Understanding Attachment Theory: How Childhood Bonds Shape Our Adult Lives with Bev Mitelman M.A.

This week I am delighted to be joined by Bev Mitelman M.A. as we discuss "Attachment Theory",

As I say several times throughout this podcast, this was an eye opening conversation for me.

Prior to becoming a Certified Attachment Practitioner and founding Securely Loved, Bev was an Executive Leader, University Lecturer and published author, having obtained her Masters' Degree in 2006. 

She has dedicated her entire career (25+ years) working with adults in the realm of personal growth and professional development. 

We discuss many things including;

What is attachment theory?

How do our early childhood relationships affect our adult ones?

How different generations might have different parenting styles (and how to overcome it hahaha)

How to build healthy relationships for yourself.

And much, MUCH, more.

You can find Bev, and Securely Loved, on social media at

Youtube

and

Instagram

As always; HPNB still only has 5 billing cycles.

So this means that you not only get 3 months FREE access, no obligation!

BUT, if you decide you want to do the rest of the program, after only 5 months of paying $10/£8 a month you now get FREE LIFE TIME ACCESS! That's $50 max spend, in case you were wondering.

Though I'm not terribly active on  Instagram and Facebook you can follow us there. I am however active on Threads so find me there!

And, of course, you can always find us on our YouTube channel if you like your podcast in video form :)

Visit healthypostnatalbody.com and get 3 months completely FREE access. No sales, no commitment, no BS.

Email peter@healthypostnatalbody.com if you have any questions, comments or want to suggest a guest/topic        
  
 If you could rate the podcast on your favourite platform that would be a big help. 

Playing us out this week; "Pembrokeshire" by Cody Martin

Chapters

• 0:00 Attachment Theory and Healthy Relationships
• 9:44 Understanding Insecure Attachment Patterns
• 23:15 Parental Behavior Influences Child's Development
• 29:22 Building Secure Attachment in Relationships
• 42:41 Exploring Emotional Wounds and Trauma
• 49:21 International Adoption Policies and Practices

Transcript

Peter: 0:00

Hey, welcome to the Healthy Postnatal Body Podcast with your postnatal expert, peter Lap. That, as always, would be me. This is a podcast for the 2nd of March 2025 and, you know, date before music means I have a guest on. I'm talking to Bev Mitelman. I mentioned that this episode was coming up. We're talking attachment theory, how to build healthy relationships, how to teach your kids what a healthy relationship looks like, how to have healthy relationships with partners and colleagues, and all that type of stuff. This one was mind-blowing to me. This was so remarkably good. Bev really knows what she's talking about and is very clear in explaining it. You're going to absolutely love this one. It'll be an eye-opener, I promise you. It definitely was for me.

Bev: 1:16

So, without further ado, here we go. So what exactly is attachment theory? So that's a great place to start. So attachment theory is a theory based on how it is that we as humans create an emotional bond, and it starts really really early on, in our earliest days. We are most suggestible as humans, from the time period of zero, so first born, until about five years old, which makes sense. We come out of the oven and we're a blank slate. So everything that we hear and we experience and we see and we feel creates a template in our mind, almost like a set of subconscious rules for how we are to interrelate with other people and how we are to give and receive love. And in the earliest years, this is usually most commonly played out with a primary caregiver, oftentimes the mother, but it can, of course, be a father, it could be, let's say, an aunt, it could be a grandmother, whoever is the primary caregiver. Now, what comes of this is actually really really important. The type of interaction that a very young child will receive with that primary caregiver sets out again a pattern by which they will use over and, over and over again in their adult years. Right? So when we talk about, that's the theory.

Bev: 2:46

Now, out of the theory, there's different attachment styles that have been, that have emerged right out of this, this theory of how we emotionally bond and connect to others. So in in generality, there are two broad categories One is an individual who has a secure connection, right or attachment, and the other one would be someone who has an insecure attachment. So we'll start with the person who has a secure attachment, so the child, who is lucky enough to grow up in a home whereby there's a fair degree of consistent and predictable emotional attunement from their caregiver, which means you know, even when the child is pre-verbal, if the child, for example, cries or shows distress, that the primary caregiver will respond in a healthy way. Now that doesn't mean I want to be very careful, because you know we're talking to a group of parents and I myself am a mother. I've raised two sons. They're both away at university now and I could say, hands down, I did not do everything perfectly. So I want to be yeah, I want to be really clear.

