Call Me Limbo
Call Me Limbo is your weekly dose of comedic therapy where pop culture and politics get tossed in a blender with personal stories, improv games, and zero chill. Hosted by Dai and David—two queer best friends with more opinions than filter—the show tackles everything from reality TV and music videos to capitalist hellscapes and Bad Bunny’s underwear.
It’s entertainment with a little revolution on the side.
Sometimes you’ll laugh until you cry. Sometimes you’ll cry until you’re organizing a union. Either way, we’re here for the drama, the joy, and the work of building a better world—with jokes. Always with jokes.
We believe the personal is political, but also… pop culture is too damn fun to ignore. So whether you’re here for the Disney Channel wand impressions or a fiery takedown of billionaires—welcome. You’ve found your people because when they go low.....we go lower. So, Call Me Limbo!
Call Me Limbo
Call Me Securely Attached: Eli Harwood on Secure Relationships in an Anxious World
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Attachment styles shape how we date, argue, grieve, and show up in the world, but most of us were never taught how they actually work.
In this episode, Dai and David sit down with Eli Harwood (The Attachment Nerd) to break down attachment theory, secure relationships, and why dating is inherently vulnerable. We explore how anxious and avoidant patterns show up in modern relationships, and how to move toward secure attachment without pretending the world isn’t on fire.
We also dive into the “attention machine” and its impact on mental health, how to stay informed without becoming emotionally dysregulated, and why denial is such a common coping mechanism in uncertain times. From parenting to politics, grief to community care, Eli makes the case that secure attachment isn’t just personal; it’s cultural.
If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by dating, doomscrolling, or trying to stay engaged without burning out, this conversation connects personal healing to societal change.
Secure relationships don’t happen by accident.
They’re built intentionally.
Go follow Eli on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube!
Check out all the awesome resources on the Attachment Nerd website!
And remember: When they go low… we go lower. So, “Call Me Limbo!”
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Hello, and welcome back to another episode of your favorite podcast. It's your boy Day. And I'm David, and together we are Call Me Limbo. Today we are creating conversations and we are creating secure attachments today. Um, we have an incredibly special guest. She is someone who I've known for several years now. And I was like, I'm gonna read her actual bio, but I wanted to share a little story. I met Eli Harwood. You might know her as the attachment nerd online when I was working for my cousin and her husband several years ago. And she was in the process of writing her first book, Securely Attached. And now she's written four books. I think when I had just met you two, you had maybe around 200 followers on Instagram. Now you have 800,000 followers. And so I was like, I have just loved like watching your journey and your come up. I was like, just personally. And so I was like, I just wanted to like, I said today, I was like, we're doing Valentine's Day. It's the month of love, it's the month of attachment. What better way to start this month than talking about attachment with someone who is an expert and someone who I also really, really respect and admire. So that now that my personal editorial is out of the way, Eli Harwood, known to many as the attachment nerd, is a licensed therapist, author, and educator who translates attachment science into practical, real life tools. With more than 17 years of clinical experience, she has helped thousands of people process relational trauma and move towards secure patterns of connection in their families, partnerships, and communities. Eli has authored multiple best-selling resources on attachment and parenting, blending neuroscience, clinical wisdom, and everyday strategies. She's the co-owner and co-director of the Past Center and Attachment Labs, organizations dedicated to making evidence-based care accessible to diverse families. She previously served on faculty at the Denver Family Institute, where she taught trauma treatment from a systemic, attachment-informed perspective. Her teaching now reaches a global community of more than one million caregivers through videos, courses, workshops, and live events. Audiences describe her voice as I'm an audience member here too. Audience, this this audience member describes her voice as warm, direct, and free of jargon, like a trusted therapist and friend rolled into one. Whether in print, online, or on stage, Eli's core message remains the same: connection over control, repair over perfection. She holds a BA from the University of Colorado and an MA in counseling psychology from the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology and is a licensed professional counselor here in Colorado. Eli lives in Colorado with her partner, three children, one cat, and a frankly extravagant number of plants. She's also, I'm adding this, the host of the How to Deal podcasts. And she always is wearing amazing earrings. And she's using her platform to advocate for vulnerable members of our society. So please welcome Eli Harwood, the attachment nerd, to Call Me Limbo.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. Thank you. I'm so excited to see you. I was like, I haven't talked to you in several years. And so I was like, I'm just giddy. You're so thank you. I am curious if we could just kind of start out by talking about like, what is attachment? What is attachment? What are the different types of attachment? And then like, why are you focused on secure attachment?
