45. Anxious and Avoidant Attachment: How Nervous System Patterns Impact Your Relationship

What happens when two people bring completely different nervous system patterns into a relationship?

In this episode of the NeuroHeir Podcast, Leanna is joined by her husband, David, for an honest conversation about the patterns they've brought into nearly 27 years of marriage and what they've learned about changing them. They unpack their anxious and avoidant attachment styles, how stress used to intensify their cycle of pursuing and withdrawing, and how understanding the why behind their reactions has helped them communicate, repair, and reconnect in a completely different way.

In this episode, you'll discover:

• How anxious and avoidant attachment styles can create a cycle of disconnection in relationships
• Why stress can bring old nervous system patterns to the surface
• How your childhood experiences may influence the way you respond to your partner today
• Why you can't force your partner to change and what you can do instead
• What happens in the body when you move outside your window of tolerance
• How movement, breath, space, and self-compassion can help you regulate before attempting repair
• The power of asking, "Can we try again?" after a difficult interaction
• How working with your younger self can bring understanding to present-day reactions
• Why identifying and aligning your values as a couple can strengthen your relationship

Healing within a relationship isn't about never getting triggered, never arguing, or perfectly regulating your nervous system. It's about learning to recognize your patterns, offer yourself compassion, and find your way back to connection a little more quickly each time.

Because when you begin creating safety within yourself, you also create more possibilities for the relationships you love most.

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If you have a question around the nervous system, healing relationships, or generational patterns, you’re invited to submit it anonymously using the link below.

There’s also an optional box you can check if you’d like to be considered for a short audio coaching conversation on a future episode.

👉 Submit your question

Connect with me:
Instagram → @aligningwithleanna

Website → leannahunt.com

Disclaimer:
Although I am a licensed Associate Clinical Mental Health Counselor, The NeuroHeir℠ Podcast is not a substitute for therapy, counseling, or medical treatment. The tools and practices I share are for educational and coaching purposes only. Every nervous system is unique, and what we discuss on this podcast should not replace your own individual therapeutic work or professional support.

The focus of this podcast is my coaching work, which centers on education, nervous system practices, and generational healing tools designed to support—not replace—your personal journey with a qualified provider.

If you are struggling with your mental health or experiencing overwhelming emotions, please seek support from a licensed professional in your area. You don’t have to do this work alone.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:31

Welcome to the NeuroAir Podcast, the show for cycle breakers, parents, young adults, and helping professionals ready to understand their nervous system through a generational lens, feel what isn't theirs to carry, and consciously choose what comes next. Hi, I'm your host, Liana Hunt, an associate clinical mental health counselor and certified performance coach. Each week you'll get stories, science, and somatic practices plus my signature 4M framework. Notice, name, nurture, and navigate to help you honor resilience, break silence, and build deeper connection with yourself and those you love, all while shaping a legacy of safety, freedom, and possibility. Hey everybody, welcome back to the NeuroAir Podcast. I am so excited to be with you guys today. The last few weeks we've had some really powerful interviews, just really taking a deeper dive into the nervous system and looking at the power of our breath. And today I have another interview for you. And it's actually been requested by several of you to have my husband David back on the show.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

So, David, can you such requests? That's so great. Hi, guys. Thanks for uh requesting me to come out of my cave. I appreciate that. So good. Love this.

SPEAKER_02 1:49

I think our first interview was maybe episode seven. So if you guys haven't listened to that, we kind of talked a little bit about our journey together.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

Lucky seven.

SPEAKER_02 1:59

Lucky seven. Yeah. And so today we're just gonna take a little deeper dive into kind of looking at some of our patterns that we brought into our relationship together. This December 2026 will be our 27th wedding anniversary. We got married as babies.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

So I was like what, 10? You were like eight or something, you know.

SPEAKER_02 2:24

Basically babies.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

No, you were old. It was fine.

SPEAKER_02 2:31

I was 20.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

Yeah, but we were raised in the 80s, things were different.

SPEAKER_02 2:35

Yeah, children of the 80s. Okay. Anyway, so it's also interesting. We are recording this live from Oceanside, California, where we come every year for a family reunion type gathering. Such a tradition, right? David is from Burbank, California, and I'm from Oceanside Vista area. And our families, actually, a lot of them have both ended up in this area. So we come back and bring our kids to the beach.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

Make it a sea family all week. It's great.

