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Our guest today is Phoebe Atkinson, a psychotherapist and coach who works with individuals and groups. Phoebe uses the evidence based application of positive psychology in all that she connects with. And Phoebe truly is a warm connector. She is currently serving as a professor in the inaugural Masters of Happiness Studies program led by Tal Ben Shahar and she's also a faculty member of Holbein Institute.

Where she was a mentor for me through both my positive psychology certification and my coaching program, she brings to our connection today, an expansive knowledge that allows us to dip our toes into the theory of attachment style. Now, this theory used to be accessible to professionals only it was made more common knowledge as a result of the pandemic.

As we all experienced a heightened awareness of our basic [00:01:00] need for connection, which just happens to be the definition of attachment theory. More people began to question what positive relationships are and how we can cultivate them more intentionally. And this brings us to this beautiful inflection point where.

Phoebe and I discuss attachment theory and explore how type C coping strategies might present themselves in relationship. In this podcast, you will discover ways to love yourself back into being in relationship differently. Phoebe opens the door to the transforming type C coping.

By inviting us to expand our awareness and begin to decipher our own story of attachment history, and maybe even start to make sense of how it has shaped us. The most beautiful thing is that we learn new ways of coping that allow us to experience more secure attachment. This time with [00:02:00] Phoebe reminds me that when we have a choice, We can change that is where self determination comes from.

May this podcast be a catalyst for you to become the better version of you, just bursting to step forward.

You're listening to the Investment of Self podcast, where we uncover ways to reduce dis ease and live authentically. Welcome. I am Kathy Washburn, your host. I'm a 20 year advanced stage cancer survivor who only recently realized the importance of investing in myself. I created this podcast to connect the work and research of knowledge experts directly to you.

The humans, their work can help.

Kathy Washburn: I am so excited to welcome Phoebe Atkinson to our conversation [00:03:00] today. Phoebe, how are you? 

Phoebe Atkinson: Hi, I'm so excited to be here. I'm very well. I am in New York City. I'm calling in from the whole holiday experience of, you know, New York during the holiday season. So, you know, it's just joyful time with lots of light, even in the midst of a lot of challenges and things going on.

Phoebe Atkinson: So I'm so happy to be here. It's it's really been a while since we've had a chance to chat. 

Kathy Washburn: I know. And I'm so excited. Phoebe is a core faculty member at the whole being institutes. And that is a place where I started my kind of, I would say transformation. That's when it all started. And Phoebe. Is one of the leaders, or if not the leader of the positive psychology coaching certification program that I went through, but she was also my mentor during the year long [00:04:00] certification of the whole being positive psychology program.

Kathy Washburn: She is a licensed clinical social worker and we use her knowledge of psycho drama, sociometry and group psychotherapy into all her offerings into the world. And I've been on the receiving end of all of them. She continues to connect me to research and amazing humans that. Influences my work and quite frankly, makes me a better human.

Kathy Washburn: So thank you, Phoebe, for saying yes to this conversation. 

Phoebe Atkinson: Thank you. And I'm just delighted to be here. I was really looking forward to seeing you and also talking about such an important topic. 

Kathy Washburn: Is there anything you want to add to my introduction? Who you serve? What exciting things are in the works for you?

Phoebe Atkinson: I'm very fortunate that I'm both a coach and a facilitator and a therapist, as you said. And I'm also a [00:05:00] professor in a happiness studies master's program that has been founded by Dr. Tal Ben Shahar started in 2022. So it, it's just a time where a lot of the evidence based application is coming in, in all these different areas.

Phoebe Atkinson: So it's very exciting to share it and also to see what people do with it. And like yourself, that we worked together many years ago and all the different things you've been doing, the work in the world that you're doing, Exponential the way that you're delivering programs and communicating, you know, so many 

Kathy Washburn: important things.

Kathy Washburn: Thank you, Phoebe. I think we were at a happiness conference, before COVID, maybe in 2019. And I think you and I were sitting next to each other marveling at how there were so many people there that were taking in the same knowledge, but used it in so many different worlds. Basically, people were there from all over the world and they were also using it.

Kathy Washburn: Working with [00:06:00] children, working with, it was just mind blowing to me how expansive this knowledge has become. 

Phoebe Atkinson: Yes. That was now you're jogging my memory. It was the world happiness summit. I think right before everything started to shut down. 

Kathy Washburn: Well, our conversation today is going to revolve around how those with type C tendencies or coping strategies might present themselves in relationship.

Kathy Washburn: This is something we're going to talk about why that is and discover ways we can begin to kind of love ourselves back into being in relationship differently. With Phoebe's extensive background in psychology and her, endless love of learning, you, I know will experience her ease of being and your awareness of these ways of being.

