Developing Trust & Secure Attachment In Adulthood

Episode 98           

How do we begin to develop secure attachment with God and others in adulthood when we have struggled so long with insecurity about our loveableness?

In this episode I break this question down from the perspective of interior integration and share some practical steps you can take.

This episode is part of a series taken from my 30 Day Instagram Live Challenge where I went on live video to speak about different aspects of the interior journey every day for 30 days straight.

Watch this recording on YouTube.

Follow me on my Instagram account @animann for more material on the integration journey and subscribe to my monthly reflections on Begin Again.

CHAPTER MARKERS
(00:00:17) - Introduction
(00:08:25) - What is Secure Attachment?
(00:10:53) - Why we have Trust Issues
(00:16:31) - Three Relationships
(00:18:28) - Attune To
(00:24:40) - Trauma Aware
(00:25:39) - Feeling Safe
(00:29:00) - Secure Attachement with God
(00:36:56) - Conclusion

TRANSCRIPT
Available here.

REFLECTION PROMPT
Read up more on secure attachment and trauma awareness. Are you aware of your attachment style? Do you recognise the wounds and trauma within yourself that need healing? Consider how you are feeling now. Think about a resource such a counsellor or spiritual director, that may help you in the current season you are in.

Transcript

EPISODE 98 | DEVELOPING TRUST & SECURE ATTACHMENT IN ADULTHOOD
 
A lot of us are at different levels of experiencing trauma, right? Being traumatized. Again, I'm talking about the small T kind of trauma. I'm talking about complex trauma. Many of us live with that kind of trauma in our bodies and our nervous systems. So, we don't feel safe.

[00:00:17] INTRODUCTION

Welcome to Becoming Me, your podcast companion and coach in your journey to a more integrated and authentic self. I am your host, Ann Yeong, and I'm here to help you grow in self-discovery and wholeness. If you long to live a more authentic and integrated life and would like to hear honest insights about the rewards and challenges of this journey, then take a deep breath, relax, and listen on to Becoming Me. 

[00:00:54] Good morning! Okay, today is day 23 of my 30 days of IG Live Challenge and this morning I'll be talking about developing trust and secure attachment in adulthood. I just want to thank those of you who have been sending in questions and such real and raw questions. I love them. I love them because that's what this interior journey is about, right?

[00:01:23] It's down in the nitty gritty stuff. And because you're asking such great questions, I am able to speak on these themes in a way that would be a lot more concrete than if I didn't have a question to speak to. It's a little harder for me to just kind of like talk about things.

[00:01:43] Okay, so, I'm going to share. Okay, these are actually - I had questions from two different people, but it's related to the same thing, the same topic of trust. Okay, so, the first question was, "I'm curious. How did you build trust in God? Did you have issues with trust too?" Yes, I had issues with trust.

[00:02:08] So, that was the first question. You know, how did I build trust in God and did I have issues with trust too? 

[00:02:15] The second question is a little longer because I asked for context and I want to honour the context of this particular person who asked the question. So, I'm going to just read her question and also the context.

[00:02:30] And I invite you to listen because I know there are actually a lot of us who share similar experiences, okay, even if not in the exact same details. So, this second person, she wrote in and she said, "I'm not sure if I may have missed out on the episodes, but I'm wondering if there's an episode on how to develop secure attachment in adulthood.

[00:02:52] Would you mind if you can direct me to that resource if it already exists? Otherwise, this is a burning question I have for you. Okay, how to develop secured attachment in adulthood?" So, then I asked her if she was able to give me a bit of context in what she means or why she's asking this question. And here is what she shared:

[00:03:17] I recalled your sharing on feeling abandoned and alone, even in the midst of during one of my teenage birthday celebration. I think this is referring to one of my podcast episodes, but my 15th birthday, I believe. And I was among friends, we went out, and I just felt so alone. And she says, I can resonate with that as I always have such feelings on my birthdays, even up to this point when I'm already a grown-up adult in mid-30's.

