Hello everyone, and welcome back to Needy No More, the podcast
dedicated to healing the anxious attachment style.
I'm your host, anxious attachment style coach and
author Chris Ratcliffe. I've helped thousands of people
across 6 continents to end the cycle of anxious attachment
through my books, workshops, digital downloads, and coaching
program. I'm honored to carry on that
mission here, sharing tools and techniques, principles and
practices for you to explore on your journey to growing more
secure. Welcome back everyone.
I am very excited to welcome our second ever guest, Ricky Clues,
who is a relationship writer. You might also be familiar with
her from her Instagram account at Anxious Hearts Guide.
She's also the Co host of the podcast Ricky and Jimmy on
Relationships. She's an expert in attachment
styles, posts a lot of really helpful content and it is my
distinct pleasure to welcome you on the show.
Ricky, thanks for being here. Yeah, Thank you so much, Chris.
I had no idea I was your second guest.
This feels like a like a special privilege.
I like it. Well, thank you.
Well, I appreciate you carving out the time.
You're one of my absolute favorite people in the
attachment space to follow. You and I have been in contact
for several years and this feels like just an opportunity to chat
with a friend who cares about attachment theory too.
It does. I think our missions are well
aligned to everything. Everything that you post that I
see, I'm always like, I like that guy.
He gets it. Thank you.
I appreciate that. I wanted to open up our
conversation just by asking you a very simple question, which is
how did you get into this stuff? Yeah.
When did you find attachment theory and why did it resonate
with you? Yeah, that's such a good place
to start to set the scene. I'm like 3233 and my marriage
was falling apart. I'd been with my with him for 12
years, which is a, which is a while that's quite a haul.
And it, it was OK in the beginning, but then it just
gradually went downhill and I didn't know why.
And then by the time everything kind of went up in smoke, I had
really started digging into the psychology textbooks because
that's the type of person I am. When stuff starts to hit the
fan, I like to figure out why. So I've been doing a lot of
reading and I kind of just stumbled across attachment
theory. This was, I don't know,
20/16/2017. So it wasn't such a it wasn't
such a popular topic as it is now.
I think attached had had not been out too long, but I got my
hands on that book and then many others, mostly dry psychology
textbooks, because it wasn't a market full of popular reading
on that topic. I was like, this is me, This is
my relationship, and this is this is what's happening to us.
Unfortunately, the book attached, although I really
liked it, was pretty hard on avoidant attachment.
The author, Levine, he's come out to say too, that he wishes
he would have written it differently because it really
doesn't paint avoidant attachment very hopefully.
And I have to say it's one of the reasons that I decided to
leave my marriage because that book didn't give me any hope
that we could fix what was going on.
I recognized myself as incredibly anxiously attached
and my my now ex-husband as incredibly avoidantly attached.
And we would sit in marriage counseling just saying, hey,
we've identified the problem and we're not compatible.
So this is over. And that's where my journey
started. We split up and I realized that
if I if I didn't fix or at least address my anxious tendencies
and thoughts, I was going to find myself right back in that
pattern. I was going to chase away the
healthy, secure partners that I was hoping to attract.
So that's where it all started. I really just threw everything
in the kitchen sink at my attachment issues.
Slowly, little by little, they got better.
And then things started feeling really easy in love.
And I thought I'm a writer, so I thought, I want to tell people
about this. Instagram and my book were my
were my way of talking to the world about it.
I didn't want anybody else to feel like I did or go through
what I did. So that's, that's how my mission
started. I think yours is pretty similar,
right? It is, yes.
I was just going to say that, you know, there's so many
similarities between our journeys here.
It's, it is uncanny. It's very interesting.
I think there's also a universality to it, right, that
makes attachment theory so relatable and so helpful for
many people. There's this moment of discovery
where you kind of find out that, OK, the way I'm showing up in my
relationships, this is a thing like this has been studied, it
is a known phenomenon that has a label.
And I'm not the only one who struggles like this totally.
And even. Regardless of.
We can do something about it, you know.
I mean, that's the best part. It's not just like, oh, I've got
this disorder that I'll always have trouble with.
It's like, it's not a disorder at all.
It's a pattern of behaviors that we can change not to totally
interrupt. But you know, this is my
favorite topic, just like you. Wonderfully said, Yeah, it's not
static. It's not fixed.
You can always evolve to a more secure place, to the more secure
side of the attachment spectrum. And that's the hope that it
sounds like you were also kind of missing when you were looking
to resolve the differences in your marriage.
I talk to people all day long all around the world about
attachment theory. And I've coached folks across
the world and one of the most persistent themes or things that
I hear from folks is I never want to date another avoidance.
I know I'm always so sad when I hear that.
Yeah, keep going on that. Yeah.
What do you, how do I, how do you respond to that?
I know how I respond to it and it's I hope it's similar to how.
You I told them to look at the person and not the label.
Yeah, that's. Because good.
Advice. Look, not all Christians are the
same. Not all Democrats are the same
or Republicans are the same. Like when you stereotype people
and you put folks who might have similar qualities, yeah, into a
bucket and then judge them. Yeah, it's dehumanizing.
And it's using labels in a really, really limiting way,
because humans are complex and highly nuanced and we don't
always fit into neat, tidy boxes.
Absolutely. And so that's why I encourage
folks to look for someone who is self aware, someone who is
willing to put in the effort to grow the relationship, who has
at least some skills when it comes to effective communication
and conflict resolution and repair.