Kathy Washburn: Will be met with possibility and hope. And this is why I think Phoebe's presence is so crucial because [00:07:00] sometimes when we learn new things about ourselves, or we, we see ourselves in a description. It can be overwhelming. And sometimes, especially for type C, we completely gloss over what's happening and we go directly to shame and judgment.

Kathy Washburn: And instead of those rearing their head, Phoebe's presence is going to allow this, this possibility, this container of possibility versus that skipping over. So take a deep breath because we're going to jump in. And we're going to start with something that feels really big, but I think it can be distilled to a little more simplicity, but there's this idea of attachment theory that focuses on emotional relationships and how they were formed.

Kathy Washburn: Can you give us a little kind of 30, 000 view summary of attachment styles and patterns that come from the research? [00:08:00] 

Phoebe Atkinson: Sure, I'd love the invitation to go way up high on the balcony. So one of the things I've recently been experiencing, I have a grandniece and she was born 14 months ago or so. So I've been going through the 

Kathy Washburn: attachment experience with her, you know, that they're basically 

Phoebe Atkinson: This was a theory that was created with, John Bowlby in the fifties and then Mary Ainsworth continued to develop these ideas.

Phoebe Atkinson: She created an inventory and then other people have done even more extensive work on it. And so when we're looking at attachment theory, we look at our basic need for connection when a child is experiencing distress. They start to, in their body, immediately feel safety, threat, you know, just danger or safety.

Phoebe Atkinson: And then in that moment, they seek proximity of that caregiver. And then they hopefully receive soothing. They internalize it and then they're off, you know, that alleviates the distress and then they're off to [00:09:00] resume whatever activity. However what Bowlby and his colleagues were discovering was not all children, you know, are experiencing their caregiver in that way.

Phoebe Atkinson: So they started to create these situations where they would actually observe children and their caregivers. And they came up with these different models of, of the experience. And this is how we describe these attachment systems. It's basically my. Relationship or how I appraise myself and other people in, in terms of relationship.

Phoebe Atkinson: So let's start with secure attachment, secure attachment. One of my teachers, and just to say that there's so many, so much interest now in attachment theory. It's so very interesting because during COVID and people looking at relationships and missing relationships and the whole idea of what is positive relationship, how can we cultivate more of it intentionally?

Phoebe Atkinson: And one of my teachers back in the day was Dr. Diane Poole Heller, and she is a student and facilitator [00:10:00] of Peter Levine's work. And she has taken his work in somatic experiencing and combined it with attachment theory, and not only how you identify some of the attachment difficulties, but how do you move towards Secure attachment.

Phoebe Atkinson: So she always starts her training reminding us that our work, the goal of our work when we talk about attachment is to return to our inherent nature, which is secure attachment. And what she talks about is even if we had a difficult attachment disruptions as a child, we can water those seeds of secure attachment.

Phoebe Atkinson: And this is called learned secure attachment. And we learned it by experiencing. A healthy relationships, creating them, experiencing them, and then knowing how to seek those out. if we start with secure attachment, that's really about having a sense of basic trust. And we know that when we are Experiencing basic trust, we then feel like we can trust others and it's course correspondingly.

Phoebe Atkinson: We have a sense of self [00:11:00] esteem. We have a sense of my needs are you know, I have a sense of having my needs and asking for them or being able to meet those needs. So the sense of trust in myself and in others, that sense of my needs are I'm worthy of having my needs met, right? So that's that those styles start with secure attachment and.

Phoebe Atkinson: Okay. There are many aspects of secure attachment, but really the clarity around your needs and that authentic sense of self that's so essential in relationship. That's what gets founded, you know, with when your needs are met, when you are seeking that proximity of a caregiver and they soothe you and they support you throughout your development.

Phoebe Atkinson: This is what you start to internalize. You know, it's very connected to your sense of efficacy and self esteem. And then there's the other categories that I'll just quickly touch in on. There's so much more about attachment, and it's very easily accessible on the, on the Internet. Really, really good things.

Phoebe Atkinson: And I know you'll make those available. [00:12:00] There's also the anxious attachment, which is when we think about that secure attachment is like, I'm, I'm worthy of having my needs met. I have a good sense of self esteem. I can have my own autonomy and also be in relationship.

Phoebe Atkinson: Then the anxious attachment is more about I'm wanting, but I'm not getting, there's this chronic sense of having that need that you're seeking outside of yourself. And there's also sometimes coupled with a sense of feeling undeserving. And so there's a, A real sense of anxiety, anxious to please, and also that you, you really can't rely on yourself and in terms of that secure base within yourself, you're overly dependent on others.