[00:03:49] I looked back at my family of origin and realized that the environment I grew up in had been a chaotic one, where I had to struggle because of my parents’ financial woes, and I didn't really have, or I didn't really had anyone to look up to. Also, I didn't really know how to manage my emotions back then, and I was often misunderstood as, you know, an emo kid having mood swings.

[00:04:20] " Thankfully", she says, "as I grew up, I have more resources, and therefore, finally I'm able to experience some stability. However, I still often feel like there is a missing hole in me, which I don't seem to be able to fill. I am a Christian. And I know that God should be my secure base, but it is hard to do that, and I don't know where to begin from".

[00:04:48] Okay, that sense of, I feel like there's a missing hole in me. I don't know whether you know, for the person who's asking this question, if you also heard me share that before, I believe in some of my previous episodes, I talked about - it really felt like that for me as well.

[00:05:01] Like there is this, Hole inside me, this bottomless pit, I think I used to call it. Bottomless pit that just can never seem to be filled, no matter how many experiences of connection I felt like I had, okay? And so, I'm with you on that and I totally know what you mean and how it feels like to know that "God should be my secure base". But how do I do that? And I don't know where to begin.

[00:05:25] And she continues to say, I have a social group of friends. But I always do not feel safe enough to talk at an emotional level, even when I have a closer friend and/or a church community, where I naturally expected more from them. But I'm often disappointed by their inconsistencies. And this further reinforced, I guess the belief or the experience that no one is reliable and I have no one I can develop a secure attachment with. And so, she goes on to say - and this is the context in which she's asking her question, you know. So, she wants to know how might she develop secure attachment in adulthood when in so many of life's experiences, no one's reliable, right?

[00:06:08] Even your better friends or close friends, even your church community. Okay, so, this is a very good question. It's a very deep and very real question. So, I'm going to try and speak to this succinctly and also framing it in a way that may be easier for you to receive. Okay, not just the person who asked this question, but to anyone who may be watching this video or the replay of this video, who resonate with the experience of this person, who shared so vulnerably.

[00:06:40] Okay, first with a caveat. This question of how can I develop secure attachment in adulthood or how can I develop trust in God, it can be answered from different perspectives and it will be answered differently by different people. So, I just want to say, the context in which I'm answering, right, would be different from, let's say, if you speak to a professional, for example, a therapist or a specialist in attachment, in attachment issues or relationship issues. How they will answer this question would be different, from how I'm going to answer it.

[00:07:11] And it also will be different from, let's say, if you maybe spoke to a spiritual director and ask, how can I develop trust in God? Because there are many different dimensions and layers to this question. There are different ways that it can be approached from. And over time, I think it's helpful - I found it helpful to actually look at it from the different perspectives because it always looks a little different and they all contribute to our growing understanding of what an attached, what a secure attachment is and how to build that, all right.

[00:07:43] So, I believe you're not asking me as a subject matter expert on secure attachment because that's not who I am. But that you're asking me as someone who has struggled with this myself, who has learned and tried to practice and grown in secure attachment.

[00:07:59] So, you want to kind of have a sense of what is it like from the experience of growing in secure attachment. How did it happen? How can maybe you do it? So, what I'm sharing is kind of like my distilled and synthesized lived experience of developing trust and secure attachment in adulthood, okay. Plus, it is through the lens of the interior journey because that's always the context I'm speaking in.

[00:08:25] WHAT IS SECURE ATTACHMENT?
So, first, for those who may not be familiar with the term secure attachment, what is this secure attachment? It's talking about an attachment style, the sense of security that a person has in entering relationships, for example. So, someone with a secure attachment style, someone who is securely attached, tends to be able to be close to others, can develop true intimacy in relationships with others, but are also comfortable being alone. Okay, so, comfortable coming close to another, but comfortable being alone.

[00:09:00] They usually have a clear sense of who they are, not just who they are in relationships, but who they are as a separate person, as their own person. They have a lower fear or low fear of abandonment and of being unloved.

[00:09:15] So, those of us who always struggle with this sense of being abandoned, this fear of abandonment, this fear of being unlovable and unloved, what we have is we would tend to be insecure attachment styles. So, it's different from a secure attachment, right? But it's not a zero-one thing. We can grow in at in secure attachment, okay?