No one's going to do this stuff perfectly.
Even the most secure people struggle with insecurities and
might have avoidant tendencies from time to time, so it's
really limiting to just throw out an entire category of people
because they've identified with a label that says that they are
avoidant. Really well said.
I think another important thing, this is something that I was
missing in the beginning of my journey too, was that when we
spend all of our time pointing at the other person, what's
wrong with them, we're missing all the ways that we are
actually like enabling that dynamic in our own relationship.
I, of course, I started off dating post divorcing.
No more avoidance. I'm going to avoid the
avoidance. You know, you can almost make
that a bumper sticker. And that attitude, it gave me 0
awareness about how I was kind of perpetuating that in anybody
that I would find I could make secure men avoidant with my
behavior. And I didn't realize that
either. So that's one of the biggest
things I try to tell my audience when they try to bash the
avoidances. Hey, when when we're spending
too much time focusing on what other people are doing wrong, we
are not looking at our own contributions to this.
And that can, that can, you know, it can taint even super
healthy relationships that we find or not super healthy
relationships, but it can, it can flavor our interactions with
no, with anybody that we find, no matter what their attachment
style. 100% yes, Amen to that. The goal is always to grow more
secure. It's not just to find someone
secure because you can repeat patterns with similar people.
You repeat what you don't repair.
And yes, other people do respond to our energy.
That's what a dynamic is. You're responding to their
energy, they're responding to yours.
And that's also why there's hope here for folks listening or
watching who might be in this kind of anxious avoidant
relationship or dynamic. Because when one person shifts
their approach, it provides for the opportunity for the dynamic
to shift. It doesn't guarantee it.
It's also not about outcomes, right?
It does help when you can show up from a more secure place,
when you can own and embody who you are and what you need.
People respond a lot better to that.
They do, even. That's a big focus of your
content too. It is.
It's a huge focus because this was such a good segue into I was
going to say the the most exciting person that I met post
divorce was now my current husband, Chris.
It's funny, his name is also Chris.
And he, he was about as avoidant as you could possibly be.
Like a jerk. I made him take the test because
that's who I was back in the day.
I made him take the attachment test and he scored all the way
on the end of the avoidance spectrum.
And I thought, oh boy, I've got my work cut out for me, you
know, like. This is.
Did that freak you out? It did.
It did freak me out, but like any good anxious attacher, I
couldn't quit him because he was just so you know that it's, it's
a, it's almost magnetic the way those two get pulled together,
those two sides. I, I really thought, I'm not
ready to let this one go. I'm just going to work really
hard on my side of things and see how that works because I
wasn't, I wasn't crazy enough to try to convince him to dive deep
into this with me. Thank goodness I didn't do that.
That would have pushed him away. But I gotta say, it was maybe
just like a year of really intensely working on my own side
of things. And I gotta tell him, Chris,
he's incredibly secure now. And that's not him diving in and
reading every book. I think that our own security
can really pull our partner up to our level if we're if we're
really rock solid in it. I believe that wholeheartedly,
too. Talk to me about how you found
that security for yourself. Yeah, I think that's a big focus
of your first book. Right, it is.
It is, yes. Anxious hearts guide.
Yes, the anxious hearts guide, my first book, I was still like
largely single while I wrote it. And so thank goodness I had I
had complete self focus on that one, which I think is a great
place to start for anxious attachers.
It should start with us. You know, I identified a bunch
of really key things that were holding me back.
Maybe, maybe one of the biggest ones was I had an incredibly
negative inner monologue. You know, myself dialogue with
myself was awful. I was not my own best self
advocate. I was I was the angry voice
inside me that was shaming me for everything I did.
That held me back a lot until I, I want to say Kristin Neff is my
favorite author on self compassion and learning to be
more self compassionate with yourself, that inner voice so
that you're not going, ah, you're so dumb for doing that.
You know those terrible things that everybody says to
themselves. My inner voice is super kind.
Now that doesn't mean I'm always 100% of the time super kind, but
the vast majority of the time I've got like a really gentle
inner voice that's saying that sucked.
I didn't like that at all, but I'm going to here's what I'm
going to do differently and here's why it's understandable
that you made that mistake when you're not beating yourself up
for your mistakes and it really helps get you through all the
other steps toward security. So I want to say that's that's a
great place to start is working on that inner voice because the
other things that I needed to do, which were getting myself
out of the house alone, you know, not depending on somebody
else, like a partner or a love interest to make my day special
and wonderful. I needed I needed an inner
cheerleader to be able to help me through that because it was
kind of scary in the beginning. I mean, scary's sounds extreme,
but it was the right word. The idea of leaving my house and
going to eat at a restaurant alone or go to the rock climbing
gym and have people see me walk in single, you know, that kind
of stuff legitimately freaked me out in the beginning.
So having that kind inner voice going, you can do this.
This is the thing that we're working toward and good job just
getting out of the house. Even if you didn't make it all
the way to the gym today, that that was immensely helpful.
Look, they call it self-conscious for a reason.
When your consciousness is directed in such an intense way,
internally it feels like you've got the light of all of your
attention on yourself. It's a lot of pressure and
anxious attachers are some of the most self deprecating, self
judge, mental self critical people out there.
And yet we're also some of the most empathetic and naturally
empathic. And so we're using some of those
abilities to our own detriment, which is really damaging.
