How Attachment Styles Hold the Key to Emotional Freedom and Relationship Growth | EP 67

Your attachment system is a radar that is looking for safety and security in your relationships,

not just romantic, every relationship in your life. It's asking the question, am I safe? And am I safe to be me? It's really about not your relationship to the other person, but more about the space between you and the other person.
So anxiously attach people when there's too much space that creates fear. And for avoidantly attached people, when there's not enough space, that creates fear.
We like bring people into our experience who trigger us in the exact way that requires us to heal and resolve the things from our childhood. And we call it chemistry.
Whenever you tolerate someone who's ambivalent about you or inconsistent, et cetera, you have to become somebody who believes they're worthy of being ambivalent about everything we choose to keep in our life we have to match with an internal narrative that's why I'm so passionate about people doing the work to really help them embody their inherent worth and value and they can't help but attract somebody that meets them or elevates them. The most thriving relationships prioritize the individuals and then the togetherness.
When you actually recognize that your partner can leave you in any moment, she chooses to be with me. So how do I continue to be someone that is worthy of that choice? Welcome back to the Healing and Human Potential podcast, where today we're going to be exploring how understanding our attachment styles helps us foster healthier, more intimate, connected relationships, and what the number one question you should ask yourself before getting into a relationship.
We are joined by Mark Groves, who is a human connection specialist. He's a podcast host, and he's been inspiring millions around the globe about relationships.
And so he's going to really break down what true compatibility looks like. And we're going to give you practical ways to let yourself receive greater intimacy and connection in all your relationships.
It's a good one. Enjoy.
Mark, I'm so happy that you are here. And I want to kind of kick us off with talking about attachment styles, because I know these are really popular, and they help people understand themselves and how to navigate relationships more easily, which is a big part of your work.
Talk to us about just the high level, what the different attachment styles are, and then how we can differentiate the different ones for anybody to be able to understand them. I think attachment is such a simple framework for sort of understanding the ways that human systems move together.
And so when people start to learn about them, they're like, oh my gosh, that makes so much sense. Now I make sense.
The work is, I mean, was really more popularized by Sue Johnson, who recently passed away. So God bless her and the work that she did um but it's looking at the the original studies looked at a mom interacting with a kid in a room and what would happen is mom would leave the room and mom would come back and they'd see how the baby would respond to mom so first one mom leaves the room mom comes back and baby reunites with mom and then doesn't leave mom's side.
So that's anxious attachment. So like underlying fear, I'm afraid that if you leave, you might not come back.
Second one, mom leaves, mom comes back, baby reunites with mom, hey, what's up, goes back to playing, secure attachment. Last one, mom leaves, mom comes back, baby's like, ah, I didn't even really notice you were gone, gone like no big deal but what happens physiologically for that child is it's acting the same way as the anxious attached child so heart rate etc are up and and that's avoidant attachment so i always frame to people that and the third type of attachment well i guess we would go forth is disorganized so you might pivot between anxious and avoidance.
And we might know that one as an adult when you're dating and you're pursuing somebody. And then you're like, I like you, I like you, I like you.
And then they're like, I like you. And you're like, ah, I'm not really sure.
Might need a little bit of space. Yeah.
So I always frame it as like your attachment system is a radar that is looking for safety and security in your relationships, not just romantic every relationship in your life. And it's essentially just assessing that constantly.
It's asking the question, am I safe and am I safe to be me? and I always say to people like it's a lot simpler to understand that it's really about not your relationship to the other person, but more about the space between you and the other person. So anxiously attached people, when there's too much space, that creates fear.
And for avoidantly attached people, when there's not enough space, that creates fear. And really, these are just two different ways that people adapted to unreliable or in inconsistent parents and the interesting and i know this is deeply part of your work is looking at the overlay of the nervous system to that which is that for anxiously attached people they have a hard time self-regulating and for avoidantly attached people, they have a hard time co-regulating.
So all of this just like overlays. And when I look at it, I just think it's such like a simple way to understand your behavior patterns and also that you can change it.
That's actually a big hope message for everybody. It's quite determined when you're young, but you can change it.
That's actually a big hope message for everybody. Like it's quite determined when you're young, but you can change it as an adult.
Yeah. And I think that's so empowering to know.
And if people have never seen those, I think it's Mary Ainsworth, some of those original videos with kids when the mom re-enters and leaves, I think it's fascinating to watch, but it's great to know that regardless of what happened in your past, you can get to more secure attachment. I took a test as an adult, which I thought was really helpful.
There was that book attached that I just took their test. And it's also malleable.
So even if you're secure at one point, maybe you revert back because maybe you're anxious and then you meet somebody that's avoidant and it re-triggers something. Because I know between the anxious and the avoidant, there's like this tug of war, right? Like the anxious clings and chases, and then the avoidant pulls away.
How would you help somebody or how do you recommend those two? Because those feel complicated or disorganized. What are some things that you've found in your work help people break those habits so that they can actually find the safety that they're looking for underneath.
And I love that you bring that perspective. We're always looking for safety underneath whatever the style of attachment is.
Yeah. You know, the, the hope for the anxious person is that they won't over pursue, you know, like so much part of the way that they learned how to navigate relationships as little ones is this, like, if you're okay, I'm okay.
Like if I know that you're here, then I'm good. So really they're an outwardly focused.
They're focused on everybody else. And as adults, we might know this as like hypervigilance.
We might have a hyperattunement. I would say that people go into coaching and therapeutic spaces.
We're likely more anxiouslyly to help others so that then they feel okay, like this codependence. Yeah, right.
Yeah. And even I kind of see it as like, you're monetizing your survival strategy, you're like getting paid for the thing you were naturally developed, a really for survival, you know, develop this really incredible skill to be able to be hypervigilant, notice facial expressions and predict behavior.
And in a way, we're sort of like psychically entering the space of other people to try to be predictive, to minimize the risk of being abandoned or rejected. The hope is, of course, that we can learn how to not just act upon our feelings, you but this can be really hard this is where practices like somatic therapy breath work meditation they all extend the pause you know that quote i think it's from victor frankl that's like the space between stimulus responses a choice and if you you know manage to change that choice you could change your life i think like the he said it more eloquently but the space gets extended through practices of mindfulness through the ability to oh i'm activated because i have a higher predisposition to anxious attachment especially if i'm my wife's more prone to avoidance, of course, the joke of the universe.