SPEAKER_02 3:04

And so we're getting ready to head home tomorrow. So it's also interesting that we're recording this and feeling connected and loving each other maybe more than the beginning of the week. And that used to probably not be the case. At the end of the week, of course.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

Did that this really work? Uh once again on live stream, you know. We get things written down. This is good for me. Okay. Would you agree? Yes, it's been a good week. We haven't had any big like blow-ups or fights, you know, in our patterns in our lives. Stress was always an issue. Stress brought out the best of our trauma, I guess you'd say.

SPEAKER_02 3:40

Yeah, talk about that.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

I don't know if that's it for you guys. Whenever you have stressful situations, it's like you just kind of revert back to what's easy, what's safe. I know I did that. That was always, you know, the way I I dealt with things was I would get anxious, right? And and being anxious would lead to having either control or frustration. And for someone like you in our patents, like, I didn't know that, you know, signing up to marry you, but when there's control and or frustration, you get tipped the other way. It's like a repellent. Instead of a good thing, it becomes a bad thing for you. And then this bad cycle would happen in our relationship. And then you'd pull away, withdraw, that would make me more anxious. Then I'd try to control, and it'd be frustrating that way. I mean, I grew up as the youngest child, it was it was a great life and and great parents, and they did their best. And my family's, you know, were close in lots of ways, but you know, they're all grandparents now, and I'm working on that in a 20 years or stuff like that. But being the youngest, though, there were a lot of times I remember being alone. I remember being lonely, and I remember getting a bit anxious about it, and or feeling a lot of the other emotions that big people have, older people, you know, like because I'm here, you know, maybe imagine I'm eight, my siblings are 21, whatever, 13 years. Yeah, 21, 25, 28 years old. They're married, they're doing their things, moving on, they're all out of the house. It was good, but then they'd come around and mother me and love that. But that created some anxiousness. That created some I I couldn't like, I guess you in what you've taught me, like there's safety things going on. I didn't always feel safe, and it's weird to say because it was my parents had, you know, we had a good house. We had a good home of both of those. I liked my house, I liked my home where I grew up. It was it was awesome. Burbank was kind of a idyllic in a lot of ways at that time in the 80s. It was kind of a cool place to to live. But there was like times I just didn't understand, and maybe when we don't understand things, that then becomes a problem. It leaves gaps in our body and our emotions and our kind of subconscious, fills in those gaps with different different things. So yeah, it's been an interesting ride that even when we're stressed and frustrated now, you don't react the way you used to. That's helped us, especially kind of noticing that week. And or if you do get a little stressed, you come back quicker instead of staying so far away, you know, going over and pulling away and then kind of either getting mad or punishing. Not that you would intentionally punish me, but it felt like that, like pull away and say, Oh man, you just really screwed up, then I have to say I'm sorry for something that I felt bad about in the first place, and it was confusing to me. Like we didn't have that this week. We had some good connections, we talked, we walked, we sat at the beach a whole lot, saw lots of family connected with them, just kind of come back to maybe a little bit of our roots, which is fun.

SPEAKER_02 6:41

It's fun. I think you said a couple of things. Couple things I want to touch on. No. First, if you guys haven't, and because one of the questions I got asked about asking David was kind of like, how did he start to want to change his own patterns?

SPEAKER_00 7:00

Because we've talked about me wanting to, and I kind of said, Hey, I'm gonna Yeah, why did you tell me about that without having me to have to listen to the podcast again? And for those maybe just listening the first time because the star has come back and sometimes they missed episodes like you know five and six of Star Wars, and they want to go back and re- you know, without that. So why did you want to change? What was your deal?

SPEAKER_02 7:21

I like I've said this several times, and I think I said that in the episode with you. I remember I was given like my first personal development book. I think it was back in why'd they give that to you?

SPEAKER_00 7:31

Like, what was that about?