Bev: 4:07

This is not about shaming parents, it's not about perfection, but what the child is looking for in order to create this secure attachment is consistency, predictability. So when a caregiver responds to a child, for example, in distress, or a child that wants comfort, or even a child who's just playful and wants the attention of their caregiver. When the caregiver responds in a healthy way, that creates a level of safety and trust for the child. So the child trusts in themselves, they learn to identify their emotions, they learn to identify their emotions, they learn to communicate their emotions and they also trust in others that they will be responded to in a healthy way. So that sets out a beautiful template for a child to then grow up and spread their wings out into the world. Where they're now.

Bev: 5:06

As teenagers and young adults and well into our adult years, they're now forming all types of relationships with family members, with friends, with colleagues and, of course, romantic partners. So this creates an individual that's quite comfortable with their own emotions. They understand their emotional patterns, they're quite emotionally regulated, oftentimes very good communicators, very good with boundaries. They understand their needs for example, a long-term romantic partnership and be very comfortable in this state of interdependence where I can soothe myself and give myself my own needs. But I can also do that in partnership. Both feel comfortable to me, right. So that's the utopia, that's where we want to go, right, and I'm sure, peter. I'll ask you do you know some people like this, who have been in long-term relationships, who are emotionally regulated, who just you?

Peter: 6:13

know generally, but, to be fair, only one or two, let's be honest. Let's be honest Because I'm 50, you know. So all my friends are of a certain generation and a certain not just a certain age, but it's more a certain generation, and we were raised by people from a certain generation and, as you're probably familiar with, most people in their 50s are pretty messed up, right yeah unfortunately that is a true statement.

Bev: 6:42

So I'm also almost 50. I'm 49. So close enough for the sake of argument here. And I also did not live the childhood that I've described.

Peter: 6:54

Yeah.

Bev: 6:55

So I think parenting was a little different back then. You know, maya Angelou has a beautiful quote that says when you know better, do better. So we now know better in terms of child development and so you know it's our job to say this is really what's best for a child in terms of healthy emotional development. So I believe our parents did the best they could with what they had at the time, but 50 years ago we didn't have the same information.

Peter: 7:30

So how then? Because for a lot of people right, and I know a lot of American listeners especially therapy is very common in America. I'm guessing it's similar in Canada, in the UK very much, not so right, but moving in that direction it is very on the continent, hardly at all. I mean, I'm Dutch and I don't know any Dutch people that went to see a therapist unless they were like a psychopath or anything like that. Whenever we watch any sort of American television, yeah, it has to be court-mandated therapy.

Bev: 8:04

You all end up sitting in a group.

Peter: 8:06

It's always anger management or something like that. So how do you break the cycle? Because it's very interesting when you talk about predictability, as in the predictability of response, when a child or even a partner turns to their partner, or the child turns to their parent and is trying to get something, as in trying to elicit a response, and the parent responds in an unpredictable manner. So, as in, you never know what you're going to get. That was very much my own life. That's one day it might be great, the other day you might be in trouble. That's one day. It might be great, the other day you might be in trouble. Right, right. And how do you then break what quite often is the initial? Because I had to work pretty hard to not turn into my dad when I was 35, 40 years old. Do you know what I mean? Everybody turns into their parents, unless we're very, very careful. That is just kind of how it goes, unless you're aware, unless you're aware and you can identify the patterns that are healthy and the patterns that aren't.

Bev: 9:10

So that's a beautiful question how do you disrupt this pattern and then really move away from intergenerational trauma? Right because it's very easy to take what your parents gave you and pass it on to your kids, and they pass it on to your kids. So, if it's okay with you, with your permission, I'll ask to park that question for a few minutes.

Bev: 9:30

But don't forget it because it's a. It's a very important question, but what I want to do for your audience is to dive into what insecure attachment actually looks like, because we talked about secure attachment and now insecure attachment. Now in North America the statistics are about 40% of the population has a secure attachment and about 60% has an insecure attachment, so it's a large segment of the population. So within the range of insecure attachment, there's three subtypes and they're on a continuum. So on one end of this spectrum, we have what we call an anxious attacher, or someone who is anxious, preoccupied. On the other end of the spectrum, we have what's called an avoidance attacher, or someone who is dismissive avoidance. An avoidance attacher or someone who is dismissive avoidance, and somewhere in the middle, with qualities of both the anxious and the avoidance, we have the fearful avoidance, which is also called a disorganized attacher.