But it's like I know that previously when I was like 19 or 20, I would just send the text. I would just do the thing.
I would never think about it. But now as an adult, I can sense when that's coming up for me, bring that forward because we have a lot of safety in our relationship.
So noticing what is your predisposition in terms of your attachment style, and then being able to have strategies or practices that allow you to observe what's coming up for you first. And a good therapist, a good coach, a good friend, a good hug can really help with regulating our system so we don't over text the person we're interested in.
Because of course, what happens is the fear engages in a behavior that just recreates the story. Self-repetuating if we're not conscious of it.
Yeah. And then, you know, for the avoidant attachment, it's really about like, can I stay a little longer in spaces and connection? Can I actually be in relationship to another person and not feel like I'm going to lose myself? You know, because you think about it, it's like a lot of the time what the real underlying fear there, and I've been avoidant.
I got really avoidant in my life after I went through a giant betrayal. I got cheated on.
And then I didn't know what I was doing for like five years. I would date and be in a relationship.
And as soon as someone would tell me, I really like you, my stomach would get sick. I would want to withdraw.
And they were like on paper, incredible people. They were incredible people.
But I just couldn't. And I was like, I always think like in hindsight, I was terrified of women.
I was terrified of like a woman who was like, I like you. I choose you.
I'm like, Oh, I'm running away. Yeah.
Yeah. I think that brings such a, like, I really hear you talking about self-awareness, which is key.
And as you're talking, I'm also thinking when people take it personal because somebody doesn't like them, it's so clear to me having worked as a psychotherapist with couples, I was like, it has nothing to do with you. It's all about do your patterns match? Am I a puzzle piece for your wounds? And are you for mine? It's not personal.
It's just programming. And so people thinking like they don't like me, something's wrong with me.
None of that is relevant or true. It's more about some of these safety strategies that you're talking about, which I think is helpful then to learn how to self-soothe and really regulate our own nervous system.
But you said something about, um, co-regulating was hard for the avoidant stuff. Like what are, are there specific practices that you found helpful for co-regulation? Yeah.
I mean, a model of a, that's why I think like a good coach or therapist is so powerful for that because they'll generally be able to model that. But yeah, being able to sit with people that you care about and be able to actually, I mean, eye gazing is really powerful for that with no conversation.
But also I think being able to bring forward the fears in relationship you know because when i was more avoidant it was that i did not know the underlying story that lived in my mind was that when i loved people they were going to leave me or betray me and i think that's such a simple practice whether no matter your attachment style is to just finish the sentence when I love people day. Because what that ultimately will point to, or when I love people, I, because that could be

like, I abandon myself, I forget about my needs. It really points to the upper limit that is living

unconsciously in the way that we relate. And you know, like you were saying, the way that someone

relates to you is generally not personal, you know, their avoidance is not personal, it's a strategy,

They don't know how to deal with your overwhelming feelings. So the best thing they can do is just peace out and get away.
And I joked about my wife and I, that being the joke of the universe, is that we, like, bring people into our experience who trigger us in the exact way that requires us to heal and resolve the things from our childhood and we call it chemistry and in a way it is you know it's like the perfect recipe i think it's like this bait and the hook switch right like you get them caught on oxytocin dopamine you're like yes to them and then you're emotionally caught so that you do the deeper healing work. And I think there's a design in it, but it's so much easier when you have the self-awareness to then not take it personally and to have the tools to meet in the middle.
And I love that we're talking about this because yes, coaches, therapists, healers, facilitators, the more they like this work, as we do this work, it helps our relationships. But if we are a service professional, then we're going to be able to better hold space for our clients without our stuff getting caught in it.
And sometimes I'll teach attachment style with sales, or I'll do nervous system regulation with sales because, you know, the same patterns show up where it's like, I'm taking coaching off the table if they're an avoidant type, where it's like like I'm withdrawing the offer if they feel like they'll be rejected or abandoned.

Same.

It's like going to the root to heal these things elevates every other relationship.

Our partners, our kids, our parents, our coworkers. And so I'm just a huge fan of doing the deeper work at the root because it elevates everything else.

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Like that's the sense I have. And maybe initially that's actually what's required is like, I need a couple hours, but I'm going to, they have to be the one who comes back, the person who asked for space.
Because it's always the anxious person is like, so are you ready to talk? You know? And sometimes I always joke that like the avoidant's like, I'll bring this back up. And then like 10 years later in therapy, you're like, oh yeah, remember that thing? Yeah.
No, it's great to say if you're the avoidant, right? Like I'll be back tonight so that the anxious one doesn't have that abandonment trigger come up. And then the

anxious one learns to self-soothe or be with a part of them that's scared of being abandoned so

that they don't abandon themselves outsourcing their okayness to someone else. Like yes,

doing the inner work and then yes, doing it in relationship, but inside out because you are