SPEAKER_02 7:32

Because I was growing a business, a network marketing business. I was learning about health and wellness. I had found some things that really, really helped me. And my mentor, part of being an entrepreneur, she taught me was my own mindset. And I didn't even know what that meant. I didn't really realize I had a mindset that could change. So the top two books I was given were The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks and High Performance Habits by Brendan Bruchard. And I think it was when I read High Performance Habits that I presented it to you, and I was kind of realizing I was so like dumbfounded isn't the right word. I was so in awe when I started reading these words. It's like I could not consume enough when I realized, like for the first time in my life, that the ways I thought about myself and my negative self-talk and how you knew you had negative self-talk. Totally, yeah. I've had it from the time I was little, and we now know a lot of our negative self-talk is a form of protection. So if you guys have questions about that and maybe you don't understand that, we can talk about that because that kind of ties into our attachment styles, which which I'll get to in a minute. But I realized that I didn't have to stay stuck, and I felt stuck for so much of my life, and our marriage felt stuck for a really, really long time. So I remember like presenting you with this book, high performance habits, and I'm like, this is like mind-blowing. And something at the end of Brendan's book goes along the lines of the moment you think that you've learned it all is the moment that you failed. And I remember just like thinking about that, and that was like, oh, so learning is not something we just do once. Healing, changing our mindset, growth isn't just a one-time thing. It's like so I decided that moment like this is gonna be a lifelong journey for me. And I really wanted you to come along, but I was I was scared. Why were you scared?

SPEAKER_00 9:25

Say it. Put it out there. I don't know. Things were really rough for us, especially when you tell me that I'm not good enough by saying I need to change, right? There's there's that, like I I can see that. Like if I came to you before that and was like, hey, here's a book about your bad attitude and your lack of discipline.

SPEAKER_02 9:44

Right.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

That sucks.

SPEAKER_02 9:46

Totally. And that's also another shit. It's like, how do you for a guy? I have one listener that says I'm doing the work, how do I like present that to my wife? So that's kind of a reverse scenario, right? And it's a very, very real thing. And I don't remember how you presented it, but you it was enough for you to be like, you got your own copy. We ended up going to a Brendan Breshard like a lot of people.

SPEAKER_00 10:03

Oh, yeah, you teased into it, like you helped me travel and I liked going places, and that was cool. Like an expense account, that was fun too. You know, we started doing a couple of things, but I think it's like the law of attraction. So, in answer to that question, for yeah, for like men specifically or woman or anyone in a relationship, if you're gonna change, yeah, I would say like this change should be and can be something that's attractive, something that hopefully brings you some joy. Brings and I've always believed that being around, being being around like my friends are like good people. I like being around them. I don't hang around them because I gotta fix them. I don't hang around them because they make me feel like crap. I'm around them because like I feel good when I'm around them. I feel good when I'm golfing or I'm playing ball or we're driving or doing something fun, traveling together. Like my friends are the ones who I feel good around. And I think like with you, it's like I felt good and you were changing, and I could see you being a bit happier, you thriving. And I decided at that point in time it was part anxiousness. Like I've said this to you before, like if you were gonna change, at some point in time the dynamic would shift where I wasn't either as attractive to you or you'd step to the left by changing. And if I were to stay in the same position, you'd leave. And so, from you know, maybe in the very, very beginning, I'd say honestly, like it was a fear of losing you that took me like, okay, well, if you're gonna go left, you know, I'm gonna go left too, and we're gonna see what this looks like. And then as I got into it, it felt great. It was similar and and lucky, the changes you made were at the root something similar to what I wanted to do. Our values were at least shared. And we learned later, like one of the best things you can do as couples is talking about and aligning your values and then working on you know a whole lot of other things that are out there by smarter people than me.

SPEAKER_02 12:09

Remind me that we'll we'll teach you guys how to do that at the end.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

So, like, yeah, there's a lot of this belief system that when things are attractive to us, when we change and it looks good on us and it feels good to us, other people will will seek that and join that. And if they're not, then it's like, you know, you can't make people do it. And so I get it from that standpoint. It's really hard to, you can't be telling your spouse or or your partner or the person in the journey with you, hey, you need to change because I'm looking good or I feel good. It's more of, hey, look at how much fun I'm having over here in the sand. You want to come build a sandbox with me? You know, you want to make a castle or do something else. There's there's something there in our beach analogy that we're you know sitting at oceanside for.