[00:09:37] And so, those with the secure attachment style also tends to be able to go through conflict with lower anxiety because there is a confidence in that security in a relationship, right, that even if there's a disagreement, even if currently we are working through some issues, it may be uncomfortable and unhappy, but at the heart of it, at the base of it, I'm not ridden with anxiety that I will lose this relationship or that this is something about how worthy or lovable I am.

[00:10:09] If I am securely attached, even in disagreement and even in conflict, I have a secure sense of who I am and I can have a secure sense, a sense of security, even in the relationship, if this is a good, securely attached relationship. Alright, so, there's a higher degree of trust. Secure attachment tends to be correlated with a high degree of trust.

[00:10:34] So, we know that's not our usual experience, right? And the first person, the first question that I shared earlier, ask me if I had trust issues? And yes, of course, I did. I still do. I think although I'm a lot more secure now, right? But when I get triggered, I mean, the underlying wounds are still there.

[00:10:53] WHY WE HAVE TRUST ISSUES
They're not fully, fully healed. So, I want to talk a little bit about why is it that we have trust issues? So, usually it's because we've never experienced since our earliest days, since our childhood, what it's like to be securely attached to someone. So, many of us have relationships with our parents, our caregivers, that didn't give us sufficient stability and emotional attunement.

[00:11:20] Okay, so, these are a little bit technical terms. I won't be able to explain them very much, but you can look them up. Okay, there's plenty of literature out there that explains what emotional attunement is, what this sense of a secure attachment with a caregiver is. Okay, so, but many of us, we didn't get what was needed when we were babies, when we were a child, even in when we were, I guess, even in our early teens, for example.

[00:11:48] we would have felt emotionally abandoned, having to deal with confusing emotions on our own, with maybe no one, no adult, no safe adult to look up to, to model for us what it's like to hold our emotions safely, to be able to regulate our emotions. Right, so, that contributes to us having insecure attachment styles.

[00:12:12] So, what happens is Our body as well, and our nervous system, the norm that we know is not one of safety. So, actually it's very hard for us, when we're very insecurely attached all along, to even have a sense of what secure attachment would be like because we don't know what it feels like. Like, literally not just emotions wise I’m saying we don't know how it feels like in the body. Our nervous system is maybe actually more used to always being hypervigilant, always scanning other people's emotions, always trying to figure out, am I in this person's good books or am I getting into trouble?

[00:12:49] Think of all the relationships that you may have been in, whether it's with peers or with elders or with somebody in authority over you, how often did you feel that you could be exactly who you are, that you'll be received exactly who you are, that you are loved no matter what? If that's not what you've experienced, then you wouldn't really have experienced what it's like to be in a secure attachment, right.

[00:13:16] Now, we grow up - and I'm saying we, especially those of us who grew up in Singapore - grew up in such a high stress environment. After our preschool days and then you go to school or preschool and then you go into primary school. There is so much competition. There is so much competition to excel, to do well academically.

[00:13:37] Otherwise, you'll be left behind. Now, that's also environment that doesn't make us feel safe and secure. Oftentimes, we may, we also experience our relationship with - so, our peers could be as competitors. This is especially the case, I think, if you went to really good, better schools where the competition for top grades is really fierce. 

[00:14:00] It's the same, I think, for different kinds of schools, it's just the nature of the competition may be different, right? But there's always this sense that your worth, your value, it's tied to how well you can perform and you may experience that from your teachers, from your parents, from relatives, other adults around you.

[00:14:19] And then even at work, let's say you've already left. After we left school, we graduated, at work. It's so often, it's a bit like eat or be eaten. There's only one person maybe can have that promotion. You're in, again, in competition, right? There's a fight for limited resources. Generally, collectively, I think we are often very disconnected from our internal states.

[00:14:43] A lot of us are at different levels of experiencing trauma, right? Being traumatized. Again, I'm talking about the small T kind of trauma. I'm talking about complex trauma. Many of us live with that kind of trauma in our bodies, in our bodies and our nervous systems. So, we don't feel safe.

