How Your Childhood Wounds Affect Your Relationships with Eli Harwood | EP 53

What are the relationships from the past that are still having a hold on the present? What has been wounded across generations also gets healed across generations. Your job is not to heal every single thing that has been passed down to you generationally.
That's too much. That's too much of a job for one person.
Your job is to chip away at it as much as you can. That the idea that we only grow in childhood or we only develop in childhood is a hoax.
Can we have the capacity to accept our humanness enough that we don't live in, you know, fear and terror and the harshness towards ourself and that we are able to take enough ownership that our children don't feel like they have to pretend that everything we do is right, otherwise they're gonna make us mad or full of shame. You've brought up a few times attachment styles.
Will you give us just a general understanding to be on the same page? Yes, it's called earned secure. I mean, that's part of why I'm obsessed with this research is that we can make, it's not genetic, it's not a predisposition.
You aren't more likely to have it with one type of personality. It is a relationally inherited pattern.
And there's this like, just this moment to remember our sweetheartness in this sea of the logistics of having kids and jobs. Whether you're a parent, a step-parent, a caregiver, or maybe you don't have kids, but you want to better navigate your emotions and your nervous system.
In today's episode, we're going to be unpacking all of it for you. So talking specifically about parent guilt, how to navigate tantrums with kids and resolve conflicts in relationship.
And joined by licensed psychotherapist and author Eli Harwood, who has 17 years of experience helping people develop secure attachment styles in relationship with their partners and their kids. This is a juicy conversation.
I hope it serves you. Yay.
I'm so happy that you're here. I know I was sharing with you that my team and I just fell in love with you instantly.
So I'm excited to share you with my audience. And both of us having been therapists, I think that we can agree that a lot of our relationships are mirroring to us what's not healed, whether that be kids or partners.
And I think that a lot of the time people, if they don't know where their stuff is, they can just look for where's their conflict because conflict can help us see what's looking to be resolved and tended to inside of us. And most people think conflict is bad.

And really, it's just an opportunity to grow closer together if we use the conflict in a constructive way. And so I would just love to hear from you ways that we can better navigate conflict so that it's helpful rather than unconsciously hurting each other.
Yes. One One thing I want everyone to kind of consider is when you are entering a conflict, you're bringing with you a backpack full of your previous experiences of conflict.
And most likely the conflict that occurred growing up, you know, when you were a kid, that conflict has sort of a solid base in your body because it was probably on repeat. You know, what did your parents do when they were upset with you or each other or your siblings? And that template has a narrative around it.
You know, like you enter into a conflict and your body basically says something like, abort, abort, get out of here. There's nothing good that can happen here.
Shut down, you know, people, please. It might say, you know, put your fists up, you know, this, this is time for a fisticuffs and you better defend yourself because only one person is going to leave the situation in the right and it's going to be you.
So you better battle for being right. Or, um, oh my gosh, this person might leave you if they're mad at you.
So you have to like figure out what to say in order to make sure that they're pleased and they're okay. And don't worry about any of your feelings or needs, because that's not the point right now.
The point is do not lose your connection. You know, so like, what's the narrative that your body brings up into your system when you enter conflict? Because what we want it to do, we want your body to enter conflict and go, this is uncomfortable.
It must be an opportunity for growth. I wonder what I'm going to learn.
I wonder what you're going to learn. I wonder what we're going to learn.
Like, what are we going to discover? I call it a discovery mindset around conflict. And you know, as therapists, we get really good at this because our clients get disappointed with us, frustrated with us.
And that's a part of our process. That's right.
We have to hold that space. Yeah.
Yeah. So we learn how to trust conflict and we also learn the fruit of conflict.
Like some of the most powerful therapeutic moments with my clients are moments where I goof in some way, shape or form. Maybe I misread something.
I push too hard. I don't push hard enough.
I'm a little bit late, whatever the thing is. And that conflict arises up information in their nervous system that's needing to be attended to.
And when I can stay calm enough and curious enough, it usually births something incredible that would never have been birthed without the conflict because it wouldn't have arisen. And you get to repair and show a new way to say, yes, I'm human and it's okay to make mistakes.
And this is a safe relationship still. And we get to learn how to repair it.
And maybe the first time that they've ever had that model and experienced. That's beautiful.
And, and speaking to that, I know you speak to the power of vulnerability and, and I do some of this work as well, where it's like teaching people to speak to the vulnerable truth underneath the defense, because oftentimes if we're speaking from the defense, we're actually going to create the very thing we're trying to avoid. So for example, if my husband is missing me and speaks from the defense and says, you're always working, it would more likely create blame and defense inside of me to then create more distance rather than if he were to speak the vulnerability like, hey, I miss you.
And I'm afraid we're drifting apart. I'm going to drop into my heart and be like, baby, I'm sorry, I'm here and lean in.
And so, you know, it has to take a safe relationship to be willing to test out that vulnerability. But what do you share with people that have a difficult time opening up, being vulnerable and what's the impact it can have in their relationships? Well, when someone is deeply guarded and defended in their close relationships, we know they have attachment trauma of some kind.
Because the human design is to have close relationships where we get to be really gooey and soft and messy and all of the things that are more intimate, right? We get to be that with our close people. So if you have a natural sense of defensiveness as you enter into those gooey, messy places, we know you were trained to defend yourself somewhere in your early relationship.
So what I would say is, what are the relationships from the past that are still having a hold on the present? How can we look back with courage, with gentleness, with openness, a willingness? How can we look back at your stories and understand why you needed this defensiveness?