attracted to somebody that's going to trigger your wounds. They're not always going to be available to presence.
And that's just the nature of it. So it's more empowering to have the tools to navigate it inside.
Yeah. And for the anxious person to be able to say like, together as a couple working through something like that is, you know, like, what would you need to hear from me as I take this space? Do you need me to check in on you in a couple hours? And I'll be the one who comes back and you make the rule no longer than 24 hours.
And hopefully you just bring that time down until eventually both people, as you were saying, they heal their stories. Like when they take space, they leave.
Or when they have needs, I get overwhelmed and it becomes all about them. I think it's actually ethically a deep responsibility for any interventionalist to actually do somatic work.
I agree. It's your professional responsibility to do your work so that you can hold a safe and compassionate space for your clients.
And if your survival strategy, which is, that's why I think like at the core of why we do that or why we're good at something, that's great. That it's a developed thing.
At least we took a wound and turned it into something we could turn into a living and it feels natural for us. But at some point we have to unhook from the need to be needed.
And I think a lot of interventionists get stuck in that is that still unconsciously they need their client to need them and they're being paid for it so we have to actually do the deeper somatic work that you're talking about so that our nervous system liberates their nervous system so there's not unconscious hooks there's like deep unconscious contracts that that were you know in a way unconsciously sabotaging the success of the people we work with yeah And really the goal and part of the intention of this podcast is to help give people tools to feel more empowered, to live a better life so that they're not dependent. I'm a huge fan of therapy coaching and programs to elevate and accelerate, but from the place of wholeness, from the place of optimization, not from you're lacking and you need something to fix you or you need somebody outside of yourself.
Any good coach is going to help their client find their own power and be able to accelerate in that container, but not create unconscious dependency. Sometimes I would see in the therapeutic, and I know it happens with coaching too, where there creates a dependency on the other person.
And that's not clean. It's really about helping give the client their own power by you embodying the work as a service professional first.
Yeah. It'll hook back into their wound.
You know, it just becomes the same model. And, you know, as I agree with you and it's like all really good, like every mentor I've had, every, every healer I've worked with everything, I always can sense like, Are they here to actually liberate me and and i might not have known that initially but that's now how i sense it's like are they do they need me to validate them do they need any of that no that's right do you walk away feeling better about yourself or better about them that's a good indicator right like i need you to think of me as great or do i feel in your presence? I want to talk just a minute about disorganized because we didn't cover that as much.
Are there nuances with disorganized attachment style that might be helpful for somebody to understand a bit more about that pattern or dynamic? Because I want to make sure that it's not just a one-time thing that comes up and they're like, I'm disorganized. I want them.
And then I don't want them. It's more of like a deep seated habit or a pattern that's playing out for them.
Yeah. And you know, I think a lot of the time too, we, when we're disorganized, especially there's a deep desire for relationship, but then we just don't know why.
Like I had no idea when I was in that phase of my life after that deep betrayal, I didn't one, I went from being like, so pro relationship, so in love with love, and all of a sudden I was like, well, I'm just going to deal with one-night stands and short-term relationships. I can control the depth of intimacy.
When you look at the conversation that happens about avoidance online and disorganized, it tends to not be optimistic. It's almost like, it's almost like most of the content is created for anxiously attached people, probably because anxiously attached people are the ones going out and looking for it.
Right? Like, let me understand my man on a deeper level so I can make sure he doesn't, you know, or let me understand my woman. But for disorganized, I think one, the recognition that it exists because you don't trust connection.
And that's true of all of them. But I think it's especially true for disorganized is that the nervous system doesn't trust connection.
And so it like wants it. So there's this reaching out.
And if you think about it, this is often modeled from where the people you got love from is also a was sometimes a place of danger or a lack of safety. So there's a confusion.
So you can feel this like desire to go forward, but then this, ah, like this pullback. So, again, coming back to the awareness, knowing that you can change it is, of course, a powerful thing, which we spoke about before.
but somatic practices like somatic practices somatic practices which of course they're in

the right place with you yeah yeah that's beautiful yeah because it's like from childhood you may have gotten love and attention from that caregiver but then they also there could have been physical or sexual abuse so then it gets confusing and so to have compassion with ourselves and to do the work knowing that we can heal heal and reprogram that is really empowering. And so, again, more awareness, but also compassionate awareness, like you can change it.
And working with a trained therapist, coach or a friend that's securely attached. I know before I got into my relationship with my husband, my best friend and I were like, well, why not use our friendship as a way to help each other heal and tell our partners come? because you can use anyone as long as, you know, as a conscious relationship to look at them as a

mirror and have those microscopic truths about, I get nervous when you say that and to slow it down. And like part of what you were sharing is what would be helpful if I want to take space, do you need me to check in with you? It's like being more conscious instead of programmed, I think will help just make it easier to navigate if you have a willing friend or partner.
And if you don't, you can still do the work on your own again with a therapist or trained professional, which is really great. I've heard of this term breadcrumbing just recently where it's like you give them just enough attention to keep pulling them through, but not enough to kind of commit or take it further.
Talk to us about breadcrumbing. Is that one style or another? Is that something separate? And then how do you identify it or kind of overcome that dynamic? Yeah, breadcrumbing.
I think it's a, they have now all these cool terms. I'm so old school.
Did our generation not have cool terms? Like breadcrumbing, there's like zombieing oh where they disappear

and then they come back from the day okay okay not that was ghosting i mean yeah okay i don't

know what we didn't have a term for ghosting i think we just said that person disappeared

they're gone yeah we're older school generation bread crumbing is a really interesting i would

argue that bread crumbing likely exists more from an avoidantly attached perspective or disorganized

