How To Change The Quality Of Your Relationships At Any Age with Dr Amir Levine #646

Hey guys, how are you doing? I hope you're having a good week so far. My name is Dr. Rangan Chatterjee and this is my podcast, Feel Better, Live More. I think that the episode you're about to hear has the potential to shift how you think about something fundamental to all humans, how we relate to others. Now you've probably heard of attachment styles. Maybe you've even taken an online quiz to find out your own. Well, today's guest, the psychiatrist and neuroscientist Dr. Amir Levine wrote a landmark bestseller on this topic all the way back in 2010 called Attached. Now with his latest book, Secure, the revolutionary guide to creating a secure life, he's moving the theory on. You see, the quality of our relationships affects how we feel emotionally, our energy levels and even our physical health and brain structure. Our brains are wide for connection, but crucially, how they do it is not set in stone. In this conversation, Amir makes a compelling case that it doesn't matter what your attachment style is now, be it anxious, avoidant, fearful avoidant or secure, your brain can change. At any stage or age, you can learn to create a secure life in which your relationships help you feel calm, supported and safe. And he's developed plenty of practical tools to help you do so. Dr. Levine believes that we are so much more than the products of our past. Whether you're trying to understand yourself and your loved ones better, you're navigating a difficult relationship, or you simply want to feel more secure in who you are. My hope is that this conversation leaves you feeling as hopeful and empowered as it did me. In your new book, you make the case that anyone can learn to create a secure life. So, you what is a secure life and why are you so confident that we can all live one at any stage in life? So, the idea of a secure life really comes from attachment theory. It was Mary Answorth who first discovered the three attachment styles, anxious, avoidant and secure. She did an experiment called a strange situation test where you have the child come with a mother, typically a toddler, to a room full of toys, and they get so excited and start pointing at toys and playing, and then they tell the caregiver to leave the room. And immediately if they drop, you can watch it on like on YouTube, they have so many of them. They just literally just drop what they have. They don't care. They start crying, banging on the door. You'll try to interest them in the toilet or throw it in your face until they ask the caregiver to come back. And it's in that moment when doing the reunion that she recognizes three attachment styles, anxious, avoidant and secure. And it all has to do with how good the bond is in helping the child regulate their emotions and affect. So, in a secure child, they immediately come down. The caregiver embraces them. They immediately come down. And then they start pointing at the toys wanting to play again. The anxious attachment, it's very hard to calm them down. They come down for a few minutes, start crying again. So, it's just like harder for them to use the bond to regulate their affect. And the avoidant, they either don't cry even that much, or they, when the mother or the caregiver hugs them, they kind of stay limp. But inside, when you look at research, there are blood pressures through the roof. And so, they kind of like block it, but they're also not as good as utilizing the bond to regulate their affect. So, then later studies discovered that we have those same attachment styles in adulthood. Hazen and Shaver first discovered that in the context of romantic relationships. So, basically, we use our relationships. And now, I would argue even beyond that, to regulate our affect. So, if we want to create a secure life, it basically talks about how do we go about making sure that our relationships, the ones that we create, are actually good in helping us calm down and feel supported rather than the opposite. It's such an interesting topic. And I guess one of the key things I got from reading your book is hope. There's a continuous theme of empowerment with you basically telling the reader that it doesn't matter to a degree your attachment style or what's happened in your past, it is still possible to live what you call a secure life. And you make the very strong case in the book that when we're living a secure life, we're healthier, we have better relationships, when we're sick, we have fewer symptoms, we're less susceptible to consumerism, we can navigate social media better. All of these benefits, which made me think, when we truly feel secure in who we are and that we don't have to achieve in order to be worthy, let's say, then we go around the world almost with a resilient bubble around us. This whole thing that we're less susceptible to consumerism, it makes so much sense to me because advertising only works, really, or most of modern advertising only works when you feel insecure. Because it's all designed to hit that achilles heel in you. Whereas if you actually feel secure, it's like, yeah, I don't know why they're trying to sell me that. I don't need that. I don't have a hole in my heart that needs filling with that. It's very empowering, isn't it? Yeah, I think so. Once I was in the New York subway and I saw an ad saying, self-help books help one person, the writer. And I looked at it and I said, that's not entirely wrong. I mean, a lot of the stuff that I write definitely helped me, helped my patient and helped my immediate circle. And the way it came about is, I wrote this book, it's called Attached 15 Years ago. And when I wrote it with my childhood friend, basically, I was going through a breakup at the time. And that's where I came across these attachment styles in adulthood. And I didn't, we never learned about it in, I never learned about it in medical school or in my psychiatry residency. We never really used those attachment styles in learning how to do treatment and therapy with people. So it was such a revelation. And I remember calling my friend, Ray John, like, oh my God, this is so helpful because he's explained to me so much about the breakup and one went on in that relationship and the different attachment styles and how we respond in adulthood. And so we decided, instead of like, you know, the way that one does when you go through a breakup and you talk about it endlessly, we decided to actually use that energy to write this book about these attachment styles. And we'd always had this running joke that it's only going to sell one copy to the Library of Congress, because we just wrote it to ourselves. And then it kind of like took a life of its own, because I guess the same concepts that helped me so much, we're able to translate it into something that will help others. But then people came to me in therapy and they asked me, okay, now I want to become more secure. How do I become more secure? And I didn't have an immediate answer to that. And I actually found the answer in a way that I least expected it. I'm also a molecular neuroscientist and I study the molecular mechanism of emotional memories. And I find myself in therapy with my patients sort of veering off the usual therapeutic techniques and starting to explain to them about the brain and how the brain works. Because if you think about it, it's really, that's our motherboard. That's what dictates how we respond to things and how we, if we understand that, we can really find a way to become more secure. And I can give you a few examples of how that works really. And so yeah, there's a bit towards the end of the book, which I really liked, which kind of resonated with the way I often view the human body and human health. You say, one of the reasons that I'm drawn towards attachment science is that it's not based on the medical model of fixing pathologies, but rather on normal behavior traits that are common in everyone. The question then becomes not whether a particular trait or way of looking at things is sick or healthy, but rather is it effective or ineffective? In other words, is it working for you in your life or not? And if not, how can it be changed? I love that you read that sentence because it really, it rings so true and it's so important, but people are so used to looking at themselves from the medical model that now there's a whole, if you look online about adult attachment styles, it's all about the sort of veered back into the medical model. Heal your anxious attachment style, heal your avoidant attachment style, but it's not as sickness, it's a variation in the population. It's very, very important to understand it from the get go. These are variations on the norm. I think around 50 something percent are secure, which is such good news and you'll see soon why 50% of the adult population majority of population are secure. I know it's hard to believe 25% are avoidant, around 20% are anxious and very few are fearful avoidant. So it's a variation on the norm like I told you, like being tall or short. So is it genetic then? Is it something we're born with or because a lot of us would say that, and I know you kind of address this towards the end in the book about causation and where it's very hard to prove where this stuff comes from or whether it was your childhood trauma that led to you having a certain attachment style, but what do you think based upon your reading of the research? Is it genetic or is it a combination of genes plus environment, particularly when we're children? I think not even when we're children, that's kind of like, that's the case that I'm trying to make in the book. It's, we are so, such deeply social creatures and really our ability to collaborate with others is our superpower as a species. I mean, if you think about it, we're not particularly strong animals. We're very vulnerable, but yet we can live in a North Pole, we can go to, we can make it to the moon, all because, and we rose up and we were not in the middle of the food chain anymore. We're kind of like the top of the food chain. We did all that because of our ability to collaborate and form really cohesive societies. So our brain is really adapt. It wouldn't make sense that we would fix it on a certain way in childhood and then remain the same through the rest of our lives. We are so much more adaptable socially than people let, like are led to believe, and that's part of this whole message in the book. And I actually use that in order to help the people become more secure. And so in childhood, we can actually form several different models of attachment because it's not only the mother or the father that we form attachments to. And then later on in life, also attachment basically in childhood explains it's a correlation coefficient of 0.2 to 0.3, which means that like 90, around 95% of adult attachment cannot be explained by childhood attachment. Really? Yes. And that's what the findings show. Without really surprises me. It does because it doesn't surprise me because that's the research, but people have a hard time accepting that. But I find it hopeful because it means that we are so, there's so much potential for change. Well, that message of hope is something I'm going to keep reiterating because that's the big, big message I got from reading your book. And even to the degree that later on, you sort of make the case that it's not always necessary to excavate our past. Right. So that's why that's the point that I love about that whole, because attachment, the whole adult attachment, the science, it doesn't come from the medical research. It comes from social psychology and also from developmental psychology. So the whole preface of what's sick or not sick is not there. But I have to say, I mean, about childhood memories, there's a whole chapter in the book about causality. And as a scientist, to establish, for scientists, causality is the holy grail. It's like, it's so hard to sort of discover and find. And sometimes even one molecule, you think it's doing one thing, and then you discover that it's completely, it's really, really hard to establish causality. Yet, in treatment, in psychology, we often say, oh, because this and this happened to you in childhood, then now you're this way. But I've like, even when you look at behaviors in mice that are all genetically identical, and let's say you expose them to like in adolescence, like in early childhood to a bully, a part of them will become really depressed and anxious later in life. And some of them will show complete resilience. You wouldn't even tell what happened to them. So it's very, very hard to establish causality. Yeah. That's the thing with stress though, isn't it? Right? Because if you think about it, or the way I think about it, you can't really say that X or Y is a stressful