SPEAKER_02 12:55

Yeah, it's like I didn't build a sand castle with you.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

Do you know? You don't like getting your hands dirty. I tried setting up a tent with you today, and I mean you were you were like I don't like the sand in my nails. Oh, it's I was like, well, you you go get your nails done next week. Alrighty. There's that, yeah. It's like we want to make things beautiful, we want ourselves to be attractive, and it feels good when we are. I don't know if that's maybe one way of describing it, but it's like I saw you, I liked where you were headed, I didn't want to lose you. So I followed and I found out that following you was good for me too. And that's been nice. And so hopefully then maybe you'll want to follow me sometime too. Also, there's the little little anxious David talking every once in a while. It's like, oh, maybe you want to come onto this side of things. And fortunately, you're you're well enough that you see that too, and we walk together. We, you know, we are in stride, lockstep a little bit at times, maybe not all the time.

SPEAKER_02 13:55

But more so than we ever have been.

SPEAKER_00 13:56

Yeah, and that's I I think because we're working on ourselves. We're talking, we're talking more, we're communicating more, we're we're touching in more openly on our values, what's important, and that shifts like almost every year. We do another values assessment, and that changes. And so, you know, this year we're focused on family and experiences together. We got a bunch of kids leaving the house, you know, we're gonna almost be empty nesters with a 13-year-old at home. 75% of the kids are gone.

SPEAKER_02 14:23

Yeah, it's great.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

But that changes our financial situation and what we're doing right now. So, like we're pouring a whole lot of time, energy, money, resources into creating experiences. And we've seen that, you know, like being gone or doing things on the weekends or trying to create something bigger and better, sitting here doing podcasts together, you know.

SPEAKER_02 14:44

Pretty amazing. Something you said, so if you guys don't know the language, he kind of I learned I was more of the avoidant attachment style. And David, he already said and said it out loud, anxious attachment.

SPEAKER_00 14:56

Oh.

SPEAKER_02 14:57

Oh, an incredible book to read and again invite to the book.

SPEAKER_00 15:01

What's the one that's healed? Secure. Secure. Oh, I'm very secure now.

SPEAKER_02 15:06

The hardest combo in a relationship to navigate is if someone's anxious and the other person is avoidant, just FYI. But the book attached is amazing. We've read it, you can take the quizzes in it. Um the audiobook is fun to listen to, so that's the language we're kind of pulling off. And I'm not gonna really go into attachment styles in this episode. If it's something you want to know, we for sure can. But why, since David brought it up, I want us to kind of look at how can these attachment styles that show up in a relationship, right? They're usually not the same. Most of us don't actually start in a secure relationship as far as an attachment style goes, unfortunately. I want you to look at it though for a minute and maybe think about this, and you might have to process this question for a second, but think about how these attachment styles, because when we say avoidant and anxious, you're like, well, I don't want that. But for a minute, just trying to look that all these ways that we showed up as children were ultimately a form of protection.

SPEAKER_00 16:02

So what's the question?

SPEAKER_02 16:03

So how can you see that your anxious attachment style was actually your nervous system trying to help you? And then I'll say about avoidant.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

It gave me a little bit of security and control. By being anxious, I was more vigilant. I can, you know, kind of like you think of the Navy SEAL or the special ops guy who's who's looking around, walks into a room, you know the exits, you know the entrances. I walk into a relationship, I assess her mood in a sense, her body language, her in like a second you do. Oh, I already know before I walked into the room, you can kind of you can hear it or feel it. The energy that that's emitted. So that created, I mean, anxious is worrying about something that you can't really that isn't currently present, it's more in the future, right? If we maybe define it that way. Therefore, my being anxious gave me a little bit of security and safety. It helped maybe make decisions. I'm constantly assessing and making decisions. Oh, is that gonna work? Is that not gonna work? Did I say it the wrong way? Do I have RBF today? Do I need to like, you know, spice up my smile and and pop a little bit better? Can I be numb and dumb? Those sorts of things. So I think I I guess I'd say in that sense, like that's how it worked for me.