You needed it at some point. It was valid at some point.
And now let's look at your present situation and let's decide if you still need it or not. Because sometimes you do.
Sometimes you're in an abusive relationship because that's what you grew up with and you've continued in that. And I'm not going to push you to be more vulnerable with your abusive partner.
But sometimes, many times, you no longer live in a state where you're a child and your caregivers are incompetent at giving you what you need. You actually have the people you wanted in your life.
You just don't know how to use those relationships in secure ways. Yeah.
And what I love about what you're sharing is like, is it effective? Let's not judge it. And let's have compassion that it actually served you to a degree.
And is it serving you now? And if not, how do we upgrade it? Being compassionate with ourselves. I love the curiosity and the compassion.
It's like, okay, that makes sense. And is it still working for me? So I love that perspective.
I think that's really helpful. And then in those relationships that we feel safe with, to be willing to experiment, to test a little bit, to see as a scientist, what happens when I'm 5% more vulnerable and honest here and then keep going from there.
Yeah. That's beautiful.
And so you were kind of attuning to this already. It's like most of the things that we are challenged with as adults is because our parents didn't learn to emotionally attune to us or teach us how to

regulate or co-regulate with us, mostly because they probably were not regulated in their own nervous system. And so that's common.
But what would you say with parents who have big emotions that are coming up? How can they learn to navigate their emotions in an effective way? And how would that impact their kids? Okay. One of my most favorite things to say to parents is that the idea that we only grow in childhood or we only develop in childhood is a hoax.
And that one of the most significant moments of growth in our life is when we become parents. So your job as a parent is not to be put together or to have it all together or to know what to say all the time.
That's not your job. Your job is to be a determined learner.
So as your child grows and needs you, there are going to be things they need from you that you haven't yet developed in yourself. That doesn't mean, well, too bad for your kid.
They're they're screwed now because they didn't get the best of parents. That's the moment for your development.
That's going to be the stepping stone for you growing in something you never got to grow. So see your children and their needs as invitations for your growth.
So let's say you grew up in a home where everyone was really tense and control focused and your child is being normal and they are having a tantrum about something that, you know, they're not getting. You're going to notice that, that kind of rise up in your nervous system in response to that, you know, disorientation of your child.
And it might, it might rise up with like a, I've got to take control. I'm going to punish my kid in this really intense way to try to get them to stop.
Or it might rise up as like a, I got to get out of here. I can't handle this.
I'm, I feel overwhelmed or I feel trapped or I feel like I can't, you know, or it might just be like, you totally shut down and zone out. I don't know how it's going to rise up in you because it depends on your nurture, like what happened to you, your nurture growing up and your nature, your personality and kind of your biology.
So when that happens, that's when I want you to get curious. So we get curious in conflict, but we also want to get curious in relationship to our triggers.
Like, wow, I am really not feeling good. I had this with my son recently where he is growing up in a different financial situation than I grew up in.
So we were kind of always at the edge of like, oh no. And he doesn't understand, oh no, financially, he's been pretty well provided for.
And so he was asking for something and it was fairly ridiculous and our answer was no, and he wouldn't let it go. And I felt within my own body, just sort of this like, where I was just like, oh, he's like an entitled, he's like getting entitled.
Like, and I could, I could sense that I was, I was not in my adult self anymore. He was no longer the child and I was the adult helping him learn.
It was like, whatever he was feeling was unacceptable. I was going to not accept it.
And I had to figure out how to extinguish it, which that's very much an immature place in me. So I had to pause and step back and be like, what is this? I'm like, oh, I'm in a state of fear.
Why am I in a state of fear? Oh, well, because when I was a kid growing up, I didn't ask for anything that wasn't essential. I did everything I could in my family of origin

to make sure that I wasn't a burden to anyone in any way, because I couldn't, I couldn't be a kid.

And then I could step back and see like, oh, he's being a very normal kid. And he's a normal kid

who doesn't feel the financial crisis of a family that like I did. And so it's okay.
And I don't

actually have to do anything more than just keep reminding him that, no, I'm sorry, we aren't going to buy a cyber truck. That was the thing.
We can't afford a cyber truck. I'm very sorry.
Also, even if we could, we're not getting the cyber truck. But I feel like the parents that are having an easier time approach it from this perspective of curiosity, compassion, and using anything that's triggering in their life, including parenting, to look at how do I evolve and heal through this experience? Because maybe you were in a family of origin where anger wasn't accepted.
And then your kid has a healthy expression of anger. And then that brings up a trigger.
So then it's like, oh, I can make space for anger with inside my system. Anger is not bad.
Maybe I was taught that. Violence is a different story and action.
Oh, but anger is part of my human experience. It's okay to presence anger.
So then our kids and life just give us opportunities to live more free, essentially. Absolutely.
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I cannot wait to see you thrive. And I know you have, you know, with kids having these big emotional reactions, I heard this and I don't know if it's accurate, but that kids are essentially unconsciously trying to take the parent down to their emotional state.
I don't know if that's true, but it's an interesting perspective. And I know that tantrums, like the brain is starting to develop.
But you've got three tips on how to manage emotional tantrums. Can you share some of those with us? Yeah, of course.
So when a child is in an emotional state, I want everyone to remember they're not choosing that state. No one is like, I'm going to turn on rage.
I'm going to turn on sorrow. No child can do that.
They are being flooded with chemicals, neurochemicals, sensory chemicals responding to a situation in their life. So as a parent, I like to think of this as surfing.
So when the wave comes up, my job is to not bring in my own wave, right? So we're not going to help anybody, you know, prevent a crash by adding another wave into the wave. So my job is to stay separate enough from my child that they can sense my calmness, that they can borrow my calmness.
But I'm going to take a little sip of the emotion that they're taking because they also need a sense that I can feel it. If we stay too neutral and far away, then there's this sense that we're disconnected and we don't care.
And that increases the surge of a child's emotional response. So it's like, I am here, kid.
And I got you. I'm separate from you.
I am not flooded with your wave of emotion and I can sense it and I know what it is. And so I'm here.
And then, then half the battle is just riding the wave. It is allowing that wave to go up and go down.
And depending how old your child is, how neurodivergent they are, when they last slept and ate, that can be a longer wave than other days. You know, where are you? You're on your cycle or what are you feeling? Yes.
Are you at Disneyland? What is happening here? What are all the different elements involved? Yeah. And then after the wave comes down, because the wave always comes down.
I want everyone to hear that. The wave always comes down.
That's when you want to melt together. So you've calmed your own body.
You've connected enough that they can tell there's empathy. And then you melt together.
That's where you're like, come here, kid. That was so hard.
This is hard. Or I'm so sorry.
I was so crusty at first. Or whatever the thing is, you're going to reconnect and melt.
And after that, that's when you can start to be curious. Like, oh, maybe you're curious within your own mind of like, okay, I've got to come up with a more clear boundary around when we have sweets and when we don't, or maybe it's, you know, something you have to do with them where it's like, okay, that was really hard.
Maybe next time we should remember to put our blank where the blank is. You know, I'm thinking about my son in library books for whatever reason.
Like let's put them in the same place every time so that when library books are due on Tuesday morning at 6.30 a.m., we are not running around like our chickens with our heads cut off because we can't find our book. But all of that happens after the emotional flood.
That's where the strategizing happens. Yeah, because when they're in the emotional experience or the parent is, no rational thinking is going to make sense or be logical.
And so really presencing the emotion and then reflecting and coming up with a new strategy. Yeah.
So, so the, the, let me break down, like even on a simpler level, what you're doing when they're in the wave. So in the wave, those three things, you're going to actually make your body smaller.
So when children are in big emotional waves, they are going to perceive objects in the mirror as closer than they actually are.