[00:15:01] So, all of us collectively, we are often in a high stress situation, our bodies, our nervous systems are in a high stress situation. Most of us are disconnected from our inner selves. This is a systemic, societal kind of reality, okay? It permeates our families, it permeates our schools, our workplaces, our communities, even our churches and our faith communities and faith spaces, okay?

[00:15:29] This is a fact. And that is why, like the question or the sharing I read out earlier from the person who asked the question, we often experience that even in our church communities or even with our closer friends, they are not reliable, right? These relationships are not as safe as we wish or want them to be.

[00:15:49] Because, in general, this sense of disconnectedness, this sense of inability to be present, is everywhere. Okay, this is the general environment that we are in. So, given that this is the reality that we live in, how might we begin to develop secure attachment as an adult? If as a kid, and as a young person, we never experienced what it's like to develop secure attachment, then now as an adult, continuing to live in environments where there is threat, there's a sense of scarcity.

[00:16:22] And that this is true, whether it's in family or at work, or even in our communities and among our friends. How do we develop secure attachment?

[00:16:31] THREE RELATIONSHIPS
Okay, so, this is where I go into - this is the perspective that I want to share, okay? When we talk about secure attachment, it's important to think of kind of like three relationships in which we can be securely attached and ultimately, we need to be securely attached.

[00:16:45] Okay, there is a relationship with God, speaking in the context of someone who is a Christian, who's a disciple, right? We want or need a secure attachment with God. So, the person who asked me both of the questions, actually both persons had talked about finding it difficult to trust God. How do you develop trust in God?

[00:17:06] That is actually a question basically on how can I develop secure attachment with God. Okay, and then there is the element of course we know with neighbour, with other people. So, with our friends, our family members, our faith communities, whatever. How do I develop secure attachment with them?

[00:17:22] And then this is often the very neglected part. There is, how can I develop secure attachment with myself? And actually, all three are very important. They're all necessary. and the development of a secure attachment with myself is actually very, very key to Develop secure attachment with God and with neighbour.

[00:17:42] They're all kind of interlinked It's kind of hard to say what comes first. I'm going to you will understand as I talk a little further. But when we talk about the interior journey and interior integration the focus is more on the relationship with myself and with God, that’s what's happening Inside in our interior lives.

[00:17:58] Okay, but it impacts our relationship with our neighbours. A lot of times we only think of, we're only paying attention to our relationship with our neighbours, right? We struggle with conflict, with inability to love people, or the fact that we feel poorly loved by others, or that we love people poorly. But to be able to develop and expand the capacity to love another person, really, we need to develop that secure attachment with God and with ourselves, okay?

[00:18:28] ATTUNE TO
So, I'm glancing over at my notes here. I want to make sure I cover the points that I wanted to share. Okay, so, the interior life focus on the relationship with God and myself. But here's the interesting and tricky thing about secure attachment. In order to develop secure attachment with God, as well as with myself, I also need an experience or need the experience of being attuned to - okay, attuned to having someone else, another person Be with me, hold me, be with me in my overwhelming emotions. So, those of us who are coming from very wounded places, we know our emotions are overwhelming, our sense of loneliness and neediness and unlovable-ness.

[00:19:11] It's just so much, too much for us to bear, right? We need to have the experience of someone else being able to hear us share all these fears and not push us and be able to allow us to then experience sitting with our own emotions, all these emotions without being overwhelmed. So, we need to be attuned to by another person in order to develop our ability to attune to ourselves.

[00:19:34] Okay, so, we are flesh and blood, right? We're not just spiritual beings. I mean, spiritual in the sense of it's not just the spirit, it's we're flesh and blood. So, we do need the real presence of another nervous system, another person offering that to us. Then that's a tricky thing. Like we've already established that the reality is, it's very hard to find someone who is integrated enough, healed enough, to offer that kind of relationship with us in our own immediate circles.

[00:20:07] So, my experience in terms of this growth, who were the other human beings that gave me experiences of being attuned to so that I can begin to be comfortable listening to myself.