SPEAKER_00Okay. So attachment is an instinct inside of human beings and it's inside of other mammals as well. But it's an instinct to form close relationships with our caregivers when we're young as a way to survive, but also later on in our life as a way of thriving. So we we know we're relational creatures. That's an easy way to put it. And it and the attachment dynamic is the specific way that we relate to the people we are closest to, you know, which might be your sweetheart in adulthood. It might be a bestie, but it's the, it's like my people people, right? It's who do you cry until you slobber everywhere with? Who are you real with about life? Who do you go to and seek refuge, emotional refuge with? Um, and we all do that in different ways, but who are your people? Those are your attachment relationships. And the research on attachment has basically said not all attachment dynamics are the same, which is like a big duh. Everybody knows that, right? If I was to say, like, I'm gonna make you cry, and then we're gonna invite different people in the room while you're crying, you would instinctively have feelings about who's coming in and out of the room because you would have a sense of the quality of those attachment dynamics. You know, the people who can really show up for you with compassion and understanding and care, and the people who might get awkward and uncomfortable or might shame you or humiliate you. You know, there's a whole range of things. So I am particularly obsessed with secure attachment because that's the ideal. That's what we all are wired for, that we long for, and we have all of this research that says that makes a very big difference in our mental health, our physical health, our social health, and our longevity. So we want those relationships where I'm close to you and it feels secure. Our closeness feels secure together.
SPEAKER_02I love that because so I was telling David that my feed right now has been inundated with attachment styles. So I jokingly say that prior to losing my partner, I was very avoidant attachment. And then now I'm in this like weird place of anxious attachment, working my way to try to become secure attachment. But secure attachment while trying to date has been so I get nothing but friends with questions or friends sending me videos about how to become more secure or how to deal if one partner is this and the other partner is that. So your arrival is very timely. So I'm very excited.
SPEAKER_00Well, let me say something. Dating people is inherently like the process of finding a partner is inherently vulnerable and there are going to be a lot of insecure feelings that come up. That doesn't necessarily mean you are utilizing an insecure attachment pattern. So if you are out in the world trying to go, are you my person? Are you my person? Are you my person? And you are feeling like nervous, that doesn't mean you're insecurely attached. It means this is vulnerable. It is vulnerable to reach for and want love from people that you don't know very well yet. That's vulnerable. The attachment patterns are really about within a relationship dynamic. And this is important to remember because sometimes the internet reduces things to sound bites, right? And the soundbite is kind of like, you know, which smurf are you? You know, are you the anxious smurf? I'm already taking that buzzfeed quiz.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00And I think it's helpful to understand that attachment shifts based on who you're related to. So you could have a relationship that really brings out an anxious or preoccupied pattern inside of you because the person that you're with is very avoidant. And so that activates that dynamic in you. But you can have a totally different relationship where the other person is more preoccupied and that activates some avoidance in you. So you're not just one smurf. You can experience the skills and strengths of the different smurfs depending on who you're relating to. And all of the attachment patterns are coping mechanisms. And what's interesting is if you grow up in a family, so we first have our first attachment patterns are formed in relationship to our parents. And depending on how you came out in that lottery, you might have had an instinct for secure attachment because you had caregivers that were warm and responsive, but you might have learned to be avoidant because the people in your home could not handle feelings. Um, or a mix of all of that. You know, like sometimes parents are really good at the baby stage. Um, and then you get to be a teenager and you start to have a sexuality and you start to have