Right. And so we're going to make our bodies smaller so they can sense that we're not out to get them or to hurt them.
And then we want to use our, literally like get on your knees, literally get down on the floor, get down. So you're smaller than them or at their level.
So that will help their, their brain sense that they are safe, that you are not trying to dominate them. Yeah, beautiful.

Then you want to have a expression on your face of empathy. So if your face is blank,

and your child is emotionally upset, as animals, we are trained to register blank faces in other people as potential threats. We don't know what's going to come next.
So we have to have a soft,

squishy face. I, you know, oh, I'm here.
I got you. This is so hard.
You're so sad. You're so upset.
They should be able to see that. And then our mouth, our mouths should have like a sing-songy vibe to it.
Like, I'm here. I got you.
And it doesn't need to be like, I'm here. We don't need to sound fake and saccharine.
Right. But if we're like, you're fine.
Or like, I got you. That sounds different.
Right. And it actually negates the message we're trying to send because our kids can feel the tension in our voice.
So we have to work really hard in this moment to be available and supportive. We're trying to support them because they don't have the brain structure yet to support themselves in a moment like this.
So we're trying to offer them that sense that you're not alone. I'm here with you.
And I don't intend to harm you, control you, dominate you so that they can actually calm down faster. And that's teaching them and modeling it for themselves so that they learn how to self-regulate.
And as we learn to be better parents and like soften our tone and really get just physically down or energetically down on our knees to the other person that's tender. It's, we learn how to do that for ourselves.
We learn how to do that for our partner and our kids. And you know, when I was first starting to teach people in our child work, they would be, you know, so sweet and innocent, but they would try to be like, you don't need to feel that way.
And I was so excited to teach them about just saying like, love sounds like I really hear that you're hurting. Tell me more.
And it's the tone. It's like, you have space to be a mess.
You don't need to be any different. I'm here with you.
You don't have to go in this alone. And so really just meeting them helps us heal.
So we learn to do it for ourselves, but it really creates these beautiful thriving relationships. So it's great.
It's like as a parent, you learn to do it to yourself and for your kids. It's like, it's a win-win.
It just keeps evolving. And ideally in generations, we keep evolving where we came from, you know, and I can hear a lot of parents that feel guilt, like, Oh my God, I'm messing up my kids or I'm not doing it right.
And I just want to call out, like if those two stories or any of the guilt stories are coming up, the ego would love for you to believe that. And it's not true, especially people that are listening to podcasts like this.
Clearly you care and you're doing your best, you know? And so for parents that feel guilty, like what would you say to them? What would you help to kind of calm some of that ease? All right. I have two different things to say.
One of them is that what has been wounded across generations also gets healed across generations. Your job is not to heal every single thing that has been passed down to you generationally.
That's too much. That's too much of a job for one person.
Your job is to chip away at it as much as you can. And I think it's perfectionism that makes us feel like I have to do it all.
I have, my kids can't have anything at all. No, we're, that's not realistic.
And also I think what a weird thing would it be to come into parenthood and be like, my parents did everything exactly right. There's nothing more for me to improve upon.
Like I really hope. That's a red flag as a therapist.
That's a red flag. I had the perfect childhood.
Right., I hope I hope my kids, you know, they're going to be having been raised by the attachment nerd, right? Like I've become like a well known parenting expert. I still really, really hope that they grow up and they're like, that could have been done differently and better.
Or this is what I'm going to improve upon because I want each generation of humanity to get better at taking care of each other. And I don't need to be seen as a perfect or good parent in order for that to happen.
So I guess I would say, you know, pick the things you feel like you can do and all of the extraneous stuff that you're like, I don't know how to do that. Just take a deep breath and be like, maybe that belongs to my kids.
Right. I'm going to do the best I can to unpack the luggage that I know how to unpack and open and load.
So they don't have to carry that luggage. But I also understand that there is probably going to be some stuff and that's okay.
That doesn't mean I failed. That means I did my part and this was a very big job.
Yeah. And I'm just hearing my kids, I have three step kids and they were six months, one and a half and three and a half when I got them.
So I went from zero to three. And my husband is a really incredible father.
And, and one of the things that they said is like, oh my God, do I need to be perfect? Cause they really perceive him as perfect. So either way, there's going to be something, you know, they're going to compare like, oh shoot, now I've got this bar.
And he's like, oh gosh. And you know, he messes up, of course, like every human will as well.
And so I think also modeling, Hey, when there's a rupture, how do I repair that? How do I apologize? And so maybe not beat myself up as a parent and, and not, you know, to, to model self-compassion to model, Hey, these things happen we will figure it out so the other the other key piece i want to tell you all is a piece of scientific data that is from ed tronic and ed tronic has done a lot of work around attachment he invented something called the still face experiment that is a brilliant experiment you could look that up to learn more about it but through his longitudinal studies which means studies where they watched kids over time and they watched the parent-child dynamic, he estimates that the secure parents, so parents that are secure in their relating, are interacting with their children in connected and synchronous ways 30% of the time. So the other 70% of the time, maybe they're doing chores, maybe they're disconnected for practical reasons.