event, because that event will be seen differently by different people. Process differently. Process differently, exactly. So, you know, a car crash for someone would be really, really stressful. And for someone else, they may not be perturbed by it at all, right? So it wasn't necessarily the external stressor that was the issue. It was how did that person interpret that stressor? Yes, exactly. So the thing is, when you do recall those memories in a safe place, when you're creating a secure bond, again, the change happens from the relationships in the here and now. So you're creating a, hopefully a secure relationship with your therapist, and then you're recalling those memories. And what happens is actually much more profound than making those causal inferences. You actually, when you recall a memory, you disrupt it. And basically, you can rewrite that memory and remember it differently. And that's much more intense, I think, than actually making on because this happened to me, now I'm this way. I love that. I absolutely have experienced that myself. While you can reinterpret a past event at a different stage in your life, especially if you have this secure attachment and the secure relationships around you. And so you're effectively changing your past. Exactly. That is so powerful, right? It's so powerful. And the way I'm thinking about my own childhood and the way that I see it and the way that I interpret certain things. And that's what I try to do in this secure priming therapy is help people reinterpret things differently, not necessarily. There's so many examples. I think the Beckham's now, there's, I think there was a story about like, oh, like he was so upset that he took his childhood photos and they monetized it. But I mean, going back in time, maybe, I mean, I don't know if I should get into that because you may upset some people, but the way that I think about it, I mean, at the time, I don't know what their exact motivation was, but maybe it was they were really so happy to have a child and they wanted to sort of, they wanted to show it to the world and they wanted to create a narrative rather than that someone else create a narrative for them. Yeah. And for concepts, because I don't know when we're going to put this episode out, what Dr. Levina is talking about is literally in the past 24 hours, a story has broken with Brooklyn Beckham, where he has announced on social media some of his frustrations with the way he's been brought up. Okay. It may be that over the next few weeks, more things become clear or whatever, but I guess it was a bit like the Prince Harry's situation with the royal family. No one really knows the reality from the outside. People love to comment on this stuff, but the reality is it's like, we don't know what actually happened. All we know about, let's say the Beckhams is what is portrayed about the Beckhams in the media. What we know about the royal family is what was portrayed about the royal family in the media. Doesn't mean it's true. And not only does it not mean it's true, we also don't know how different people are going to interpret that. So some people are saying he's a spoiled brat at the moment, Brooklyn. I think it's really harsh to be judging people like this without knowing what's going on. You don't know that. Both sides could be right. And the palace could be right. And he could also have real reasons why he's frustrated. Do you know what I mean? There's multiple interpretations of the same situation. Exactly. And not only that, I mean, he might be frustrated because of a certain point of view, but that's the nice thing about that secure attachment that you can entertain different things in slightly different angles and see it like a little bit differently. And then all of a sudden it gives you a reprieve. I'll give you a quick example, a very simple example. I was going to cross, I was like with my partner and we were going to cross the street and the woman, a woman was driving her car and she sped up. She didn't slow down. She sped up and passed us. And I told him, did you see that? She didn't even slow down for us. And he said, well, I think she actually probably sped up so we can cross the street faster. So it kind of shows you like we're both standing there and like a different perspective. Exactly. His is a more secure perspective. And so for me to be next to that, and we can alternate. Sometimes I have their secure perspective and sometimes he does. But to get that input in the moment, and that's what the secure priming therapy does a lot, is trying to sort of find the secure perspective on things. And I find it in my own life to be hugely helpful. I want to get into these four different attachment styles, because I'm sure everyone listening, if they don't already know, would like to start to get a sense of, okay, well, which one of these four styles am I? Before we do that though, a couple of things I just want to comment on, which was quite eye-opening for me when reading your book. Firstly, and you've touched on this in the conversation already, that these attachment styles can change. Right? So there was, and maybe this bit really resonated with me because, you know, my kids are teenagers at the moment, but you literally talk about there's this childhood attachment style. And then in teenagers, when they're more interested, let's say in what their peers think than their parents, their attachment style can change. And you're also making the case that, you know, how we attach as adults can be different from children. So that's quite interesting to me that these things can change throughout life. Related to that, I wanted to make another point in the sort of part two of the book, where you go into these attachment styles in detail, and you have certain questionnaires to fill out to help us understand what we are. It was very clear to me that if I was answering those questions 10 years ago, I would answer them differently. So I think at the start of that section, you say that one of the questions the researchers often ask people is, you've been away for a business trip, you have just landed and you're about to come home, and you put on your phone and you see a text message from your significant other half saying, what was it? Is it can call me when you need to talk? Call me when you need to talk. Yeah. Right. I think it's a great one. I know for a fact, well, not for a fact, okay, but I imagined that 10 years ago, if I received a text like that, I would immediately think, I don't know, have I done something wrong always? Is there something bad I'm about to hear? Do you know what I mean? That's where I would have gone to. I don't really think I'd go there anymore, but I've done quite a lot of internal excavation. I've done a form of therapy called internal family systems many years ago. I feel like a lot of these insecurities that I may have had early on in life that I have put down to my childhood, rightly or wrongly, okay, I feel that that empowered me to then go and change them. So I'm putting quite a lot at you, Amir, but I've really thought about this deeply, this idea that these things can change throughout our life, but also that we can change our own attachment styles, perhaps, or maybe different flavors of those attachment styles, depending on what we do and what we surround ourselves with. So I don't know, help me make sense of it all, please. Yes, definitely. So I'll start by just explaining a little bit about the four attachment styles, so we'll get that out of the way. And then I'll love the way that you've talked about your own transformation because it's so helpful. So the way that it works out, there's these four attachment styles, anxious, avoidant, secure, and fearful avoidant. And it's on two dimensions, really. It all has to do with how comfortable you feel with intimacy and closeness. But then also, on the other hand, how sensitive of a radar do you have for potential threat in a relationship? So if you love closeness a lot, but you also have very, like you, like something like that would set you off, like a simple sentence, or like they have on TikTok, they have this thing when they say, me and my current husband. And then all of a sudden the other person is like, what do you mean current? But you can see on TikTok, some of them smile, some of them get really upset, some of them leave the room. So if you have a very sensitive radar for potential threat in a relationship, why are they going? Are they going to break up with me? Then you love closeness, then you have more of an anxious attachment style. You have a sensitivity to potential problems. Yeah, you said, you say, I mean, I kept reading this actually, you say the anxiety dimension when it comes to attachment styles, assesses the extent to which individuals worry about being abandoned or unloved. High scores on this dimension indicate a high level of attachment related anxiety, characterized by a fear of rejection and a frequent need for reassurance. Now, I know you're saying we can't prove stuff from childhood makes a difference here, but with the understanding that we all interpret stress as differently. If when you were a young child, I don't know, your mum went away suddenly and you didn't know where she was, or your parents got divorced and it wasn't very pleasant. It seems reasonable that if that didn't go particularly well for you, then you might have this worry about being abandoned or unloved. Okay, so I'm going to reply to this in a way that you probably wouldn't expect. Today's episode is sponsored by Do Health, a personalized health companion that I have helped create. Now, I built Do Health to transform the way we think about health. You see, for many years, whilst working in the NHS, I saw the same thing over and over again. Modern medicine is really good at treating illness, but it was never designed to prevent you from getting sick in the first place, nor to optimize your health. Do Health is here to change that. It takes everything that I know about health and well-being, including my four pillars of health, and makes it personal to you. 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That's boncharge.com and use codes live more to save 20%. If when you were a young child, I don't know, your mum went away suddenly and you didn't know where she was, or your parents got divorced and it wasn't very pleasant, it seems reasonable that if that didn't go particularly well for you, then you might have this worry about being abandoned or unloved. Okay, so I'm going to reply to this in a way that you probably wouldn't expect, and I didn't expect it either, and I was blown away when I read it in their research and I really go into depth about it in the chapter about the anxious attachment. So what you, what I've discovered in the research, because I think some of the research, the way that they present some of the findings is also biased, but when you really look at the findings, what you see is not necessarily someone who's so worried about abandonment, and it's just like people who have like a sixth sense for picking up stuff from the environment. Like there was one, like not just danger, but also danger, but a lot of different things. It's just like people who have a more sensitivity to picking up stuff. So for example, there was one study where they had, like on a group level, when they had like a group of people in a room and they had like smoke start to come out from a computer, and the people with anxious attachment were the first to identify the danger, and interestingly enough, the avoidants were the first out the door. So you have a segment of the population that is very, that can pick up cues from the surrounding that others can't. So it's a superpower. It is in a way a superpower. You just can see things that other can't see. They notice even little things, little shifts. So maybe we have a bias, there's an inherent bias in how we self-report ourselves, right? Because if we're wired that way, we can then look back on our childhood and say, yeah, this is what happened when I was a kid. That's why I'm like this, but it may not be that. And maybe that we were already like that. And so when that situation happened, we were more sensitive to it. And also think about how much, how much more challenging it is to raise a child that has these high levels of sensitivity. There's a whole area of research in children about that some, some kids are more like orchids, they're very sensitive, but they can bloom beautifully. And other kids are more like dandelions. They can go anywhere. They're not that sensitive to the environment. They're not like they can really thrive anywhere. But if you give the right environment for the orchids, they actually outperform the dandelions. So like if you just look at the vulnerability or the potential liability of it, you're