And often times, as I say to clients, it is an amalgamation
of the most critical voices that we experienced growing up and in
previous relationships. So we end up taking the weapons
of others and using them against ourselves and then asking
ourselves, why am I so hurt? I mean, you're beating yourself
up, but that's why you're hurt, of course.
So changing that inner dialogue for yourself, was it
affirmations? Was it like journaling?
How did you bridge that gap for yourself?
Was it just intervening or? Yeah, that's a good question.
I think I was reading several different books at the same time
while I was working on that, as I do so probably a mixture of
different techniques. I don't love affirmations and
that's not to say that they don't, they're not great for
other people, but for me, the sentences felt really fake.
So they they didn't do anything for me personally because I
still had that voice going. You don't really believe that in
the background. So rather than affirmations, I
think how can I say this, OK, here's a good example.
Like you're lovable wouldn't have done anything that wouldn't
have touched me because I didn't believe it, right?
But I did believe that I, I would say you're doing things to
increase your lovability right now.
And that's awesome. So I think I was more praising
my efforts instead of trying to tell myself things that I didn't
really believe because I, I did believe I was doing things to
change the situation and I was very proud of that.
So maybe like ultra realistic affirmations that.
Authentic ones. Yeah, very authentic, right?
I didn't say if I didn't believe it, I didn't say it again
because I was like, that's not going to help me.
I also worked really hard being a writer.
Journaling comes very easy to me.
So my journal was just rife with, if I felt anything
negative or self deprecating, I wrote that down and then I wrote
arguments against it or you know, or ways that I could
address that if it was something that I, that I did believe.
So that was very helpful. All the journaling about that
helped me become more aware of it in the moment when it was
happening to me in real life in real time.
So that was super helpful. I also made sure to spend extra
time with the people in my life who were just naturally very
supportive. That was so helpful.
My sister, who's always been one of my biggest cheerleaders, if I
ever needed a pick me up, I could call her and she made me
feel like a rock star. And I have an awesome best
friend. He always knows exactly what to
say when I'm upset. So that helped.
This may sound cliche, but my mom is always a big pick me up.
She was, I can do no wrong in her eyes.
So that was nice. If I really needed to bring in
the big guns, I'd call my mom. So those, those were some of the
things that really changed the way that I talk to myself.
Practice, I know nobody likes to hear that, but just practicing
saying, you know, saying supportive things, it really
does. You can really rewire that just
by repetition I think. Amen to that.
Yes, was just going to say that. Yeah, repetition plus
consistency. That is what rewiring is all
about. That's how the brain learns and
learns to adjust. Yeah, it's wiring and it's
pathways. So yes, practice does help.
You got to put in the motions, even if you don't fully
understand where it's going. Absolutely.
And my favorite part of all that repetition too, is that speaking
kindly to yourself feels good. It's not like it's not like
dieting where you're like constantly thinking about the
ice cream cone that you can't have.
It's like saying something kind to yourself just feels a lot
better than being hard on yourself.
So I felt like that was actually a pretty easy 1 to get in a
habit, get a new habit of. It's so relieving.
I mean, when you're constantly beating yourself up, the
internal dialogue that your space internally, it becomes
defined by conflict and war. And yeah, how are you supposed
to be at peace if you're at war with yourself?
I mean, it's it's really difficult to have a sense of
groundedness, of feeling stable when you're constantly berating
yourself. So when you learn to change some
of that dialogue, to maybe interrupt it and then replace it
with something more loving, it's a breath of fresh air.
I always say to people, if the way that other people speak to
you matters, why would it not matter how you speak to
yourself? Absolutely.
And on that note, exactly, by speaking to myself kindly, it
started to really lower my tolerance for other people
speaking negatively to me in a big way.
A big way. I can't believe the things that
I used to let other people say to me and I would either believe
or just let roll off my back. I don't, I don't do that now.
And that took a lot of practice, too, to be able to speak up.
And you don't have to be angry or harsh about it, but just a
gentle word like, hey, that hurt or hey, that's not the way I
want to have a conversation like this.
Let's try that again. It really.
Yeah. Yeah, it it, it changed.
It changed all of my relationships, not just my
romantic one, but literally everyone I interact with.
It's different now in the best way.
I love what you said too about your support system because one
of the biggest things I espouse in my work is a concept I
developed called emotional diversification.
Wonderful. Yeah, that's in your book.
Yes, exactly. Yes, thank you.
And it's, it's like a pie chart approach, right.
I'm borrowing this from the world of finance and investing.
So it helps I think for the logical brain, for people that
kind of think more that way and for us as anxious attachers, we
do tend to live more in the logical rational mind versus the
body. And so from that perspective, it
just gives like a little visual where you can see, OK, right now
I am very over invested in my romantic partnership.
And by the way, it is OK to have a romantic partner.
Take up a good amount of your time and your energy.
Yeah, I'm glad. However, they cannot be your end
all be all. They are just a human being.
There's only so much that they can do for you and they're not a
human need fulfilling ATM. You can't just go to them and
take a withdrawal when it's convenient for you.
And here's another thing, what if the universe takes them away
right now? I'm saying even if even if
they're fully 100% in and they love you so much and they're not
going anywhere and they like spending 100% of their time with
you, the universe can take that person away from you.
And I know that's dark, but it's real and it is.
And if if your entire happiness in the world hinges on one
person, and the universe takes them away for one reason or
another, what have you got, you know?
What if you had 100% of your investments in Tesla?
Yeah, recently and then watched that tank.