Phoebe Atkinson: And sometimes there is that kind of impaired capacity to internalize when you are receiving something. So therefore, Diane Puhler says wanting, but not having. That chronic sense [00:13:00] of needing others and being overly dependent, and yet when you are receiving, not really being able to register that, so that's that, that anxious.

Phoebe Atkinson: And by the way, I must say that we're not just 1 thing. We can be different in different attachment systems and styles, depending on the relationship, the context who were with, and we can have a combo. You know, we're not just 1, but it's, you know, we separate them out. When, when we're teaching it and then there's the avoidant and if the anxious is the wanting, but not having again, Diane pulled, Heller has a wave these pithy statements.

Phoebe Atkinson: So for the avoidant attachment style, it's I am a rock. I am an island. If you remember that, that Paul Simon, Simon and Garfunkel. So this is chronic self reliance that you feel really kind of the fear of intimacy. And it really comes from. A lot of experiences of being let down when you couldn't have your needs met.

Phoebe Atkinson: And then there's often that sense of suppressing your needs [00:14:00] unconsciously, you know, smiling, you know, when you are really suffering and, and so much so that sometimes you're not even aware of what those needs are. You've had to really dissociate and distance. And then there's that increase. Stress that happens because that becomes this chronic sense of suppressing those needs and really disconnecting.

Phoebe Atkinson: And because of that fear of intimacy, there's a lot of hopelessness. And again, that I am an island and then underneath it, though, that. Inherent need for connection were wired for connection had to be so dampened in, in that experience. And then the last 1 is much more of what we call that fearful or even the disorganized attachment, which is about I want to connect.

Phoebe Atkinson: But I have to protect and those, the wiring kind of gets all mixed up in there. And yes, there's antidotes for each one of these, but this one is a lot about the family of origin was really unstable. Maybe even the caregivers [00:15:00] were not consistent and they were consistent in how. Fearful you were of them.

Phoebe Atkinson: So that kind of fearful is something we often see is overlaid with some of these, and we have to start to really separate them out so you can start to register those two impulses, which is safety, being able to really establish what that feels like going back to safety, and then being able to identify and really start to.

Phoebe Atkinson: What we call uncoupled that that fear response. So we need our fear response. You know, we need to be able to mobilize if we're in danger, but those things get the wires get kind of crossed. So those are some of those attachment styles. And again, the secure attachment is I'm comfortable with intimacy. I can have my sense of autonomy and I can be.

Phoebe Atkinson: In relationship and the needs part of that, you know, I have a sense of deserving and then these other manifestations of when that caregiving was not consistent. This is how it shows up in those different [00:16:00] styles. , 

Kathy Washburn: that's a beautiful a beautiful kind of 30,000 feet. And I wanna highlight one thing that made me feel better when I was first doing this research is that almost half of the population are not secure, are, are not in a secure attachment.

Kathy Washburn: So this is a very normal, way of walking in the world. Much of it is we're on autopilot. We don't even realize that's what's happening. And I am, I greatly aligned with the avoidant attachment which a lot of type C, people see themselves in that similar way, very fiercely independent. Not quote unquote needing anybody else because they can't rely on them.

Kathy Washburn: But self reliant to the point of exhaustion. And that's often where I meet [00:17:00] clients. They're very successful in what they're doing, but they're exhausted and they're exhausted because they're, Wanting that connection, but not getting the connection. So it's this, it's this spin, which leads us to Lydia Temeshock's work, which is what this podcast is based on.

Kathy Washburn: She describes the identity of a type C person as other directed. I was trying to figure out how that kind of aligns with, or maybe it doesn't with the attachment styles. But that other directedness leads us to this underdeveloped sense of self. We almost, and I can attest to this. We are out of touch with our own primary needs and emotions.

Kathy Washburn: When somebody asked me, like, how do you feel? That was like asking me, could you give me directions to the moon? I have no idea how to answer that question. You asked me how I think I can definitely answer that question, but how [00:18:00] I feel that was not, available to me. So I'm wondering, how does this other orientation relate or connect to.

Phoebe Atkinson: So there's so many things to say as we're looking at this field, because we're talking about coping with stress and, and these attachment experiences that get laid down early on, and then they get reinforced and even wired in, you know, and then we know that under. Stress and under vulnerability when we are experiencing that initial stress, we go back to those original coping styles or those attachment styles.

Phoebe Atkinson: So the idea, if we think about the avoidance style and again, these are. there overlaps here with also the anxious that I have been let down or it wasn't safe or it wasn't consistent. So then I developed this chronic self reliance, if you will. And there's a sense of control within that. And so for you to talk about the brilliant work of Dr.