feelings, and then the that whole dynamic just blows up. So you might have in your little attachment knapsack, who says knapsack? Backpack, you might have some sense of security from earlier years, but there might have been some woundedness because of what happened as you grew and developed. It's messy. The key is am I reaching for people when I need them? And am I receiving the care that they offer me when they're offering it? And is that dynamic between me and them reciprocal enough for that to feel good? So I reach, they respond, they reach, I respond. They reach, I respond, they receive. That's sort of the three R's reach, respond, receive. And, you know, there's a lot of nuance into why someone's maybe good at one part and not at the other. And that's we don't have quite enough time for me to tell you all the things about the attachment research. But that's that's kind of the basic, right? So we our goal is not just to become secure in how we relate to our sweethearts and to our besties and to our partners, but also to um seek out and find people who can give us that secure response as well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I really like that. I you know, this is something that that I've been doing with the work that I am doing in therapy around like seeking out secure relationships with others. And I was like, what's funny is like I have them. Like I've had relationships. I have many of my friends are over a decade long. Day and I have known each other for 11 or 12 years now. And so I was like, and like many of my friends are multiple decades long. And so I was like allowing myself to recognize that I have secure relationships in my life. It was like the common theme in many of my therapy sessions is kind of having some might say an overly secure relationship with myself. And so, but I was like, but I always know that I can come back home. I always know that it can come back to me and I and I feel really good in that. Something that I think is is really cool about you, Eli, too, is that like you you have really, through, through your work and your videos on on Instagram and your books, like have really helped to sort of like reparent my inner child. And I think that's like really beautiful. And like some one of the videos that you made on online that you posted a few days ago was about how and why to talk to your kids about like what ICE is doing and like why that is important and how to do it. And I think back to how I had to have the conversation with my seven-year-old niece when she was seven about school intruders or like the school shootings, because no one else in my family was talking about it, willing or able to. And I said to her, I said, you know, I said, you know how we practice for fires, you know how we practice for tornadoes. And I said, that hasn't happened. And I said, I also like have to practice, have had to practice for like an intruder drill. And I said, I also get very scared thinking about that. Like I, these are big feelings, even for big people.
SPEAKER_05Yes.
SPEAKER_01And like I I also get scared because it was like, what I was talking about again, I was talking about this with my therapist earlier today about this like immigrant family that I've been working with who has a court case coming up. And I was like, I would understand if they didn't skip it. But like also I understand, like, I'm also a I'm also like listed as a like a person who knows where they are. And I was like, I don't want to tell the government where I am, where that, where they actually are. And so like, it's like thinking about like, I'm I'm so happy to know that you're having these conversations with your kids. And I also am curious too, like, how do we have these conversations and why should we have these conversations with other adults as well?
SPEAKER_00Well, let's just name that we are facing an unprecedented in our lifetimes. I don't, I don't think that it is unprecedented across the history of the United States of America, but um a um resurgence uh around what I would describe as abuse and violence and a and a and a normalizing of um, in particular, targeting our vulnerable communities. So, you know, right now I think we're with with ICE, we're really seeing that around our immigrant communities, but we're also seeing that around our GLD GLBTQ communities, specifically the trans community. I mean, they've really put a target on the trans community. Um, I think women, you know, there's all this stuff that's going around about like, sorry, my cat is in the room. So if anyone's hearing bells, it's not Santa.
SPEAKER_01My cat enters the room every once in a while, too.