But there also are times where it's just like, you don't know what to do and you're cranky and you're off or your stuff is coming up. Yeah.
And the key is when you mess up, are you the leader in the makeup? So are you the one coming back around and saying to your kid, I'm so sorry. I got really scared.
I overreacted, or I'm so sorry, I was so tired, I underreacted. Can I try again? Can you show me that drawing again? Because I really want to give it the, you know, skip hop and a jump it deserves because it is real good.
Like what you did there with the unicorn, that is something I have not seen you do before, you know. So can we have the capacity to accept our humanness enough that we don't live in, you know, fear and terror and the harshness towards ourself and that we are able to take enough ownership that our children don't feel like they have to pretend that everything we do is right.
Otherwise, they're going to make us mad or, you know, full of shame. Yeah, that's beautiful.
That's beautiful. Yeah.
So I would imagine these are some of the components for effectively apologizing, which is leading, unpacking it, like sharing how you're compassionate with yourself, that repair. Anything else that you would add? Well, I love to take the word accountability and use it like we would with being an accountant.
So be an accountant of the ways that you flub. So if I'm an accountant of the way that I'm flubbing, I'm going to have like a column that I'm going to mark out for, Oh, I did this and I did that.
And I did this. And then there's going to be a column next to it for like, I think that made you feel this and feel that and feel this.
I'm going to take a count. It's not going to be, I'm a terrible parent or well, you made me do that.
It's just simply acknowledging. Yeah.
I was kind of a little bit harsh. I had a really hard thing with a friend going on in my life and it was just kind of overwhelming my nervous system.
And my kids, one of my, my oldest kid had kind of heard about it. He knew a little bit was happening because he had listened to me.
My husband, he was eavesdropping. So he knew a little bit and I had just all the energy that I normally have for regulating my kids was going into this like friendship crisis situation.
And so I came into his room at the end of one day and I was like, I am really sorry. Like this whole thing going on with my friend, it's really taken a lot of my energy.
I haven't had as much patience and whatever. And he goes, you think? And I just laughed because I'm like, good.
Yeah. Right.
But it was, that was me taking account. It was like, I'm not having this.
And I'm, you know, when I said to him, like, how, how bad has it been affecting you? Like one to 10? He's like, ah, it's a six. I was like, that's pretty high.
He's like, yeah. It's like, what do you need? What do you need for us to, you know, feel repaired? He's like, it's okay, mom.
We all have our days, right? Like that was enough. But part of why that's enough is that I regularly take account of my behavior.
If I step on his toe on accident, I'm going to go, are you okay? I'm not going to go, we shouldn't have put your foot where my foot was. Right.
Right. I'm also not going to go, I'm an idiot.
I'm such an idiot. Why did I do that? Like, this is the dance of relationship.
We step on each other's toes. We step on our kids' toes.
It's just part of what happens when you're dancing. So acknowledge where you stepped, how it felt, and then get together with what do we need to do to do this differently? How do we prevent as much as we can that type of step again in the future? Yeah.
We just clean up our part and then they learn how to model that. And I just, I love, I'm just such a fan of people doing therapy, people doing coaching, like looking at themselves because the more we do that, the better our lives are, the better we can pay that forward.
And without like you're saying the guilting and shaming ourselves and also not externalizing, like we can internalize it or externalize it. Or the other way is this more conscious way, which people are really waking up to right now.
And to me is the best use of somebody's life force energy is to model and live with open hearts and minds and to be an example. So just a plug for this.
And you've brought up a few times attachment styles. We haven't spoke too much about them on the podcast.
Will you give us just a general understanding to be on the same page? Yes. So in a perfect world, the human attachment system and drive kind of works like our hunger drive or our thirst drive or our safety drive.
We are wired to be instinctively in close proximity to people that we are close to. We call our attachment relationships our close relationships.
And if those relationships are secure, then we create a pattern where we reach for those people when we are in distress or tenderness, and we receive their presence and their responses to us as soothing balm that help us regulate. And then we go back out and we continue to live in this crazy world and do whatever it is we're doing in the world.
But if we grow up in family systems where our caregivers are inadequate at responding effectively to us. So let's say we grew up in a home where if we were sad, we were ignored because our caregivers believed that if they responded to our sadness, we were going to become spoiled.
Well, then we develop a pattern of avoiding what we feel. So we would call that an avoidant attachment pattern.
So what happens in avoidance is not an avoidance of attachment. It's an avoidance of tender emotional states.
So in close relationships, when we feel tender, if we have an avoidant pattern, our instinct is to go take our messy feeling stuff into the other room and try and get it to settle down away from people so we don't burden anyone and then come back when we feel more calm. I think that's such an important distinction that you made.
So it's not necessarily physically leaving the relationship. It can be, but it's not necessarily.
It's more when it gets challenging emotionally, they're just mirroring what they learned and witnessed with their parents, which was to avoid. Yes.
Because if I'm feeling tender and my caregiver is going to dismiss what I'm feeling, or actually same effect, if they're going to overreact to what I'm feeling,

they're going to go into hyper distress mode themselves. It's just easier to keep my big feelings inside and not to show them on my face or my body and not to reach.
So if that is a pattern that you've had, you have to learn how to reach again. You knew how at some point, all babies, all babies initially reach.
They, they stop reaching usually around age 12 months,

not. you have to learn how to reach again.
You knew how at some point. All babies initially reach.
They stop reaching usually around age 12 months, not 12 years, 12 months, 12 to 18 months. But they'll stop reaching if there is no one who can responsibly help them regulate and soothe.
Some of this was from Mary Ainsworth, right? Originally. Secure is reach and receive.
Avoidance is avoid and distract. There's one that we call multiple different names, which is very confusing.
Sometimes we call it resistant or ambivalent, or people often correlate it with this other thing called anxious attachment, but it's actually all of the attachments that are not secure are anxious. So that's a little bit