Phoebe Atkinson: Demershock that where she describes that my [00:19:00] identity is really about, I can do this on my own. And this kind of. Avoidant attachment style really takes a lot of finesse and, and one of the things I love about this work being, becoming more available to people, often it's just the clinicians that are trained in this and, and some not even so, but the, the work for instance of Paul Gilbert who with Dr.

Phoebe Atkinson: Neff has brought forward. Self compassion. And so the idea that we have these drives within us, we have the fight or flight, you know, that, that mechanism of safety or, or threat. We have the drive that really moves us towards our goals. And then we have the self soothing, which we, we learned how to self soothe by being soothed.

Phoebe Atkinson: So when we're talking about attachment, we're really talking about self regulation and emotional regulation and learning how to. Be soothed or experience being sued through the co regulation by, by being sued for other by others. But if I, if I'm self reliant and [00:20:00] I. Can't really soothe myself except for, you know, kind of denying my, my needs and what's going on or just dissociating, detaching.

Phoebe Atkinson: All of these you see are a sequence of choices and then it becomes not even conscious. So we often say that these attachment styles, they're not self determined. These are not something that you caused. Usually these attachment systems are passed on generationally and I know that's why we're going to talk later about the narrative and the.

Phoebe Atkinson: Attachment narrative and how that healing narrative can begin to bring more choice in because then we have more conscious awareness of, Oh yes, my mother or my father, or I saw people in my family. They also had this attachment style and this is what I learned. And then of course, with our growth mindset, we can continue to learn new ways of being.

Kathy Washburn: I love that you introduced the growth mindset because it really is that that shift of, [00:21:00] okay, now I'm aware of how I became and how it's influencing my current being. And then with that growth mindset, we can. We can grow into who we want to become and not, I heard one don't remember who had this quote, but we no longer are kind of ruled by our five year old self.

Kathy Washburn: We can, we can give her a lollipop, ask her to sit down and, and move from a place of adulting. And it's almost as if. We're actually reparenting ourselves in a way with that, with that learning to soothe learning of about self regulation and not disassociating. It's interesting, that this awareness, like the first part of that is, is the self awareness, which I think is a great launching point into the positive psychology and the growth mindset.

Kathy Washburn: Cause I really believe. [00:22:00] That that was the broken opening for me to begin to learn how to feel because it was easier for me to kind of tap into the feel good and expansiveness of positive emotions that then allowed me to unearth these negative emotions that I had been feeling. Stuffing for most of my life.

Kathy Washburn: So this broken opening of positive psychology, how do you see these tools helping in your practice and what ones do you, do you refer to? 

Phoebe Atkinson: Okay. Well, wonderful. And I love the way you use yourself and how you're telling your story and then some of the things that happened for you or the choices that you made.

Phoebe Atkinson: And one thing I know about you, Kathy, is that. One of your top strengths is love of learning. So that's one of the ways that we bring in positive psychology. One of the pillars is the character strengths work, the survey, the assessment of looking at our [00:23:00] character strengths when we've been at our best to navigate adversity or to achieve successes in our lives.

Phoebe Atkinson: Usually those strengths show up, and then if we can start to track them and become aware of them, we can use them very intentionally. If we go back to the foundation of our talk, which is the attachment system and how we learned how to be in relationship, a few years ago, the Mr Rogers movie came out with Tom Hanks.

Phoebe Atkinson: And, you know, this quote came out a lot about he used to ask people, you know, who loved you into being. And so this, Immediately brings to mind appreciative inquiry and also what we do with attachment work. We think about who were some of those people? How did I get here? Right? There were there were not just 1 thing.

Phoebe Atkinson: There were different influences and they impact us, not just our parents or or that that you know, initial family of origin. We are. Impacted all the time. So we start to open up that window with these questions of [00:24:00] who saw me or what were some successes that I had or when did I feel seen? If you think about the attachment system of creating the secure base, you were describing how you were disconnected for a long time.

Phoebe Atkinson: When we have a secure base, we have the freedom to explore. But if we don't, we really go very narrow, you know, into our. Fight or flight. So when you start to experience, let's say the broaden and build theory, this idea of when we have positive emotions and experiences, it literally opens up our brain and our nervous system.

Phoebe Atkinson: We're able to start to feel more expansive. Then we start to feel a sense of exploration and, and curiosity gets turned on. So with that secure base with healthy attachment, we call the safe haven, the person that's responsive to us, the emotional. Resonance. So we also want to think about who were people when I was with them had a sense they were responding.

Phoebe Atkinson: They were attuning to me. [00:25:00] And can I go back and start to, we, we call it resource activation. Can I light that network up in my memory? Can I relive that and savor it and start to Dr. Rick Hansen talks about spend a little time there, right? Take in the good, the positive neuroplasticity. Let me open up these.