It's This is why this example works for people, because it
helps them to understand it's very risky.
Yeah. When you do that, for some
reason it's easier for people to understand that with their money
than it is with their feelings and their heart.
But it helps to drive the point home, I think.
Yeah, that's what I do. We try to make it accessible and
easy to understand. You know, you're very good at
that too, I think. Thank you, thank you.
It's exactly how I feel about you.
And every piece of content that I see of yours, I'm like, yes,
that's a magic phrase. That's a.
Magic phrase. And I love how inclusive and
also, quite frankly, vulnerable you are in your content sharing,
you know, moments of conflict that you've had with Chris.
Yeah. And talking about how you've
worked through that. Yeah, totally.
I'm, I'm trying to do that more. It's scary sharing actual pieces
of yourself on the Internet. You know, it's, it's, it's very
easy to throw out a tool or an idea that you get from somebody,
somewhere else, someone or somewhere else.
But throwing out actual examples from your own real life to the
faceless Internet masses can be a little bit terrifying.
I do like to do that whenever I think there's like a concrete
take away that somebody might might learn something, it might
make their life a little bit better.
Conflict with my I hate even calling him my avoidant partner
because it feels so secure and good now.
But conflict with my partner was a really terrifying thing early
on in our relationship, and I weirdly almost look forward to
it now because it seems like we always, we always learn
something new about each other in the process of conflict and
especially afterwards, and it brings us closer than before the
conflict happened. I know that's not going to be an
easy sell because everybody hates conflict so much, but it
can become something kind of weirdly good.
It's an opportunity, when treated appropriately for each
person within the relationship to better learn how to love the
other person as well as themselves a bit better.
I remind people that conflict is not the end of the relationship
because many people equate conflict with abandonment.
They observed this growing up and they've experienced this
previously. I also think in our dating
culture today, it's really easy to kind of throw people out when
something happens that you don't like.
Yeah, and that's the Amazon effect in the dating culture,
too. It's like if this product
doesn't work well for me, I could just order another one and
it'll be at my door in less than a week.
Yes, People become disposable just like things.
Yeah, I love that phrasing. The Amazon effect.
I haven't heard that yet. I don't know.
I don't. Know if I got that somewhere I
made it up, but that's what it reminds me of.
It's so poignant. Yeah.
It really drives, you know, the point home.
It's really easy to replace someone, to dispose of them.
Yeah. When something happens that you
don't like. And yet conflict is the process
by which the relationship becomes safer, more intimate,
and the connection is actually able to deepen.
And this drives home a really important point, which is that
safe relationships aren't just found, they're.
Yes, they're created, aren't they?
Yes, I love that. I wanted it reminds me of any
time I have a conflict with him too.
I want everybody to know. It's not like we sit around
holding hands and we're like, this feels so good disagreeing
with you. It feels awful.
I want people to know that in the moment, conflict is not fun
and it's difficult. And it's really like each moment
that I'm in it, I'm like, I wish this wasn't happening, but we
still plod through and talk to each other and, and figure out
the difficult things and try to use the kind phrases even when
we're angry. That's what it is.
Really, honestly, I've been really feeling a lot of passion
about conflict in this part of my life because I feel like
there's a lot of good stuff to be mined from it.
You know, once you kind of wade through the anxious attachment
and you find yourself in a secure relationship, really
conflict is a, it's a great place to find more work if
that's what you want because there's a lot to learn to get
good at it. Well, even taking that
perspective, that's coming from a secure place from an
attachment standpoint. Yeah.
So you said something earlier about, you know, you focused on
yourself. You really worked at growing
more secure and learning to be gentler and more compassionate
with yourself. And that seems like it's not
only translated into helping your partner to feel more secure
and to grow more secure himself, but it's completely altered the
trajectory of your relationship. And I would just love to hear
how that process has unfolded because I'm sure it's been messy
and touch and go and start and stop and moving in different
directions. Conflict can be really scary for
an anxious attacher and for an avoidant too, who is most
triggered by criticism and judgment and pressure.
So how have you and Chris really navigated this together?
What do you want people watching this and listening and people
reading your second book, which is focused on healing the
anxious avoidant dynamic. Yes, anxious and avoiding
healing the dynamic. Yes, by Ricky clues available
now. What do you want people to take
away from your relationship and what you're modeling and from
what you're putting out there in your book as well as on
Instagram at all? Yeah, I think the biggest thing
is that there's just a massive amount of hope for relationships
like this. That's what I didn't have when I
left my marriage, and that's what I kind of had in spades
once I met Chris. And I had an inkling that things
could be different and better if if we change the dynamic, right?
And that's all it took was just that little, just that little
seed of hope. And it doesn't mean that we had
a great time of it. I mean, as long as we're talking
about vulnerability, Chris and I broke up 8 times in the very
beginning of our relationship, which is a massive amount of
breakups. I know we were, we started
keeping track. It started getting funny because
it was happening so often. We were the classic anxious and
avoidant couple. I would cling and he would run.
And sometimes if our if our conflict or clinging or running
got bad enough, I would pull the plug.
Six of the breakups were mine and I would go, but this is
pointless. I'm pulling the plug.
But we, but it was never more than 24 hours before he or I
would call each other again and say, do you really, really want
to split up? Or do we just not know how to
work through this very specific fight that we're having, which
is different from the fight that we had a month ago?