missing a huge part of the picture. And that's a big, what I'm trying, that's the point that I'm trying to make in the book. I even give it an example. It's like, it's a mind blowing example, like, because I was looking for a good example to give about this woman who adopted a girl. And then she went to school with her and one day and she noticed another girl came to her and they started playing. And she stopped, froze all of a sudden, said something, I think this other girl is my daughter's sister. Biological sister. Yes. She saw something in their facial expression. She even said, they didn't, they had different eye color, but it was something about their facial expression that they looked, they looked the same to me. And she turned around and told everyone, I think she's her sister and no one believed her. No one believed her. And she went into, and she researched it and she was her sister. So what an amazing, so here's an example where there's no danger, but you can actually see things that other people can't see. And now they've been, it's been years now, like from the story, from what I read, they're inseparable. I guess what I'm getting from you is you were saying that, look, and please correct me if I've got this wrong, but it seems to me is what you're saying is, understand your attachment style, find out which one of these four categories you fall into, and then ask yourself, is this working for you? If it is working for you in the way your life is currently set up, whether that be your work or your partner or whatever it might be, great. You just keep going. But if you find that your attachment style is in conflict with maybe some of the things in your life, and maybe that's why you don't speak up at work, that's why you're having frequent arguments with your partner, maybe the tools in this book can help you not get rid of it, but learn to work with it so that you can have a happier and healthier life. Is that a fair way to look at it? Yes, I definitely agree. I think it's, but when you work with it, you change it. That's the idea. But that ability to see things actually is not a bad, I mean, that's something that serves you. You don't want to get rid of it entirely. It's like people, like I remember, the orchid idea, they can outperform the dandelion. Could you say, I don't know, let's say you're a footballer, right? Or what you guys would call soccer, right? Let's say you're playing football, and I don't know, you're really bad with your left foot, right? But you're exceptional with your right foot. You can learn or the team can put you in a position and you can learn certain moves and runs where actually it's very unlikely you'll ever need your left foot. So in some ways, you can say, yeah, well, you could work on your left foot or make that stronger. Or you could go, yeah, I could do, but I can also play the game, which reduces the likelihood that I'm ever going to need my left foot. It's a great example. And I'll tell you why. It's not that I'm never going to need my left foot. It's like learning to use, and that's what secures are so good at, learning to use others to help bring out the best in you and learning to lean on others. And that's where what avoidance are not good at. Remember that strange situation test, they stay limp, they can't really use the mother. They're like, oh, I'm going to regulate my own feelings. But actually, they like really have a hard time. What you're describing is how can I utilize others? So they'll cover that side. And I can actually use this side to sort of get a win for my team. And that is also goes into the whole latter part of the book, which I actually love because a lot of the sort of secure priming therapy, which is kind of like a therapeutic modality I invented, because as a neuroscientist, this is the kind of therapy I would have wanted to get, but it didn't exist. So I kind of had to come up with something. But he talks about like these hidden sparks of talent, about discovering what your hidden spark of talent is. And oftentimes, for people who have insecure attachment, and especially anxious, their hidden spark of talent, oftentimes they perceive as an impediment. So the example that you'll get is like, oh, my left foot is really weak. And I'm like, what am I going to do? What am I going to do? It's like, whoa, but wait a second, if you shift your perspective a little bit and think about your right foot, you can get so, you can get so much more. And that whole big part of secure priming therapy is uncovering those hidden sparks of talent and finding like, yeah, I can give you an example, give example. Please, yeah. I have a patient who constantly is like, thinking about himself and how like, is he this diagnosis or that diagnosis? And he really has like a very strong drive. So to uncover the truth and really look into the details. So if he uses it sometimes to self scrutinize himself, that is not helpful. That does not work for him. It's not effective. But when he uses it at work, to really go down into the details of certain business proposals and finding out and like analyzing stuff, like he excels like he is like he does so well there. So it's the same talent. But how do you position it? Yeah, we've covered the anxiety dimension. Okay, so people can perhaps as they hear that and there are questionnaires in the book people actually want to do it and actually figure out who they are, right? And you also mentioned that there are specific tools and we should get into that. But we'll maybe talk about the avoidance. And then we can talk about the tools because I came up with exactly those tools to help people with insecure attachment styles find their way towards security. Yeah, definitely want to talk about this too. So this anxiety dimension that you've covered it assesses the extent to which individuals worry about being abandoned or unloved. And then you contrast that when you say the avoidance dimension on the other hand, measures the degree to which individuals are uncomfortable with closeness and intimacy. Yes. Yes. Could you just explain that in a bit more detail? So for avoidance, it's all about not feeling too comfortable with too much closeness. They just don't like a lot of closeness. Why not? So this is where, you know, as a scientist to answer the why is a very difficult answer. But if you look online on TikTok, they will say, oh, they immediately sort of give that explanation. But it has never, I mean, to my, the best of my knowledge, and I looked into it a lot, like that's never been proven. And actually, we really have to be careful. This history of psychology, we've attributed so much stuff to, I don't know, like this whole term of refrigerator mother, when we actually told about kids with autism, it's because they had really cold mothers. There's this schizophrenic mother who now, if she wasn't too cold, but she was hot and cold, and that caused schizophrenia and their children. We have this whole, there was this whole thing about what causes people to be gay, like, I don't know, distant fathers. All there's all this causality that's went around for years, and it was all proven to be completely false. And it's also very, very hard to make those studies to actually prove that. And actually, I'm very skeptical. And here, where it comes to this whole thing, when you understand the brain from a neuroscience perspective, and how the brain changes, it's, unless there's like this huge genetic defect that really like overdrives everything, it's always a combination of certain behavioral programs in the mother and the father, but then also what happens in utero, what happens in the first year of life, your genetic component, how it interacts together, it's never one thing or another. It's always a sort of a gene environment interaction. So I find, for people who are avoidant, that, and if you look at it throughout the whole evolution, that some animals have more, are like, are programmed to like distance, and some animals are programmed to feel more comfortable with closeness. And I give that example of C elegance, which is a tiny microscopic worm that neuroscientists love because it has this huge neurons. And in C elegance, you have, you have social feeders, and you have isolated feeders, and they eat E. coli. So you put a little bit of E. coli and you see like a big lump of worms, they're voraciously eating, but then there's the solitary eaters. And if one of the social one go swims in its direction, crawls in its direction, it'll go away. It's chemo tactically repelled by the other ones, whereas the other ones are completely aggregate and they attract each other. And it's a product of a single gene mutation. And you can switch the social to solitary feeders and back and forth by single point mutation. And so you have this genetic baseline. And that gene also, there's a it actually also exists in humans, but I don't think in humans, there's no one single gene that will dictate the preference for closeness and distance. But if you look around you, that preference of closeness and distance exists, it exists in a pets, some dogs like more closeness and some less, some cats love closeness, despite what people may think. So it exists, it exists everywhere. It kind of, I guess it really makes sense if we look at this through an evolutionary lens, right, where we need different traits in the population, right? Exactly. You're saying the anxiety dimension, these people can be hyper vigilant sometimes, right, and pick up on stuff super sensitive. And you say the, the avoidant people are characterized by a strong desire for independence and a discomfort with relying on others. Well, you can kind of think about us as hunter-gatherers and go, well, both of those traits are going to be useful for the tribe, you know, usually useful. You want some people to be mega independent and not be as reliant on others. And maybe they're going to take risks and I don't know, go and hunt and take risks and but get a big feed for the, for the tribe. Whereas you might also want people who are hyper vigilant and can pick stuff up that others are maybe totally chilled about. So, yeah, I guess in many ways it sort of fits with this idea that we need different traits within a population. So again, just bringing it back to these four attachment styles, one of them is secure, three of them are insecure. And under that insecure umbrella, one is anxious, one is avoidant, you've covered those. And what is that third insecure one of fearful avoidant? Is it a bit of both basically? It is a bit of both. But if I go back like in the, for the avoidant, so you're right, there is an advantage and it's not just the hunters-gatherers, even like in that example that I gave you with the smoke coming out, the anxious were the first one to identify it. And the avoidants were the first out the door. So we're like, I don't even care what they're like, who is around me? I'm out of here. Like they just like they can, and in a work situation, oftentimes they can, they work really well by themselves. They don't really need a lot of input from others. And you can see how that can be very advantageous in certain circumstances when you need someone to just kind of like take charge, make decisions and not sort of lean for help from others. So it's still in our, even today is very, very helpful to have these variations in the population. The fearful avoidant, I think Macy's the more, the more painful attachment style. They're the ones, at least the research shows that it's really hard for them to get along in relationships because they have a little bit of both. And it's like, very needy. It's not necessarily, well, it's not necessarily that they're very needy. And you know, actually from an attachment perspective, that's a line. I was like, we like to say that you're only as needy as your unmet needs, because when your needs are met, this whole thing about relationships, it's a safety mechanism. That's how we feel safe in the world. It's a very, it's like a radar. It's not so much about having multiple conversations. It's like, it's like knowing that the person is there, so we can go out into the world and do our things. From the point of view of the brains, relationships are like a working unit. It really is meant to help us give us the space to do things. So good relationships, actually, are relationships that we barely think about, that we know that they're there in the background. And it gives us the opportunity to sort of take off and do everything that we want to do. You can see that in the strange situation test, where the mother is there, there's a room full of toys. The child doesn't even care that she's there. It's like, oh my god, I want to explore all these things. Everyone's in the line, it looks back to see where is she to kind of get the secure base. That's how we feel safe in