SPEAKER_00It's Henrietta. She's here. Anyway. Henry Henrietta. Yeah, the the target, the targeting of vulnerable groups, you know, there's been a neglecting of vulnerable groups for a very, very long time. There has always been the presence of racism, sexism, homophobia, all that stuff has been around and it has had life and power to it, but it has gotten a resurgence. And so I think that I want to name that what I'm going to talk about us doing is not, you know, it's not like, oh, here's the simple formula. Like this is really effed up complicated stuff. Um, and we the re there's several reasons we need to talk about it. Abuse thrives when we don't name it, because abuse lives in convoluted stories, distorted stories, right? So the distorted stories that the trans community is trying to ruin gender and humanity and looking to eliminate, you know, whatever, or the gay community is trying to eliminate marriage. The, you know, the distortion is that the immigrant community is here because they're criminals that want to, you know, rape and murder people. Those are distorted narratives. And they're narratives that are used to justify what is actually happening, which is people who are very, very, very, very greedy and corrupt wanting more power and control in the world. And that's a story that we've seen throughout all of human history. Um, so if we don't say anything, we never interrupt the distorted story. And I think if we don't tell our children about what's happening, one, we leave them vulnerable to hearing about those distorted stories. And because the thing about distorted stories is they make sense if you don't understand what's really happening.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Like I'm scared about people trying to come into my country to rape and murder me. That's scary. Oh my gosh. And I'm not saying that there aren't criminal people that try to cross borders. Of course there are, but that is not the primary person who's crossing the border. Um, and so when we talk to our kids and we say, hey, I want you to know what's happening right now. There are a group of people who have been hired by the government, who are working for the federal government, who are currently wearing masks, they aren't wearing uniforms, they aren't being held accountable, and they are going around and they are trying to pull people off the street and they're targeting people who are brown and black, they're targeting, targeting people who don't speak English. And they're doing that because they are causing a scene, they are causing a disruption in order to distract from some other things that are happening.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02You know, call it out.
SPEAKER_00So, and and not and not just that. You know, power grabs. Uh, you know, I mean, Trump is outwardly saying things like, you know, some people really feel some people like a dictator. What the what is happening right now? Only the people who think that that dictator is going to eliminate discomfort in their lives and propel them into some bizarre, grandiose version of dominance that they think they want or need. Like, no real person wants a dictator. Anyway. So we have to talk about it to disrupt the false narrative, but we also have to talk about it to show our kids we can handle it. And I think when you were talking about your niece, your sense was none of these grown-ups can handle this. Because it is very hard to handle the reality that we have school shootings a like profound plethora of school shootings. Like, and as a parent, you have to send your kid to school and be like, hopefully, not my school today, not my kid. So I understand why the grown-ups freeze around this, but Mr. Rogers says what is mentionable is manageable. And if we can't mention it, how are we gonna manage it? And I think that, you know, my kids are going to school with kids who are living in this ice reality. And even though my kids are white and they don't have, they currently aren't being targeted, I mean, I'm a pretty obvious liberal. I'm guessing I'm gonna be on the list real soon.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00And so they will be at risk too. And I don't, I don't want to be someone that only participates when I'm on the list. I want to be someone that participates because any human being or any human right is on the chopping block when it does not need to be. I think I needed to get that out.
SPEAKER_05Thank you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we always, it's the running joke that we're always on a list, like that we've been on a list for a while. So we're both gay, so it's like that right there, but then so but yeah, both pretty radical.
SPEAKER_00We just hope that we get shipped to the same facility is the thing. And then we'll yeah.
SPEAKER_02Because it would be so boring. It'd be so boring not to have fun. You gotta, if you're gonna be there, we gotta have fun and cause a little bit of good trouble. So I agree with you. I think what I love about what you said though is the fact that you do recognize that the the uncomfortability or even just the fact that as a collective, there's a lot of dysregulating because we're dealing with so many things that many of us have not had to experience on a visceral level. Yeah, you read your books. Unfortunately, we are learning that we're reading, but what we're reading isn't always really rooted in the truth about our history. So I guess after you think about the idea of having to talk about it with kids, my question would then be: how can people stay politically engaged without constantly dysregulating their nervous system?