Thank you. breadcrumbing is a really interesting I would argue that breadcrumbing likely exists more from an avoidantly attached perspective or disorganized but that it is like I'm just going to give you enough I would say that it's people who are not ready for relationship so it's a pretty good orange slash red flag you know whenever anyone says like believe their actions not their words I'm, no, no.
If their words and actions don't match, that's the orange flag. Because, you know, you'll have someone who says, I don't want a relationship, but treats you like a boyfriend or girlfriend.
That doesn't mean they actually want you to be their boyfriend or girlfriend. You know, and that's where I think we can get lost in that.
The breadcrumbing is like, I'm just going to give you enough to keep you close, but I'm never going to be fully emotionally available to you. I'm never going to be relationally fully available to you.
For people who are on the other side of it, it's usually because they actually, through likely their childhood, just got enough from a parent. And could be that their needs were met with wants, which is pretty common.
So like if I need a connection from my father, but he bought me gifts. And so we actually learn to meet our needs for connection with meeting wants.
And you see this a lot relationally where people are dating and things are not going well. And all of a sudden they go on a lavish vacation and then things are getting back to the, you know, the truth is coming out again and then they get engaged and then the truth comes out again and then they get married and then the truth comes out again and they have a baby and then they do that again till eventually, ideally the person who keeps getting, cause that's, you know, some form of bread crumbing.
It's like, I'm never going to be fully aligned with you. And I think for people who really felt inconsistency from a parent, that becomes just a familiar model.
Like it's, it's like activating the wound. Will I ever be enough for you to fully choose me instead of really like the healing of that is, will I ever be enough for me to fully choose me? And then breadcrumbing becomes this like, are you really trying to pull that shit on me?

You're going to breadcrumb me?

Like, hell no.

Thank you for showing me who you are.

I have zero time for it and zero tolerance for inconsistency because I am the model of my own consistency.

That's right.

That's right.