the world. But then it's really tied to exploration. So secure attachment really helps you with the exploration. And it's a system that we have in our brain all the time. Even now, as we speak, you have an idea where your loved ones are and that they're okay. And if God forbid, and I even had saying that because if you know all of a sudden there's something bad happened where your loved one is, there was an earthquake, there was something that happened. I don't know, something in the school. I don't even want to say it because there's too much to even say it. You wouldn't be able to continue to have this conversation with me. You'd have to stop and you have to make sure that they're okay again. And then you'll be able to come back. I'll be a little bit rattled and continue. So we have this, that's how we feel safe. We have this knowledge where our loved ones are and that they're basically pretty much okay. And we can continue with our life. Because when this, you have to remember, we're not the descendants of eagles or elephants or lions. We are descendants of animals that were in the middle of the food chain. So our brain speaks to us differently. Our brain needs those others, sort of that the knowledge of others around us to feel safe. Because money, credit cards, condos, cars, all those things didn't exist when our emotional brain evolved. It evolved when the people around us were the one who protected us and helped us. Just by having you here, if we were attacked, it reduces my chances of becoming prey by 50%. Right? Because they're going to pick you up. Oh, they're going to pick me. And so that's a huge reduction in risk when you're an animal in the middle of the food chain. So the fearful avoidant, they don't know how to feel safe in a relationship, but they want a relationship. Whereas the regular avoidant is like, oh, I don't need a relationship. I can do it on my own. The fearful avoidant, I want a relationship, but they always feel like closeness is too much. So they don't really know how to get close and also and make it work. But they want it. Whereas like anxious, they really, really want a relationship. And if you come and you're close to them and you're secure, they don't really see a lot of danger and they're happiest can be. But with fearful avoidant, when you become too close, they don't feel comfortable. So they have to sort of find a very delicate balance between it's almost like walking on a tightrope. One side is the anxiety, one side of the avoidance. And you have to find the daily, like with patients to teach them how to find a very delicate balance of walking on that tightrope. So I think that feels comfortable for them. Yeah. And I think one of the really great things about part three of your book is that there are all of these tools for people. So it doesn't matter where you are, you know, even if you're fearful avoidant, there are still things you can do to give your brain that sense of security, which is so important. But relating to what you just said, it's that you really understood the importance of versus a social species when you were on a safari in Africa. I'm glad that you brought it back to the safari trip because that's when really, when I really finally understood, oh, this is what our brain, this is how our brain this is how our brain speaks to us. I mean, we were there and most of the time you go on this, like they drive you around and you see the animal and all that's amazing and fascinating. But then on one occasion, they took us out with other car just to walk around in the safari where all the animals are. And so you're walking in the African outback basically. No car. No car. But we did have two of the guards, one in the, so they told us to go walk in a single file and we had like one person in the back with a rifle and one person in the front with a rifle. And they told us that it's no given moment to open a gap between us and to just make sure that we're all walking in a single file and in an aggregated way. And if someone stalled a little bit and there's a little bit of gap opened up, they like the guy in the back would cry, close the gap, close the gap. And you were very mindful of what was going on because we were just there. Were you scared? I was definitely more vigilant for sure. And there was, basically walking around and you know, you could come across lions, yes, of course, elephants, or snakes. I don't remember what they're called. Okay. So you've got to be careful. Yes. And he's asking you to stay close. Yes. To explain why to stay close. So the thing is, and that's what you also see in the wild when you watch all those, those nature shows, right? And that's where they often talk about. It's like to stay close to the herd because usually the ones that stay apart, that are not in the center of the herd, those are the ones that get picked off. So they go for the one who is apart from the crowd. And we all, our brain computes that and our brains over pets also compute that. And that actually relates to, that's when I understood what I call the soluble effect in the book, which is based on the soluble experiment, which I find it to be so brilliant. The person who did it, keep Williams did it when he, like the way that he, like, he thought about that idea when he was walking in a park. And like a freeze bee was like came sailing in his direction. These two guys were playing freeze bee and he picked it up and he threw it back at them and they started including him in the game. And then as, just as, as they started over, suddenly stopped and he said, he remember feeling surprisingly bad about like all of a sudden being excluded from the game, even though he didn't know these people, he knew that eventually he was going to stop. And then he went on and designed his experiment. It's called the soluble experiment where you are, well, like in a video game, very rudimentary video game, and you play a game of catch with two other figures. And all of a sudden they stop throwing the ball in your direction and they play between them. And what they find is two things. There's like the brain effect and the psychological effect. The brain effect is that they saw errors in the brain that are related to pain, distress, and self scrutiny really got activated in the brain. So, and then also the other thing that they found was that it decreases the feeling. Well, maybe I'll start with that because that's really important. And then I'll tell you because another thing that so another thing that they found was that it's very hard to mitigate that effect. So let's say I'm going to give you money. And maybe whenever you're excluded, I'm going to give you money. So would that take away from that effect on the brain? No, they find that no money doesn't help. David went as far as telling minority people that the other two members, the other two players are members of the KKK. So like even they've like despicable people, are you playing with despicable people? What do you care if they're going to include you or not? No, still it has a similar effect. So it's a very almost like a knee jerk reaction. When I first read about the sign ball effects in that chapter, I thought, okay, kind of makes sense. But when you went to these two further examples, which is, well, if you're given money to sort of mitigate for you being excluded, makes no difference. If they're part of the Ku Klux Klan, as you say, it doesn't matter. And what does that tell us? I mean, what it told me was that on a deep, deep, deep, primal level, we're wired for connection. And if we feel we're being ignored or excluded, it does something very powerful. I think, yeah, you, what did you write? You wrote this, the human brain has been programmed through evolution to experience exclusion as on par with physical pain. And I think in a separate chapter in your book, you were talking about this idea that being ignored is no less harmful or ignoring someone is no less harmful than lashing out. Or even like hitting someone because if it's like on par with like, it's like, yeah, I mean, it's very painful. But that's very provocative, is it? Because we would think, you know, maybe this goes to the other thing you write about in that chat, to still facing this idea that, I don't know, if you're having an argument, let's say, or a disagreement with a friend or a partner, if you were, if you're shouting at them, we would understand that it's not very nice to lash out at someone. But I guess you're making the case, I think that if you just go silent and don't engage and ignore, that is as harmful as well. Today's episode is sponsored by The Way. Have you tried to meditate before? Perhaps you've heard about some of the benefits like reducing stress and increased focus and you've given it a go and thought it's not the practice for you. Well, I believe that may well be because you have not yet tried the right approach. You see, the way is the only meditation app with a single long term pathway, you're not forced to make loads of choices each day. 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And actually, you can watch it in YouTube and it is actually, I have to say, it is painful to watch because they come into the room, they're sort of gaga at each other and they're smiling and they're really having a nice time. And then they tell the mother, look away and then look back and no facial expression. Just keep a blank face. And the baby initially is like laughing, smiling, trying to get the mothers because we have, even now when you're sitting and talking, we have an emotional report of like facial, we're meeting it like we're, we have a connection. But then she stopped it all of a sudden. And then when they see they can't get her attention very quickly, they go into much more desperate measures and it ends up with them screaming, shrieking and started really to cry. And then they tell her, and that's the hard part. And then they tell her to, okay, so and then the baby comes down very quickly. But it just shows you it's almost like there's a tug, there's this emotional thing, a thread that connects people. And when you cut off that thread, that is very, very, it's a very aggressive act. And when you talk to, and people don't think about it this way, and especially people who are avoidants, and when you teach them in therapy, it's like, well, when you do that, you're like the mother who leaves the room in the strange situation test, or you're like the mother who creates that surface experiment, you're doing it in real time. And then they understand it. And then they can't just say, because usually they would say, what do you want from me? I'm not saying anything. I'm not doing anything. And it's like, and the other person, it's like that baby that starts to scream and yell. And they're like the ones that are, and then they often go, oh, you know, because in childhood, this and this happened to me. So I have fear of abandonment, where in fact, what's happening in the here and now is the brain causes you to brain to react. It's not necessarily related to your childhood. It's what's happening here. It reminds you of something. Gabo Masse said to me many, many years ago, I think I've had four conversations with him on this podcast up to this point. But I think in conversation number one that probably took place in around 2018 or 2019, I think he was was sharing with me that trauma to a child is not only when bad things happen to the child. It's also when not enough good things happen. It kind of works both ways. And it's, it kind of makes me sort of think about what we're talking about here, which is we get the lashing out at someone is traumatic. That's a bad thing that's happening. But, you know, ignoring someone is not quite the same thing. But you know, if you're ignoring someone, you might think, well, it's okay. At least I'm not shouting at them and lashing out at them. But I guess you're withdrawing love, you're withdrawing social connection, which is just as harmful, I guess, at least in many ways you could argue it's just as harmful, right? Well, it's even so what happens like, so here's the thing when you're more harmful. Well, when you understand the language of attachment, so then sometimes what happens is that because you're ignoring them. Basically, you then sometimes then they engage in what we call protest behavior. And so protest behavior is a very specific term in attachment science. And what happens is, is like when you feel that the other person is not available, you'll engage in any sort of behavior to reestablish that availability. And because it's such a rudimentary system, the attachment system, and because it's really about a really survival and safety. Oftentimes, we end up and that's, we end up acting and doing things that we feel what is going on. Why am I doing this? I don't want to scream like that. I