SPEAKER_00Oh, okay. I'm gonna give advice I have not figured out how to follow yet.
SPEAKER_02Okay, we love that. That's the best advice.
SPEAKER_00It's aspirational. It's aspirational. Okay, here's some aspirational advice. I read this online and I wish I knew who who said it, but I actually have no idea who said it. But they said, stay informed, not immersed. Right? Okay, so I don't know how to do it, but I I have thought I've been thinking about it because I think the the attention machine right now is a very, very, very um powerful machine that keeps our eyes on content, which keeps money in the pockets of the very people that we're talking about disrupting human rights and social justice. So, you know, if you're gonna get online, get online thoughtfully. You know, don't get on, like, don't just eat what's served to you. Make a list of the people you want to learn from. What are the news outlets, news sources? Um, I mean, I think for most of us, we get our news in social media these days. So, you know, who do you trust? Who are you listening to that you really want to serve that stuff up? Don't just open that page and start getting sucked in and don't look for it like this. If you can't, if you're listening online, you don't see me, I'm doing the scroll mechanism. But look for it, look for what you're looking for by going to that search butt button and searching that, you know, person that you want to learn from. Um, and set time limits on your attention. And, you know, I think like let's talk about watching the Renee Good video or the Alex Pre video, and this is true for the George Floyd video. Like if you need to watch so that you can see with your own eyes so that it is easier to believe yourself in the midst of all of the misinformation. Watch. But watch it once.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00Don't watch it 1700 times. Don't watch every commentary on the video. Don't flood your nervous system with the graphic violence of a person's life being taken from them. Um, murder. Don't do that to yourself. Again, I'm telling you, I'm giving you advice I haven't figured out how to follow.
SPEAKER_02That's okay. We workshop on this podcast. That's great. This is good.
SPEAKER_00But I know that that's true. I know that's true as a therapist. Like, we don't our brains are not wired to handle constant inundation of abuse, harm, misinformation. We're not wired that way. So, you know, when you start to feel like, oh, I'm feeling overwhelmed, I want to know what's going on in the world, like do that quick. Search this person, search search this person, read that, get off, and then make it like a I'm gonna call my friend, you know, I'm gonna, David's gonna call Day, and we're gonna have that conversation and we're gonna make sure that, you know, how are you doing? This is what I know, what can we be doing? And get in community, you know, get in proximity with people, in the room with people, go volunteer somewhere, go march, go be somewhere. Don't Just sit behind your phone absorbing the scary information into your nervous system without anywhere to put it.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02That's kind of what birthed this podcast, to be honest. We had a desire to one, connect constantly, but also to get these things out. Like I'll be completely transparent. Like David knows this after it was a few years ago. I stopped watching killings. Like I got tired of watching people that looked like people in general, but people who look like me, like just die. And I just kept saying, why it's to me, it's the equivalent of watching, like having people who are enslaved watching lynchings.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I don't like, I just don't think this is good for my mental health. I know what this does, I know what it's meant to do. I refuse. But we work in news, we talk about this. So it's like I still have to find ways to learn what happened play by play, get enough information. Like if David doesn't know or he hadn't seen it, then I'm like, okay, I'll watch angles up into that part. But I'm like, I don't want to see that because I know what the end result is. Yes. And it's still hard to consume knowing that someone died, but like just removing that portion for me has been helpful. Somewhat of helpful. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, and I think you're also you're coming from a lens of believing that the abuse is happening. I think what's so hard is that there are so many people that are still stuck in denial patterns. You know, I think, I mean, I grew up in Littleton, Colorado. There were very few kids of color in my school growing up. So the kids of color who were there were surviving through assimilation. So there wasn't a lot of, you know, culture interaction. And the narrative, like you said about history books, the narrative I was taught was like one time America was bad and then it got better, and then everyone's great. And now we're the land of the free and equal opportunity. And so it, I mean, it took me a while. It took really brave people in my life to say, like, hey, you don't understand because you have the privilege not to know this stuff, but this is what's happening. And so it took me time to be like, wait, what? Wait, what do you mean? Like, it was so heartbreaking to recognize that racism was at play in active lethal ways in my my present current day, because I'd been basically told it was eradicated. You know, and so I think those videos are important material for someone who has not yet realized that. Um, but if you understand that and if you live that, you know, I live as a woman, I live that experience. Um, I don't need to watch videos of people being sexually harassed and, you know, raped to understand those things. I know those in my own lived experience. And so I think what you're saying is so important, which is if I am living through oppression, I don't need to be consuming the material that is out there in the world telling me that oppression is happening, because I already know that.