Bev: 10:36

Now, why does this matter? Essentially, all of these folks came out of a home where they did not receive the predictable, consistent emotional attunement that they needed, and there are so many examples that I'll throw out just a few so people get an idea. So, for example, there could be a child who's living in a home with, let's say, a mother who's an alcoholic. That behavior is highly unpredictable One day they're drunk, the next day they're happy, one day they're passed out. The child doesn't know if they can rely on the parent to meet their needs, right? Yeah, sometimes children are living in a home, for example, where the mother has too many children to take care of, and so a child really doesn't get the attention they need.

Bev: 11:28

Sometimes children are growing up in homes where they're a part of a high demand religion and it's extremely strict and everything is very controlled. Sometimes a child is growing up in a home where a caregiver has a mental illness and we know that behaviors associated to mental illness are generally highly unpredictable, which can be very scary for a child, right? Or you know, we often we see this far too often, unfortunately where children also grow up in a home where there's all kinds of abuse verbal abuse, emotional abuse, psychological abuse, and it could be sexual abuse too. It could be all of the above, and so that's just a snapshot of some of the scenarios, but you can see there's huge variance, right? So why does this matter? Well, all three of these subtypes, they share one common core wound that they carry from their childhood, and that core wound is. I am unsafe.

Peter: 12:34

Right, that makes sense.

Bev: 12:36

So they feel unsafe in themselves. They oftentimes cannot emotionally regulate. They're quite volatile. They never learned how to self-soothe. It was never modeled for them.

Bev: 12:54

Oftentimes, you know, people become very disconnected from their own emotions as a way to sort of cope in this world. So all of these subtypes that we're talking about the anxious, the avoidance and the fearful avoidance have very distinct emotional patterns, communication patterns and coping mechanisms, behaviors for how they're going to deal with what they perceive as being, you know, what's safe and trustworthy. And so when this becomes incredibly apparent is when these individuals go to form new relationships in adulthood, Because we talked about how the template that's created, like that imprint, it gets reused and reused Subconsciously. People don't realize they're doing this. So the child who had a very unpredictable mother will be the adult who grows up, for example, in a romantic relationship and is anxious, preoccupied.

Bev: 14:02

And these people oftentimes feel very lonely, they feel very sad, they have core wounds around I will be abandoned, I am not good enough, I am unlikable, I will be excluded. And oftentimes what we see is they choose romantic partners that are unpredictable and emotionally unavailable and they spend a whole lot of time chasing and running after these people in the same way. That mirrors the dynamic that they once had with their caregiver. All of their focus becomes the other person. They become massive people pleasers, which no doubt started in childhood, and so that's how they perceive love. They perceive love how it's given and how it's received under that lens, where the other person's needs are far more important than my own Right.

Bev: 15:07

Now these are the people who tend to be called. You know, I don't really love names, but we tend to call these people, you know, clingy, needy. They need a lot of external validation, reassurance, because they can't give it to themselves, Right? So, it makes sense, right, and we see this, and I'm sure you know people in your life who are like this as well, for sure, yeah, so if you dig a little, you'll find that they had one or both of their caregivers who were highly unpredictable, right who emotionally abandoned them.

Peter: 15:47

Yeah, you'll see the pattern.

Bev: 15:49

It's very prescriptive. It's very prescriptive. So if we jump to the other side of the spectrum and the avoidance, the avoidance generally come out of a home whereby they were emotionally neglected. So these are children who spent a lot of time alone. These were children who were often sent to their rooms because they were quote unquote bad and they had to, by themselves, figure out how to deal with all of these emotions. Their coping strategy that they developed was is they just put a wall up, a defense mechanism? They shut down their emotions, they repressed them and they became very distrustful of others. Now, if a child cannot trust their mother, for example, to provide comfort and safety and security, it will be extremely difficult to convince that person as an adult that they can trust others. Sure, right, because they don't have the model for that. That's not what their life experience didn't teach them, that Right. So these folks become hyper-independent, overly self-reliant. They really value their freedom, their independence. They really value their freedom, their independence. They're often seen as secretive, but it's because they're scared of vulnerability.

Bev: 17:20

They really don't want people to get too emotionally close and their core wound is a shame wound, right. So the shame wound being I am defective. These folks, deep down inside, feel that there is something wrong with them. It is their fault that they didn't get the love and the comfort that they needed as a child. It's, a child doesn't have the ability to say my mother is having a bad day, so you know. That's why she's acting this way.

