 94. Oh boy. Big gap 14 years. Yeah. We're going to go with Carter. We're sticking with Carter. That's our final guess. Yep. Um, primates middle of the food chain. Primates generally occupy the middle of the food chain acting as both consumers of plants in sex and as prey or larger predators. I wanted to figure out top of the food chain.

predators and other search. Apex predators are at the top of the food chain. It's first thing

“it says. Okay. Yeah. So in Africa, that continent, I think it's the lion. And then in the subcontinent,”

India, I think it's the tiger. In fact, I think it's the tiger through all of Asia. Okay. And into Russia except for the polar bear in the Arctic, I think, is the apex predator. And then I think in the Americas, it's the grizzly bear. Okay. Okay. Although we also polar bears in the Americas, but so this and then in South America, I would say it's the Jaguar. All right. Well, this is apex predators are at the top of the food chain acting as a highest

tropic level, tropic level, tropic level with no natural predators. In various ecosystems,

these include lions, tigers, polar bears, orcas, and great white sharks. Humans are also considered

top predators capable of affecting or being the absolute peak of many food chains. Now, this also breaks it down by environment. Land, lions, tigers, wolves, polar bears, and grizzly bears. Grizzlies, ocean, orcas, great white sharks, and leopard seals. Air, bald eagles, golden eagles, and other large raptors. Yeah, raptors. I love raptors. Reptiles, saltwater crocodiles, and commodo dragons. Oh, I guess I will let some live.

I just have nasty commodo. Oh, come on, mollo. He loves their stinky mouths. Oh, I guess you can smell him from a quite a distance, just commodo the night. Foul, bacterial latent jaws become poison. Speaking of that, have you noticed that there's like somebody in your life who has not good breath? Mm-hmm. As we've discussed, I'm very sensitive, hyper-sensitive. Same. Bad breath. But it's like, it's bad, but it's not like, it's not objectively offensive. Yeah.

And so it's like, I kind of think I'm the only one who notices this. And it's an unexpected person.

I'm not going to say hey. Okay, great. I don't think anyone else thinks this. I've never been

no one's ever said it. Except about it. Exactly. No one's ever said anything to me, alluding to the fact that that's the case. Yeah. And, um, but yet, it is repetitive for me. It's rough. I mean, I had a friend who I could suck on in the movies with. I couldn't just sitting next to them at the movies, all I could smell was their breath. And I just was like, I can't do it. I blame me, but I couldn't. I know. And I just wonder though, if it's fair amounts,

“I, why can't you guys smell what I'm smelling? I think, obviously, we all smell different things.”

It was, were sensitive to different odors. I mean, again, I see people who are in relationships with people who I think have wretched breath. And I think, well, they can't smell it. Right. There's no way. I know. Because they're kissing and loving and right. No. Yeah. I don't think or they're just not sensitive to smell. Period. Yeah. Because I just think like, I just can't get to deal with regularly. I'm the same. Yeah. But I just wonder also if it's actually more

is breath actually. I mean, maybe there's, there's obviously halitosis. There's some objective stuff, but maybe the rest of it is just fair amounts. Well, I also think there's certain medical conditions that give you kind of a predictable outcome. And I'm going to leave it at that. Well, yeah. I just, I, I just, I was, I was somewhere and I had already thought it and then I was happy again. What kind of activities you do with the person? Because certain things

were it's not an issue. Yeah. And there are others where, like, again, the movies, you're sitting like, your, your mouths and noses are, or, but 18 inches apart. Right. And so that might be a non-starter.

“Like, I love this person, but I'm just not going to go to movies with them. That's what that was my decision.”

Yeah. That's interesting. I am. And then there's also, there's the case two or someone's, they have that. And then they also tend to talk close in your constantly trying to keep your distance. And then you wonder if it's obvious. I think the only one I'm un-sympathetic to or unforgiving of is, um, I think when you're a dentist, you've got to be on it, like, no one's ever been on their breath. Yes, we've talked about this because they're in your nose. They work in your nose.

But they normally, they often, the hygienic, often, if you do a goddamn thing. If you shift breath and you got a little paper between there, forget it. That's enough. You know, I have your friend wear a mask. Just make up a reason why it's cute if they wear a mask. And see, you're still going to smell it. It's not that strong. That's the thing. It's not like you're making a mouth out of a molehill.

And I don't think they have, which has just led me to believe, oh, this is something like fair

immonal. It's meat. You're like, it's meat. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's, well, it's again, it's possible. Well, it's not me. It's the way I, it's the way, yeah, my nose perceives. Yeah, I'm smelling an odor here that other people don't smell. In which case, I'm saying it to you.