Phoebe Atkinson: People, and then they start to internally become what we call the internal working model. These are symbolic representations of some of our attachment experiences that in addition to some of the difficult ones, we can actually start to open up. And then we have a reference point where we start to see, Oh, that's what that feels like.

Phoebe Atkinson: You know, I can create that, or I can seek it out. So that's one of the things is the broaden and build the appreciative inquiry using your strengths. And I also talked about some of the self compassion that along the way, the internal work of bringing compassion to yourself in those moments of suffering, whether [00:26:00] you're recalling them or in the here and now you start to be able to soothe yourself.

Phoebe Atkinson: And we also have new research that shows the the research that is the working with the internal models of healthy attachment figures or people that have been soothing, safe figures that we can even. Draw them, you know, bring them to mind and, and, and induce these representations of people in, in the laboratory, if you will, in the research.

Phoebe Atkinson: And it's called the buffering hypothesis. If I can bring to mind some of these people that were really important to me, whether they're still alive or not, then I can start to feel more of a sense of my own efficacy or even. To to regulate myself, it has the regulatory benefits. They're showing when we bring in these attachment figures when they're induced in in these kind of interventions that, you know, the researchers do.

Phoebe Atkinson: So there's many, many more, but I'm going to pause there for a minute. 

Kathy Washburn: Yes, and the idea that we're talking [00:27:00] about Mr. Rogers, because I remember the opening of his show and it was the land of make believe, right? We can use the land of make believe in our own heads to actually play out these stories that are true of these individuals in our lives that were positive role models.

Kathy Washburn: And our body feels as if it's happening. In this moment and that idea, you know, this has been done in sports for years where athletes imagine the race, imagine, I think what's the swimmer's name that was kind of known for this. The one that has like 14 gold medals or something, I can't remember his name, but he did that.

Kathy Washburn: He replayed it in his mind over and over and over. And Rick Hansen's work he is one of my favorites and that idea of being on [00:28:00] your own side and knowing that you can create these moments of I'm okay in this moment. , this one hot second. Yes. 

Phoebe Atkinson: It's just, yes. And as you're talking, I'm thinking about Dr.

Phoebe Atkinson: Hanson's work and how he talks about taking in the good for 30 seconds or so because that we register it, we have that felt sense, and then we can start to create what they call the positive salience that, oh, that feels good. I'd like to come back to that. And if we go back to the avoidance, Dr. Heller talked about how you have to take it in small bites.

Phoebe Atkinson: So let's say I'm starting to experience something where I'm receiving if I've been self reliant and, you know, either denying my own needs or getting them at myself. To start to actually register when I'm receiving and, and having that need met the vulnerability or some of the things that might come up around that, to be able to start to take in one small [00:29:00] bite and to take in the good.

Phoebe Atkinson: So that's where those two overlap, I think with Dr. Hanson's work and in his book resilience, which you're referring to the 12 strategies that he has put out are all internal. There are all the internal resources that we can develop. We know that resilience and coping, all of these things can be worked on and developed.

Phoebe Atkinson: So these are internal states that we can begin to experience and over time, as he says, they might become traits. They certainly become, stronger in, in our development. So these are some of the things you're talking about, the resilient strategies and also just to. Stop and take in the good, and that's also where some of the gratitude research comes in to be able to notice it and then really take a moment and to take it in to savor it.

Phoebe Atkinson: So then that starts to become this new competing experience of what that would feel like if I'm having this. Safe experience and I'm soothing and you know, I'm with someone [00:30:00] and I'm experiencing that and or I'm, I'm being able to feel the confidence, but so much of this that is about self efficacy and that, that is that belief that I can make something happen and I can start something and stay with it.

Phoebe Atkinson: And that's also where hope comes in. And as you were talking about visualization and being able to imagine, that's the work of Albert Bandura on self efficacy. He said that we can build. So we're at the end of our show. I hope that everyone, if you're judging by the volume of our show, I hope that everyone is doing okay and are able to communicate with us.

Phoebe Atkinson: And we want to very much for joining us. You've been a great addition of the show. And I really appreciate that. So I know that we were coming at each other right at the beginning of the show. But I was really thankful for the attention and the attention that you guys were giving And I was really grateful for the hard work of everybody.

Phoebe Atkinson: you And Bandura talked about role models and things, people that embody some of those qualities that you would like yourself and that you probably do have, you know, that you're that you're starting to recognize visualization. [00:31:00] You know, there's many ways that we can build this sense of efficacy that if we didn't have a secure attachment, we still can start to deploy some of these mechanisms and they're very, very small and it's the incremental build.