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02If I may, because and I know David has a question after this, following up on that, because I appreciate you sharing that that honesty about your own journey. If you could, one thing that did surprise me was the fact that seeing white people, it happened to people who weren't black. And I think with Renee Good, it kind of shocked me at first because I said, if you're gonna do this to white women and it's not a unanimous conversation, what? But then I said, okay, well, she she had she had a female partner, so things like that. Okay, I can rush her. But then seeing the reaction to Alex Purdy was interesting because then it became the outrage seemed more focused on the implications for the Second Amendment, not necessarily because it was a white man. So I am very curious, your own thoughts of how do you think a collective who maybe have shared your experience, who kind of went through this version of America, how do they break that down and get past that denial? Because that seems to be maybe what is really holding on that last 40, 50% who can look at that and say, well, they shouldn't have done this because of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_00He was an aggressor. He was coming in, you know, like, um, well, okay, so I just I wrote a new book and it's called How to Deal with Your Blanks So Your Kids Don't Have To. And there's an there's it's written by chapters, and in one of the chapters is how to deal with a denial habit. Um, because denial is a coping mechanism that we come up with when there are no opportunities for community. So if you're growing up in a home where nobody can hold your feelings with you and your tenderness, bringing it back to attachment, yeah. You you don't have the option of reaching for people and grieving together. And that's what we need to do as human beings and as attachment creatures is when we go through hard things, we need to reach for our people and release that pain together and then dance, you know. Um, have you heard the Dan Savage quote of that? He says, during the AIDS crisis, during the darkest days of the AIDS crisis, we buried our friends in the morning, we protested in the afternoon, and we danced at night. Yeah. Because and he said, and we danced at night because it was the it was the dance we were fighting for.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I think what people need to understand is that if you don't grieve, if you don't bury, if you don't protest, you also don't really dance. The denial is not protecting you from pain, is preventing you from being truly alive. And I think what's scary for so many people from an attachment perspective is feeling their feelings. Like if it is really true that brown and black people have been unfairly targeted, murdered, and oppressed far beyond, you know, the civil rights movement, then that's really effing sad. And that is an overwhelming grief. And I think a lot of people are afraid if I start crying, will I ever stop? Or will I, I don't know how to do this. And I think that's where community is so important is finding those secure people in your life who you can go to and say, like, I'm so sad. I had a meltdown, this is probably like two months ago, reading a book by Tyler Merritt.
SPEAKER_02I don't know if you know his work, but what's the book called?
SPEAKER_00Um I Take My Coffee Black.
SPEAKER_02Put it in the show.
SPEAKER_00He he does a lot of work in trying to help white folk understand racism. Anyway, but he was, he's, he's kind of a goofball and he's doing different things. But um he was telling the story of Emmett Till. And it's a story I've heard many, many, many, many times. But I I had never sat with it post-motherhood. I had I had heard the story in my in activist years post-you know, my younger and all that kind of stuff. But it was like reading it as a mother and trying to imagine I'm sending my child down to family because I'm trying more than anything to teach my child about values and their position in the world. And I think my child, and then my child is brutally murdered.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00And so anyway, I have a friend though who I can call. She's one of my secure attachment figures, my friend Amanda. And I called her and I'm sobbing. She's like, What's wrong? And I'm like, She's like, Oh, honey. And I'm like, I know, I know, I know, but I just can't right now. Like, I just can't. Um, you know, and she could say, like, yeah, this is so awful, and contain that with me and hold that with me. And and also I'm so proud of you for being this upset. This is how upset we should all be every time we hear this story. And um that that regulation that happens between us, it makes it turns that grief into closeness and intimacy. Like I love her more and she loves me more after the conversation where I'm bawling about Emmett Till. Right. And that's the gift of secure attachment is that in a world full of insecure and often scary things, we take refuge in each other's arms, we take refuge in each other's hearts, and we come together and we cry and we weep long enough so that we can get back to dancing.