confusing. So this one, I'm going to call it resistant, because I think it creates the best image of what happens in childhood.
So when a child is growing up with a caregiver or caregivers who are unpredictable in their ability to soothe them, so sometimes they can. Sometimes they can respond calmly and empathetically and reassuringly.
But sometimes they can't. And there's enough of a confusion around when they can and when they can't that the child develops a coping mechanism.
So that avoidant child is coping also. That avoidant child learned the best way to cope with my feelings is just keep them to myself.
The resistant child learns if I keep my eyes off my caregiver, they might not be there when I need them. So they become clingy.
So their adaptation is I'm going to cling and I'm not going to soothe. So their two words are reach and reject.
I want you. I want you.
I want you. I don't want you anymore.
You're not doing it right. And so in couples, this is where you'll see this in couples.
We call this protest in the research. But if this never gets resolved and someone grows up with a resistant attachment pattern, they get very preoccupied with their partner.
They think about them a lot. They're constantly worried that their partner doesn't love them.
They want more and more and more from their partner. But when they say like, you don't love me and their partner says, I do love you.
They reject it. You're only saying that because I asked you, or if you did love me, you would have put your dishes away or you would have blah, blah, blah, blah.
There's this sort of like painful feeling of being stuck in the wanting. I'm wanting my person, but I don't know how to receive what it is that they bring and give to me.
And this is essentially recreating what they experienced as kids. Yes.
It becomes self-fulfilling prophecy too, because if you constantly want reassurance, but you don't actually take in any of the reassurance given to you, people eventually don't want to be with you anymore because they're tired of trying to prove to you that they love you and they're there for you. And so then you end up creating the very rejection you fear.
It's great to become aware of it so we can see it if that's what's playing out because we can change it. We can recreate our attachment styles and really heal.
Yeah. Yes.
It's called earned secure. I mean, that's part of why I'm obsessed with this research is that we can make, it's not genetic.
It's not a predisposition. You aren't more likely to have it with one type of personality.
It is a relationally inherited pattern and you can relationally disinherit it through therapy and through positive relationships and through grief work and healing work. The last category that we should still acknowledge, it's really painful, is people who grow up with parents who are scary or dysregulated at such a level that they're frightening to the child.
So if a child has a parent who is deeply mentally ill, like maybe they have schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder, they've never had treatment for those things, or they're on a serious drug like heroin, meth, cocaine, or they have abusive attitudes, or they are abusive, then a child's attachment instinct gets scrambled. Because if my instinct is to seek refuge in a caregiver, in an attachment relationship when I'm in distress, but my caregiver is a source of danger and distress for me, now what? So kids who have that terrible, terrible childhood experience of not having a safe person to run to end up with more of a reactionary response to their distress.
So they don't have a clear coping pattern and they tend to go fight, flight, freeze, fawn, faint when they feel tender or insecure, as opposed to the strategies in those other categories that are more clear, you know, an avoidance strategy, even though it limits intimacy, it does have a clear way to cope. This is how I'm coping.
And even though the resistance strategy creates a lot of intensity in a relationship, It's a clear way to cope. I'm

looking, I'm coping through the reassurance. When someone has a disorganized experience,

they can't cope. So they end up dissociating a lot, which is really hard.

Yeah. And with a good therapist and having the willingness and consistency, you can heal.
Yeah. And that's why I think we both love this work and want to be a proponent of it and just to help people become more aware.
And then we also don't pass that on with our kids and we can then receive the love that we're wanting. And those were coping strategies because they were the best we knew how at the time they were actually smart for the environments that we grew up in.
So yeah, we get to do the work and heal it in relationship as well, because that's where it feels like it's really integrated. Because sometimes we can do our own healing work within ourselves, but it's really just hyper vigilance and over self-reliant as a fear of not being hurt by another.
And so we just have to be really honest with ourselves where we're at within any of the spectrums. I think back in the day, people used to think like put the kids first was the order of priority and then they're like wait if the couple's good then the kids are good and now i see people think seeing that like hey when i'm good then my real all my relationships are good my partner my kids and so self-care is obviously really important but i'm wondering for busy parents especially with younger kids are there any kind of self-care practices or rituals or things that you can recommend for them so that they prioritize and really help shift this cultural narrative? Well, first I just want to say, I think sometimes we get caught in the like order of operations when the reality of parenting is far messier than that.
Like, I don't know. Like, I guess my, my like, do what you can.
Like, if you have a moment to like have a couple's moment, like absorb it. You know, my husband and I do this thing where we, when we see each other at the end of the day, or at the beginning of the day, we hug and there's just this like deep meltiness to the way we hug.
And occasionally one of us will say something like, we're on a beach, we're by ourselves, there are only books, and chips and salsa and whatever, whatever. And there's this like, just this moment to remember our sweetheartness in this sea of the logistics of having kids and jobs.
And that really helps keep us anchored in that and it makes it more likely that we're going to like want to have sex with each other at some point when the opportunity arises. And when that opportunity arises, we try to take it because like, you never know when it's coming again, right? Like same for self-care, same for care with your children.
You know, I think like do the best you can to be responsive to these sacred moments when they arise, you know, when your child runs into the room and they're really upset because they fell down on their scooter, like take that moment to scoop them up and hold them close and remind them that you're a refuge because at some point they're going to be 17 and they're going to scrape their knee and they're going to call their girlfriend or their boyfriend. And you're going to be like, what? The opportunity is no longer arising like it used to, you know? So I think take each of those opportunities to take care of yourself, your relationship, and your children when you can.

