Becoming Securely Attached (to yourself): Reparenting and Healing Insecure Attachment | Being Well

Hello and welcome to Being Well. I'm

Forest Hansen. If you're new to the show, thanks for joining us today. And

if you've listened before, welcome back.

Today we're talking about something that I think really lies at the heart of almost everything that we talk about on the podcast. Becoming a secure base for

the podcast. Becoming a secure base for yourself, or saying it in a way that you might be a little bit more familiar with, becoming more securely attached to yourself. If you've spent any time in

yourself. If you've spent any time in the world of therapy or self-help, some of what we talk about today will probably be familiar to you, including particular methods like reparing,

creating a coherent narrative, and even more technical ideas from psychology like object relations. We'll start by talking about what it means to be a secure base, how we're supposed to develop this feeling, why we don't, and

what we can actually do about all of this as adults. But who am I talking about this with? Why? It's clinical

psychologist Rick Hansen. So, Dad, how are you doing today?

I'm good, Forest. And I do feel securely attached to you cuz I know I feel very securely attached to you, which is great because I'm your kid. So,

that's kind of what we're gunning for here.

That's true. Well, I you know, you because I feel securely attached, I can launch out into the world. And we'll

talk more about that.

And you are the string to my kite.

I'm just I'm I'm keeping you nice and stable as you as you explore as you explore the uh all the things you want to talk about today on your podcast.

Dad, I'm the guy who kind of I'm I'm the uh I'm the rails on our bowling alley.

And you are absolutely the bowling ball as we do these as we do these recordings together. But before we get into it

together. But before we get into it today, I wanted to give you a quick reminder about Rick's upcoming online course on healing insecure attachment.

How topical. In this fiveweek course, Rick will help you relearn some of the attachment patterns that we developed in childhood. And you can learn more about

childhood. And you can learn more about it at rickansson.com/attachment

and use coupon code being well 25 to receive a 25% off discount. And if you clicked on an episode like this, I think you'll probably get a lot out of it. So,

part of the reason that we're doing this episode is because a couple of months ago, I forget exactly what it was that we were recording about. Uh, you made a comment at the end of an episode that just really stuck with me. We were

talking about some of these kind of attachment issues that people have, the idea of reparing more generally, how how can we work with all of this stuff, and you said something about increasingly

becoming a secure base for yourself. And

there was just something about referring to it that way that just lodged in the back of my brain because we think of attachment stuff so relationally. It's

about us and other person out there.

So, the idea that it's us with us was just really interesting to me. So maybe

we'll just start there. What do you mean by becoming a secure base for yourself?

Right. The classic idea from you know attachment theory is that in early childhood we need to both be safe but we

need to explore in the world. So for a young child to explore in the world um it really helps that they have um an objectively secure connection with a

parent figure who's watching over them.

Think about doing this in the stone age where there were a lot of real hazards, right? You really needed to know that

right? You really needed to know that your, you know, parent or other caregiver was taking you into account.

And then over time with repeated experiences like that, you internalize, you introject in the psychoanalytic term

um repeated experiences, good enough experiences of others who care about you. So you build up a kind of sense of

you. So you build up a kind of sense of secure base regarding others inside yourself. That's great. And there's some

yourself. That's great. And there's some early research, I don't know if you know about it. It's called the the visual

about it. It's called the the visual cliff. Uh these scientists who always

cliff. Uh these scientists who always figure out these clever experiments would take um toddlers and they put them in a like a nursery school room

and there was an apparatus there that um had a clear plastic top. It was pretty big and it would start out and it would look like there were steps going down.

And in fact, they were going down because under this plastic surface was a like a six-foot drop and then they would dangle attractive appealing objects at

the other end, you know, like a cute teddy bear or something. And and then they would launch the toddler. They

would tell the toddler to crawl across to see if it could get it. And then they would observe and vary the impact of placing a parent near them or far away

from them or not in the room altogether.