SPEAKER_02 17:32

And I think the same with me and avoidance. If you feel like you're more avoidant personality, yeah, it can be like, well, your partner's like, I want you to change these patterns, but if you take a minute and kind of reflect, like, how did it help serve you? So for me, it was a way to get out of tough conversations, it was a way to get out of tough situations. It was a way to have to avoid facing reality sometimes. And the unfortunate part is that showed up later as me doing the same patterns in relationship. And again, anxious and avoidant. Anxious needs a little bit of what from avoidant presence.

SPEAKER_00 18:09

Leaning in needs a little bit of like I can stay for a minute. Helping me feel trust that I can trust that you're not gonna run out on me because that's I guess that's unpredictable. Like and I and and I guess from that book or from our understanding in the last couple years of each other, it's you hate it, but it it it exposes the weakness. And there are times in our relationship when I'm like talking to you and I'm not too upset, but all of a sudden I can see you spiraling down, flooding, whatever you want to call it, and running away from the the conversation. And it's like it becomes a light bulb for me to be like, oh hey, why are you leaving this conversation? Where are you going? Like, and I'll I've even said that to you, hate it at that time. You've kind of now come to accept it. And I think it's the same thing with me. If you're like, why are you so anxious about getting to the beach on time? What's going on with that? What are you thinking? And I think those con kind of conversations, once we understand each other's style, helps us then to navigate with a little bit more honesty and maybe softness, or most importantly, to me, like maybe more integrity with who we are. Like, do you realize that you run away from our discussions and that prolongs our arguments within makes me anxious because it's been happening for so long and we need to circle back?

SPEAKER_02 19:34

So that's and so that's what's fascinating is that the avoidant and anxious together actually make things more intense and less repair is possible because the anxious just needs a little bit of reassurance and needs the avoidant to stay, and needs the avoidant to offer some reassurance compassionately and lovingly. And what does the avoidant need that you learned?

SPEAKER_00 19:58

I have no idea. I'm still trying to figure you out.

SPEAKER_02 20:01

Oh my god. A little space, a little permission.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

That's probably why I haven't remembered that.

SPEAKER_02 20:08

That's like the avoidant needs a little permission to be able to process the.

SPEAKER_00 20:14

But well, it could be easy if we all just did it a little more anxiously. Anxiously engaged, is I've heard that phrase before. You could be that way, and then like, let's just move on. I'm ready to move on. You don't want I need more time. I don't want to move on.

SPEAKER_02 20:31

But he knows that that helps.

SPEAKER_00 20:34

She is so regretting for me. He avoided this conversation right now.

SPEAKER_02 20:38

Okay, does that make sense? But interestingly enough, is that both as we're describing attachment styles, which is interesting that that's kind of where we went today, both live in nervous system dysregulation. Again, if we kind of look at the nervous system and the autonomic nervous system specifically, when our body doesn't feel safe, okay, this again, when we talk about safety, safety, it doesn't mean that you feel like there's a physical threat for your life, that you're going to lose your life, that someone's going to physically harm you. It's a felt sense of does my body feel safe in this moment? And a lot of that, especially as children, it was connected to was there some unconditional love in the moment? Was there someone to advocate for me? Was safety possible or could it have been possible? And was there another option that could have been possible? So we are constantly looking at those things, whether you know it or not, like 24 hours a day. And so both my attachment style and David's live out of our window of tolerance, live out of a point of connection, of thriving, of fulfillment, of logically being able to solve problems because the anxious mind is saying, I'm not safe here. Like you use the word hypervigilance, I have to be so hyper-focused on how to get connection, on how to feel safe. And the avoidant is like, I have to remove myself so far from this because safety I cannot find here in this moment. I need to go feel safe alone. Like none of this is safe. And so it's interesting, as I've said this several times, ask David what he thinks about this, when the autonomic nervous system is engaged, again, we are out of our window of tolerance. The body is preparing to do several things. It's preparing to either fight, it's preparing to fly away, you know, and sometimes that's the checkout, sometimes that's overproductivity, it's preparing to freeze and shut down altogether and be numb. And play dead, maybe to bypass having to face whatever. And now we see that appeasement or that people pleasing, right? Of like, let me give you everything that you need and let me bypass my feelings. So as the body's preparing to do that, we can see heart rate increases. We can see that sometimes we might hold our breath or we might be breathing more rapidly up here in our chest, which is where a lot of times you'll describe it to me when you're having have had a panic attack or you're feeling anxious, is we're not actually sending the breath where it needs to go, deep in our belly. We might start sweating. Some people's faces get hot, we clench our jaws, we clench our hands. And one of the most fascinating things we see is that we have tunnel vision. Because, as David said again, we are becoming so hyper-vigilant because we don't feel safe in the body. And when we are in tunnel vision, we don't see other options. We don't smell the flowers, we don't look at our partner with compassion and think about all the good things. We don't think about repair. We don't think about wanting to like kiss and make up. We are literally thinking about how do I fight this, how do I run away from this, how do I shut down. But what's so powerful too is that on the flip side of that, in the autonomic nervous system, when the body feels safe, when we come back into our window of tolerance, we not only slow our breath and our heart rate and our body temperature regulates, we expand our peripheral vision. Which means we can see more. What have you learned about that with us as far as possibilities? Like when I say see more, how have you actually seen that with us or even yourself?