Phoebe Atkinson: Of these practices being, as you said, in the realm of choice, so then you can start to really move towards those values, how you want to be versus being defined by what happened to you. 

Kathy Washburn: It's it's such a powerful or empowered way of being and, often type C can kind of fall into that victimhood because of the others directed that they feel like you said, hopeless or helpless.

Kathy Washburn: So to understand that we have something inside of ourselves and often as you know, you know, our negativity bias rules so that even when we are experiencing [00:32:00] having that need met, it just. Blitz away if we're not, if we're not looking for it. So it requires a little bit of, I think at the beginning, it's kind of like getting a new dress, you know, you just got to feel good in it and realize like, wow, I just had my need met.

Kathy Washburn: And Rick's Dr. Hanson's work in his heel model, when you feel that experience, when you get really good at it, you can start linking it to old experiences. So you call up those old feelings and that just, and it's, again, it's 90 seconds or 60 seconds or. 120 seconds, but the magic is, as the hour goes on, you keep bringing up this sense of self efficacy, this, these savored feelings just for a second.

Kathy Washburn: And that window of consolidation, you start to disrupt those [00:33:00] old memories and those old ways of being. So the next time when you get into a situation, you now have two paths you can take. And it's not, you're not so quick to go down those old ways of being you have, you have new 

Phoebe Atkinson: information. Yes. I'm loving all of those experiences, those internal mechanisms that you can activate and practice.

Phoebe Atkinson: And it really goes hand in hand with hope, which is that it's a theory, it's a positive emotion, it's a strength, but it has to do with a sense of being able to appraise the future and to take a step. To, you know, to mobilize your resources, the other thing I wanted to say is the supportive self statements, you know, sometimes the self talk gets you know, kind of maybe a humorous frame, but there is very powerful research that about supportive self statements, you know, and there's also the work of self affirmation theory where.

Phoebe Atkinson: They've had research [00:34:00] studies where they will take students and have them write about their values, and it shows over time in the beginning of the semester, middle at the end, when they start to check in with them, they actually are more motivated and they have more of a sense of belonging and motivation to engage just by grounding in their values.

Phoebe Atkinson: And that's also connected to the act model. That I can, you know, there are things you're talking about that looking outside yourself. We call that that external locus of control. And of course, what we want to go back to is the internal locus of control. What part of this is within my control and then identifying there's areas that are not within my control.

Phoebe Atkinson: And then I can move into active acceptance. Dr. Talbin Shahar talks about this and also the act model which is a therapeutic model that I can accept in an active way. And then I choose. The next thing based on my value. So that's where being proactive comes in. And again, strengthening that internal locus of control.

Phoebe Atkinson: While we're talking about [00:35:00] all of this internal locus of control, there's also the co regulation piece, I think, because if we're talking about the avoidant attachment, we really need to improve our view of others because after all we are related. So we want to be able to learn to trust people and to rely on people as well as.

Phoebe Atkinson: That, you know, that building of our own self perception. 

Kathy Washburn: Very important point. And I think that's a good segue into this idea of narrative when I'm coaching individuals, I've often found that in the beginning of our work together, their narrative is. Always, not always, always is a bad word, is often about other people.

Kathy Washburn: So I've learned to discern their narrative of what they're not saying or who they're not speaking about. I have learned to invite them back into [00:36:00] themselves by asking questions like, what is it that you're actually wanting for yourself right now? Or how does that story feel in this moment?

Kathy Washburn: How does telling that story feel in this moment? You know, bringing them back, but it's often a really hard again, you could probably ask some directions to the moon and there'd be more comfortable with the question. Then how is it making you feel in this moment? But I do see their ability to. to shift from frustration or blame or judgment, which is that outwards directed feeling to that beginning of agency where they realize, Oh, I have, this is the story I'm telling myself about the values of this other person, which.

Kathy Washburn: I know nothing about, I'm just wondering how, how you incorporate the narrative. 

Phoebe Atkinson: [00:37:00] Well you're doing such a beautiful job at describing what you do as a coach and lucky people that are working with you. If I can. Shine some light on that through some of the theories that if we start again with attachment theory, one of the healing mechanisms is the attachment narrative.

Phoebe Atkinson: They showed that people could actually tell the story of their attachment history and be able to make sense of it. The meaning piece, they were able to experience more of that secure attachment. And of course, these are bidirectional, so you can say, Oh, yes, I see what happened. This is who I am now. These are the experiences I'm choosing and co creating.