Bev: 17:51

Every child will respond in the same way there must be something that I said or did, or there must be something wrong with me, or my mother would be kinder to me. That makes sense, right. And so they grow up with this. This core wound of I am defective, and in order to keep themselves safe, they keep people at an emotional distance, and so what happens is, when they go to get into long-term relationships, they're very slow to commit. The idea of sacrificing or losing their independence, their freedom, is very, very scary. They have these expectations from childhood that I'm going to manage my emotions, which means you, as my partner, you're going to manage yours.

Peter: 18:45

It's not my job. Good luck with that.

Bev: 18:48

Yeah, it's not my job to soothe you, right? Nobody soothed me when I was a child, so so it's the opposite of codependent. It's almost like parallel play.

Peter: 18:58

Right.

Bev: 18:59

So it's like you do your thing, I'll do my thing, we'll come together and have fun and then go our separate ways. Folks often are much more likely to enter into short-term relationships. Casual relationships avoid the emotional components, and so it's pretty interesting Now. So to make things even worse for these folks because you have to have a level of empathy here, right, because they did experience some difficult things but oftentimes the anxious, anxious person, the anxious attacher and the avoidant attacher, they, they form a bond and they often attract each other nice, which is one of the most it's.

Bev: 19:40

It's a terrible combination, actually, because you know what really really attracts each other to to one another in the initial stages is ultimately what drives them apart. Because the anxious attacher there's no such thing as too close. They always want to get closer and closer and closer, and the avoidant person is generally trying to take more and more space. They feel overwhelmed when someone encroaches too much. So we call this the anxious avoidant dance. Right, right, someone's getting closer, someone's backing up, then the other one backs up and this one. So it's a difficult dynamic unless both partners recognize their patterns and can have open and honest conversations about this. So the last category is the fearful avoidance. Now, the fearful avoidance generally comes out of a home where there was abuse. So this is an individual who has high anxiety and high avoidance, which is a terrible ball of wax.

Bev: 20:50

This is how I grew up and which meant was. In simple terms, I very much craved closeness, let's say from a romantic partner, but petrified, very fearful of intimacy and vulnerability. And this really comes out of a situation whereby usually a child is being abused and harmed by the person that they love. So in a child's psyche they can't reconcile loving someone so much and being drawn to them for comfort and safety, when that person is also the one that's either physically or psychologically, or emotionally or sexually harming them. So it creates this what we call, in a romantic sense, the fearful avoidant, is often known as the hot and the cold partner.

Bev: 21:50

Right, so come closer to me. I want a, want a hug. Okay, that's close enough. Back up a little bit, you know. Let's spend a weekend together. Oh, I need a week apart. Yeah, that on and off. And that is if you follow the trajectory from their, from their childhood. It is the template that they lived in childhood. So that's where we're at in terms of why this is important and these styles. Now I want to move into the question that you asked, because these styles, while we do form them very, very young, our brain has a level of plasticity to it, right? So the neural, the neural connections that we make. So we absolutely can change and and improve if that's our objective our attachment style over time.

Peter: 22:44

So your question was specifically about how to break the cycle yeah, especially with regards to parenting, because I found that, like I said, as I turned into my dad, it was always the initial reaction, right, my initial reaction is always this, and I was ah, that's what my dad used to do, we're not doing that anymore right. And then, with a tremendous amount of practice, you move away from that.

Bev: 23:11

Yes, I love that you said that Such a great example. So a couple of things to pull apart from what you just said. You talked about your initial reaction, which is, again, it's like your template says to do this. So you react almost without thinking, right. So the template is like a roadmap in your mind, right so? So you feel disrespected. Let's say the quote, let's say that you, you're carrying a core wound of I feel disrespected.

Bev: 23:39

and let's say your teenage child does something disrespectful now every teenage child yeah they're gonna do something that rubs us the wrong way, right, yeah, but if you're carrying a core wound of I feel disrespected, you're likely going to respond in a very aggressive, almost big way, three times louder than the child.