SPEAKER_00 24:17

Well, I see it from like I feel myself getting anxious, getting sympathetically activated, I feel in our discussions. It's more and more like I've described it to you as like I just get frustrated you're not hearing me. So what do I do? I over-explain it. I explain it five or six times, which then leads you to get more frustrated in tunnel vision. And then you either will tell me, you know, you're yelling or you're, you know, you're speaking too loud, like you'll clue me in. The sad part is, is when I get so activated and upset, I don't always hear that or stop myself because I'm hurt, I'm frustrated, I'm scared, I'm looking for safety, and that safety comes in being understood and heard. But since you don't do that and can't do that, and you're running away, it doesn't happen. And it's only until sometimes like I will literally have to like take a big breath in, stop, I'll turn around, or I'll even wring my hands, or you know, go for a drive, or be frustrated and just kind of take a break and come back to it. That then I can bring myself back to the point of like, okay, hey, look, you know, I do love you. We do want to talk a little bit better. You've got some things going on. It'd be great if you said sorry, but I'm also sorry for my part and what happened in this conversation. And I want to move forward. You've taught us and taught our kids, and I love it, where you've just said, can we try again? And that's a powerful break for us, and like especially when you say it and you mean it, instead of saying, like, I'm sorry that you got upset at me. The sorry, the sorries that aren't sorries often are infuriating more than they're helpful.

SPEAKER_02 25:58

And say sorry when you actually are at a point where you're gonna be able to do it.

SPEAKER_00 26:01

Say sorry when you can say it.

SPEAKER_02 26:02

Really mean it.

SPEAKER_00 26:03

Yeah, and and let that I don't know, settle in and say, really, can we try again? Let's try that conversation a different way or different. I don't like if you're anxious and you feel that way, like you telling me, let's try it at a different time. No, because one situation's change, two, you don't try it again a second time, it just doesn't work out that way. I would rather deal with it at the moment if I'm speaking on podcast for the record. But it also is a way to kind of slow us down and let's see if we can try it again. And you've actually been really good about that, where you're like, okay, yeah, I'll try it again. You say you need time, but we usually are moving, especially as we practice this more, faster and faster.

SPEAKER_02 26:45

But for couples starting out, that might not be possible.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

Right.

SPEAKER_02 26:49

It's something I work a lot with in my couples' clients that sometimes you guys might need to go for a walk and breathe together.

SPEAKER_00 26:57

And maybe you go separately or do you go together?

SPEAKER_02 27:00

It depends on what works for you guys. If you're not really feeling safe in that moment, like David's said, go for a drive. If you can do that safely, maybe you guys walk. Sometimes I have clients walk together but not talk, and then they come back and try again. Sometimes clients will each go for a walk. Because we see that too, in the body, when there's a buildup of energy, sitting still is not the way to release a buildup of emotion. And at that point, we usually will say something we regret or we'll hold so much in that then we'll shut down completely and repair will not be possible either. So movement is really powerful, especially healthy movement, because sometimes when we have a buildup of energy, that's when we get the inkling to want to punch something like a wall or throw something or say something that you really are going to regret saying. Because again, think about it as energy. It's building, it's building, it's building. So as we walk, as we move, sometimes I have clients, they'll even go jump on a trampoline, do a hundred push-ups until you're just exhausted, jumping jacks, turn on some music. So many options that you even if you want to still be together and take a few minutes, you've got to release some of that energy out of the body before you can get access to that logical part of the brain again, before the body can start to feel safe. And then hopefully over time, like us and what we've learned, that it can come back quicker to repair. Anything about that?