I was going to ask you about this, which I love you're speaking to because self-worth, I would say, is at the heart of the, as the medicine for a lot of relational, whatever the relational dynamics are, learning how to insource our own safety and feeling a deeper sense of our inherent worth and value independent of how other people see or treat us. Because sometimes people will abandon their own needs for the sake of connection or they'll chase or collapse, ignoring their own needs so that they can feel connected.
But what you're speaking to is that deeper sense of connecting within themselves. Like instead of outsourcing that, even embracing the part of me that feels insecure helps me start feeling more secure or embracing the part of me that doesn't feel worthy helps me feel more worthy.
Cause it's not about becoming more worthy. It's just about parting the clouds of the insecure thoughts or the insecure feelings so that I can feel a deeper sense of okayness of confidence that doesn't come and go.
And no one can take that away from you, which is then a deeper secure attachment, you know, where it's like, it's not outsourced. And so I love that you bring that up.
Are there other tools or practices so that people can really embody a deeper sense of worth and value and not get caught up in enmeshment? Yeah, you know, the root of what brings us to work like the work we're talking about, personal work, personal growth, books, somatic therapy, all of it usually comes from this experience, right? We go, oh, I'm like frustrated dating, or I'm not sure if I should stay or go, or I just going through a breakup, and I feel like I've lost everything. So the doorway is usually the perspective that something's wrong with me, and I need to fix it.
But what has to change in that process is that it's not that there's something wrong with me that needs to be fixed. Because if I'm fixing something, that infers brokenness.
And so at some point, your growth has to come from a place of expansion, not repair. And what I mean by that is that the child sees that the failure of the environment is about the failure of the child.
So like the child has two options. My dad was inconsistent because I wasn't enough for him to be consistent, or my dad is just not good.
To think of your father or your mother or both as being flawed is too confronting. So what happens is the child creates a narrative that they themselves are.
So just knowing that, that like, oh, wow, do I see, as you said earlier, like, do I see their behavior as evidence of my lack of worth or my dysfunction? Or do I see it as their behavior? And so we start to decouple our self-worth from our relational outcomes. This is like really where the birth of my work came from was that i went through a breakup and i was like why do i feel more connected to my heart than i ever have and yet i am i appear like a failure to the people around me like to a lot of the people i loved most they were like oh you're just afraid of commitment you're just this you're just that and i was like wait I've never made a decision more connected to my heart like more brave for me to go against what I was taught and now I'm actually like facing shame and so that was like I was I had to do a deeper inquiry into it because I was so confused and you start to see like oh yeah the behaviors that were taught about relationship a lot of the things we do relationally are just things we're taught.
They're not even necessarily things we want to do, which is actually a bit of the mind F in that. So knowing that your worth is really sourced from your choices.
So whenever I work with someone, one of the first things we do is just like explore where their frustrations are in their life. And frustrations don't have to be romantic.
What I look at is where does tension exist in anything you're in relationship with? So you're in relationship with everything that's not you. So substances, people, TV, right? All of it.
And where does friction exist in those relationships? And it goes, okay, well, what do you value? Like, who do you want to be? What do you want for your life? And a simple way for people to do that, which I would say anxious attached people have a harder time identifying their needs and their values because they spent their whole lives orienting around other people's. Right.
So, and you know what I'll often hear initially is, I can't believe I don't know what I want or who I am or what I need. And I'm like, beautiful adventure.
Like, what a beautiful adventure. It's not, again, evidence of a deficit.
It's evidence of a possibility. So by looking at people you admire, you can identify values that you hope to hold.
And then you look at the things you have friction with, because the friction and the pain or the frustration is coming from you violating some form of value. You just haven't labeled it yet.
And so when you draw out or just write out three to five core values, which I would say, like, there's some pretty universal ones, you know, like, I want health and vitality and all my relationships, both mental, physical, emotional. I want trust and truth and integrity.
And, you know, among many others. And when you actually go through the list of things that are frustrating you, you can write out in which of my values is this in violation of, how, and what would need to change in, is it even possible, for that relationship to get into integrity.
To me, I'm like, that's actually, if you want to love your life, that's the process. Go get all those things into alignment and you're free.
Like it's actually that simple, except what's scary is the, the large conversations that often have to happen to shift yourself back into integrity. If you've ever even been there, which, you know, when you've built a life being someone different than who you are, then to actually create a life based on who you truly are, it requires the systems that you've been part of to orient around a new version of you.
And as you know very well, almost every single human system will push back on the thing that's trying to change the system so if you have a family that never confronted mom's alcoholism and all of a sudden you're like hey uh did anyone notice this shit that's going on over here like we can't have thanksgiving dinner without mom slurring words and saying rude things all of a sudden the, whoa, whoa. And so I always joke that the black sheep of the family eventually becomes the goat, which is not actually possible from an animal-based perspective, but from a metaphorical, archetypal perspective it is, is that the black sheep disrupts the family system and then becomes a beacon of health for the system to orient around a different way of being.
And there's so many things that I just want to highlight that are helpful in what you shared, because it's like when we're growing up in a family system, we need attachment from our caregivers so that we know we're going to survive. And so rather than thinking something's wrong with them, it's usually the thought is something's wrong with me.
This inherent misunderstanding about our worth, which was a great survival strategy, just not accurate. And so to have compassion with ourselves, every once in a while, there's like a little bit more mature of an interpretation that something's wrong with them rather than us.
And yet going back as we start to create those changes, it's harder with the dynamics of the past because people have benefited from you not knowing and speaking your needs. And so it's going to disrupt some things and it'll be harder, but in the end, it's healthy for you and the whole system.
And so just giving ourselves compassion for how things were, knowing that it might be a little rocky as you find your truth and your desires and speaking that. But really, as we start to insource a sense of safety and wholeness and be in communities that support that so that it's not necessarily our family system, because they might not be available for that, it'll help build that confidence then to pave a new way.
And if they're ready and available, they'll join you and it'll elevate your whole family system or your relational dynamics too. And it's okay if people are like, I don't want to go back to my family system.
I need space for my family. That's okay too.
Like do whatever's healthy for you. And thank God you don't need other people to do the work for you to heal.
And going right to when someone's like, I need to have a conversation with my mom. That's the first thing I need to do.
I'm like, maybe i'm like maybe don't start with start with that i can't do dinner on friday with yeah like start with a small boundary because at the core of even you know getting into regulation again from a nervous system perspective if you've spent your life hyper vigilant or even avoidant you know it's like disorganized like any of these different states because avoidance is flight too you know so for people to understand that if you've spent your life like that and all of a sudden you start doing yoga and hanging out with relaxed people and you're like man and you maybe go on dates and someone like text you when they say they're going to, and you're like, what? This is like kind of weird. This is boring.
Yeah, exactly. When you get regulated, you'll see that reliability is the hottest shit ever.
But what happens to the system is that as it reorganizes, so if I've never laid a boundary, the first time I lay a boundary is a hill mary it's like i because boundaries feed self-worth and boundaries also um come from self-worth but if the first time we've ever laid a boundary there's an absence of the worst so the first one is like i think i got this and then that's why you need people around you are like you got this like we're holding strong and the old way of thinking is if they don't like my boundary then the boundary wasn't good no you have to like your boundary no one else has to like your boundary and them not liking it doesn't mean the boundary is not awesome it could be the best boundary in the world and i say for people who don't have boundaries that often the first things you actually need are walls because that actually delineates a self when we've been so enmeshed in other people's experiences we actually need to separate ourselves to discover who we are and so actually taking space from family of origin like parents people who really trigger us is actually necessary in order to be like, oh, like I don't have to be in relationship with all these, um, they're almost like tentacles or hooks. Yeah.
It's easier to take that space to establish it in a new community or with friends than to go into your original family system and try to do it from there is what I hear. Yeah.
And it might not even be possible. Well, for me, boundaries that the way that I like it is saying like what I will do in a particular situation rather than trying to get them to change.
So then I can always honor my own boundary, even if they don't. So it's like, if you make a date with me and you're late, I won't make another date.
It's just sharing what you'll do so that it's not like a threat. It's just more of having self-respect and communicating that and they can participate or not.
Yeah. And boundaries have to they're just suggestions you know like and people who are boundary bulldozers they know you're suggesting they're gonna test you you know it's harriet lerner who talks about like they do a change back move so as soon as you like do something they try to get you to change back by doing something else and so you know the at the core of regulation is really like trust is that do I trust that when I need to have my own back that I have access to the resources to my voice to be able to say this doesn't work or this does work and if we don't have access to our no then our yes yes is really filled with small print.
So, you know, when someone says I have anxiety, anxiety is perceived to be a future oriented experience. I always look to like, where are you not fully self-expressed? Where do you not have access to all your emotions? And, you know, just making it like more simple that's core emotions.
And then there's just like different branches of those core emotions. Like, which emotions do I not have access to? Because if you don't have access to expression, then you can't steer your life.
If you can't steer your life, your life is going to go kind of rudderlessly in the direction that other people decide for you. Likely the of society, culture, family, all that kind of stuff.
Yeah. And this is, you know, as people are becoming more self-aware, just listening, just again, being compassionate because the safety strategies that you have served a purpose, they really did help you.
And now you're learning to evolve differently and really take the reins back from your life. So the compassion is important with the awareness.
Otherwise, because if you judge it, you're further stuck with it. Or if you identify as somebody that doesn't have boundaries, it's harder to change that because identity is hard to change.
So it's like, oh, I have a pattern up until now, but it's not who you are. So just those two, don't identify, don't judge.
It's helpful. But I want to ask you a few questions about one is like, is there a question you feel like people should ask themselves before getting into a relationship? I'd say the first one is, do I feel safe with this person? And I think it needs to be coupled with, am I also excited about pursuing this connection? A lot of the times someone will say, what's wrong with me i'm meeting new reliable people and i don't want to date them or i'm like not finding a connection and you had mentioned this earlier it's like no matter what emotion you're experiencing or no matter what feeling you're experiencing it's always the doorway into something so it's like never shame the feeling that's coming forward.
Like if someone's hesitant about getting married, you have to follow the hesitation to get to the thing that's rooted in there. It doesn't mean you're not getting married.
It just means you're gonna uncover something that might need to be brought forward. Maybe there's a behavior in the other person that is actually in violation of a deep deal breaker that you haven't identified.
Who knows? But if we shame the thing we're feeling, then, you know, much like we're saying, like, if we identify as being boundary-less, then it's a lot harder to change. But if it's a collection of behaviors and survival strategies that got us exactly where we are, newsflash, they were perfect then.
They did exactly what they were meant to do. So what I'll often say to people when they're like, oh, I'm like, what's wrong with me that I can't, first I like narcissists, now I can't even like a nice guy.
It's being able to see that often there might be actually truth to your somatic response, which is that kindness isn't always clean that sometimes kindness is contrived sometimes it's manipulative it's the more fawning response and that's why they say like nice guys finish last because really the kindness is coming from a place of manipulation so being able to say no to something like it's better for you to say no to something that's a yes, than yes to something that's a no. So accessing no, and when you say no to something that's a yes, you discover more about the value of the things in your life that you don't have, because you don't have it, right? But if you say yes to something that's a no, you yourself in circumstances that you actually should where you're abandoning your truth you're abandoning yourself yeah and what i also hear you saying is if you're judging something you can't hear the wisdom within it so instead of being like i judge nice guys well it's like well maybe not let's get a little bit more curious maybe it's the manipulation that you're a no to and your body can feel that so without judging it you can hear the wisdom inside it.
But this leads me to another question that I'm actually really excited to have with you because there's somebody in my life that I love and I won't call them out, but I was talking to them and this is very common that I'm hearing from people where they're like, yeah, I like this person, but I don't feel that excitement. And so I don't know if I should move forward with it.
And so I'm curious, your personal framework around when is somebody compatible to move forward with versus when is it just being compared to that initial attraction? Because sometimes people like this person I'm thinking in my life, they're like, yeah, I felt it with my ex person. And I want that aliveness to be able to go further into that relationship versus when it like what is compatibility versus that initial kind of chemistry and attraction so that people can differentiate yeah such a good question and I think we all can find ourselves in that like how do I know if this is actually I would definitely look at someone's relationship patterns yeah yeah so if they have this sort of like i want the excitement the chemistry the thing but their history is like unreliable liars betrayers cheaters you know is this true for this person and i'm so close to them that they can't hear me say that so i'm going to send this to them but i think this is also going to serve a lot of people.
Yeah. Well, what happens is, is the, the nervous system is still like, we're confusing chemistry with unreliability and unpredictability.
And so there's an excitation that occurs, um, almost like we might say in the thrill of the chase, but it's, I would say it's in the thrill of the desire to change and the desire to finally resolve that that person will change and i will be the person