Phoebe Atkinson: So that attachment narrative is very important and the sense making of my experience is, is also what we call coherence. And one of the fathers of positive psychology was Anton Antonovsky, and he talked about the. You know, the writing and the speaking and the coherence, the sense making is very, very important to what he called saluto [00:38:00] Genesis, our health.

Phoebe Atkinson: So to be able to make meaning and sense of your experience, you're claiming right that narrative and you won't, you know that you were talking before about kind of the, the, the dominant story or the fixed mindset. This is who I am. But we know actually, we can move towards the positive identity. And sometimes we have to go back into when has there been a time when I had more of what I say I want.

Phoebe Atkinson: And that's that, that solution focus direction that we, we look at what, what will you want? What, what do you want? What difference will it make if how will it feel when you have that? What will be different? And. The system, how would things change? And then you go back to the resource activation, which is, has there, when has there been a time when you have experienced some of what you're describing here?

Phoebe Atkinson: So all of it is narrative. And if we think about solution focused and also appreciative inquiry, it's co constructing in the moment. [00:39:00] In that, in this moment, in the coaching session, you are really working with identity. And this is also where David Drake's work comes in is that through the narrative conversation, the dialectic, something else is emerging.

Phoebe Atkinson: So the narrative is really the currency. I think of coaches of therapies and people that are trained in. These kind of modalities and this kind of thinking are shining the light and magnifying, you know, when they hear those moments of something that happened that was strong or a signature strength, you know, that you heard the person using if you're trained in some of these, you're going to really highlight them and capitalize on them.

Phoebe Atkinson: The 

Kathy Washburn: currency of coaching is the narrative. That's it. That's a strong statement. There is a quote that I heard a while back, it was by James Baldwin, who I think is a writer, but he said, the longer I live, the more deeply I learned that love, whether we [00:40:00] call it friendship or family or romance is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other's light.

Kathy Washburn: Wow. When you think about that and that attachment theory, if I can't, if I'm mirroring just that independence, that fierce independence and that, that I don't need anybody like that's what's going to come back to me, you know, instead of mirroring and magnifying the, the light and what you said about. The understanding our own narratives and that sense making, I did not realize it until you were saying that how powerful that step was for me.

Kathy Washburn: I'm a middle child. I grew up in a family that is you know, from New England, we were not expressive, emotional people, very hardworking work ethic [00:41:00] was. The most important thing, but as a middle child, there was, this awareness that I had when I was doing some therapy that, I think I had chicken pox.

Kathy Washburn: So I was home alone and my mom had to stay home with me. My mom worked. So I found myself with my mom's. Focused attention, you know, she made me tomato soup. We played games and it just happened to coincide with Valentine's Day. So somebody from school brought my little envelope with all the handmade cards in it.

Kathy Washburn: So I was just like the star of attention in this moment. And I, in my little brain put together, Oh, weakness equals attention or love. So when I am weak, I get what I need. So I think that's how I conjured up. Yes, I get [00:42:00] carsick. I don't think I really did get carsick. I think carsickness was a way to get me plopped in the front seat between my mom and dad and this, but this sense making . 

Phoebe Atkinson:  Kathy, thank you for elucidating and you know, this, this attachment and, and the coherence, the repair that can happen.

Phoebe Atkinson: These are not self determined. These are. Okay. Family systems. We have a nervous system. We learned how to soothe self soothed by being soothed. And an attachment is about affect regulation, right? If something happens, it's scary. I turn and I put my arms up and I'm seeking proximity and soothing. And if I get it, I internalize that I go off to playing.

Phoebe Atkinson: So this idea that when we have that nervous system and it gets dysregulated because we don't have a mature nervous system yet that gets Registered in the system, you know, as being dysregulated and over time, you know, other things will happen. Right? [00:43:00] So I wanted to say that as we're working in this realm of narrative and coming back to this idea of secure attachment is that we can be more mature in our relationships and in our you know, in our responses, both in how we self soothe or how we interpret something and we orient.

Phoebe Atkinson: Yeah. To that adult ego state, if you will, much more as you were talking earlier, and this essential, authentic self, this my identity is that I'm in the here and now I'm able to respond. I have some things that I can needs. I can meet myself and others. I feel a sense of being able to ask for help and receive that.

Phoebe Atkinson: So all of these strategies are there. And lastly, I wanted to tie it into positive psychology. We know the importance of relationships. We know the qualities. Of these relationships are important, the positive relationships that we can cultivate. And so for us to understand the function of these attachment experiences, they were not of our making.

Phoebe Atkinson: And yet once we [00:44:00] start to have more awareness, we can really see the different possibilities that are here. And then that of course corresponds to health and everything that you're doing that we need to be accompanied, you know, through the difficult times as well as the, the celebrations. And so all of this is really about.