Bev: 24:08

You might blurt out something that is really mean, but you never intended to be so harmful, but you are right. So your reaction if you're carrying a core wound I am disrespected and that gets triggered your response is often very exaggerated, very big, not necessarily because of what the child did in that moment, but because they pushed on a button that you already had within you. That's unhealed, sure, right now. So what's beautiful about what you said is that you've developed an awareness where you can have the initial reaction and then go oh, wait a minute, that wasn't the best way to respond. And then you can course correct and over time, as you build new neural pathways, saying I don't have to respond by yelling. Right, I can simply say to my child I don't like the way you're talking to me. Yeah, that's just as effective right?

Peter: 25:16

Yeah, it usually works better.

Bev: 25:19

Yes, it does. But but you, you've really sort of brought to light the point that you can change these behaviors.

Peter: 25:27

Right, these behaviors are simply coping mechanisms, um, for the patterns that we have in our mind, but it's very malleable so obviously, you know a lot, of a lot of people listening to this and and I know we're we're on a tight schedule, but it's, it's a lot, would you say, because it sounds to me like the good a lot of of people are of a let's cross that bridge when we get to it, sort of persuasion, let me put it that way, right? Well, when my child is two or three or four, that's when I'll start dealing with my stuff, which is a little bit late in the game, so to speak. Right in the game, so to speak. Right, and I'm thinking loads of people that are listening to this, must almost almost everybody, if we're honest with ourselves, must be listening to this and going I fall into X, y, z category, right? Surely, the sooner you start working on this, the better it is 100%.

Bev: 26:29

So the best thing we can do for our children and I want to be clear, it's never too late, sure, right, so you know wherever you're at the best thing you can do for your children is to learn about your own attachment style and to ensure that you yourself are emotionally regulated. Right, and so many of us think that we're emotionally regulated, but we can be set off like an atomic bomb, like this Yep and so and and so really what you want to do is do the work to create a level of awareness in your own mind for how your own childhood experiences have created this roadmap, right? Why do you have the emotional patterns that you have? You know why do you behave or cope in certain ways, and once you're able to develop healthier habits to emotionally regulate.

Bev: 27:30

That is a game changer, because your children are watching you 24-7. They are learning from you, not just in the interactions that you have directly with them, but in how you speak to your partner, and how you speak to the person who's checking out your groceries, and how you speak to your friends who come by for a coffee. They're watching everything and if they see a level of volatility in you, they assume that that's the right way to be. So if you're a yeller, like if the way that you handle things is, you yell, and then the kids who eventually turn into teenagers become yellers. You know how many parents have said to me I don't understand, my kid yells so much I go. What part don't you understand?

Peter: 28:22

It's monkey, see monkey do, isn't it?

Bev: 28:25

Yeah, really, where's the confusion? So they will take on your traits, right, that's what they believe to be acceptable. You're teaching them the ways of the world. And so, again, it's not about being perfect, but you know something that I did with my children, because, you know, I remember, I remember the years when the toughest years is when they were very young. My, you know my, my kids were.

Bev: 28:57

I think one of my sons was six years old and the other one was four, and I was trying to prepare dinner and the dog was barking and the doorbell rang and the child was trying to get a cookie and all I want. I'm just so overwhelmed, yeah Right. And so in that moment the child's trying to take a cookie and I yell okay, the child goes to his room. That's not. You still have plenty of opportunity at that point in time to just take 10 minutes. Calm down, right, bring yourself down to baseline and then maybe after dinner, go back and talk to your son or your child. This is something I've done. I've gone back and I said I'm really sorry, I didn't handle that. Well, please accept my apology. I'm sorry if I hurt you, and why that's so important is because we will all make mistakes. You also have to model for your child how to reconcile these mistakes.

Peter: 29:59

Yeah, of course.

Bev: 30:00

Right, but sometimes our egos get in the way. Well, I'm not apologizing to my kid.

Peter: 30:06

Oh, absolutely, yeah.

Bev: 30:08

You know you'll see that as you get older they won't be apologetic towards you either.

Peter: 30:15

No, no, that's very true and I think it goes for almost every relationship that you have. I mean everybody who's ever and I haven't worked in an office in a long time but everybody who's ever worked in an office or a company knows that the person who puts their hand up when they've made a mistake, that's the trustworthy person. And the person everybody knows made a mistake but keeps quiet about it and hides it, nobody really trusts them. And it's the same with you know, it's the same with parenting and all that type of stuff. Right, you erode the relationship a little bit if you don't take ownership of your mistakes.