You know, and, and both times either person would say, I don't
want to break up at all. I've been thinking about you
constantly the last 24 hours. Let's get some coffee and talk
about it. So really, we had to learn how
to have conflict together. And once we did that, there was
known was no need to break up anymore because then every
difficult situation or conversation was literally just
OK, it's conflict time. Let's see what you need.
See what I need. Let's talk it out and then and
then repair afterward is always wonderful, too.
Then let's snuggle and watch a movie to make sure that we, you
know, still feel good about each other and we're not both still
angry. And I got to say, when you, when
the conflict times aren't terrifying anymore, it's a lot
easier to stop clinging. And for him, it was a lot easier
to stop running. You know, we figured out how to
have conflict. And my work on just being more
independent in general made it so that he didn't feel like as
much need to run away, which just made me even more
independent, you know, and then kind of pushed us both towards
security in anxious and avoidant healing the dynamic, I spend a
third of the book talking about how to deal with the anxious
side, and then another third of the book talking about how to
deal with the avoidance side, and then the last third talking
about ways that we deal with that together, Work that's done
by both partners. But even if it's just one person
working on their side, like I did in the very beginning, I got
to, I think this is Julie Manano that I want to attribute this
quote to. But one person can't save a
relationship, but they can change the entire atmosphere of
it. And in an environment with a
changed atmosphere, the relationship just has a lot
better chance of healing and finding itself in a good place.
Well said. I love Julie's content as well
as I think she's at the secure relationship on Instagram for
those watching and listening and her she has a new book too.
Yes, her book on healing anxious and avoidant attachment.
I think it's called Secure Love and it's it's phenomenal.
It's absolutely worth the read as well.
Love these reco's. Yeah, and I have them for days.
All I do is read. I love it.
I can relate to that a lot and I think a lot of anxious attachers
can. You know, many of us are self
healers. Yes, exactly.
And there's something about reading a book that really gets
you and you see yourself in the words on the pages that is
really transformational. Yeah.
And really impactful. And I do think for many people
it started or starts with attached, which is flawed as we
all know, right? You know, notebook is perfect.
One of my biggest gripes with attached is that it tends to
advise to just not grow more secure, but to find someone
secure. Yeah, that's my biggest problem
with it as well. And you say there are no perfect
books, but I want to. I think I may be biased, but I
think the closest to perfection that we've got is Wired for Love
by Stan Tatkin. He's just, and I am, I'm biased
because Stan is probably one of the most compassionate people
I've ever read on attachment ever.
Just every single style. I mean, if I had to point to one
source that really informed the way that I look at attachment
more than any others, it would be Stan Tack and and how he just
his massive amount of compassion toward all the attachment
styles. I think compassion and empathy
for each other is another way that we kind of that we heal
that dynamic because being able to see the other person as a
human who's trying and flawed and is going to screw it up
every now and then. That's a, that's a glue, you
know, it really is a glue that it makes it a lot tougher to
pull up a couple apart when we can see each other as two people
who are trying our best. It's basically anti the Amazon
effect that we were talking about.
You know, you're finding that humanity again, that compassion
again. You're really seeing that person
for their complexities. You know, people are just
responding from their level of self-awareness and healing.
And there's a lot of people out there who want to love deeply
but might not know how. And that doesn't mean that they
can't have a healthy relationship, but it's going to
take work for them to develop those skills.
And the more that they get discarded by people, the more it
makes them want to clam up, shut down, not try again, not put in
the effort. So when you can see someone for
their scars and their wounds and see beyond that too, it really
is transformational. And compassion is deeply
healing. It's the essence of healing.
It is absolutely. If we'd like to inject even a
little more nuance into this conversation, I think it's
important to say too, if you were in a relationship and
you've been there for years and years and years, and the other
person absolutely is not working at all and nothing's changing.
I'm also a very big proponent of letting a relationship go.
That's that's not that. I mean, you've really given it
your best effort and the other person is not making it any
easier. It's okay to walk away from
something like that. And that comes from the
compassionate voice in me too, because sometimes the voice that
we think is really caring and compassionate is actually making
life really hard for us because they're saying you can do it.
Just keep trying to change this person a little bit harder.
So anyway, just wanted to throw that out.
If I had any naysayers or people who were like very anti Ricky on
the Internet, I think their critique would be that I'm a
little too hopeful. So I do want to throw out that I
definitely don't think every relationship is salvageable.
But if I had to put a number on it, I would say most I think or
probably OK, more OK than we give them credit for being.
Yes. And that is because more often
than not, most people are giving you everything that they have to
give. Yeah, but it might not be in the
ways that we receive. And so they're speaking Greek to
us. We're speaking Arabic to them,
and nobody's speaking the same language.
And that's really tough. You know, it doesn't mean that
you can't get on the same page. You can learn to translate.
You can learn to comprehend what each person is saying in the way
that they're giving love, and love languages are a pathway 1
pathway for this. There's many attachment theory
is also another pathway to understanding why certain people
respond the way that they do or what triggers them and what
their patterns are in terms of responding to those triggers.
So there's a lot of different ways of looking at this, but at
the end of the day, what you're saying is something that I echo
a lot of times too, which is 1. It always takes two people to
make the relationship work. It can take one person to effect
change or an alteration or an evolution in the connection, but
the other person then has to respond to that.
And, you know, I think it's also important to say that one of the
most loving things you can ever do for someone is if you really
have given it everything you've got over the course of months
and months and months and maybe even years, you come to a
crossroads where you have to decide, can I love this person
in the ways that they need to be loved?