“Well, right. I mean, like you're the anomaly. I'm the anomaly. I think, yeah. Yeah. But I don't actually know,”

maybe I'm not. Maybe you could ask her out. I could ask her out. It feels really to do that. Oh, man, I, I couldn't feel worse for someone who just can't help it. I mean, my God, I, I really feel terrible. It's also because it's a specific, it is a specific smell. A note. Yeah, it's a note. So I know, in that case, it is, it is, it is a little fair immonal because it's not like, oh, this person ate something just like going to go or something like, it's not like a hot dog.

They smell like their body. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. It's very interesting. You should ask if you can smell their armpits and their groin. This is a system everywhere. Oh, I mean, this is a, this is a very, this, do you think people with better, they're more secure attachments, files don't smell so much? Maybe. Maybe. I think everything just ticks up. Sure. When you were listening to all

this stuff, did you self-assass as being any part of this spectrum? Oh, yeah, we talked about it in the, in the episode. I definitely feel like I have an anxious attachment. And you were saying you felt like you did lean a little avoidance. Oh, when I was young, but the more I read about it,

“I was like, I think I'm secure attachment. I think that's what I felt in general after learning all about”

the thing. Yeah. But then I thought, oh, no, I, I used to be avoided. And then I think you can, yeah, you can change. Yeah. Just like this stuff, I don't take personal. Like again, back to like the Instagram, so all this kind of stuff that drives people nuts. Right. I know that just, I don't even think about. Yeah. We're getting invited to things or all that kind of stuff. I don't. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we can find out. Is there a test? Yes. I know I can count on my friends to be there

for me if I'm going through a rough time. And we got our normals. A great, strong, a great, neutral, disagree, strongly disagree. Strongly agree. I sometimes feel like I'm not good enough for my loved ones. Strongly disagree. I feel uncomfortable with my friends or family act like they were lie on me. Hmm. What's the middle? Neutral. Yeah. And then there's disagree and agree. And then strongly. I would say neutral. Okay. Again, that has evolved. Right. I used to feel burdened by that.

Yeah. And now I feel lucky as much as I feel burdened. So that puts me at neutral. Okay. I always

make the first move, but usually become disinterested after I get what I want. I disagree. disagree. Yeah. I know I can be my true self in relationships. Once I have enough time to get comfortable. 100%. I sometimes hold back on relationships because I feel that if I share too much about myself, it might get hurt. I wish strongly disagree. I tend to worry that my loved ones don't love me as much as I love them. Strongly disagree. I consider myself a good friend and a good

partner. Strongly agree. I stay away from long term relationships. I've had nothing but long term relationships. So strongly disagree. Okay. Being alone sometimes scares me. Strongly disagree. Although you know, I did I experience great boredom last week being alone on a Saturday night.

Oh. As I had to Christmas doing to play and Lincoln had a play day. So first I was like, cool.

I have my whole night to myself. And then I watched like three episodes of fallout in a row and I was like, I want to be with somebody. I was like, I'm bored with just myself watching this show. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, I am I am tragically social. Yeah. It hit me. I like going out with friends and family, but I still value my personal time and space. I mean, I prefer being out with people than I do by myself, but I'm not afraid to be myself. I don't know. What does that mean? You do value

“your personal time and space. You're always like, why are there so many people here? Why?”

Oh, space. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So. So is that mean? I agree. I think you agree. Okay. I agree. I don't like relying on others and that way I avoid getting disappointed. Oh, agree. I find it. You know what? Strongly agree. Uh oh. Yeah. I got to be honest. I think it's too late. Okay. That's fine. I find it difficult to express love even when I feel it. Strongly disagree. I prefer casual flings and serious relationships. This way. I avoid arguments

with my partners, friends or family to avoid the chance of losing them. Strongly disagree. Sometimes I want to be completely alone and then suddenly change to feeling like I need around

relationship for fear of being rejected. Strongly disagree. My friends and family often tell me that

“they feel like they don't really know me. Oh, never. Strongly disagree. If my partner went on a trip”

without me, I'd miss them, but would ultimately be happy that they're having fun. Strongly agree.

A big portion of my self-esteem and self-worth comes from my relationships with other people. Oh, strongly agree. Sometimes when I feel like I'm getting too close to someone I get scared to start pushing them away. Strongly disagree. I feel bad when my loved ones do things without inviting me. I trust that the people I love want what's best for me. The people that love me. I trust that the people I love want what's best for me. I agree. I much prefer being alone,

but I'll attend social engagements if I'm required to. disagree. Even when things get tough, I feel confident that my partner will support me and will work through challenges together. Strongly agree. I often find myself over analyzing interactions with my partner, wondering if they truly understand my feelings and intentions. disagree. Sometimes I push people

away when they get too close even though deep down a crave connection and intimacy. Strongly disagree.