And know that you're not going to be able to do it every time. And we know that the human brain operates from a bottom to top organization.
So if our physical needs are met, then our social emotional needs will be easier to navigate, right? So if I have rested, eaten nutritiously, exercised, you know, taken my meds, whatever the thing

is you need to do to take care of yourself physically, prioritize, like if things feel out of control and you're like, I don't know how to take care of myself, start small, take a 20 minute nap because you haven't been sleeping through the night. You know, like, don't try to get those emails done that you're never going to get done anyway.
Lay down, take a 20 minute nap, try to give yourself that physical thing. You know, if you really struggle to get yourself enough food, like prioritize, you know, half a night a week where you and your kids have a chop party and you chop up healthy food that you will then eat because it's been pre-prepared because you won't prepare it during the week because you don't have time.
But I would say start with the basics. If you don't know where to start, start with the basics.
Start with going on a walk every other day. Try to move your body, get your body fueled, get your body rest.
And then the last thing I would say is do something that is just for you. And this can be very simple.
For me, it's like putting on my makeup and looking sort of like I have it together since I don't. It just feels nice to like look like that a little bit or it might be, you know, getting your nails done or it might be something that's more deep like reading poetry or listening to music that your kids hate but that you love.
Like that doesn't have to be a three hour thing or expensive. Like that can just be, I'm going to do one thing today that is not about anybody else.
It is simply about the joy it brings to my body and my nervous system to remind me that I do exist outside of my relationship to my children. Yeah.
And that models for them self-care, right? So it's like, it's good for you, but it's also good for your family to see that. And if we don't heal those at the root or prioritize that, then it will show up in other areas with our work and overworking and burnout.
And so it's like, it's just, we may know these things, but I love how you make it practical. You make it incorporating with the kids.
It could be you or with your partner and make it fun and silly and age appropriate for like, okay, yeah, whatever it is, it doesn't have to be a big thing, but it can be something simple and playful that you do together, which I love. So I'm, I'm curious if you have seen some of these parenting styles that have changed over the years and what some of the lessons are that we should keep using and some of the things maybe that we should be throwing away.
I know you talked about like the baby crying and just ignoring the baby crying. What have you, just along the way, what have you learned that we should be more aware of and seen? I think that we as a species love swings.
We do tend to swing one direction or swing the other direction, right? And I think there was a really strong behavioral swing for a long time that was very focused on like, make sure that kids are doing this, doing that, use whatever punishment and rewards you need to do to get them to behave well. Behavioral health was even the term, right? Now that's starting to shift.
I do think that I'm a little nervous that we will swing too far in the other direction where parents think their job is to keep their kids comfortable and to never ask them to grow and respect limits. And so the way I think in my brain, and this is true to the research, is we want to have a relationship with our children where we cultivate significant structure.
So high structure, things like routines, rules, expectations, but also high nurture. So empathy and understanding and connection time, but that we're doing both.
So like in my home, my kids know that we don't spit at someone when we're mad at them, right? But they also know they're allowed to have anger. So if my child is angry and spits at their sibling in response to their anger, I'm going to come in with that structure.
We don't spit our anger out at people. We find our words to share it.
I'm going to stand between you and your sister because it's not okay to spit at her. Let's find those words because I think you're really mad and your anger is really important to me and I want to figure out what happened.
That's beautiful. I think more examples like that is so helpful.
I think parents are like, oh, let me rewind that. I can try that on because they want to be able to have that discipline and also that structure and safety.
So yeah. And I think the old, there's also a myth there that if we intervene with our children, that the only way to intervene with a bad behavior is to make sure we punish them or create some kind of a consequence.
And I just, that's actually just false. I mean, you see this in adulthood, you see this anywhere.
Like when we cultivate a punitive relationship with someone, it erodes trust. So it might work in the moment to create behavioral change, but it's also creating relational change.
And so we want to be really careful and use that as scant as possible with our children. And instead, we want to recognize that understanding is an intervention.
So when I come into the middle of my spitting child and their sibling, and I say, that's not what we do, I'm helping to build understanding for them of what it is that just happened. I'm helping them label that they were angry.
And so then they spit. I'm also going to give them the type of understanding that helps them learn about themselves.
So now I'm going to say, what happened? They're going to say, she took the purple pony, the purple pony is mine. Right.
And I'm going to go, Oh, she took your purple pony. Yes.
Had. Had she been playing with it without your permission? She didn't ask.
Oh my gosh. That's really hard when someone doesn't ask to use our stuff.
Do you want my help letting her know that you need her to ask permission to use your stuff? Yes. And get it back for me.
Okay. I can get it back for you.
I think first we're going to have to take a minute and calm our bodies because I think she's