Bev: 30:50

That's exactly it. So, in the world of attachment theory, what we strive to do is we strive to instill secure attachment in our children. And how do we do that? Well, really, the idea that in the first year of life, a child can do no wrong right. The child just has very specific needs. They need to be fed, they need to be coddled, they need to be changed. They need to be coddled, they need to be changed In the first year of life.

Bev: 31:14

I know, you know back in the day there was a theory about let them cry.

Peter: 31:20

Okay, the whole crying it out thing. Yeah, we don't do that anymore. I hope nobody does it anymore that listens to this. No, it's terrible.

Bev: 31:28

It's really what it teaches the child. Is that? No, it's terrible. It's really what it teaches the child is is that they're alone? Yeah, and so it does. It does the opposite of instill, you know, a sense of safety in the child.

Bev: 31:39

So the first year of life you're really just responding to every need that the child has. After that, you know you're starting to teach them about emotions, about communications, and you're starting to create, you know, predictable patterns with them. So that doesn't mean that you're giving in to everything. If there's a rule that there's no cookies before dinner, then there's a rule that there's no cookies before dinner, right, like, and they will learn that and they will respect that. So if you respond to the child in a calm way when they themselves are having a tantrum, mm-hmm, then the child has the ability to co-regulate with you, feel your calmness. The child has the option or feels heard, right?

Bev: 32:36

So if a child is really upset let's say a four-year-old child is verbal, is really upset and says mommy, I'm really angry at you, okay, so you might be, you know, a little hurts you might, you know, but if you can keep that in control and go, okay, well, sometimes I get angry at people too. So I understand, do you want to tell me why you're angry at me? And that will deescalate the situation so quickly. But what happens is oftentimes we end up escalating. So when a child says to us you know, mommy, I'm angry with you, parents I've heard this so many times will say well, stop being angry or I'll give you something to be angry about.

Peter: 33:31

What are you complaining about? I feed you, don't I?

Bev: 33:34

Right. I mean, that's like that is, it's so invalidating, it's so dismissive.

Peter: 33:42

And then you know they grow into the teenagers and and the teenager who never tells you anything?

Bev: 33:51

yeah, of course, right, because why would they? You, you didn't display to them that you were a healthy, safe place to connect. So, um, it's important to recognize that these patterns again form really, really early on. Uh, and it's the foundation for the relationship that not only you will have with your child, but that the types and quality of relationships that your child will then be able to form with other people in the world.

Peter: 34:23

Yeah, because there's a tremendous and again, no shaming in in this, but there's a tremendous amount of people that I know that say oh, my kid is ABC, can't have relationships at school, doesn't make friends and all that stuff. He's anxious, he's personal. So much of that stems from the as an outsider looking in, you're looking, yeah, but have you seen what your house is like? Like? Again, it's more the lack of awareness that causes the problem rather than the. I'm not saying if you're aware and you're a jackass, that's a problem, of course, but I find most people who are aware of their problem behavior, so to speak, almost inevitably try to change their behavior.

Bev: 35:11

I think awareness is such a key part of this. You know I've heard so many adults say well, my parents, you know they used a belt on me and I turned out. Fine, did you?

Peter: 35:27

Yeah, I mean. But the old thinking again. This is very much my generational thinking and I see this with my friends and most of them will have teenage, teenage kids right 14, 16 year old, 17 year old kids, and we always used to say, as long as you're doing a slightly better job than your parents were, that means that you've improved. And your kids dude and I'm not crapping on my dad here he did the best he could, much like yourself, and my mom did the best she could, but that bar is so remarkably low for certain people of my generation, like you're like, if I improve slightly, oh, that is nowhere near enough.

Bev: 36:07

No, and you know what's interesting, peter is. I don't even think emotional connection was part of that equation.

Peter: 36:12

I think when they were talking about improved slightly.

Bev: 36:14

I think they meant maybe I'm earning a little more, maybe my kids live in a nicer house, maybe that you know we eat better food.

Peter: 36:22

Hit them a bit less. I only shout at my kids, I don't hit them. That's improvement in parenting.

Bev: 36:29

That's improvement, right, but we can do much better. We know so much more about child development now and we just know that children, who you know developed a secure attachment, go out into the world and they are more successful. They are emotionally regulated, they are happier, they do very well in their careers because they don't have a problem relating to other people, they're comfortable around other people and they're comfortable by themselves. So they can do individual projects, they can do group work, they have a level of mobility in terms of their mindset, right. So the sign of a healthy mind is that fluidity. So people who are very rigid in their thinking, that's generally a sign of a less healthy mind.