“It's hard for me to relax in relationships because I'm always worrying about whether my loved ones”

truly care about me. Strongly disagree. I prefer to keep my emotions to myself believing that vulnerability only leads to unnecessary complications and potential disappointment. I'm kind of neutral on that one. I enjoy spending time with my friends and family knowing that we can share both good times and bad times with each other. Strongly agree. Truly funny to answer these questions in my mind because I have like two different families, which one are we talking about? Are we talking about the

family I created or the one I was born in? Right. I feel uncomfortable when people get too emotionally close to me. I value my independence and personal space. Promotionally dependent on me? That was part of the question. I feel uncomfortable when people get too emotionally close to me. I value my independence. I disagree. Knowing that I have a strong support system of friends and family gives me the confidence to tackle life's challenges with optimism

and resilience. I agree. I worry that if I show vulnerability or express my needs in relationships, I'll end up being rejected or abandoned. I go neutral. I appreciate the balance between independence and closeness in my relationships, allowing me to pursue my own interests while still feeling connected to others. Strongly agree. I often find myself feeling anxious about the state of my relationships constantly seeking reassurance from my partner or friends to alleviate my doubts.

Strongly disagree. I prefer to handle my problems on my own rather than relying on others for support or advice. I agree. Make these ties, yeah. My mind often races with thoughts about potential conflicts or misunderstandings in my relationships, making it difficult to fully enjoy moments of connection without worrying about the future. Strongly disagree. When I face challenges, I feel reassured knowing that my friends will offer their support and encouragement

without judgment. Neutral. I tend to seek constant validation from my friends and romantic partners to reassure myself of their love and commitment. Well, that's a tricky one because I definitely like endless validation, but it's not to reassure myself that they like me. So I'm going to go neutral. I just enjoy validation. I tend to downplay the importance of romantic relationships in my life focusing instead of my individual goals and interests. disagree. Despite craving intimacy and

connection, I struggle to fully trust others and often find myself holding back at a fear of being hurt or abandoned. Strongly disagree. I value the mutual trust and respect my relationships, which allows me to be my authentic self without fear of rejection. Strongly agree. Benning quality time with loved ones fills me with a sense of warmth and security knowing that we have each other's backs no matter what. Strongly agree. I have a tendency to push people away

when they try to get close to me fearing that allowing them in will only lead to disappointment or betrayal. Strongly disagree. Despite my efforts, I struggle to shake up the feeling of insecurity that lingers in my mind questioning whether I'm truly valued or and loved by those closest to me. disagree. I find it challenging to open up to others about my innermost thoughts and feelings preferring to maintain a sense of distance to protect myself from potential rejection.

disagree. The fear of rejection or betrayal sometimes prevents me from fully investing in relationships, leaving me feeling stuck in a cycle of longing for connection while Simon simultaneously fearing it. Strongly disagree. Independence is important to me and I prioritize maintaining autonomy in my relationships often avoiding becoming too reliant on others for emotional support or validation. agree. I have to pay. I'm going to do it.

Don't do it. It's 195. Just a one-off. Third trick that was smart. They let you do the whole

time. I know. That's a feel betrayed. Is it his website? I don't think so. Oh no. American Express is not supported. Yeah, a bit people. Shit. I have to get another my other card. Wow. Yeah, we have to

“know. I think we know. You don't think we know. Okay. Oh, secure. Your attachment style is secure.”

Secondary fearful. The secure attachment style serves as the bedrock for healthy and fulfilling relationships characterized by strong sense of trust, emotional security and a balance to approach about intimacy and independence. Individuals with the secure attachment style of typically experience consistent and responsive caregiving during their early years fostering a foundational

myself assessment was right. That's right. Years goes 57.5% secure. 18.2% fearful. 16.7% dismissive

“7.6% preoccupied. Okay. Interesting. Interesting. Well, that was fun. Who did the marshmallow test”

Walter Michel? There's another one I've been repeating. Finding out that the marshmallow test isn't

real. Yeah. I mean, it's a real test, but the conclusions are. That's right. Yeah. Boy, it's incredible

“to think how much work has been built on the shoulders of that. I know. That's not right. Scary a little”

bit. The human brain consumes roughly 20% of the body's total resting energy. About 260 to 300 calories per day

despite representing only 2% of body weight. Oh, that's it. That's it. Yes. Well, I enjoyed them here. Me too. Well, die with a great mystery of how old he is. Yeah. Um. Yeah. Me was great. Love you. Love you.