that they change for i'll finally be enough i'd say there's probably a father wound in there

and maybe uh and so what happens is is that i think of this as like we've eroticized our pain

so we've actually taken what we do with the unreliability is we then experience arousal and then the arousal treats the unreliability so it actually numbs it so it becomes like an erotic addiction um and and so then we can't we're not fully in our bodies we're not able to fully this is where we can, you know, obviously things like pornography can do that.

Masturbation can do that. We can use these tools when we're dysregulated as a way of regulating, which I wouldn't recommend porn for regulation.
But what I'm saying is that when we actually look at someone who's reliable, then coming into our life and we're used to unreliability and this other different way of being.

It is us who have to actually learn how to regulate and enter discernment. So there's a saying that the opposite of trauma is choice.
And this is why small choices like advice like, hey, make your bed every day.

It's not about making your bed every day. It's about when you say you're going to do something, you do it.
And so now you have evidence that you do that. When you say you're going to go for a walk, you do it.
And we might go, well, no one else knows that I said that to myself and I didn't go. Yeah, but you know.
That's actually the key piece is that you know that. telling other key pieces that you know that telling other people

can help hold you accountable to your self-expression because of things like belonging as being a way of like behavior modification but really what has to start to happen is you start to see evidence that when you have a choice you make it and so when you get if you have a history of dating unreliable people, you just have to go to a, I don't, I don't date any unreliability.

Like I have to have a zero tolerance for that. And then I'm going to start to look for where am I unreliable in my own life? If you don't have access to it yourself, then you still won't have a standard.
so when someone comes into your life who treats you as if you're not worthy, if you believe you're not worthy, that will match. Now, what's interesting is whenever you tolerate someone who's ambivalent about you or inconsistent, etc., you have to, this is not optional, you have to become somebody who believes they're worthy of being ambivalent about everything we choose to keep in our life.
We have to match with an internal narrative. That's why I'm so passionate about people doing the work, having community coaches, therapists to really help them embody their inherent worth and value.
And as there's a match to that, they can't help but attract somebody that meets them or elevates them and their self-worth rather than going lower because you won't put up with anything less than you're already giving yourself. That's exactly it.
The standard. Yeah.
This person I was talking about is more avoidant. And so I think looking at where are they avoid it avoidant within themselves and how can they start to presence the parts that, and the avoidance isn't bad, it's just a safety strategy.
And so how do you really presence that deeper fear so that it can integrate and it can be more conscious and less programmed into a avoidance strategy. So I think that's part of the way that it starts shifting, but great insights on that.
Thank you. That was super helpful.
Yeah. Be interesting.
Like if they had to finish the sentences, when people get close to me, they, when people are reliable, what happens? Like, is there a narrative that they get let down? And then what happens when they get let down? Are they left alone? Like there's going to be a story of how it all plays out anyway. And how it leads to pain.
Right. And so then really questioning those misunderstandings and being with those parts of us emotionally and then somatically integrating it is more of like a robust to shift it method and way.
Yeah. And for people that are in relationship and they're feeling disconnected, are there any tools or practices to rebuild intimacy that you found really helpful? I really love, there's a line from Harville Hendricks and Helen Hunt where they say that we usually say our relationship isn't giving me what I need, instead of what does my relationship need from me to feel the way I want it to.
and I think what that you know as you've mentioned too is like that level of responsibility of like