Bev: 37:23

That makes sense, yeah, yeah. And so you know that secure attachment is really just the foundational. It's like it's like it's like pouring the cement for a house, right, like it's the foundational piece for what will come next. If you try to build a house, you know, on a piece of land where the foundation has not been poured properly, it'll never stand. A strong wind will come by and blow it over, right, it's the old, it's the old.

Peter: 37:52

You can't build a castle on sand, right, it's. It's that old, yes, that old saying yes, exactly cool so, so let's. So let's say, people have kind of figured out kind of where they are. Where do they start with? I mean, they start with, I mean we start with awareness. But you know we need a bit of guidance here, right?

Peter: 38:14

Because I can fix myself a million times and every idea I have in my head is a brilliant idea. If I keep it in my head, right, my brain tricks me into thinking that I'm a genius. I'm like Kanye West. Everything I have in here is brilliant.

Bev: 38:27

And then they've they blurt it out and people look at me like dude, you're an idiot, but it's so.

Peter: 38:34

Where do we go? What is the next step? When we're like, okay, I have a bit of awareness, how do I then actually go about doing it?

Bev: 38:45

So there are therapists and myself included who work specifically with relationship and attachment trauma. So this is a very specific field of psychology. I have a group of therapists that work with my team at Securely Loved. On our website at securelylovedcom, you can take a short quiz that will help you identify where you fall on the scale. So that's that first piece of awareness where you fall on the scale. So that's that first piece of awareness. So you know, am I anxious, preoccupied? You know, am I dismissive? Avoidance, that will help identify things. You can also book a consultation with us to work directly. We have a very specific program where we work with our clients to understand where their core wounds are. This is about understanding the wounding that they're still carrying around and what sort of behaviors and emotional patterns and thought patterns are they still carrying around these wounds right so far? After you leave your family of origin, you might still be employing a number of strategies and coping mechanisms that maybe once served you well when you were a child.

Bev: 39:58

But you keep doing it well after, because you haven't made the connection or the association. You know there's a very, very strong connection between those who have an insecure attachment and, again, emotional regulation. We talked about this because they didn't learn how to emotionally regulate. It wasn't modeled for them in childhood and so, as adults, we see all sorts of potentially troublesome behaviors that emerge out of this too. Potentially troublesome behaviors that emerge out of this too, like the anxious preoccupied is very, very right to be in a codependent type of relationship, uh, or to be accepting of an abusive partner, uh. Or you know, we see, uh, both the uh anxious preoccupied and the dismissive avoidance, who are both very, very ripe for various forms of addictions drugs, alcohol, gambling, porn, shopping, addiction. Why? Because addiction and we know addiction today is really about masking, moving away from the pain that the person doesn't want to feel. Right, we used to think addiction was about the substance. It's not. It's a distraction. Right To further distance yourself from these negative feelings that you don't want to feel, but you have these negative feelings because of your emotional patterns, your thought patterns, tied to your wounding. So you can see how it all comes full circle If you can actually reprogram, which is something we can do, peter. We can actually reprogram in the subconscious mind this wounding that we have right. So, to use an earlier example, if you have wounding that I am or I will be disrespected, we can work on that so that, once that gets healed, you no longer need your plethora of mechanisms to deal with the unpleasant emotions associated to that. Right, you've healed the wound. You no longer have to feel that.

Bev: 42:13

So running away from from the emotions associated with you know the pain of some of these wounds is is what we find most commonly. That's what people do. They run away from pain. But listening to your emotions is actually the like. Your emotions give you so much valuable information, right, in terms of what you still need to heal. So when I work with clients, I never start off with you. Know, tell me about your childhood. Where I start with is yeah, because where I start is. Tell me about your childhood. Where I start with is yeah, because where I start is. Tell me about something that happened maybe last week that got you really supercharged, like you were really angry or you felt really frustrated or made you want to cry. Right, and because what I'm looking for are the triggers that still exist in you today? Yeah, like the little, the little active landmines triggers that still exist in you today.