[00:20:22] Actually, especially early on in the journey for me, really, they were my, it was my spiritual director. I mean, I've had a few different spiritual directors over the years, but I had good spiritual directors, very fortunately, who were able to be very present to me in the sessions that I had with them, whom I felt safe with.

[00:20:43] I could share what was going on, my fears, my sense of despair, hopelessness, shame, and they were not fussed, okay, as in like, they were not scandalized. They were not - They were calm. You know, they could receive me, they could laugh together with me, they could empathize with me. So, in that sense they could attune to me, right?

[00:21:06] So, over the years, these, these experiences when I share something that is very vulnerable that I felt was very overwhelming, but it was not met with Criticism, it wasn't met with judgment, it wasn't met with shaming. I began to experience an ability to be able to be with myself with these emotions.

[00:21:30] Because in the past, before I had these experiences of being held and attuned to, I didn't know how to be with these feelings and emotions myself. I couldn't attune to myself, right? So, it started with having someone else, and for me, the earlier stage, they were often my spiritual directors, who were able to play that role for me.

[00:21:52] Okay, and then eventually also counsellors, the counsellor that I had, and then now the therapist that I have. Now, spiritual directors and counsellors and therapists, they're not the natural partners in your own social world, right? In your own world. They are not family members. They are not your friends.

[00:22:12] They are not your people in your faith community. Alright ,I'm just saying that, in my own lived experience, it was these individuals who also had training in being, in attuning to people and who also, I think Were at a certain level at least they had a professional competency, but they were also grounded enough to be able to hold me in these situations.

[00:22:35] Now, these are very controlled interactions, right? When you see a spiritual director and when you see a counsellor, a therapist, it's just like for an hour and outside of that time, I'm not interacting with them socially. I actually think it's ideal that way to have some professional boundary. So, you may think maybe is that really ideal?

[00:22:54] I don't have that actual experience of secure attachment or attunement in my real life. Well, here's the thing. My experience is that having these regular short, controlled experiences where it is really you've experienced attunement, is much better than trying to find that kind of attunement in your daily life with interactions that are ridden already with insecurities and all kinds of conflicts of interest. 

[00:23:25] Okay, especially at the start. This is why I am a very firm believer that if you want to grow in the interior life, you want to move within the interior life, you really need to seek these kinds of interactions, okay, in individual spiritual direction and in counselling or therapy at some point, okay? Because they deal with different depths and different dimensions of our relationship with ourself and with God. But these controlled interactions with someone who knows what they're doing, in terms of listening to us, attuning to us, and also inviting us, sometimes, in concrete ways to stretch ourself, based on where we are because they can tell where we are.

[00:24:09] This is a very key part of Developing the ability to have secure attachment in adulthood Okay, so, that's the first thing that I wanted to say, but I also want to caveat that not all Professionals or not all people in these kind of helping professions, whether it's some spiritual direction or counselling or therapist or clergy or religious, you know, whoever it is that we sometimes assume by default, they should be safe people.

[00:24:40] TRAUMA AWARE
They're not necessarily. and just because somebody has a certificate or has a degree doesn't necessarily mean that they're trauma aware or trauma informed. I know those are new terms. Go ahead and look them up. What does it mean to be trauma aware? Being trauma aware, I think is something that's very precious. It means usually that people are sensitive to our stories and the fact that the wounds in our stories, they allow us to show up in our mess and they are sensitive not to react or respond to us in ways that will re traumatize us.

[00:25:17] Again, in my experience, even if someone is not officially trained in trauma, if they are very attuned to themselves and with God already, if they have reached a certain level of integration and groundedness, they tend to be naturally, in a sense, trauma aware. They tend to be naturally sensitive to your story and have an ability to hold your story.

[00:25:39] FEELING SAFE
Okay, so, just a caveat there, though. If you don't feel safe with someone, even if it's someone that you feel like you should feel safe with, give yourself that slack and maybe consider trying someone else. But at the same time, it takes some time to build trust, okay. So, for me as well, usually you need a few sessions with, when you're starting out trying out with, let's say, a new spiritual director or a new counsellor to kind of like test how it sits. How's the chemistry? Do you feel safe with this person? Do you feel like this person can hold your story?