don't want to do this. But it's so much stronger and more primitive and more foundational than what we can control. It's about our survival. And that's why oftentimes, and I think that's why people find a lot of solace and empowerment in attachment is to understand you're not crazy because a lot of people can be hugely very functional, very good, like amazing in their work. And then when it comes to relationships, they just fall apart and they don't understand why. But if you work on that and you teach, it's really about the emotional report between two people. And it's again, remember, I told you, it's a working unit and the function of secure relationships is to help regulate each other's emotions. So it is both of our responsibility to make sure that the other person is calm. This is, we are a highly social species. And so when something bad happens to us, and I'm sure we have an attachment hierarchy in our brain, and I know I'm sure if something bad were to happen to you, you know exactly which was the number one person you're going to go to. And oftentimes, if they say something, if they're, if you're securely attached to them, they even a few words, a hug, can immediately make you feel better. There's no Xanax or Clonopene in the world that can have such a powerful effect because we're such deeply social species that it can really have such a profound effect. But the other side of it is that so secure attachment is one of the most powerful regulators of affective emotions. But there's another side to the coin that insecure attachments can be one of the most powerful instigators of emotional distress, right? If they don't say, they withdraw or they do like it can cause huge emotional distress. So if you think about it, attachment is really the basis of both suffering and healing from suffering. Yeah, good quality relationships can be the best way to relieve stress and poor, unhealthy relationships can be the biggest source of stress. Exactly. Exactly. Kind of works both ways, doesn't it? Yes. And not just talking about the relationships that we have with our partner. I'm talking about the relationships that we have with our healthcare providers. There's one study there about people with fibromyalgia, with this chronic pain. And when they have good relationships and then secure, they oftentimes have better relationships with their healthcare providers and the outcomes are better. So it has such a profound effect on our brain. So that's why I wouldn't I don't even usually think what is worse, the yelling or the withdrawing, both are really bad. Both are bad. Yeah. Both are because both don't serve the purpose of regulating each other's emotions. And that's why I have like that tool, one of the tools in the book is like when I have this rule that helps people when they're fighting, it's like, if you understand the function of relationships, then I often say that only one person is allowed to be upset at the time. And the first person is upset, that's him. And the role of the other person needs to help them calm down. You can't, it doesn't make sense from an attachment perspective for both of you to be upset at the same time. So what happens with couples is usually when they get into a fight and then like one of them stops and they say, wait, wait, wait a second. I was upset first. It's my turn. You can be upset. And then they start laughing about it or really calls to their attention. Wait, remember what the function, what we're trying to do here, we're kind of like off the mark. And if that doesn't work, then I have a second rule. Is that the maya culpa rule? That's the maya culpa rule. Can you explain that one? Yes. So that rule basically says, if you're not able to take turns, and I have to say it is hard to take turns because what happens when we're attached to someone, like people say, you know, about this whole codependency, you have to sort of really separate yourself from others, that's all really nice and clean sounds really wonderful. But that's not our physiology. When we get attached to someone, our physiology merges. And they really, you can see it on certain studies that have your heart rate is controlled by your partners, your reading, they even have some studies where they show that if you have a cut, and you're more secure, it can heal faster. So it has a profound effect on our immunity, on our inflammation, on many different physiological aspects. So that whole nice separation, oh, we're not going to be too dependent. That's really nice, but it's not happening. So basically, it's hard when someone is upset not to be upset too. But that's why I have to remember that rule to keep yourself, but because you reverberate with them. So if you both get upset, that's when you get to the Miacopa rule, which means that you both have to apologize, because you both failed the relationship. So you know what, I'm really sorry that I'm upset. I'm really sorry, I really should be really seeing more your point of view. I don't want to be this way. I want us to get along. Can we can we hug? Oftentimes, touch is really good because attachment is pre-language and language sometimes gets in the way. Language sometimes gets in the way, ain't that the truth? And it really, it forces us to look at the real point of a relationship. The point of a relationship is not to prove how great you are and, you know, to be right. Yeah, I'm rolling my eyes as you're saying that. But that's not the point. And you quickly learn that when you get, you know, certainly, you know, if you get a long-term relationship or you get married or whatever the way you like to choose to do long-term relationships, you quickly learn, I think, if you're going to have a happy, sustainable relationship that it's not about being right. That's rarely helpful. But underpinning those two rules was this idea that you wrote about, which I think is quite provocative to some people. You are both responsible for failing to keep each other's emotional equilibrium. Right? So this is really interesting. So I think that the common viewpoint in society is that if a couple are having a disagreement stroke argument that it's someone's fault. But you're kind of saying that if you're having a big disagreement, you're both at fault. Yes. Is that fair to say? Yes, I think it's fair to say. So if someone's pushing back, if someone's listening, is that going, yeah, but you don't know Dr. Levine, what my husband was like when he said that to me last night. I'm not responsible for that. It was my husband. And I reacted to how my husband was with me. To that person, what would you say? So I have to first say, of course, I'm talking about sort of relationships that are outside of the abusive context because that's a whole different thing. But yeah, and you're right, they would often say, oh, no, no, but you don't know. Oh, no, but you don't understand. And then they're trying to make their case. And again, they're trying to use language where there's so much more attachment. If you think about it, we form attachment before we even form language. In utero, we can learn to recognize our mother's heartbeats, their voices, like we form all these attachments early on before we can even speak. And it's really goes below language. And so yes, it's so easy for people to go to who's right and who's wrong. But usually, you have to go underneath it and you have to think you both together. And not even just also in friendships, there's something that holds you together. And you're losing sight of that. You're losing sight of that because you're stuck in like he did me wrong and she did me right or the vice versa. But really, you both there is this need to sort of get reassurance from both. And it's failing. So you basically don't know how to merge that in order to get that emotional equilibrium. And someone needs to be the adult in the relationship. Often think about it as like think about like two cats that go up on a tree and they start kissing and clawing at each other. And there's no one there to bring them down from the tree. And that's why like even in secure priming therapy, I often do real time interventions when people can text me, she stopped responding to me. Who the fuck does she think she is? I'm sorry. I'm saying that because that it really escalates to their very quickly. There's so much anger. And the anger is really because of that emotional disconnect. They think they're angry because of all the injustice, but it's really more about the emotional disconnect. And then our brain gives us language. And then you're meant, well, you know, actually, she sometimes does it during fights, because she feels wounded. She doesn't know how to bridge the gap. But you know that she loves you. And you both like you can go to childhood, you both were a lot, you've both been through a lot. There's certain echoes and patterns. And like, but you guys also are really good with each other. And you can really, you've really helped each other. And she was really there for you last year when you were sick. And then I was like, okay, you calm down. And then he goes and he said, you know, I'm sorry, the miyakopa, I'm sorry that upset you. I didn't really mean to. I don't want us to fight. This is really bad. What are we doing? We're wasting life is so short. Let's give it, let's hug. And then it's like, you really decompress the whole situation, because that's what it's about. Like maybe he was right, why she's, she's not right. Why is she withdrawing? He said something, she said something, but it's really first established that emotional connection again. And then if you want to, you can talk about it. Do you know what often happens? You don't care anymore. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. It's really, it's really basically saying at the root, the human brain is a social brain. Our brain functions differently and looks differently when we have these secure attachments around us. The purpose of a relationship, at least a relationship that's going to help you, is to keep feeding the brain that information that the external world is safe, that I have people who are there for me around me. If that's your starting point, then an argument where someone's got really upset, that's downstream. It's like, yeah, okay, it's not about proving I'm right here or whatever it might be. It's like the point of this relationship is to help us both feel as though we've got someone, you know, by our side as we go about the world together. We just need to get back to that. Maybe because my wife got upset first, even though I'm upset by what she said, I need to apply that rule. Only one person is allowed to be upset at any one time. It doesn't matter because if you also get your upset on top of your wife's upset and then try and solve something, probably it's not going to go very well. I think that's a really helpful rule, but I guess underpinning both of those rules is what's the end game here? What do we actually want here? We want a harmonious relationship. I can see why that is so helpful and why it's going to be so challenging for some people. That's how I always bring it back to that situation and looking at babies and the still facing because it's easier to conceptualize it in babies. When you're taking care of a baby and the baby gets upset and they're crying and crying, and sometimes it's hard, again, because we have that physiological connection, it's hard also not to feel a lot of upset, but we oftentimes learn to curb our emotions and our frustration and be there for the baby. Because we know that if we actually get more upset, the baby will feel it and they'll get more upset. We learn to say, okay, I need to take care of this helpless creature first before I take care of and then be there for them. Then once they come down, I can come down. Yeah. Going back to those early three chapters in the book where you talk about the brain and what the brain needs to feel secure, we've just talked about the cyberball effect and what happens to the brain when we feel excluded or rejected. Then in chapter two, you talk about the antidote to exclusion being hyperconnectedness, which I find really really interesting. So can we just talk about what you've got that, what is it? It's carp, isn't it, and simis? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's talk foundational things. I think it would be really good for people to understand because ultimately, carp and simis are basically telling us what we can do, right? Right. So this is how, like when people came to me and they asked me, how can I become more secure? How can I become more secure? And I didn't have an immediate answer to that because these attachment styles, like they don't exist within, they didn't exist within the clinical realm. So it took me a while to come up with the answer. And I think the answer came up to me from more from understanding the brain as a scientist rather than as a physician. And so I married two concepts together, one from the attachment world and one from the neuroscience world. So basically, if you, again, because you know that it's attachment is a safety mechanism. So being disconnected, you may just feel that life is less meaningful, that we're less in control of our life, and even that we have left, it leads us to have left self-esteem. So these are things that people usually think that are domains that happen only within us that are not that affected by how others treat us. But no, our sense of connectedness really affects us to the core, feelings about how much we feel that life is meaningful about our self-esteem, about our control over our life. And the opposite is true. So what they found, they did the same soluble experiment. And they had like, so you're standing them instead of like, they're not throwing the ball and not throwing it to you, you're standing in the middle, and two other people, each one on each side of you, and then you throw the ball to one, they throw it back to you, then you throw the ball to the other, they throw it back to you, you're in the center of attention, you're getting all the balls, like much more, the ball is thrown in your direction more often than not, so you're hyper-included. And they found that the brain, the brain, as much as it loads disconnect, it loves being hyper-connected like that. And it makes you feel greater self-esteem, greater sense of control over your life. And it's like, it's really all these foundational effects and that, yeah, and so these psychological benefits. So I thought to myself, how do I create that hyper-connectedness, but it has to be something simple that you could use. And if you understand attachment, you know that you don't need to have like, hours-long conversations in order to feel connected to someone. It's not, that's not what this system is about. It's a pre-language system. So that's when I came up with this acronym. I figured you really need to learn to be consistent, available, and responsive. But it's not like, oh, I'm consistent, available, and responsive. I'm so great. You have to also make sure it's like a two-factor authentication. You have to make sure that the other person experiences you as reliable and predictable. And that altogether is consistent, available, responsive, reliable, and predictable. Hence, CARP, C-A-R-R-P. Right, exactly. So what does each of those things mean? Because I guess if we, we'd all like to think of ourselves as being those five things, wouldn't we? I guess if you were to ask people and say, would you, in the closest relationships in your life, would you like to be consistent, available, responsive, reliable, and predictable? I think everyone would say, yeah, I'd love that. You would say that because you're probably more secure. But other people, like even yesterday when I gave a talk, someone like, oh my God, first of all, they never thought about it that way. It's like, I'm totally not that. Now that you told me that, it was like a moment of revelation. Oh, I'm never that. I never answer in time. I'm never responsive. Because something that, it's clear to me at least, maybe I'm wrong, but that you're not avoidant, because avoidant people, people who are avoidant, oftentimes it's like, no, they need to take care of their own emotions. I don't need to be constantly available to them. We like avoidants think for each his own. Like, why do I need to be in constant contact? Why do I always have to respond? No, I don't want to do that. So, but of course, you know, let's say it's an email or a text message that we don't get a reply to, right? Yeah. I love that you mentioned that because it's so visceral, right? But how you interpret that will depend on your attachment style, won't it? Because let's say you're secure and you send an email or a text message to someone and you don't get a reply, you're like, Hey, they're probably busy, right? It's no reflection on me, the fact that they haven't replied. Whereas if you're one of the insecure attachment styles, that could be like really freaky. It could be like, Oh my God, what have I done? They don't like me. They're annoyed with me. You know, I'm no longer going to be their friend or whatever it might be, right? Right. So it also depends on the baseline of that relationship, right? Because we create this attachment homieostasis. And so if you know that someone replies every several hours, you're not going to expect them to reply more. It's all about a disruption in a certain baseline. No, but it's a two way thing, isn't it? Right? Or let me ask you, Amir, is it a two way thing in the sense that if these five features are required for the brain to feel hyper connected with people around us, okay? Consistency, availability, responsiveness, reliability and predictability. Yeah. Not only do we want those five things, we also, to keep up our side of the relationship bargain, need to make sure we are providing those things for the people in our lives. Oh, for sure. We have to start. Yeah, we have to start there. And then also, yeah, we have, so that's where I married it together to a concept from neuroscience. And I'm glad that you're asking about that because oftentimes when people come to therapy, and again, like, and I think there's room for that and it's important, but they think about the vehicle for change as talking about your childhood, talking about difficult things that have happened to you. And they're important. And we mentioned also in some of the ways that they can be important, but people often don't think about what have come to call the seemingly insignificant, minor interactions of everyday life. I love that. Simis. Yes, Simis. Seemingly insignificant, minor interactions of everyday life. I love this bet. And when you understand the brain from a neuroscience perspective, especially me, when I did a lot of research on epigenetics, you understand actually the brain is a very sensitive organism to the environment. We think about our skin as sensitive to the outside elements, but our brain is just as sensitive. Not more. We have our tendrils, our senses, our senses constantly checking what's happening. And the brain can constantly update, it does constantly updates itself, depending on our environment and our situation. So basically, each and every small, what seems to you insignificant interaction is an opportunity to either enhance your current belief and current sort of expectations or change it. And really, it can change on a structural level in the brain so much so that even if you remember any of this conversation tomorrow, on some level, some structural changes have happened in your brain, like in your epigenetics and your chromatin, I'm not going to go into the molecular mechanism of that, but some structural changes have happened in your brain. So it's that profound, those small interactions give you an opportunity each and every day to change. And again, each change is a relatively small change by taking together over time, like it can lead you to a completely different place. And emotional learning is an implicit type of learning. It's not an explicit learning. It's like motor learning. It's like how do you learn to ride a bike or play a piano, play golf? You're over time perfected and perfected. And that's the idea. So if you learn to create secure, like carp semis in your life, that's the way to become more secure. The thing is that different attachment styles have to learn it in a different way. And that's where I go into a great length in the chapters, like teaching each attachment style. What do you need to do in order to make your life, your semis, more carp? Yeah. I love the sound idea that the brain, it's never staying the same. Never. Yeah. It's constantly responding and updating itself based upon the inputs. It is getting in one of my social input. Yeah. And in terms of social input, I actually, in my book on happiness, which came out a little while ago, there was a chapter in it called Talk to Strangers, which I suspect you'll enjoy because it kind of speaks to, I think, this idea of semis, right? These small, well, not small, these seemingly insignificant minor interactions. And in that chapter, I made the case that talking to strangers is really good for you, right? And that there's a network of systems in the brain that scientists call the sociometer. And it's constantly scanning the external world for threats. And if, for example, at your local coffee shop, you know, you say, thank you to the barista, they smile at you and you have a nice little chat or same thing when you're getting your shopping at the supermarket, these seemingly insignificant interactions with inadvertent commerce strangers actually send a very powerful message to your brain. They show you actually, yes, the world around me is safe. That hyper connectedness. Yes. Yes. It completely. Totally maps on what you're saying, which I love. Yes. And I have an example in the book about the healing power of the semis where like a woman loses her husband and then she moves to another town. And all of a sudden she, like she sees, like she initially she's very depressed. And then all of a sudden like she walks around, she goes to a yoga yoga class and the women come around and greet her and they ask her to come to lunch. And then she walks around. And so even not having a conversation, what happened like people were waving at her, but she comes from a big city and she didn't really, it's like she was looking behind to see who are they waving at and they were waving at her. And even people in cars is just a place where people wave at each other, even if they don't know each other. And that was a huge force in her healing and ability to sort of process the grief, just like those saying hello, nodding to someone on the street was very, very powerful. So I mean, another aspect of it is, and that's like in chapter four of the book, it's about like energy and the brain. And I think that's really, I find it to be really wild, some of the research that I came across. And that really, again, it's from a neuroscience perspective. If you really have to understand how the brain, what the brain, how does it, like, how does it work and how does it use energy? And if you're going to understand, if you understand this sort of the principle that first of all, people who say, oh, you only use 10% of your brain, but we now know that that's not true. We use a huge portion of the brain all the time. And not only that, the brain is a huge energy guzzler. So like, we, the brain weighs about 2% of our body weight, but it actually uses 20% of our energy and in children, like, like it's even more, like 50%, and it's coming crazy. So it's a huge energy guzzler, but our nervous system found a trick to conserve energy so it can divert more energy to exploration. The brain conserves energy by looking outside of itself. And if it feels safe, it can let it, it can let its guard down and it can increase and divert some of that energy towards more exploration and thinking about ideas. So you don't need to be vigilant in what's happening around me all the time, which we do without even noticing. So when we have these insecure attachments, we're using up a lot of background energy because the brain doesn't feel safe and secure. So as we can move to a more secure brain, using a lot of these tools and techniques that you write about, we're naturally going to calm things down in the brain and have more energy available for other things. Yes, yes, exactly. And we, I think know it instinctively that some relationships are, we even say, oh my God, it's draining and it's so much energy and it's real energy. That's sort of the point that I'm trying to make. And I explain how the brain works and how, like, with ATP and the sort of the action potential. So when you go down to the cellular level, you understand the brain, why it uses so much energy. So it's real energy that you conserving. It's not just a metaphor. Yeah. And some of the marketing material that you'll publish a, create it around this book, which is very thorough and very good. There was a couple of things that said, a couple of things sort of printed that I thought would be worthwhile discussing. The first one, I think we've just done, you know, why smiling at people on the tube might be more effective than going to therapy. And that basically comes out of these CMEs, right? And what it does to the brain. It also says though, why closure is a myth and why we still feel that we need it. That's an interesting one. Why is closure a myth? So basically, I don't know if I would say that it's more effective than therapy, but I would say it's as effective as therapy. Talking to strangers, basically. Yes, I'm a very, I'm a