I'm Effie, a life coach who profoundly gives a fuck about
you feeling better for good. I teach people how to cut the
crap and live according to their own rules.
It's a crime we don't learn this stuff in school, but it's
simpler than you think to break the pattern and start living the
life you want. Listen on to find out how.
Hello, hello, welcome to Feeling Better for good.
I'm so glad you're here. February is the month of love
y'all, and we're going hard on the topic of relationships here
at Effie Lavore Coaching for the full month and in fact, I have
an event coming up on February 13th.
I am doing a powerful new training on how to have better
relationships. I've actually been wanting to
teach this in a live event for a while, so I'm really excited.
I'll be telling you more about it later in this episode, but
for now, you can register if you wish by going to effielavore.com
or hitting the link for the master class in the show notes.
And regardless of whether you'll be joining us on the 13th, which
by the way, is a Friday, Friday the 13th.
And the name of the class is Breaking the Love Curse.
I love it so much. Anyway, regardless of whether
you'll be there on the Zoom with us, I wanted to give you some of
the good stuff here on the podcast to help you feel better
and improve your relationships with your loved ones today.
So today we're talking about how to create secure attachment,
specifically, why love feels hard when it feels hard.
And we're talking about all different types of love and all
different types of relating and how when you apply security to
any relationship, it absolutely changes everything.
So first we're going to talk about attachment styles.
And if you're reasonably up on developmental psychology or
relationship theory, you are going to know about attachment
theory, attachment styles. And just to give you a quick
review, as children we developed a specific attachment style.
And there's two categories, but three main styles of attachment.
So there's secure attachment and then there's insecure
attachment. And the two main types of
insecure attachment are anxious and avoidant.
So when they were doing studies on this in the lab, they brought
a mother and her child, you know, into a play room and they
wanted to see how the child would interact with the mom.
And so they were studying the attachment of the child to their
mom. And in a secure attachment, the
kid would go and play with the toys in the room and then come
back in and check in with the mom every couple of minutes or
so. When the mom left the room,
maybe the kid was a little bit upset, but then would go and
play with the toys. And, you know, a minute or two
later, the mom would come back in.
I forget the exact age of these kids by the way, but anyway,
that's beside the point. So secure attachment is the the
kid is securely attached to mom, will check in with her but is
not clinging to her, is not dependent on her for their
emotional needs and well-being at all times.
Insecure attachment looks very different for an anxiously
attached child that looks like clinging, cowering, being
unwilling to leave mom's side, just generally being fearful of
being away from mom. So this kid might actually not
go and play with the toys at all and refuse to let mom leave the
room. And then avoidant on the other
end of the spectrum is the kid will go and play with the toys
and essentially ignore the mom or not really go and check in.
When the mom leaves the room, the kid doesn't even notice,
right? There's an ambivalence with
avoidant attachment. So those are the three main
styles that we hear about. And these styles translate into
adulthood across various contexts.
And I want to give you some examples of those.
So in romantic relationships, in a committed partnership, an
anxious attachment might look like wondering what your partner
really sees in you and being worried that they're cheating or
they're going to leave you. You might also be in the habit
of judging your partner, feeling that like they're not doing
enough and they don't measure up.
Or maybe you feel like you don't need them frequently and you
either physically leave, like leave the relationship, or you
emotionally leave with one foot out the door for a very long
time. And that is an avoidant
attachment. These patterns also show up in
dating, so you might be always finding things that you don't
like about the people in their profiles.
Or after you start talking or going on a date, you might be
always disqualifying potential matches for relatively benign
things. Right?
That's an avoidance style. You might feel a really strong
initial connection and bond quickly and then get really
upset if they don't text you back right away.
Get your heart broken even if you're not in a committed
relationship yet. This is more of an anxious
attachment style. If your boss says they want to
talk and you start spinning out thinking you did something wrong
or you're going to get fired, that's more anxious.
If you are a job hopper or if you are a business owner,
changing your mind frequently about your offers, your price
points, your growth decisions, that's more of an avoidant at
home. If you obsess about your health,
whether you're doing things right, what other people think
of you, where you're going in life, that's an anxious
attachment. If you are always zoning out or
looking for ways to disconnect, you know, having a couple
glasses of wine every night and watching more than your fair
share on Netflix, or worse, you're feeling really bad.
You're either sick in your body or depressed and unhappy, but
you're not seeking help. You are more likely an avoidant.
What we want to do in each of these realms is move from
insecure attachment to secure. And there are three steps to do
that on a very practical level. And I'm going to walk you
through this practice in a minute, But the three steps are
first we have to interrupt the old insecure pattern and get a
little bit of distance from that, just enough to let
something else in, or as I say, give it some competition.
Then we have to create security. And the third step is to anchor
it into your body right where you need it.
And notice any resistance you might have in your brain to this
three-step processor, this three-step plan.
You may be thinking, well, I'm too attached to the old way.
I don't know if I can change or this is just who I am.
And that's fine. All we need is a little opening,
a little bit of willingness to create a different experience
and a belief that it's possible for you.
Then you might think, OK, this won't work because they create
my security. Aren't they supposed to change?
Aren't they supposed to be the one doing that?
They're the ones that need to step up.