I'm going to take this on for me. Um, if we're feeling disconnected, you know, I think a lot of the math that, uh, I think it's like the Gottmans.
Yeah, it was the Gottmans who talk about the five to one ratio that when they looked at, so they took newlyeds they put them in this apartment over looking like washington and they recorded their conversations and then they followed up six years later to see if they were married or not and what they saw was that couples who had above a five to one positive interaction to every negative were still together and anything below that they got divorced they were more likely to get divorced and seven eight to one was like kind of the optimal if it was too high it wasn't authentic and so what happened is is that they would actually um what they saw was that if you just change the math like if you just engage in more positive interactions then what will happen is the baseline sort of deposits that you've made in the relationship will shift. Just the energy of the relationship will change.
If you're parents, then what often happens with parents, which I can now say this now that I'm a parent, before I had great parenting advice because I wasn't a parent. But now I can say that often what happens when a couple goes from two to three to four to five or whatever is that the couple fails to prioritize each other.
The couple should always be first. And I know that can be a real challenge, you know, depending on the dynamics, especially I think for like mother child dynamics, that can be really hard.
Of course, it's biologically meant to be, but the couple must maintain a priority. And if we've forgotten that, if we've forgotten about each other, couples grow apart all the time.
It's just like, how do we come back together? Date nights, adventure, not just regular date nights. Don't just put on fucking Netflix and get some deep intimacy and connection an adventure yeah and and switch who's responsible for planning the adventure you know i my wife and i we wrote a book called liberated love and in it we talk about how like when you actually recognize that your partner can leave you in any moment right then you you see see that your partner is choosing to be with you in that moment.
Like I always think to myself often that my wife could choose anybody. Like she could be with lots of guys, but she chooses to be with me.
So how do I continue to be someone that is worthy of that choice? And because I consider it an honor, and I consider it very sacred. And I think we can often forget that because life gets busy, and we're not taught to think that way.
you know we're like oh i got married i guess you can't go anywhere now and the divorce act is like

actually they can yeah so i think when we make agreements like marriage what happens is is we

think that it's a contract that you now don't have a choice anymore. We actually have to constantly be like, this is a choice.
And I think that really liberates things. Yeah.
And I think we nurture the relationship ongoing. So it needs to be like that garden that you're tending to and pulling out weeds.
I think in the beginning of being together, there's the honeymoon phase, which actually doesn't have to end if you keep nurturing and peeling the taking away the weeds that block the love that's already there, where you can keep flowering, but then they're going to be some weeds that come up. And I think in the past, it used to be that past generations would say like the kids come

first.

And I think the divorce rates kind of show what happens and it's got the best of intentions. And nowadays people are saying the relationship comes first, but I think even more than that, our relationship within ourself comes first, then the couplehood and then the kids, because the kids are going to thrive with the couple being good.
And the couple is going to be good when you know and have the tools to navigate your own triggers and you're self-aware. And then you can heal in relationship.
I'm a big fan of that, but also having the tools to navigate because we attract partners that are going to bring up our wounds. We need to learn how to do some of the deeper excavating work, pulling out the weeds, because they're not going to be always available to heal with us.
And that's normal and that's okay. And there is a point where like the big healing phase does end, but whether you do it with one partner or another, you still have to do the healing work because it's gonna be projected onto somebody.
You have to see it and play it out with somebody and it's not bad, but with the tools and with the committing to the work, it does actually get easier.

And I want people to know that.

And both people have to be in, you know, both people have to be desiring to make the changes and to grow.

I mean, I think, you know, Stan Tacken, he talks about how one of the greatest reasons that people get divorced is they fail to make clear agreements at the beginning.

But like who here, like I'm'm 46 i got married two years ago i had a very different level of awareness if i was 22 getting married agreements what are you talking about what vows did i hear that are good it's like we actually have to and so as you said we could do it at any time in a relationship but we have to create clear agreements about who do we want to be how do we honor one another and as you said which is so beautiful is like relationship with you relationship with other relationship with children and the most thriving relationships prioritize the individuals and then the togetherness. Like they say, how do you become all of you through the material that this relationship brings forward? How do it's David Data who says there's three stages of relationship.
The first one is I need you to complete me. The second one is I don't need you.
And the third one is through you, I find God. And I think of that as like, God could be self-actualization.
It could be whatever you want to call it. But when we use relationship as a vehicle for total transformation, I'm actually not sure there's a more potent vehicle.
I think entrepreneurship is actually pretty close. Yeah.
I'm with you. I do the same business and love as vehicles for awakening and healing.

That's the foundation for the work that I do. I love there's so much synergy and excitement about like the mutual work that we do and, and using all of it.
Because if we're ever thinking that something outside of us is going to make sure that we're okay, we're going to be anxious, we're going to be manipulative and controlling, and we lose our power versus knowing how to navigate and heal and really center within ourselves helps us live more free, more authentic, more aligned. And then there's less trying to manipulate and control life outside of us because we are sourced.
There's a deeper truth. And actually, I was going to bring this up because I did some work with my husband with David Data and I was talking to him and I said something about toxic masculinity and femininity.
He said, try on, instead of saying toxic, saying undeveloped. And I really appreciated that because it felt more compassionate.
It's not intentional. It's just young.
It's just unconscious, but it also feels more true. And so these undeveloped patterns and ways of being feminine, masculine that we all have within us, I think it's helpful.
I don't know if there's any kind of trends or maybe even in heterosexual relationships that you have found that maybe to speak more from the male perspective, I'm curious if there are things that you've discovered in your work just around kind of relational patterns or like undeveloped masculinity.

Yeah, I always think of that word too. I would have used the term unintegrated or, you know, uninitiated maybe,

all really meaning the same thing.