And then with a lot of videotaping they would observe what the toddlers would do to enable themselves to cross over the void right based on this clear thick plastic that would hold them up. But it

would look pretty scary. And they

observed that the degree to which um the child would look back and see that the parent was still watching them, not manipulatively distracted, let's say, by

the experimenters, then the child was more willing to venture out into the unknown. And I think that's a just a

unknown. And I think that's a just a fantastic principle. Of course, we need

fantastic principle. Of course, we need to manage our safety, but we also need to go out and venture out into the deep dark blue. So then the question becomes

dark blue. So then the question becomes how do we do that for ourselves when the world and maybe the internalization of

caregivers uh is not uh really very supportive.

That's where we ourselves over time and you and I will talk about practical ways to do this over time can build up that sense inside ourselves. I think there's something in that gesture that you were

talking about in the experiments of like looking back over the shoulder and making sure that it's safe to keep moving that for me is for starters very personally moving if you actually like think about the implications of that and

how that facilitates adventure and all of that. And there was something as I

of that. And there was something as I was digging into this um this material that was the aspect of it. The idea of this as facilitating growth and exploration and going out into the

world, being able to connect with other people and tolerate difficulty and experience ups and downs, make mistakes, and then come on back because you have that good enough fill in the blank.

Uh, conventionally in the attachment literature, that's a good enough mother.

Then over time, it got expanded out to a good enough parent. And now we're framing it as a good enough thing inside of yourself that you kind of develop over time, right? A good enough secure base. Maybe one of the things I wanted

base. Maybe one of the things I wanted to ask you about here, Dad, digging in a little bit more to that developmental part of it. This is something that people ideally develop in childhood so

we can learn a little bit more about how to do it in adulthood by actually looking at that healthy process that was supposed to happen that unfortunately a lot of people don't get. So what's that

supposed to look like? Well, let's use an example of a toddler like the one venturing out on the cliff. And you

could apply this to even younger. So,

let's suppose that the toddler is upset about something. When you were young,

about something. When you were young, when I was young, when listeners are young, normally, of course, we get upset about things. What happens next? It's

about things. What happens next? It's

very difficult for a toddler, let alone an infant, to regulate themselves. They

have not yet really developed strong self-regulatory capacities. partly

self-regulatory capacities. partly related to the immature development of the brain which takes actually a couple

of decades fully anatomically mature in the mid20s. So you need external sources

the mid20s. So you need external sources of regulation.

What happens when those external sources of regulation are really good? Well, you

have hundreds, thousands of little exper experiences of starting out upset.

There's kind of a trajectory to it over time, but within a reasonable amount of time, typically within minutes, if not even less, you get settled back to a

good place. So, you have that internal

good place. So, you have that internal experience again and again and again.

And you have related to that both a sense of reliable others that you've internalized and an experience saying that even when life is challenging, you

can come home again. you know, you can come back to your to your base of equilibrium inside yourself. That's

great. Now, on the other hand, if there's not good regulation of you from the outside, you're not internalizing a sense of others that you build up inside

yourself who can support you and soothe you and calm you and guide you and encourage you. And in fact, you're

encourage you. And in fact, you're building up a series of expectations.

So, when you're upset, it'll just you won't recover. it'll just kind of all

won't recover. it'll just kind of all fall apart till finally eventually it sort of changes and you won't have much sense of how to do it yourself because you won't have anyone to model.

So as a result then you end up with a very insecure internal base uh in this life. Now, this I know is going to be

life. Now, this I know is going to be right up your alley as a serious existentialist and I know also that somebody with a definite existential bent. That's for

sure.

With it, I think at least an ankle in in Buddhism recognizing impermanence, right?

What is it in this life that we can truly count on? We we look for things to count on. So, in a way, what we're

count on. So, in a way, what we're getting to is how to count on yourself when you can't always count on other people or the world the world altogether

or even you can't count on your physical body because you've got a chronic health condition or you're very vulnerable, you're frail, you know, living is pretty

precarious. Inside of all that, how do

precarious. Inside of all that, how do you grow a stable core of being inside that you can count on? That idea of what we internalized as we're doing this is I

think really the crux for a lot of people because the whole frame here is stuff happened and that stuff has consequences. And if you are listening

consequences. And if you are listening to a podcast like this one, you are probably already very familiar with that idea. We're not saying anything you

idea. We're not saying anything you don't already know. Um but I would really emphasize just how important this is. It's through these repeated

is. It's through these repeated experiences that we have of being seen or supported by whoever that caregiver is that the kid installs this sense of

security internally. They start relating

security internally. They start relating to themselves the way they see their parent relating to them. If you have a very critical parent, a very critical

caregiver, you are going to be more likely to become very critical because this is the model that you internalize on average, right? This gets to a lot of ideas related to object relations. We're

already kind of talking about that. Uh,

and this comes from a lot of the psychoanalytic schools of thought.