Can I accept that there are some things about them that will
never change? And I love them exactly as they
are? And it was Marianne Williamson
who, in A Return to Love, wrote that it is our failure to accept
people exactly as they are that gives us pain in a relationship.
That's gorgeous. And that perspective of
compassion is, I think, what you're saying.
But compassion is only going to get you so far.
It doesn't guarantee that the other person is going to receive
that. Yeah.
And then to do their part to create a more compassionate
connection. And sometimes the most loving
thing you can do is release someone to be loved in the ways
that they need to be loved. Breaking up doesn't always have
to be, and oftentimes isn't the end of the connection because
you're still connecting to them with your thoughts about the
relationship long after it's over.
Sure. So remember that too if you're
watching this or listening to this.
It can be an act of unconditional love to release
someone and to be loved better by someone else.
Yes, and not necessarily a failure either.
I don't look at my marriage as a failed relationship anymore.
I definitely used to right when I got divorced, but now I look
back and it's it was just the end of something.
Myself and my ex-husband have both found ourselves in
relationships now that are much better suited to us
individually. I think we're a lot happier now
than when we were together. And when you look at it that
way, it's like, how could anybody call that a failure?
Well said. There's a paragraph in Needy No
More, the book that goes into this, where I talk about how I'm
baffled by people saying that a relationship failed because
relationships are about learning.
The only way it fails is if you fail to learn from the ways that
you showed up and from the lessons that are there laid bare
for you to pick up and to say, OK, this wasn't working in this
connection. What does this say about the way
that I show up in relationships? And what does this say about
what I need in relationships? And how can I better own and
embody and honor those things instead of beating myself up for
my sensitivity or for wanting communication, as many anxious
attachers do? Right, right.
Oh, that's so This is why I love talking to you, Chris.
You're really, you have a great way of putting these things too,
that I'm sure the audience who's watching and listening or
nodding going, yeah, that's how I feel about it.
I love it. Thank you so much.
I appreciate that very much. I'm a words of affirmation
person for people listening right.
So if you want to rate the podcast, leave a review, comment
on Spotify. Love all of the above.
It's, you know, sometimes when you're hosting a show or when
you're putting yourself out there and being vulnerable, like
what we've been talking about. Because I've talked very openly
about my own traumas and what happened with my mom and my
sister and my dad and exes. And it's tough sometimes.
But when you put yourself out there like that, it can feel
sometimes like you're speaking into an echo chamber or nobody's
listening. Yeah, Either.
Yeah. So if you have creators that you
follow online who, like Ricky and myself, post a lot of
content and are very vulnerable in what they post, please write
to us. Yes, comment and tell us as
much. That's we.
Appreciate that too. That's the fuel that keeps me
writing honestly is messages from people saying, hey, that
thing that you said the other day actually helped and makes me
feel better. And that's, that's what keeps me
going. I don't think I would do this if
that didn't exist because that's that's what I need to feel like
this is worth it and something that's very meaningful to me.
Hearing that it's helpful. Well, long before you and I ever
connected like this on a professional level, when I saw
your content from afar, I always respected and admired your
approach to this and the compassion that clearly shines
through your approach to content creation, to what you share of
yourself. And I know that other people
online see that too. And I hope that you know how
impactful that is. I know you see the numbers, you
see you're following. I see it too for myself on
TikTok and Instagram and elsewhere.
And the numbers help, of course. Yeah, those are boosts, too.
They're. Boosts.
But yeah, no, the biggest one is having people just tell us, tell
me with their words and I'm sure tell you with their words.
This is this is actually what I needed to hear.
Thanks for saying it. Yes, exactly.
Tell the people that you admire online that you admire them,
please. Right.
And this is me telling you, Ricky.
Yeah. I know.
Well, thank you. I had no idea you were watching
from before we met too. That's like I said, attached.
Really kind of broke my spirit. And then and then my boys stand
Tatkin, he like lifted me up again and was like, Hey, we can
look at this compassionately. And I, I really think empathy
and compassion is, it's the way to go.
It's the I try to make my little corner of the Internet better
than a lot of what I see in that I want the world to be more
compassionate with each other in themselves.
And that's what I'm going for. And inclusive and flexible and
understanding and empathetic and encouraging.
There's a lot of the opposite in our world today, as we all know.
It's shoved in our face and sometimes it can feel like the
positive aspects, The light, if you will, to be cliche, The
light is difficult to see through the darkness, but it is
there and you are shining that light.
I do want to talk about Stan's work a little bit.
I am familiar with his work. I believe he characterizes the
avoidant as the island. Yes, the island.
For those who aren't familiar with Stan's work, tell them
about it. And what about it impacted you
beyond the compassionate approach?
OK. So even the titles anxious
attacher and avoidant attacher are a little bit harsh and
invite judgment and and Stan knew that and so he rebranded
the attachment styles. I like we just said, the
avoidance are islands. They kind of feel safer.
It's all about safety. With Stan, islands feel safer
standing alone. He characterized the anxious
attacher as a wave. Waves feel safety in crashing
against islands or whoever they can find.
And then what did he call the secure anchor?
The secures are anchors, which is such a lovely, what a lovely
metaphor. He's a he's good with words,
too. Yeah.
And the anchors kind of stay where they are and make
everybody else feel like they're safe and secure as well.
Stan is. Stable.