SPEAKER_01I love that. That's beautiful. I and I think that that kind of leads me to like probably our last question is like, since since we're workshopping some things here too, and we're being aspirational. Yes. I'm curious what you think. Like, what does a securely attached society look like? Whether that's with policy or how like community, whatever I mean, I'm just curious. What does a securely attached society look like? Because I feel like that is definitely aspirational.
SPEAKER_00It is. And I feel overwhelmed by that. Well, okay, number one, I think that it is primarily led by by mothers, by people on the margin, by folks who understand what it is to be under a thumb, because they are far less likely to put their thumb on top of other people. You know, so I think leadership is coming from people who are passionate about sharing power, not hoarding power. And I think when that happens, you know, safety is the is that primary basis. Like we have to have safety and human rights for all people. So that's first and foremost. And then I think what gets layered upon that is more of a nuanced conversation. It's not a two-party system.
unknownNo.
SPEAKER_00Mental health, mental health views binary thinking, black or white, you're either this or you're that as unhealth, right? So if someone has a severe mental health disorder, a personality disorder, they do something called splitting and they say there's this or that. It's good or bad, it's right or wrong, it's up or down. In a in a society full of millions of people, there cannot possibly be two political parties representing all of those people. And that binary dialogue of which side are you on, which team are you on, cultivates a primal um loyalty for people that makes them ignore the way in which a political party is actually using them and abusing them. And so obviously at this point in time, I have a loyalty based on the two parties I have to choose. I have a loyalty to what who I think is the party of lesser harm. But I don't think that the whole system can be healthy unless we have diversity in political parties. Um, so there has to be campaign finance reform. Don't know how to do that. And then there has to be term limits. And then we have to start electing people who lead from a place of community and not from a place of control. Yeah. I don't know how I don't know who those people are, how we find them, how we get them on board, how we do all this. I'm very unclear on all of that. But that's what I go for.
SPEAKER_01But they exist. And I would also maybe argue that like sometimes this change needs to happen also outside the political system. And like it's a matter of like what's within our own sphere of influence. And like you have created your own community, Lai. Like you are doing it, like you are creating a securely attached society in your own world. Like you are touching and you're doing great. Like, my gosh, you've you've had a 400% growth from when we met in terms of like followers on Instagram. Like you've written, you've finished your first book, let alone writ written three more after that. You've written four books. Like you, you have touched millions of lives. And like, I would say I would say too, yes, I agree with everything that you said around like political like reform too. And like, I think it's important to have like leaders like yourself operating outside of the of the political system to create the change that they wish to see in the world, and you're doing it.