SPEAKER_00 28:29

No. What's a good recap? So, how do people help understand that change is possible with them and with their partners?

SPEAKER_02 28:37

So the biggest thing I want to kind of end on, and then we'll just touch on how to do your values is self-compassion. Can I just talk about what we did just last week? Just briefly, I won't go into details.

SPEAKER_00 28:48

What are you gonna say?

SPEAKER_02 28:50

About working with your younger self.

SPEAKER_00 28:52

Working with my little David?

SPEAKER_02 28:55

Yeah. All right. Um so much of how we show up now with our partner has to do with our version of us at some point that didn't get again, that didn't get that repair that we needed, that didn't get to have an explanation, that didn't feel that unconditional love. Not because I truly believe that most of us have parents that really did the best they could with what they had and the tools they had, but we also have parents that had their own struggles, their own generational impacts, their own fears, their own worries and finances, and they had jobs. They couldn't be there for us as children 24 hours a day, right? And so much of our current reactions are based on a younger part of us that didn't get those needs met. So maybe just from that point, can you just say what you learned as we just did a little bit of that work? Maybe how that shifted in you.

SPEAKER_00 29:49

I think looking back, so the the nuts and bolts of it were to look back and get an assessment, get an idea of some of the feelings, maybe put yourself into a specific situation that was troubling, hard, frustrating in your youth, especially young youth, like kind of in your earliest memories. And then upon doing that, then speaking some sort of understanding, comfort and I guess help, oftentimes in a role-playing situation, like either my older self talking to my younger self or someone else talking to my younger self. And in doing that, you can release and or give some support to that younger self, which then helps unravel a lot of the reactions and the searching and the trying to find safety in the future and the current situations that you find yourself in. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:42

How is that for you, just overall? How's that felt?

SPEAKER_00 30:45

You know, it's been interesting. It's been a little hard, a little good. TBD, I guess I'd say.

SPEAKER_02 30:50

TBD.

SPEAKER_00 30:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:51

So when we think about that, like coming back to us as couples too, and you guys listening and your partner and spouse and wherever they are in their journey, like starting with you and offering yourself when you start to feel frustrated, when you start to not feel heard, when you start to feel like you're doing it all and you're alone, that nobody has your back, or maybe in the moment doesn't feel like anyone has your back, or your partner or spouse doesn't care, to start to offer yourself compassion first.

SPEAKER_00 31:19

Yeah, I think that's the I guess the point and and and where it is. How do you want your, you know, like you're doing some work for yourself, just keep doing the work for yourself, keep working on all the little hard points and things that take you out of your window of tolerance. You work on that, and I would I say like good things follow, making yourself a bit more circling back to the beginning, like a more attractive in the sense of a law of attraction, like magnetic pulls things to it.

SPEAKER_01 31:48

Totally.

SPEAKER_00 31:48

So if you can, the better you are and happier you are, or just more healed, you don't have to be happy in that sense, but usually you will be, you'll be more magnetic and pull and attract the good in the world to you.

SPEAKER_02 32:03

It's beautiful. Yeah, and a lot of that starts with our self-compassion. So, what do I mean by that? Here's a few statements to practice with yourself, especially in the moment when you're feeling like you want to blame that on your partner, is noticing, and sometimes I even like to put a hand on my heart or wherever your body is starting to feel tense because your body is going to let you know where it doesn't feel safe. Okay, that might sound weird. It's gonna let you know in the body. So if you can connect, for me, it's often hands under my collarbones on those EFT tapping points. And it is some self-compassion statements such as, I I love, like I love myself. And sometimes I just even say it like I love you, like I'm talking to my younger self. It's gonna be okay. I'm listening, I hear you. Let's slow down and breathe for a few minutes and ask myself, what else do I need to feel safe in my body right now so that I can attempt repair with my partner? Sometimes that's putting your feet and feeling your feet like on the carpet. Sometimes it's touching your chair, sometimes it's looking out the window, sometimes it's stepping outside and breathing outside there. Sometimes we need a really cold drink of water. Sometimes we need to move around the house, or we talked about go for a walk, go for a drive. If you're not too activated, jump on the trampoline, hug a dog, hug your kids. I don't know what other animals you have. So those are all self-compassionate ways to check in with ourself first, so then we're not looking to our partner to be like, here's what I'm feeling, fix it all for me. We have to be able to start with ourselves. What do you think about that? That's what I said. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 33:41

Good summary.