Stans a couples therapist and I think his biggest thing is
empathy and hearing each other and using the kindest words
possible that also not to throw another name into this too, but
Marshall Rosenberg with the Nonviolent communication is
another huge, huge influence of mine because I think the vast
majority of us don't realize what kind of harm and negative
perpetuating we're doing by throwing bad words into our
relationship. I mean, the things that we say,
we don't realize how that impacts our partner.
And so yeah, so, so Stantec and and Marshall Rosenberg's, both
of those, they would have been buddies if they ever met in real
life. And I think their attitudes
toward connection and more self-awareness about how we're
impacting the relationship, those are just, they're huge
influences of mine. And there's wired for love that
Stan wrote and there's wired for dating.
So in case you're not in a long term relationship, Wired for
Dating is great too. And all of it talks about
attachment and in compassionate way, and what we can do within
ourselves and within the relationship to make it better.
These are all great principles when it comes to growing more
secure, that kind of nonviolent effective communication.
I mean, look, words have the power to break people down and
they have the power to build people up.
And you get to choose how you wield that power.
And that is a big responsibility that many of us don't really
take accountability. For yeah.
But one of the things that I do as a coach all the time is to
help to intervene when folks might be even speaking
negatively about themselves because it's interesting.
They'll characterize. I want to feel less anxious and
I stop them and I say, well, let's actually flip that on its
head. What is it that you want more
of? You want to feel more secure?
We're not just looking to reduce the anxiety because that's
focusing on a quote, UN quote negative experience and limiting
what is a very natural human emotion to experience.
Instead of that, maybe we can honor that that is a natural
thing to feel and that you're going to feel that way from time
to time, regardless of however much work you might do or not
do. And instead acknowledge that you
want to feel other emotions. You want to, you're not healing
to, to reduce your anxiety. You're healing to access more
joy and gratitude and comfort and stability and presence and
peace and easygoingness. And you know, that's a big shift
for folks that they don't often realize.
And that starts with how we use language.
And following people that use that kind of language is a great
way to soak this up. And so if you're watching this
or listening to this, Ricky is a great resource for phrases that
you can use really tangible, practical interventions, even
like lines that you can throw out there that can help to
change the trajectory of not only a conversation, but how you
can approach conflict and the nature of a dynamic or the
relationship generally. Thank you for saying that,
Chris. I think that's a huge part of my
account. It always will be.
My Instagram account is, I feel like having, having phrases kind
of in our bank that we can pull out when things are tough and
we're not sure what to say. I think that's one of the things
that changes the atmosphere having even if it sounds kind of
wooden or awkward at first because we're not used to saying
it. Those kind of things become the
way that you talk to your partner after a while with
enough practice. My own partner and I, I, I can't
even imagine those kids that broke up 8 times daily asking
each other, what can I do to help you feel loved today?
We certainly weren't asking that in the beginning, but having
phrases like that that invite the other person to be
vulnerable and connect and using them on a daily basis, that's
the kind of atmosphere changing thing that really squashes the
anxious avoidant push pull dynamic.
Great point about proactively managing the health of the
relationship, and not just for the sake of avoiding conflict or
preventing it, but for if you use kind of a metaphor of an
emotional bank account for the relationship, you're depositing
love into that account. And for those who might be aware
of the Gottman Institute and the Gottman's and their work, you
know, they espouse the 5 to 1 positive to quote UN quote
negative interactions as the ratio to aim for or exceed in
relationships because they found in longitudinal studies that the
five to one ratio was what determined whether or not the
couple made it or didn't. Yes.
And it really speaks to what you are saying, which is that you
need to pour love into one another.
For anxious and avoidant couples, there's a big dominance
of criticism and judgment and feeling threatened, and there's
a lot of fear. And when that come becomes the
predominant narrative for energy in a connection, that's really
problematic. And it's got to change if you
want to make the relationship healthier and improve.
Speak positively over one another.
Talk about what you admire. Talk about what you want more of
from that person, not just what you want them to do less of.
Yes, especially if you're on the anxious side and your partner is
on the avoidance side. If you're only focusing on well
you didn't text me, it took you 4 hours, I didn't hear from you.
Instead, talk about the fact that touching base with some
sort of regularity helps you to feel connected and appreciated.
And people respond, talking about language that respond a
lot better to that kind of language because it's just
saying this is what works for me.
It's a form of boundary setting that is inclusive and gentle and
compassionate and collaborative instead of just critical and
saying to someone, well, I didn't like that and that's not
going to work for me. And you can't do that, which is
attacking someone and putting them on the defensive.
It's funny, on my podcast, my Co host Jimmy will be talking about
phrases that are like helpful or hurtful and he'll, he'll throw
out the hurtful or the harmful phrases.
And I can feel myself responding to that even though he's not
talking to me. It's literally just an example.
He'll be saying you this, you that.
And it's like, it's like the little girl in me is like
feeling like I'm being punished, you know, and then we'll turn
around and we'll throw out the good phrases.
And even though he's 3000 miles away and technically a person
I've never met in real life, I feel so close to him.
Even just hearing him say the loving kind things or making a
request, you know, he say the other day it was like, hey, it
would be really great if we could go out for a date on
Friday. And I thought, let's get that
man a date on Friday night. We I was like motivated to help
him even though, you know, I'm not in that relationship.
I love that words. Are so, so powerful.
They are, and this really brings us full circle because we've
talked about how reading and books have impacted us and now
look at where we are. Imagine if we had never read
Attached, and imagine if you had never learned about the
different ways of describing the attachment styles and hadn't
ever read Nonviolent Communication.