really upset. I'm going to have to go help her calm down because I understand why you were mad about the pony, but then you spit in her face and that's kind of a yucky, overwhelming thing.
So I got to go calm her down and then I'm going to come back and I'm going to get your pony. Get my pony.
I'm going to get your pony. Then I'm going to calm the other kid down, but I'm going to come back and I'm going to have the pony and I'm going to say, okay, I got your pony.
Now, what do you think it felt like when you spit in her face? Not good. Yeah, I think that's true.
What do you think we need to do to make it right? Say sorry. You think so? Do you think that's the thing? Maybe I can let her play with my pony for a little bit.
What a great idea. entering the, this place of interpretation and compassion and curiosity that is leading your child to learn how to develop those things for themselves and for other people.
And it isn't like, that's not going to mean tomorrow she doesn't spit at her sibling, especially if she's under the age of seven, because she lacks the pre, uh, the medial prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that connects feeling and thinking. She doesn't get that till she's about seven.
But it will, on repeat, become integrated. And so we're going to keep repeating and we're going to keep repeating or keep modeling.
And over time, it's really kind of incredible. Like my nine-year-old son, I remember having moments when he was like four and five and thinking, oh, dear God, this is not good.
What have I done here? You know, and then those parts of the brain developed and it was like, oh, my God, what have I done here? He's so charming and lovely and whatever, you know, and it's like half of parenting is just staying calm enough to like trust the process. Just keep going.
Trust the process. They're going to develop.
And as long as you aren't overreacting or underreacting, they're going to be fine. Yeah.
Yeah. When I became a step mom, my mom's like, just love them because it was, it was overnight for me.
I was like, wait, I didn't have nine months to look at the parenting manuals. I probably would have dove into that.
She's like, just love them. And I love what you just shared because it was like asking them questions for them to start thinking through, like, what could you do? So you're, you're prompting them in a certain way.
I know one, one hack that I loved was like asking them, what are your choices? What are you choosing to like, just to support them rather than having to come up with it for them, but just encourage. And so, you know, with this conversation with discipline and empathy, thinking that, you know, it, I think that in the short term, you were talking about it, it can create them to stop doing the thing that we don't want them to do, right? There's a lot of control.
And yet, then they're susceptible to being overpowered later, right? That they're susceptible to having their authority squashed if that's the primary way of parenting, which we also don't want for our kids. And it doesn't feel good.
We can't control. And so how do we navigate our own nervous system? And then like you're saying, model for them to learn how to navigate theirs.
What do you find with parents that talk about this balance? Not even sound of balance, but really like, what are some of the common pitfalls or challenges they have with discipline and what are some of the insights you can share with them beyond what you've shared here? So I think our common pitfalls are believing that it's our job to make our children comfortable and therefore becoming permissive and indulgent. Um, kids need limits in order to grow.
We all need limits in order to grow. So I would say that's a big pitfall.
And that usually comes from having grown up without affection, nurture, and love. And so confusing indulgence as nurture, but that's not nurture.
It's not nurture to give a child everything they want and let their emotions make the parenting decisions. It's nurture to be compassionate.
It's nurture to be affectionate. It's nurture to show our kids delight.
It's different. And then the other one is getting compliance and cooperation confused.
So compliance is about control. Cooperation is about connection and working together.
And so compliance is actually much easier to create because all you have to do is be threatening and dominating and scary. And you will create a compliant child.
But cooperation is a very nuanced, complex thing that we all need to learn. And it's something that, you know, as an American right now, I like, oh, my gosh, there's like not enough cooperation.
Like we're dealing with so much like, political dominance relating of like, I'm going to get you to be dominant. I'm going to get you to be, I mean, it's like, ah, how do we get back to a place where we're nuanced? Like, how do we cooperate? How do we live together? Right.
Um, and I think if you're raising kids, it's easy to slip into this fear of like, my kids aren't compliant. Does that mean I've failed? No, it means they're kids and you haven't squashed their will.
Like, please don't squash the will of your children, but also please don't let their will determine the structure of your home and your life. Right.
So, you know, my kids are allowed to have voice. And sometimes, honestly, sometimes my kids say things and I'm like, damn, that's right.
I really thought I had, I really thought I had this all under control, but like, that's a great point that you just made. So, you know, we want them to have voices with us and to listen to what we're saying, but we also want to listen to what they're saying so that ultimately they learn cooperation and not compliance.
Yeah. So like in the short term, maybe harder, but in the long term, so much more valuable for everyone.
Yeah, I like to joke. I love to cook, you know, and it's like if you want to make a really, really delicious, you know, stew, you have to do all the things.
You have to brown the meat first. You have to take the meat back out of the pot.
You have to put the onions in for the flavoring of the broth. Then you have to take those onions out and put different onions in for the end of the thing because those ones would be too squishy.
It takes a long time to make like a delicious French stew. If you want to, you can put all those ingredients in the microwave and cook it.
And like technically it's a stew, but like the meat is tough and the potatoes are undercooked. And like, you know, of all the jobs we do, like this is one that deserves every step of the process and the time it takes to get there.
Because at the end of the day, you want to be able to have a secure relationship with your child and have them know that you invested in their process, that you didn't just try to put them in the microwave and nuke them because that was more convenient for you. And bless all the conscious parents that are doing the work to raise their kids in this way.
Because I know, and there are going to be times where a microwave is just the best option. I mean, we all put them in the microwave sometimes.
But just like really calling all the parents out that are doing the work. And I know it's not easy.
And yet it's such a gift in this world for them to be doing it for themselves and their family, future generations. And, and I just with family dynamics being so varied nowadays, which I'm really, I really love.
I mean, I love being a step-mom. I don't think there's enough people that talk about that.
I, I also just, you know, I got them very young. It was very easy.
I'm so grateful for that. Um, there was more dynamics with the co-parenting with the mom.
And now it's in a really beautiful place, took years, but that was also using my personal development path for everything. And so specifically with stepkids, are there any key principles or things that we can be aware of to better foster trust and connection so the kids feel safe and that they're supported

or things that you've seen not work within family systems. Around stepchildren specifically.
Yeah. So I would say the expectations are a big thing.
So when you're going into that relationship, I want you as the step parent to be thinking about who do I want to be in these children's lives, not how do I want them to see me or how do I want our relationship, our connection to be? Because there's so many dynamics there. Like kids often feel disloyal to the biological parent.
And so then they will reject a step parent, not because they don't like that parent, but sometimes even because they like them so much that it feels confusing and threatening to their other bond. And especially if that other parent is in some way narcissistic or problematic, they will know that their parent is threatened by you.
And so your job is not to make a child act a certain way with you or be close to you in a certain way. It's to decide who do I want to be? How do I want to show up in this? And I think remember that there is incredible value in being a bonus parent in a child's life that, you know, it can feel really painful that you don't get to be the biological parent.
And you could probably sit in that rejection for a long time because it's painful when you're like, I don't get to be like, quote unquote, see the air quotes, real mom or real dad. But remember that most of us got through our childhood by having bonus parents.
So it is not about you being that center person. It's about you being yourself and offering what it is you offer.
Don't rush it, give it time, don't pressure it, but also don't be so hands off that the kids can't tell that you're invested. So it's like, you know, light up when they come into the room.
This is something I would tell any parent, but I think it's especially powerful with step-parents. Like when those kids enter the, like, hi, you're here, like, make sure they know they are wanted by you.
That is powerful medicine

to the heart. Talk very respectfully about their parent, other parents, so that they can sense that

it isn't a competition that you you aren't threatened by their relationship to them.