[00:26:12] Go slow, don’t push yourself and don't force yourself and pray. Really ask the Lord to send you or bring you to the right persons, right? Whether it's professional or not Okay, so, that's the first thing.

[00:26:26] I think it's something that anybody can pray for and maybe try and connect with, like a spiritual director or a counsellor. For me, the other person in my life that I was able to develop a secure attachment with and who was very instrumental in developing the secure attachment with is my husband, is henry. And I think I shared a bit of our story in one of the earlier 30-day Challenge on loneliness and marriage and singlehood. So, I won't repeat myself here. I'm very fortunate that I have a spouse who is also intentionally making this interior journey.

[00:27:04] We both started out, of course, wanting to love each other and then finding that we loved each other poorly. Fortunately, quite early on, we also realized that our capacity and ability to love one another depended a lot on our own secure attachment with God and with ourself. So, a lot of our focus had been also in supporting one another, develop that secure attachment with ourselves and with God, and then expanding that space to be with one another, to accept one another.

[00:27:37] The thing that we really practiced, no matter how imperfectly we tried to practice, was being unconditionally loving of one another, of trying to accept the other even when they disappointed us, the other person disappointed us. Alright, so, the reason I didn't share about my husband as the first person is because I know it's also rare for a spouse to be someone that we can develop that secure attachment with.

[00:28:06] I mean, ideally, we all want our spouse, those of us with spouses, to be that person. But I know in practice, many people who are married do not experience that in their marriage. But even if your spouse is not someone that you can practice a secure attachment with, like I mentioned, you know, you can find a spiritual director, you can find a counsellor.

[00:28:28] Or among your friends, if there is someone that you may not feel entirely safe with, but to the extent that you feel safe to, you can experience a little bit, okay, of that kind of relating to someone or trusting someone. But I'm not going to say too much about that because in my experience as well, when we don't have a secure attachment with ourselves yet, other relationships, it's really hard for us to really be okay, to really be secure in that.

[00:29:00] SECURE ATTACHMENT WITH GOD
All right, so, apart from having the other human being that is necessary as part of this journey for us to feel what it's like to be held in our emotions, the other person I would say that's very - Okay, not that person. So, the other two parties. Okay, so, with God. With God, I would say no matter how insecurely attached you are with Him currently, be honest, be bold, just love, just love Him as you can and let yourself be loved by Him as much as you are able to.

[00:29:34] Okay, God is truly safe, even when we can't experience that safety. And what I can say, what I can share is that He is a lot safer, or a lot bigger than we usually think He is. And there is nothing you can say to Him that will offend Him, really. So, if you don't have that belief yet, fully in yourself, to be able to trust God that way, you can borrow a bit of my belief, my experience, He's always been there.

[00:30:02] He always has been bigger than the trust that I have in him. And being very honest with him about my fear of losing His love, just even in prayer, whatever. Say it as much as you need to. This is one person that will never get tired of you ranting or crying, you know, or saying whatever you need to say.

[00:30:24] And we need that experience of being heard. And we can actually experience that with God. Just keep doing that in prayer. And then you can experience attunement there. And over time, over time you may find that you're also becoming more securely attached to God.

[00:30:38] Okay, now the last bit, not the least important, but it's just that you started with other people and God, is the relationship with yourself.

[00:30:46] And so this is where, you know, inner healing, especially - I'm not just talking about spiritual inner healing, where people lay hands or people are praying over you. Sure, that can help and that's what a lot of people in faith context they think of when they hear the word, the term inner healing.

[00:31:03] But I want to say, really, you need to establish that relationship with yourself. So, things like inner child healing, which I've talked about quite at length in my podcast. There's a whole series there. Or like internal family systems, you know, these kind of resources about repairing our own fractured relationship with ourself.

[00:31:27] That is very helpful. I would say that's actually very necessary to develop a more secure relationship with ourself. And this is often the reason we feel like there's this gaping hole in us, that bottomless pit, that hole in us that feels so hollow, we don't know where to begin to build our trust with God.