Phoebe Atkinson: Returning our, our sense of basic trust in ourselves and also in others. And you were talking about kind of the self parenting, you know, it's the good enough parent that we can become to ourself. And I think it's an ongoing practice. You know, these are things that we can continue to work on in, in our nervous system.

Phoebe Atkinson: And after COVID, the via assessment added one or two questions about what are some things that people are needing? And the number one strength that people wanted to develop was more self regulation. So it just shows you the nature of connectedness and how we need each other in, in terms of those our nervous systems, as well as, you know, we be, we need to [00:45:00] be able to also be alone you know, and, and in that way, as well as alone together, you know, it's kind of the hallmark of secure attachment as well.

Kathy Washburn: Hmm. And I would just highlight that invitation that it is a process. It's a slow process. One thing that you taught me that I have taken with me and used a million times is this, what would 1 percent better look like? And those little 1 percent better build that strong foundation. I often think of it as the three little pigs, you know, you have these houses and you can, I can.

Kathy Washburn: throw it back up with sticks, or I can, you know, throw it back up with hay. But if something scary happens, it'll blow that house back down again. So those little moments, of achieving or noticing when things are going good, when we are in our own [00:46:00] agency.

Kathy Washburn: Just little pieces at a time is building that house back brick by brick by brick so that when something happens and we all know it will, there are terrible things that happen in the world, in our lives, we lose people. It's just the way that life works. We'll have stronger resilience to withstand that, that type of whatever's 

Phoebe Atkinson: happening.

Phoebe Atkinson: And I'm hearing again, as you're talking about it. The self compassion, which is again, Dr. Paul Gilbert's work and also Dr. Kristen Neff, that the idea is that when we can turn to ourselves with kindness and know that we're not alone, that other, other people that common humanity, she talks about that we can bring mindfulness, we can bring self kindness and that creates more of that soothing.

Phoebe Atkinson: So then we can, yeah. Mobilize to do the next thing, right? So all of that is inherent in the positive psychology, that intersection with [00:47:00] attachment healing, bringing in these wonderful interventions that are mostly they're incremental, they're small and they're, they're practices that you can bring over time.

Phoebe Atkinson: And you start to feel that what we call the broaden and build effect. 

Kathy Washburn: Phoebe, this has been so informative and your ability to gather so much knowledge and information and be able to articulate it in a way that people who have ears to hear can hear it. I'm so grateful for that gift. I usually Ask one more question unless you feel like there's anything that you want to summarize or add, 

Phoebe Atkinson: I think that your effort, the, the work that you're doing by highlighting these patterns as well as looking for the antidotes and have experts on is really needed and that it is Bye.

Phoebe Atkinson: Such important work in the world. And Kathy, I just wanted to say one of your top strengths is [00:48:00] authenticity and your integrity and also how you want to teach and share. So right back at you, I, I stand on the shoulder of giants. And one of the things I love to do, I'm one of seven kids. So I love to collaborate.

Phoebe Atkinson: I was born into a big group, lots of different attachment things going on there. So I was so pleased to have this conversation today and also to co create in the. And really in the dialogue, this is very exciting and I think it's going to be very useful. I hope so. For people, certainly your series and, and all the people that you have on, I really see it as a beautiful thread that you're weaving, you know, the toolkit that you're providing for folks.

Kathy Washburn: Yes. And I'm so grateful for your participation and your gift of time. I, I know what you mean to me and how you've affected my life, but if I were to crush you up and put your essence in pill form, what effect would you have on someone taking that pill?[00:49:00] 

Phoebe Atkinson: My goodness. Well, I love this topic. I think that this is the core of.

Phoebe Atkinson: who we are that we're wired to connect. So one of my my top strength is love from the via assessment and it's about being able to think about love as a, as a verb, right? Showing up and loving and being loved, right? Knowing and being known. So I think that's the thing is that I'd want to the essence is to really

Phoebe Atkinson: communicate a sense of mattering, you know, to to matter and to let other people know how they matter. And the other part of this is really done with the intention is Dr Rick Hansen would say to make your offering. Right? So it's an offering. And then each 1 of us, like different coping mechanisms.

Phoebe Atkinson: We're going to make our own combination of things out of the information. Beautiful. 

Kathy Washburn: Thank you so much. Oh, it's been extraordinary as it always is in your presence. Thank you, Phoebe. Thank you.

[00:50:00] Thank you so much for your gift of time and for tuning into the Investment of Self Type C Transformation Podcast. Make sure to check out the show notes for this episode at kathywashburn. net backslash podcast. And give us a follow on Instagram at kathywashburn D O T N E T. If you liked this episode, make sure to follow Investment of Self Type C Transformation.

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