And follow, follow their specific personality and lead. So if you have a kid that's like, I am not going to get into deep talks with you, you just don't keep trying to get into deep talks, right? Like play some video games with them, like go out and play in the park, play in the yard, whatever the thing is, attuned to their particular way of connecting and also have other step-parents in your life.
You need other step-parents who understand the particular obstacles that you are going through because they are different. I agree.
I agree. I felt like when I became a step-mom, I didn't know anyone else.
So I found somebody online, a friend of mine now, I reached out to her, Melissa Ambrosini. I reached out because I was like, you're the only other step-mom that I see online doing similar work.
And I just wanted to connect. And I think it matters the age stage.
And I think it matters if I wanted to have kids or all those things, but everything you're sharing is universally true. It's like light up when you see them, like make sure that they feel wanted, connect in the ways that they want to connect.
That's beautiful. I have two step parents.
So I am the child of divorced parents and both of my, both of my parents are remarried and I adore them and they're important people of my life. And they've both done things that my biological parents weren't naturally adept at.
And I'm so thankful for them and my kids love them and their grandparents to my kids now. And so I think just know that like someday the kids that you are helping to raise will become grownups with fully developed brains who will be able to reflect on the fact that you're kind of an awesome step parent, you know, and they'll be glad that you are in their life.
Yeah. Yeah.
And for me personally, I just, I didn't share, I was like, they're going to figure things out. I don't need to put my biased input and I just keep loving them and keep my heart open.
And, um, and one of my regrets is that I didn't, like, I didn't want them, their step, their mom to feel threatened by me because for, for whatever reasons. And so I withheld some of my love and that was some of my regrets.
So it's like, I, you know, and I, you didn't want to step on her toes. And, but then in hindsight, you're like, wait a minute, that isn't my primary job.
My primary job is to make sure that they can feel that I really adore them and want them. Yeah.
I love you talking on this subject. I'm so thankful for you talking about it.
Yeah. I just want more people to feel permission just to stay true to themselves.
And like, you know, two out of three are leaving in 10 days to college, one to Switzerland to go to boarding school and the other one to Berkeley to go to college. And so I'm like, okay, but this is still time, you know, there is always more time.
It doesn't end when they leave. Absolutely.
Yeah. I love it.
And you know, I talk about that in my book is that there is a point, my last chapter of my book is when letting go is staying close. You know, there's a point when our kids, they launch and they need us to let go in very particular ways in order to remain close in the ways that make sense ongoing in our lives.
But that bond we have with our kids, it never stops. You know, it can get yucky and it can get disconnected, but it's still there.
No one like grows up and forgets they had parents, right? It's like there's, it's always with us. And so, you know, we want to work really hard to cultivate the secure connection with each stage of development with our kids so that they can have that sense of relying on us when they need us and, you know, belonging with us.
That's something we want

them to always feel, you know, whether they're two or 72. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
And, and just in terms of like co-parenting, any words of wisdom that you've discovered around co-parenting just so people can hear or see from a fresh therapeutic perspective? Yeah. I mean, I would say focus all your your energy on what is the, what are the needs of the children? Because if you get stuck in that, but this isn't fair and they shouldn't, and it's, you're going to start battling around things that actually don't ultimately matter that much, but feel like they matter because they're unfair in relationship to the person that you are no longer with.
And so you've got to go just always bring yourself back. What is in the best interest of the kids in this situation? And sometimes that will mean like taking someone back to court, but most of the time it doesn't mean that.
Most of the time it's like, fine, yes, you can drop the kids off half an hour later than you said you would. You know, like, what's in the actual best interest of my kids right now? Is it that I like put my foot down and I say, no, you can't.
Nah, probably most of the time it's not. So working really hard to do that and make sure you have wise counsel in your life.
Make sure you have people in your life who would tell you the truth, who love you enough to say, I think maybe you're battling this out, not for your kids, but for your own ego, because it sucks that that person didn't do that, you know, and can help you come back to a place of making mature decisions. And what I just want to say is it's hard and I'm so sorry.
It's so hard. But also you can do this.
And my parents did this fairly well when they divorced. I would say, you know, there are some pieces they didn't do perfectly.
But overall, I never felt like I had to choose. And I didn't really have to be in the battles with them.
And so I think, you know, do your best to be mature and make mature choices, even if the other person isn't. Yes.
And there's a lot of gifts in co-parenting. You know, like when we have the kids, my husband and I have to do a lot of work.
Like we have a different marriage with the kids and without the kids. And so having that space to also re plug into ourselves, into our marriage.
So there's, there's other gifts that can come with it too. Absolutely.
So just in closing, if you would share with parents, something that could really support them and just help them feel settled in their parenting, what would you want to leave parents with? Your child and you are both wired for being securely attached to each other. That hard wiring is there.
You don't have to make it up. You just have to access it.
So this can be learned. This can be earned.
It is not something that has to be done perfectly. And there's never a point in your dynamic where it's too late to make a U-turn and become connection and relationship focused.
It's never too late. It's beautiful.
Yeah. And I know you have a book that's coming out.
Share with us all the details. How do people stay in touch with your work and all of the brilliance that you're sharing? Okay.
Well, my book is called Raising Securely Attached Kids, Connected Parenting for Confidence, Empathy, and Resilience. And you can buy it wherever you buy books.
It's on pre-order now. It's out September 3rd.
And you can find me running my mouth on the internet at attachment nerd on Instagram and TikTok and Facebook. And if you are looking for like a deeper like sense of like, okay, I need some help.
I have some coaching resources. I have a parenting program, a six week program to help parents.
You can go to attachmentnerd.com and kind of check out all the goodies there and just know that I'm so glad you're here. And I'm so honored to be a part of this conversation and that I feel like any of you who are listening can do this work.
It's possible. Yeah.
And we'll put all the links below. Thank you for doing this work.
I shared with this with you in the beginning, this is what changes the world. It comes back to kids and us doing our work so we can be better stewards in the world.
And so thank you. Amen.
Thank you for having me. So good to be here.
Yes. Thank you so much for doing this work that changes the world, starting with yourself.
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