[00:31:47] It's actually because we have no relationship with ourself, okay. And when we begin to reestablish that relationship with our inner self, with the fragmented parts of ourself, when we begin to be more integrated again, you will find that, Oh, that it's not so hollow anymore. It doesn't feel so hollow anymore.

[00:32:07] Okay, so, at least in my lived experience, that sense of hollowness and emptiness, It continues to exist even when I was beginning with even when I already had a relationship with God even when I knew He loved me not just cognitively, began to have actual experiences of Him loving me. I couldn't really receive all that love into my body because I was not in touch with myself.

[00:32:32] Okay, so, that became the barrier, the limiting factor for me to continue to really develop trust in God in that relationship with God. And even with others, of course, is that I wasn't in touch with myself. So, you need to look at developing that relationship with yourself. So, you may wonder, okay, and that's a lot, where do I begin?

[00:32:56] I always say we begin where we are. And don't do it alone, okay? So, especially whether it's relationship with God or relationship with self, please get help. If looking for somebody else, looking for a spiritual director is too much of a stretch or looking for a counsellor, therapist is too much of a stretch, you can start reading first about these issues, about these topics that I've kind of like mentioned to understand.

[00:33:22] But really, we all need guidance and a more longer term, consistent way of being held being encouraged. I don't want to say just being held, I don't want to use the word accountable because I think it's been really overused and it can feel like a sense of being policed or forced to carry something through. And that's a very bad thing when, when we're talking about traumatised individuals, okay?

[00:33:48] When we are people trying to, recovering from that pain. Usually, any sense of that I have to, I need to, I should do because I committed to it. It can actually re-traumatize us. It can make us feel even worse. So, we need to be very gentle with ourselves. Look, it's messy and it's going to take time. So, what's more helpful is take the step that you're able to take right now.

[00:34:14] Okay, so, if you're comfortable reading more about it, go read more about it. listen to more podcasts like mine or like others. There are plenty of other podcasts that talk about relationship with ourselves, integrating or healing our relationship with ourselves or with God or about attachment. Focus though, I would say on the relationship with self and with God more than information about relationship with others, because you need that base interiorly to actually have the capacity to build with others.

[00:34:44] If you're someone on the other hand, who already has really been going for regular spiritual direction for a long time and still feel that you know that hollowness you still haven't found that secure attachment. Maybe you need to look at more specific Support and help on the mental and emotional side.

[00:35:04] So, look at counselling, look at therapy Because a lot of times our spiritual directors, that's not their training. That's not the focus of their relationship, okay. But they generally are aware that this component is very important for you to grow spiritually as well. So, that other side if let's say you have been going for counselling already You've been going for spiritual direction already and you still feel like I’m not making that kind of progress, I would say one, Consider if the people that you're with, let's say a spiritual director or your counsellor, are still the right persons to be journeying with you at this point.

[00:35:43] My experience again, at different seasons of our journey, at different stages of our journey, we need different kinds of things. And if you're a sticking, if you've been staying with the same spiritual director or the same counsellor for years and years, and even though you feel like you haven't been continuing to integrate and grow and heal, it might be an indication that What you need is not something that they can provide for you and consider praying and asking the Lord, bring it into prayer and discernment if you're meant to look for someone else, okay, or maybe there's something else that is needed in this season. Yeah, I think that is what I have to share for now up to this point on this topic of how can I develop secure attachment in adulthood?

[00:36:30] That's quite a lot of stuff that I shared already. Really, I hope that you found it helpful I've given you something to think about. If you have any clarification questions that you want me to address, please feel free to send me a direct message. All right, so, thank you all. And I’ll be back again tomorrow for day 24. Bye!

[00:36:56] CONCLUSION
Thank you for listening to Becoming Me. The most important thing about making this journey is to keep taking steps in the right direction. No matter how small those steps might be, no matter where you might be in your life right now, it is always possible to begin. The world would be a poorer place without you becoming more fully alive.

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