SPEAKER_00It's like do the thing you can. Do do do the thing you're good at and the thing you can do. And that is so much, it looks so much easier. Like on the outside, you're watching it and you're like, wow. And on the inside, it's so messy and complicated. You know, it's like, how do I do this? What do I say? What do I not say? Because if I if I just got on and said every single thing I wanted to say, I would very much lose my mission. And so it is very nuanced how you do this. And I don't want anyone to think like, okay, if you do this well, you're gonna have 800,000 followers on Instagram. Like follow your heart. What is the one thing you really think you can make a difference on in terms of the way that human beings are hurting each other? And how can you participate in that? And maybe that is, you know, just familial. You know, I mean, I think in my family, the the we have family members that are very, very, very conservatively religious, and we have family members that are gay. And so what can I do in that dynamic? Well, one, I can support my family members that are gay and be very clear. I love you. I love whoever you love. I'm here. What do you want to have for dinner? When are you coming over? What do you need? What's the march? When can I be there? Um, but also not defacing the family members that who are not there yet and going, I still see you as a person. I disagree with how you're viewing this. And I still see you as a person, and I'm not gonna cut you out and shut you off because that's not gonna teach you to open your mind and heart. Um, you know, I think show up with what you have, show up where you are with what you have. And if you're barely hanging on right now, um, instead of trying to change the world, do whatever you can to take care of yourself. That's that's work too. You know, that that counts too.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And if I can just add this one little piece before we wrap up here, I would say that it also is gonna take people of enlightened thinking, people who come from the space that you come from and who think the way that we're talking on this podcast, to also jump into the ring. Politics is only as toxic as it is, is because we have we all left that space because of how toxic it is. And I know it's terrifying and it's not everyone's call is different, but it is gonna take us not just having people from that space, but people supporting people from that space and not thinking that the traditional political experience, quote unquote, is what we're interested because it's not. It's the things that we've accepted as the norm in politics that created this alternate universe we're living in. And it's gonna take people who helped us transform in our personal life to help us transform as a collective because we're just individuals working together. And if we can do personal transformation, we can do societal transformation.
SPEAKER_00I'm I mean, I'm gonna just hold on to that with all my heart. We can do this.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Yes. We have to. We have to. We have to. Yeah, we have to. Eli, where can people follow you in your work?
SPEAKER_00Okay, so you can find me on the interwebs, running my mouth, on Instagram and Facebook primarily. I was on TikTok for a while and then I was like, I can't do all these things. But yeah, so at Attachment Nerd is my handle. I'm on YouTube. Um, my podcast is called How to Deal. You can find it wherever you listen to podcasts. I just started it, so it's a baby new podcast. And then um, you can find me if you are a parent, especially, or you are supporting kids in some way, attachmentnerd.com. I have a program there to support parents in learning how to be secure with their kids. Um, there's a free webinar for how to talk to kids about all of these things in a way that helps them understand it and doesn't overwhelm them. Um and um all my program my program is pay what you can because I want everybody to be able to access it. So there you go. You can find me all over the place in my books. How to deal is how to deal I wrote for parents because I wanted, I feel like that's where the root of these things gets addressed. Is if you are dealing with your stuff while you're raising your kids, we're gonna have kids with less emotional baggage and less stuff in the world. That's how we stop these cycles. But it's for anybody who's trying to work through anxiety, anger, jealousy. You'll just just ignore the parent parts if you're not a parent, you know. Um, it's a little like field guide. And I go through all of the basically, how do you feel through all these complicated feelings in a mature way so that you don't hurt the people you love?
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01I love that. Well, we will put links to all of this in the show notes. So go follow Eli, go buy her books, go sign up for her workshops. She's great. So yeah, so Eli, thank you. Thank you for joining us. So if you enjoyed this episode, feel free to share it with a friend. Rate us five stars on the platform where you listen. Get in touch with us at Call Me Limbo Pod on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok Threads, and Blue Sky. You can go subscribe to our Substack, call me Limbopod.substack.com. Day's article just came out. It is a letter to the victims of ice, and it is it is beautifully written. So please go check that out. Um, you can also become a Patreon member, patreon.com slash call me limbo pod or send one-time contributions on Venmo and CashUp. And you know, Day and Eli, it's like the attachment nerd always says the way we heal the world is one relationship at a time. And the most important one is the one we form with our kids.
SPEAKER_02Oh, I love that. Yes. Oh, I love that. So everybody remember when they go low.
SPEAKER_01We talked to Eli Harwood about secure attachment. So call. Bye.
SPEAKER_02Bye.