It was other people's words that helped you to get to where you
are now, modeling that for other people, and same with me.
There were many books. A Return to Love is one of them.
A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle. I mean, there's so many.
I I've got blogs on my site cracklift.com that go into books
that changed my life and books that changed my love life and
books that if you're an anxious attacher, you can read which
your first book is on that list. I saw that.
Yeah. Thank you for.
That healing, you're very welcome, of course.
Yeah. More than happy to refer people
to your work again, you're one of my favorite people in this
space. And I mean that so, so sweet.
That brings us full circle because now we're modeling that
for other people and being the change that we wish to see and
being the models that we wish perhaps we would have had in
ways big and small. Because I don't want to speak
for you on that front. But for me, I know I'm trying to
be the healing companion I wish I would have had searching in a
lot of disparate places and not really knowing what to do or
having any structure right. That's my exact goal actually.
I'm glad you said that. Once things started to get
better, I thought there are other Ricky's out there who need
who need to hear this and I can I can do that for them.
And you have and you are. I've tried, yeah.
Thank you. You are, you are.
You deserve to be lifted up to the full extent here.
Your work has impacted so many people.
I know this about myself too. It's still a little bit mind
blowing from time to time to look back on my own journey and
be like, wow, I mean, it wasn't really that long ago, right?
Right. Either.
I first read Attached and now look at how my life has
completely changed and the impact that this has had not
just on me, but on countless other people.
And I know the same is true. Yeah, for you, yeah.
What do you want people to know about your book?
As we kind of wind towards the end of the episode here?
What do you want people to take away from this conversation when
it comes to healing the anxious avoidant dynamic?
Is there anything we haven't covered today that you want the
anxious attachers listening to this or watching this to take
away from the conversation? Like I said before, absolutely
know that there's hope, but also, and I think we kind of
briefly touched on this earlier, none of the work that we do in
this is wasted. Even if it doesn't save your
relationship or change your relationship and things still
kind of go up in smoke, the work that we do on this stuff makes
all the relationships in our lives better.
Well said. Sometimes it is the end of a
relationship that is the catalyst, the kick in the ass
that yeah, we might need to do the work that we need to do and
it pushes us towards resources and in directions that maybe we
wouldn't have pursued otherwise. And that is a beautiful thing.
It was an anxious avoidant relationship coming to a close
that ultimately led to me discovering my attachment style.
Yeah, reading Attached and to ending up here having worked
with thousands of people across 6 continents, which again is
still very mind blowing to me. What?
It's an impressive statistic. I like it.
Thank you, thank you. I appreciate that.
But it really speaks to something very powerful, which
is that I'm grateful that that relationship did not last.
I look back at myself and how I showed up at that time, and I am
proud of the work that I've done.
And no, because I'm single right now, I know that I'm equipped
for my next relationship. You know, I don't have it all
figured out by any means, but I know that I'm a lot healthier
than I've ever been. I'm the healthiest I've ever
been. Yes.
I know what I bring to the table.
I know I've got the skills sharpened in the departments
that they need to be. Yeah.
And I'm excited to, you know, really do that work with and.
Everything that you've done has made you a better friend to
others and a better friend to yourself, right?
Yes, exactly. And thank you for pointing that
out, too. It's not just about, you know,
saving this up for my next romantic partner or anything
like that, right? This is impacting how I show up
for my clients. It impacts how I show up with
family and with friends. You know, I don't even know if I
would have been able to have this kind of conversation years
ago if I were still on the very anxious side of the attachment
spectrum, you know, and I look back at myself with such
compassion and gentleness and pride and love, you know, and
empowerment. Because we were doing the best
we knew how with the tools that we had back then.
That's why I get that question from people a lot.
How can I stop feeling angry at myself for screwing things up
or, or doing things badly in the past?
And I said, you're doing the best you could with the tools
that you had. There's something admirable
about that too, you know. I am nodding feverishly for
those who are listening. Yes, yes, absolutely.
That is the root of forgiveness, which is something that has
impacted my own life very deeply and something I have my clients
practice with themselves first and foremost, and also with
others. We often carry around a lot of
energy from others that we don't realize is still there.
Totally. Ricky, this has been an amazing
conversation. I know that this is going to
inspire so many people and give them hope.
And I'm sure that if Ricky, who was struggling in her previous
marriage, could hear this, she could have used some of that
hope, probably. Yes, I guess this is the part
where I tell people if they want to find me or my work and my
content. You can find me at Anxious
Hearts Guide on Instagram. Ricky close is a little bit
tough to spell, so don't worry about that.
Anxious Hearts Guide is me. You can find my books, The
Anxious Hearts Guide or Anxious and Avoidant Healing the Dynamic
on Amazon or my website anxiousheartsguide.com.
I'm around. I love, I love talking to folks,
so I welcome the DMS on Instagram.
I can't always answer every one of them, but I really do enjoy
conversing with people in there so if I can get to it, I will.
Reach out to Ricky, go to her website, buy her two books.
They are incredible. Her advice is invaluable.
She's got lots of tangible, practical advice that you can
put into application and into practice right now, so pick
those up. Her first book is the Anxious
Hearts Guide. Second book is Anxious and
Avoidant Healing the dynamic. Visit her on Instagram and her
website. Like she said.
Thank you so much for coming on the show, Ricky.
Thanks for having me, Chris.