big proponent of therapy. And actually in this book, I just like, it's not the secure priming therapy. It's not, it doesn't come to replace other therapies. But I think it's just like an added aspect. It's like additional skills for therapists to be able to use in treatment. Because what I found, and then we'll get back to the closure, what I found is that there's this whole body of research about secure priming, that we can all be primed to greater security, and that there's a secure kernel within us. And that some of these priming that basically that we all have secure representations within us, but I like to call it secure kernels that we can tap into and cultivate to become more secure. And oftentimes, these are events or people that we're interacted with that were secure, that as people who are insecure, we're oftentimes tend to gravitate and in therapy, especially, and think about difficult things that have happened. And there's not always room for like also the magnificent relationships that we've had that would secure people in our lives. And I start the book actually with one of those examples of an amazing vacation that I took with someone who is like thoroughly secure and how it still stays in my mind. I mean, I went on a vacation when I was 12, but it's still like, it's left such a significant impact. And I found, as a therapist, that listening to those stories and we all have them, I mean, I think the majority of us have them, of some of us as amazing mentors, some of us as amazing grandparents, parents, brothers, sisters, sometimes even a pet. There's all these examples of secure attachments that we were exposed to and tapping into them and talking about them and reliving some of those things can actually lead to greater security. So that's one aspect of it. But to go about the, for the closure thing, the closure, from an attachment perspective, what happens is usually you want closure when something's not happening and the relationship fell apart. And then you feel, if I only, but the thing that you remember that I mentioned that concept of protest behavior, and there's another concept that's called activating strategies. So activating strategies is when we feel that the other person is not available to us, our mind will engage in multiple, there's so many different ways in which it will engage. Again, it's a very powerful force and it's about our survival. So for our mind, we need to reengage with this person in order to feel safe and to survive, because otherwise we're going to, we're on the sideline, we're going to be picked up, we're going to become prey. We still think like we're in the middle of this food chain and it feels very dangerous. So our mind will go to all these different tricks to convince us to try to reach out for the person, to the other person and try to understand. It's like, oh, I want to try to understand what happened or I can't believe they don't want to be with me. How can that be? Or maybe I missed something. So it really, in an active any way, you keep the relationship in your mind by constantly thinking about them and trying to find answers. And so you'll go and you'll think I'll get closure and it will help me. But usually, like, you reengage with them, and then you go home and you still don't have all the answers, because it's going to keep on thinking about what's happened and what's not happened. And oftentimes, the answers are there. It's just like our mind without activating strategies, it doesn't let us see it. And we think, no, no, if only we'll get that. And oftentimes, it doesn't work that well. So what do we do instead of getting closure? If we, if someone's listening to this and they think maybe your relationship's gone badly and they think, I need to see that person, I need to talk to them, I need to understand things a bit more, I need to get closure, you're sort of saying that maybe they don't need closure. What can they do instead? What I'm saying is that oftentimes, you think you need closure, but it's really an activating strategy and it's really a way to interact with a person again. And that's fine. And it's not a bad thing. It's just like, you're not going to get exactly what you want. I think the better thing instead is to have like designated secure people in your life and go to talk to them. So the closure isn't necessarily about that person. It's like, that's over for whatever reason. Instead of going to them to try and get more closure, look at other relationships in your life, these secure relationships, maybe your old friends or whatever and talk to them. Yeah. And they will tell you, well, they, I don't know, they just didn't like you or maybe they'll be honest, they'll tell you that or it's like, well, you know what, it didn't work and maybe it's for the best. And you're like, no, no, but you don't understand. But it's this and it's that, but it's also helpful for you. That's where knowing the attachment language is so helpful because you can then understand, oh no, actually that's an activating strategy. That's my brain telling me, I feel very unsafe in this world if I'm not going to be in touch with this person and find out this information. It's just another way of like thinking about it and continuing their relationship in my mind, because my mind can let go, my brain cannot let go of that person. And here's a very important point and I often tell this to my patients, we think that we're at control, we're in control and we're at the helm of these things that we know what we're doing. But when it comes to attachment, it's much stronger than us. It's much, much stronger than us. And that's why it causes us to yell and lash out and do all those things. It sort of really speaks to very rudimentary emotions in us. So oftentimes, as separation or breakup, you have to do two separate processes. You have to separate from that person. But you also have to work with your attachment or circuitry and know that it will be stronger than you, that you'll talk to your friends and they're not going to convince you that again, because language doesn't really help sometimes, there's something beyond language that goes on. But just having that realization and that knowledge that the chatter will continue in your brain for a while until it lets go, I think is crucial. Once you are convinced the other person, they're not coming back, then eventually you'll start to deactivate. And so you activate, you activate, and then you start to deactivate. And then the way they usually, the activation looks like, it's like, well, maybe it wasn't meant to be. You sort of like, no, no, but this is the only one. And this is the only person that I want or even in friendships. No, my God, I can't be without this friend. So that's the all the activation strategies that your brain engages in. And then at some point when, but it's really, it's only, it happens on its own time, when you realize, I guess they're not coming back, when every cell in your body kind of like, finally comes to that conclusion. And it's different for different people, more people, people with more anxious attachment style usually have a more sticky attachment style, that's harder for them to let go, but not only. So, and then you start to deactivate and it can be like, it wasn't meant to be. Sometimes it's like, it's sometimes it's also even thinking negative things about the other person. And it's not like, well, the best example of that that I have is one of my patients, he went through a very, very painful, painful breakup. And then he, and then after a while, it was over. And he was able to deactivate for a long, long time. Like he was living in the West Village and the other part of his partner was living in the East Village. He couldn't cross Fifth Avenue. He couldn't go to the East side of Manhattan because he was so painful and you reminded him of how hard like he wanted the other person back and he just didn't work. And then eventually he deactivated. And then they became friends and he went over and he stayed, they had like a house, like a country home. And so he stayed at this ex-partner's house, he was in the Hamptons. And then he already had someone new. And he was like sleeping in the bedroom, in the guest bedroom next to their bed, and he heard them having sex. And he could tell me that all he was thinking about, how lucky am I that I'm in this guest bedroom and I'm not there in that bedroom because this person is a much better friend than a partner. So that's like a classic example of deactivation. But that took some time to get to that point. Yes. In the beginning, he couldn't even cross Fifth Avenue because he was so painful. So these things take time. And we think, oh, if I'm going to get closure, it's going to go away. But these things, like it has a life of its own. And you can try different things, but don't be surprised that it doesn't go away with the closure that you think you're going to get. There's so much in this book that we're not going to get to talk about. But one of the things I did want to just bring up with you on this conversation is to do with people pleasing, boundary-setting and codependency, which are, you know, the terms of the age, aren't they? These are phrases that have really come into prominence over the last five or 10 years. And towards the end of your book, you say one of the chances that people pleasing, boundary-setting and codependency are lenses that can often lead people astray in their attempt to become more secure. It's quite a counter-intuitive approach. Or I guess it's an approach that's perhaps not aligned with how a lot of people think about these things. So I wonder if you could just give your perspective on that. Right. So that's what I love about attachment, is that it really lends itself to a completely different way of looking at the world. It's like a secure way. And it helped me personally in my own life. And basically, when you think about boundaries, so when you understand secure attachment, you don't think so much in terms of boundaries because it's almost like a dance. You're dancing with the other person, like a couple's dance. Like you're taking a step further, they're taking a step back. It works seamlessly. What happens when you set a boundary oftentimes, it's like you're saying you put a line in the sand and you say, you can cross this. This is what I need. And that's how it's going to be. But in a secure attachment, it's more like a give and take. You are anticipating the other person's needs and you try to find a way to meet them. And they're anticipating your needs and they try to find a way to meet them. And it works. It kind of like happens seamlessly. So you're basically saying that the reason why people may feel they need to put in place boundaries is because there's an issue with the relationship. There's an insecure attachment in some way. Whereas if that relationship was worked on, to be more secure, there would be no need for boundaries because those boundaries would naturally get taken care of in the context of that relationship. Right. So it really depends. So that lends itself to so many different scenarios. And that's where the book really sort of dives into specific scenarios. So for example, like you feel that your partner is too needy and is calling you too much. But then when you look into it, you find that you're more avoidant. And oftentimes, and I described that in the book, there's that pitfalls that oftentimes avoidance fall into without even knowing that they fall into it. So you engage in a lot of closeness and you have this idea, oh, you can carry that closeness forward. You're getting credit for closeness. And now you can actually withdraw and you spend a whole weekend together. I even give that example and you did amazing things. Why do you have to text them on Monday morning? Like you just spend so much time together, but you don't understand the attachment homeostasis that you need to sort of keep that carp going in the whole those cities. And you withdraw and you sort of now, you've now they're starting to text you more. So you said, you know, this is a boundary. You can text me when I'm at work all the time, but you're missing a point. You're missing a way. And so the partner was like, okay, I'll understand, but you're missing. But then they'll feel unsettled inside where it would have been much easier to solve if you had on Monday morning said, good morning with a little smiley emoji. Problem gone. Like there's no need for a boundary and for something to say, this is the line and I can't meet your needs. So these things like boundary setting or people pleasing your, your basis thing are downstream. So people pleasing, for example, could be that the reason you feel the need to perform in that relationship and be less authentic and try and do things in order to be liked is downstream