Peter: 43:10

Yeah, like the little, the little active landmines that you still have in you today yeah, right so it's about big events that everybody because everybody tends to look for the big event right when, when they were growing, as in the why has to be a huge event? This happened when I was was five and ever since then, you know, I have been blah, blah, blah, whereas from my personal experience, my lived experience, which matters a little bit, very little, but since it's my show, I get to mention it it's, it's, it's, the, it's the it's much more to do with a buildup of loads of small events rather than the big thing that is wrong is hardly ever the problem, it's all the little things that are not quite right.

Bev: 43:58

Right, so we, we make a distinction between trauma and complex trauma, you know, which is sort of like one big thing that happened versus a series of small repetitive things. But really, trauma is not necessarily what happened to us, but it's how we internally process the event, right? So they've done some incredible studies, especially with veterans. So they know, you know, when they've studied veterans who've gone overseas, it's very common to see veterans that come back home with PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. Yeah, but, peter, as you know, it's not every veteran that comes back with PTSD, yeah, and it's not everyone. And they're all exposed to the same level of warfare violence, like bloodshed, and they know that out of, let's say, 100 soldiers that come back, 20 of them will display CPTSD.

Bev: 45:04

Why, why is that? So the research is indicating that there would have already been trauma wounding within that individual, that when they went overseas and saw what they saw, it triggered what was already in them that hadn't been healed. And so if you already have that wounding yes, it can, it will, it will trigger a much bigger response, right, so we talked about, like, the wounding, I am disrespected. If you don't feel that that's a core wound of yours and someone yells at you. You will calmly turn around and say are you okay? Why are you yelling?

Peter: 45:47

Yeah.

Bev: 45:49

Right, you won't get aggravated because it's not your button, but if it's your, if it's your button, you'll push back. So so this is what we know to be true. So you know, just identifying your core wounds, reprogramming them, which we can do at the subconscious level, is so impactful for you, your children, the quality of your life, the quality of the relationships you'll have. Yeah, it's quite fascinating.

Peter: 46:23

It does sound absolutely, absolutely wonderful.

Bev: 46:38

We've touched on a tremendous amount of stuff and I know you're short hour. We're already running over because you're very busy. Was there anything else you wanted to touch on? Regulated, because passing that skill it's a skill, by the way, emotionally, regulations, right, it's not like it's not, it's not a temperament, it's not like a genetic, it's not passed down biologically, it's a skill. Like you teach your kids how to cook, you teach them how to identify their emotions and to communicate calmly, Right, so that and and if they're feeling frustrated, what to do, what are healthy ways to, and and if they're feeling frustrated, what to do, what are healthy ways to release that and come back to baseline. So, the more you can get you know good at regulating your own emotions and then teaching your children to do the same. That is, I believe, one of the most important jobs that a parent has vis-a-vis their you know, raising of their kids.

Peter: 47:34

Yeah, no, that is what I always say. Right, it's that your job as a parent is basically just to raise the most healthy and responsible adult you could possibly put on the planet, and everything else, how you do, it almost doesn't matter, as long as you, as long as that is the end goal.

Bev: 47:53

Yeah, so well said, thank you.

Peter: 47:56

Happy note of a press stop record here, and press stop record is exactly what I did. Thanks very much to Beth for coming on. That was that was tremendous for me. That was that was eyeopening. Like I said during the interview, I think everybody who's who's my age is from a generation that is pretty messed up, and even though I've done I've done a fair bit of work and all that sort of thing, I've still I've spoke to a lot of of my friends and all that after uh, after I recorded, uh, this episode when, as I'm recording, this was about a week or so ago I've spoken to three or four people about this and got their thoughts, ideas and opinions, and I think everybody is very much in the same camp that I was. There was a lot of excellent information that Beth shared and all that sort of stuff.

Peter: 48:48

Anyhow, I will, of course, link absolutely everything Bev's website, securely Loved and all that type of stuff. I highly recommend checking that out, and I have the pleasure of being back next week when I'm talking to IO Hayes about open adoption, which you know I know some of you listeners might be some of you good people might be considering, at least wondering, what it's about. I know in the UK everything is open adoption, but in the US it's different, and you know the pros and cons and benefits, benefits, how to manage it and all that type of stuff. That's what we're discussing next week. For now, though, peter at healthypostnatalbodycom, if you have any questions or comments or want to get in touch or want to suggest people and all that sort of thing, right, that's with your email. Thanks very much. If you could rate the podcast, you know that would be nice, wouldn't that? Uh, if you could rate the podcast on apple or spotify or something like that, um, then that would also be greatly appreciated. No-transcript.