I was listening to a talk from a researcher the other day that said

testosterone as a hormone actually amplifies whatever the culture celebrates which is really fascinating that like in the research if the culture was more about generosity and kindness the more testosterone a male had female too but males in this conversation it actually amplified those behaviors. So whatever the culture desires from its men, which is really fascinating when you think about it, because I think evolutionarily, you know, you hear women say, oh, I want a great, emotionally aware, loving, kind, gentle, blah, blah, blah, but then they might not choose that.
And so I think we have to always remember much like the work with the nervous system that we are evolutionarily programmed that we're biological beings before we're soul-based beings and then we become soul-based beings who can think about our biological pulls you know it's like when we have chemistry with someone it doesn't mean you have to pursue it so i think of as like taking charge of your charge, that you're finally in charge of where you direct your energy. And what happens is when we, you know, getting back to your friend kind of, is like when we stop directing ourselves towards what isn't working, we start to create space for what can work, which maybe never has had the opportunity to do that.
We don't trust that unknown space. Relationally, what I see happening is like, there's a deep desire for a man to be in integrity and a man to stand for what matters to him.
And as David Data talks about, it's like, the woman in your life wants to be the most important person, not the most important thing. And if you give up on your purpose or your passion or your principles for your partner, she will not trust you and she will not be attracted to you.
I remember when I learned that I was like, I for sure more identified as like the nice guy, I'm going to be different than other guys, like that kind of bullshit. And I say that because it's like, if my partner would test me, I was such a doormat.
Like when I think of the betrayals I experienced when I was in my late teens, I look back and I'm like, oh my God, I ended up in the exact circumstances that someone ends up with when they don't have access to boundaries and their voice. I was afraid that if I self-expressed and said that wasn't okay, I would, because I grew up in the 90s and the 80s, so the story was that men are bad, they're toxic, they're evil, they're rapists, they're murderers.
I used to think that that dialogue was going down, but I'd actually say that it's way higher than even my childhood. So if a woman or a man or both are not there to speak the nuance to boys and girls, but especially boys, that those are some men, but they're not all men.
Just like women who have toxic traits, those are some women. They're not all women.
How do we actually stand in our values and really step into our integrity? I think like for as a man that's been the most liberating thing and i think for as a father is like i activated a whole new level when i thought okay who do i tell my son i am versus and does that match who i am and that being a whole new level of integrity that's necessary, which was there, but not with the same potency. Yeah.
I remember my husband doing some of that work and saying, am I the man that I would want my daughters to date? That became a huge integrity barometer of like, check, like, am I really embodying that? And I think back to your point of having a community that mirrors values, not overcompensating for who we think the undeveloped masculine is, but just having communities are, what is the consciousness of the communities that we're in or what movies or podcasts or games are we watching or are kids watching that are really influencing how we be in the world, I think is important because we're communal beings. And so we're going to want to.
I think we're really craving that the masculine has access to things. Like I was talking to a friend yesterday about this, that there's something primal about moving weights and hiking and hunting that activates a part of you.
Like I would love to see a bunch of men go hunting with like bows or guns. It doesn't really matter.
And check their testosterone before and after. Because for sure it would go up just from this, like, I'm out here.
I'm going to go get some elk for my woman and bring it back for my family you know put some blood under

my eyes or you know but there's i think we are all craving this like we we demonized roles that were innately part of our evolution and it doesn't mean that there can't be other roles but what i'm saying is that we demonize them so we made them wrong just like if you're a woman it's like you got to be a boss babe or and and now if you want to be like a stay-at-home mom

shame them. So we made them wrong.
Just like if you're a woman, it's like, you got to be a boss, babe, or, and, and now if you want to be like a stay at home mom, shamed. So it's like, how do you win? And it's like, you're not trying to win.
Who gives a shit about winning? What do you want to do? That's right. Exactly.
Yeah. And, and to, and I think where we come from in what we're doing is more important than what we're doing in terms of, am I wanting to be a stay at home mom? Am I wanting to work? Do I want to do both or, you know, hunting with reverence, with respect, not just like slaughtering, you know, like, I think the intention behind it also is important, but being authentic and being true to ourselves.
Yeah. Yeah.
The sacredness at which we approach all of it is what's imperative, you know and i think one of the things that i always experience from my wife is that she sees things i don't see within myself and so i actually see her as this like sacred vessel that allows me you know to to grow in ways that i couldn't do without her and also after we had a son was just like, I had reverence that women were a portal. But when I like actually experienced her being a portal, I was like, holy shit, you just built a human.
And then he came out of you and witnessing her as a mother, like all of these things just, I was like, man, it's just so profound to think about just how like

sacred of a being a woman is. Men, great.
I feel sacred. Like you are earth, you are life.
That's

freaking crazy. Yeah.
I love the reverence that we can come to it with, within each other. And

then as we wake up to the truth of who and what we are, we see that mirrored in our partners and

in conscious relationship, we can be those mirrors to help us see parts of ourselves that haven't been seen so that we wake up more fully. And I think there's no better gift.
And I just want to thank you for your vulnerability, your honesty, the work that you've done, the way that you're leading and supporting people and seeing relationships more clearly. It's been such a gift to drop in with you.
I knew we were going to drop in right away, but there's so much alignment in terms of our values and the work, the depth of the work that you do, which is really beautiful. And I know my audience is going to want to stay connected.
Share with us where they find you, what you're up to. Oh, man.
You can find find me at markroves.com and I have a community called the create the love community where I know all my courses and all that stuff are in there. And then I also have a podcast, the Mark Rose podcast, which I look forward to having you on.
And, um, yeah, that's, you can find me all there. I took a hiatus from Instagram.
Um, but I think create the love will be coming back in January. I have a lot of thoughts on the nervous system and social media and being a business, etc., that I've been putting together that, yeah, I want to teach because I've just had so many profound awarenesses for myself.
It's so important to have that framework. And so I love that you are diving deeper into it.
I think it can help people. The storyline is helpful to start waking up from the story, but also integrating the energy to not miss that.
I think it's such a powerful piece. We don't need to know the story to integrate it energetically in our body and our nervous system so that we can feel safety and regulation.
That's our power. Well, thanks for having me on.
I really appreciate it. Yeah.
What a gift you are. Thanks, Mark.
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