SPEAKER_02 33:42

Good summary. Well, in closing, maybe we'll talk about values another time, but quickly, like when we I just wanted to make sure because some people ask me all the time, what do you mean by values? Like it comes up in therapy or in coaching. So let's ask you this.

SPEAKER_00 33:55

I guess a lot of things out. Sorry to interrupt that, but I mean, there are a lot of resources out there about setting your values, setting intentions and things like that.

SPEAKER_02 34:04

But the biggest I'll ask you if you want to sit down and get a blank piece of paper and say, in the context of your relationship, what is important to you? It's the same in the context of your health, in the context of your financial life, in the context of your job, what is important to you, and do a free write and just start writing for several minutes and keep looking at the question. And maybe it's honesty, maybe it's not.

SPEAKER_00 34:25

Until you have no more answers.

SPEAKER_02 34:27

Maybe it's integrity, maybe it's gratitude, maybe it's physical touch, things like that. And you just keep writing. That's the first step. Next is then very quickly, because we want to engage that deeper part of our consciousness, not just our cognitive part, number them from the ones that feel like number one's the most important all the way to the end, right? So we number those really quickly. So maybe for me, let's say honesty ends up being my first one. I'm gonna take one through five at the very end and put those in a list. And I'm gonna sit and just really ponder on those and ask myself, does this feel like this is in accordance with what's important to me? And then my partner will do that. We're not talking at this point. Then we share each other's values and maybe just start with the top one to two, maybe one to three, I guess if you're just getting started. And you guys start having conversations about how does my honesty line up with whatever your partner's number one is? And how is that working? And how can you guys each support each other in that value? Right? Did we miss anything? No, and just really set goals, little goals. How do we meet this? How specifically can David help me with honesty? And if his is, let's say his is fun, then how can I make sure that that is being met too? Like, what's my effort to put? So, as far as values, that's what we'll leave. It's anything you want to add about values?

SPEAKER_00 35:46

Yeah, no, I just I would do a search. There's a lot of resources out there. So find what works for us. Or Google how to align your values, aligning values in a relationship. Just that that key practice has been very helpful and and kind of changed even like some of the feedback and or advice I've given my kids as they've gotten older in their relationships, making sure they know and can work with their values because then everything becomes becomes meaningful to you. We work together because I know what your values are, you know what mine are, and we have even our relationship values that we've both agreed on. Kind of points us in the right direction.

SPEAKER_02 36:23

It's been powerful. So then when we're working through our own inner wounds, right, that show up and our own nervous system dysregulation, we always still remember what is important to both of us and our values will change. So that's why David said to do it once a year. So maybe at the end of the year, we'll do another.

SPEAKER_00 36:39

You have a lot of moving for you.

SPEAKER_02 36:40

So thanks you guys for being here. Thanks for requesting David back. Yeah, thanks.

SPEAKER_00 36:46

Love it. So great.

SPEAKER_02 36:47

Any questions? You guys can send me a message on Instagram at aligning with Liana. And we'll talk to you guys soon.

SPEAKER_00 36:58

Talk soon. See you at a beach. What did you just say? See you at a beach.

SPEAKER_02 37:02

See you at a beach. Make it a great rest of your week. Rest of your week. Bye guys.

SPEAKER_00 37:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:09

Thanks for joining me on the NeuroAir podcast. This work is about honoring resilience in yourself and also those who came before you, all while finding freedom from what was never yours to carry. With the help of stories, science, somatic tools, and the four ends, notice, name, nurture, and navigate, you have a path to a deeper connection with yourself, your loved ones, and the legacy you want to pass on. If today's episode spoke to you, share it with someone who's ready to step into this work too and follow this joke so you never miss an episode. Remember, you may not have chosen what you inherited, but you can choose what comes next.