from the fact that you have an insecure attachment. If you had a secure attachment with that other person and or, or I guess a secure relationship with yourself and who you are, you would feel less of a need to people. Please, is that what you're saying? So I think so again, it's sort of, it's, it's kind of like a symptom. Yeah. So for example, I can think about a scenario where you giving a lot, but you don't feel that you're getting enough back. So the problem is not that you're giving, but is that you don't feel that it's reciprocal. So that's one potential because the partner is withdrawing and because they're not carp in the department understood that they actually have to keep that sort of thread going. Then you wouldn't put this, they'll even feel that you're pleasing the person. And when you say they're not carp, just in case anyone has not quite remembered the analogy, when you're saying carp, you're referring to C-A-R-R-P, the acronym for consistency, availability, responsiveness, reliability and predictability, the things that we want from other people. And we should also be trying to give to other people as well. I thought I called them the five pillars of secure attachment. And it's so easy. It's such an easy tool to learn, but you have to learn how to do it differently. So for the avoidance, most of the time, they're like the, usually they just like abruptly withdraw. And they, without even knowing that they're properly withdrawing, so you teach them, you say, you need your distance, that's fine. You can get your distance. And sometimes it works even with a few sessions, they come in and you say, you know, let's set up a thing where you can actually text them back every morning. You learn the quirks of the other person's attachment, what they need. And it's done very quickly. So that's the way of doing it. I love that as an idea. And as you say, if you're avoidant, and then you just unpredictably withdraw, because it just gets too much, and you suddenly withdraw, then you're not displaying carp to the other person, are you? So, you know, at the very least, you're not being consistent. You're not being reliable. You're not being predictable. So of course, they're going to respond to that. So you're basically saying you can still be avoidant, but maybe you need to communicate better when you are withdrawing. Do you know what I mean? You can get your space. And there's the other side of it too. Well, maybe if you really need your space more, because we have this variability, like among other animals for preference, for distance and closeness. And it's not necessarily because something bad happened to you in childhood, you just need more space. Then don't go and create like this super, super close weekend, and sort of like, like where you actually have a really time handling it and then feel the need to withdraw. Learn like to do it more, learn to balance it out more in a way that you can live with it better. Yeah. And surely a lot of this comes down to our ability to communicate as well, right? Because if we understand ourselves better and our attachment styles, and we enhance our ability to communicate, then we can explain that to the people around us. Right. Right. Exactly. And it's really, yes. And it's really like the basis is the understanding of these principles. And I give an example there about this guy, like they have this, I think it was, it was like, they had an amazing weekend together. They went to a play and they're like, oh, like she really wanted to go to see this play and he got her to the tickets to this play. They went to like a Michelin star restaurant the next day, even bought her like this expensive purse. And then come Monday, he usually texted her, but he didn't fail to text her. And then like he will have a lot of stress at work. And then at night, the next night is the first time like ever that he didn't, he was too tired to have sex. And she was like, I know what you're doing, you're withdrawing, you're pulling away. People always do that. And then he's like, God really upset. He's like, why are you doing this after this amazing weekend that we had together? And he got upset. I don't want to talk about it anymore. And then she couldn't sleep all night. And then all that stuff went down. And then basically it got escalated from there. But if he understood the attachment biology, he could have saved himself so much of that strife and like need for more intense closeness by understanding that especially after like a very intense weekend, you've created sort of up the ante, you need to keep that sort of carp baseline going and text in the morning. And let's say you got to the place where she got upset, not to get upset with her, because if you understand the biology, you'll understand, wow, she's responding to the delta to the change. Because that's what our neurobiology is meant to do. So let me give her the reassurance that she needs. Yeah, it's what's the simple and what's the root cause. Yeah, it's so simple. But if you're it has attachment has its own logic. And it's not the logic of the words that we like people usually think, it's a logic of safety of an animal in the middle of the food chain. I mean, I've thoroughly loved talking about this topic with you. You've gone into such detail in your first book from what a decade ago attached and now in secure. I think it's going to really help people understand themselves better and give them tools to navigate the social world a bit better, a lot better. But to finish off this conversation, for someone who's listened and a store, you know what, I am insecurely wide, you know, I'm either avoidance, I'm anxious, or I'm fearful avoidance, I'm one of those three. But you're telling me, Amir, that I can actually live this secure life using the science of secure connection. What are some of your favorite practical tools that you would leave that person with? So I would definitely say really learn the logic of the attachment or circuitry. But and then we talked about some of those two tools, the sort of like when you're fighting with someone, the only one person is allowed to be upset at the time. I love that one. I really like that one. And then there's another one that I actually often tell people, but it's particularly true for fearful avoidance because they get into so much relationship strife. I call it stopping yourself in your track and apologizing. And so sometimes people feel that when they start a fight, then it is basically there's a momentum and then you can't sort of get out of that momentum. It's like like the rollercoaster starts to go down. Yes. And there's like no way out. But you're about to say that's not true. That's not true. And at any given moment, and just by knowing that and actually practicing that. And sometimes I do it with people like great because I text people in real time to help them because sometimes you sort of sometimes you sort of you're it's like almost like you're bringing it hijacked. And then so you stop and you say, you know what? I'm sorry. I don't want to be this way. I really want to be more secure. And this is certainly not secure. Like I really apologize. I'm saying all these things. Sometimes I don't even mean them, but I'm saying them because I'm upset. So help me be better. Help me do better. Like usually I always go to the hug thing, but that's like in romantic relationships that we have attached ourselves to friendships. And you can still say, I don't want to say these things. I know I'm being hurtful. I really don't want to do that. Help me climb down from this tree. That's lovely. And even just saying help me, even though you might have started an argument, you able to acknowledge that maybe you should never start it in the first place and that you're sorry. And then saying, help me. It changes the whole tonality off entirely. It suddenly it's like, oh, this person needs help from me. And it's very powerful. The other sort of thing I can't stop thinking about. And you brought it throughout this conversation is that our attachment styles are pre-verbal and words often cause more problems. And you say like a hug, I get it. You know, a hug can be so powerful and can arguably say more than words. And yes, we know about that in the context of a romantic relationship, but you can also hug your mates. Definitely. Sometimes men struggle with that, but we don't need to. I mean, it's super nice to hug one of your friends. And you know, you both know what that means. So you don't have to say anything. I'll give you exactly. I'll give you an example of something that happened to me with my brother-in-law. He can be very difficult and say really like hurtful things. And one time he said something that was very hurtful to me. And I said, you know what? That's actually, and I was like, you know what? I'm leaving. I was the way we're visiting them. I'm leaving. And he said, no, no, don't leave. I'm sorry. And like, and then he's like, come here and kind of grab me like big guy and he hugged me like, what's happening? What's going on? And then all of a sudden I found myself being soothed and feeling better just like instantly. Yeah. I spoke to a chap called Professor Francis McGlone many, many years ago, maybe seven years ago on this podcast. And he's a, you know, one of the world's leading scientists in touch. And he was explaining to me back then about, you know, when we get a safe affectionate touch, it sends very powerful signals to the Olympic brain. It lowers levels of the stress on one-quarters old. It really, you know, reassures us on a deep level. And we've kind of lost some of this stuff. Haven't we in the modern world where we've become more isolated, we do more things by ourselves, we frankly probably touch our phones more than we touch other human beings, right? Which is kind of remarkable when we understand what touch does to us on a deep level, but it kind of fits very much with your work on attachment. Yeah, exactly. Yes, that's a great, I'm glad you brought that in because it's just really, really, it's very, very powerful. Even just like, like for example, my dog is very sensitive to upsets and I think he can smell it. So sometimes you don't even have to say it. And he comes and he's like, like jumps on you and he lies on top of you when he feels that you're upset. Yeah. And what would your final message be to someone who thinks, you know what, Amir, it's great to hear all this stuff, but I can't change. I've been this way my entire life. I always have conflict in my relationships. I do feel very insecure. There's nothing I can do. What would you say to that person? You know how many patients I've seen that started out this way and it seemed like an impossible, it's almost like someone comes to you with a knot and how do I untie that knot? And then, yeah, if you think about it this way, if you're going to try to pull, then it's not, you're not going to be able to untie the knot. It's actually going to become even stronger. But if you all you need to do is like take out one thread at a time and then eventually, over time, you'll understand you have this really nice, clear thread. And that's how I see it, like in with patient and therapy. And I really, I poured my heart and soul into this book and all of the tools that I use with my patients, with my supervisee, I put so much of it in there. So these are things that really help patients sort of make those changes. And even if you make, I give an example in the book, like think about like a cruise ship, you sort of like you change the course a little bit, but then over time, it goes in a completely different direction. So even a 10% change in biological system is a big change. Yeah, I love that. It's a very hopeful message. It's a very empowering message. I think you've done a phenomenal job on this book. It's going to help so many people that's going to secure the revolutionary guide to creating a secure life. Amir, thanks for writing the book and thanks for making time to come on my podcast. It was great. I really enjoyed this conversation. Thank you. Really hope you enjoyed that conversation. Do think about one thing that you can take away and apply into your own life. And also have a think about one thing from this conversation that you can teach to somebody else. Remember when you teach someone, it not only helps them, it also helps you learn and retain the information. Now, before you go, just wanted to let you know about Friday 5. It's my free weekly email containing five simple ideas to improve your health and happiness. In that email, I share exclusive insights that I do not share anywhere else, including health advice, how to manage your time better, interesting articles or videos that I've been consuming, and quotes that have caused me to stop and reflect. 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