And if that's your solution, OK, But you're gonna be waiting a
long time if you need them to change for you to feel secure.
Now, that doesn't mean there aren't agreements in the
relationship that may need to change, boundaries that need to
be in place, or considerations for whether you wanna stay in
this relationship or not. But for now, we're going to
transform how you feel inside the relationship under the
current circumstances. We're going to take control of
your experience instead of outsourcing that to your
partner. And that will make it much
clearer for you as to anything you might want to change
logistically about the relationship itself.
So I want you to be secure in your relationships and to come
from a place of security in any decision you make, even the
decision to leave a relationship.
So what we're aiming for is secure in the relationships you
choose to be in today. That is within your power
because relationship is everything.
The way you relate to people, to yourself, to situations, to
circumstances, to your life. If you don't repair that, you
can easily leave a relationship and take your way of relating
with you into new relationships that might actually serve you
more and still be unhappy in those.
This work is incredibly vital. We look at how I'm relating, my
way of relating and what I might need to change in that in order
to make better decisions for myself, 'cause like I got myself
into this relationship that now I'm unhappy in, right?
So let's look at that first. Let's look at what's actually
creating your unhappiness. And then we look at, OK, do I
need to make any adjustments in my life?
So I want you to think of a relationship in your life that
you want more from, But whatever that means to you, I want more
from this relationship. It can be your significant
other, give me a family member, a friend, a professional
relationship. It could even be your
relationship with your country or your city.
Like that's fair game too. And I want you to choose one
that currently has conflict or that you feel is unsatisfying or
unrealized in some way and that you really like it to be
different. Now.
I want you to think of the last moment you felt really
dissatisfied or disheartened. And we want to be as specific as
possible here. Like really set the scene.
Where were you? What were you doing when you had
this feeling? Look at what came just before
you had this feeling. Maybe it was something they
said, something you saw, something they did or didn't do.
It was the look on their face. Just connect to that sensory
stimuli in that moment. What are you seeing?
What are you hearing, What are you feeling in that exact
moment? Got it?
Now sit up or stand a little bit taller where you are and shake.
Shake your hands, shake your arms, your body, shake it out.
Great. Now I want you to think of a
moment you felt really secure, like truly held, no question.
And if no memory occurs to you, that's totally fine.
You can ask yourself, what would security feel like in my body if
I were to make contact with it right now?
And you might envision being wrapped up in the biggest,
warmest quilt. We're being held by strong, safe
arms, somebody who loves you, or floating in a body of water.
Whatever it is for you, want you to invite that feeling in right
now, in this moment. Now go back to that moment you
had identified before with that person, to just see their face,
hear those words, whatever the stimulus was for you.
And what are you noticing now? Most likely it's a little
different now. Sometimes my women laugh when we
collapse the feeling onto the old scene, the old moment.
Sometimes it just feels a little weird or a little more removed.
There's really no right way to do this.
We're just noticing. So notice what's different for
you here, even if it's just a subtle sense.
And going back to that scene now where you are marinating
yourself in security again, we're going back to that
feeling, that warmth feeling held from all angles, totally
safe and sufficient and secure, and imagining what it would be
like to feel this. If you got to feel this anytime
you wished, no matter what was happening around you, who was
present, what they were doing or failing to do, that you got to
be secure in yourself. Wouldn't that be incredible?
And if you could feel secure no matter what, then you could
start really making all your decisions from a place of peace
and confidence and trust instead of fear.
And how amazing would that be to know you're making the best
decisions for you, even when it's hard, that this is your
baseline security. That's what's possible inside of
the work I do in my coaching containers.
We invest in and expand the feeling of security out into
every area of your life from your core and to create an
emotional safety and emotional freedom that is non
circumstantial. It goes with you everywhere so
you can face the problems of your life with calm confidence
instead of anxiety and exhaustion.
This is the baseline capable of launching you into a life of
true impact, which is what I believe we all want as
Superwoman, right? To change the world for the
better. And this can be done starting
with our own lives and families and neighborhoods and
communities. This is how it's done with Co
regulation, and it has to start with you.
When you bring this energy into your relationships, it's like a
rising tide that lifts all boats.
You bring the security. When you stop relying on other
people to bring the security for you, that dependence goes away
and all of a sudden they start creating their own security.
It's like an implicit permission slip for other people to do the
same. And when all parties in a
relationship are taking responsibility for themselves in
this way, true unity is possible.
This is what saves marriages. This is what creates life
changing partnerships. This is what creates true
happiness and connection and collaboration.
This work is so incredibly vital.
So if you are interested in learning more, come to my master
class on February 13th. If you're listening to this in
real time, it's called Breaking the Love Curse.
How to have better relationships.
So many of us feel relegated to feeling this anxiety and
insecurity within our relationships because it's what
we learned growing up. But you can absolutely unlearn
that pattern. And I'm going to show you how.
You register now at the link in the show notes and I'll see you
there. Thank you for spending this time
with me. I hope it was so valuable for
you. As always, I will see you next
week and have an amazing week. Until then, if you're ready to
do the work to move forward on what you want and actually get
it, I can help you. I'm offering my podcast
listeners a free consultation with me to talk about what
coaching can do for you this year.
Just visit effielavore.com to get started.