People like Melanie Klene and Donald Winnott did a lot of work here. Uh,

somebody who I ran into more as part of doing prep for this episode was Ronald Fairbar. really interesting stuff out

Fairbar. really interesting stuff out there. And the big question for kids is

there. And the big question for kids is what's the nature of the objects that we're internalizing.

You know, if the parent is often attuned to the kid's needs, if they're sensitive and responsive to bids for connection, the kid starts to internalize the sense

of being loved and valued. And this then allows them to build a sense of self on the basis of the idea I am loved and

valued. How do you act when that is the

valued. How do you act when that is the basis of how you think about yourself?

How do you act when it's not? You know,

over time that this pattern of object relationships that we develop becomes a a kind of internalized map for people.

Um, and often for many people that map is I've got this small weak self as you've talked about on previous episodes episodes, Dad. And it's kind of

episodes, Dad. And it's kind of dominated by this big scary external world cuz you didn't have that sense as you were growing up of, oh, there's this

stuff out there that's going to kind of hold me. There's this stuff out there

hold me. There's this stuff out there that I can really rely on. It speaks to why therapy works. You know, a lot of the value of more relational or humanistic approaches to therapy is that

you're developing a different model of relationship. Elizabeth talks about this

relationship. Elizabeth talks about this all the time in the trauma work that she does with people. A lot of the value ad is I'm modeling a kind of relationship that that person probably never got

based on their experiences. And then

this can be a kind of new model like you were talking about, dad, that the person can internalize and then, you know, change their behavior based on. So, I I just think all of this is so interesting.

It's so relevant. It's interesting. Uh

you're reminding me of this Instagram post thing I saw earlier today in which a woman was sharing that when she was growing up, she'd come home from school, they'd sit down to family dinner

and her dad would fairly often ask her and maybe other kids at the table, "So, tell us how did you fail today?"

And the frame was not bad. It was more like, "Good, way to go. you made an effort or you failed today, you're going to learn from it. Fantastic.

Yeah. No, I I think a huge piece of this is uh was love contingent on performance for you.

A lot of people they had the experience that love is contingent on performance.

I need to be a certain kind of way and particularly I need to be somebody who doesn't make a certain kind of mistake or you know mess up when I go out there in order to receive love when I come back to that base. And that makes that

base inherently not secure. It's not

stable. It's contingent. Right? Um, and

I think a big takeaway from all of this is that it's not that you get to be a secure base for yourself when you go out and like do the great thing and that's when you get to praise yourself. No, the

the base is stable because you try and you expended effort and you were like a reasonably good person and all of that. Like that's what it's contingent on. It's not contingent

on whether or not you got an A on the test. So to recap our first 15-ish

test. So to recap our first 15-ish minutes here and then we'll talk about what to do about all of this. First,

this is mostly not all because nothing is all, but this is mostly a nurture process for people.

That's how we're framing it. Our framing

is stuff happened and that stuff had consequences. And this is really

consequences. And this is really important because it makes this not a moral issue for somebody. you you don't lack this internalized secure base because you're like a bad person and you messed stuff up and you should have done

things differently. You lack it because

things differently. You lack it because stuff happened and that stuff had consequences and it was mostly stuff that happened before you had uh max agency. You have some agency as a kid

agency. You have some agency as a kid for sure, but you're also pretty implicated in a lot of stuff that you got very little control over and it's important to appreciate that in terms of

our framing here. Also, we get to change our behavior when we frame it as something that is based on learning.

Learned things can be unlearned or at the very least we can learn different stuff that helps us not automatically do those things we learned earlier. Right?

This is what makes change feel really accessible to people. And I think it's really important to emphasize that we tend to frame kids as like not fully baked. You know, stuff is going on.

baked. You know, stuff is going on.

They're learning. They're changing. All

of that. We tend to view adults as pretty baked. And again, if we're

pretty baked. And again, if we're carrying that kind of narrative frame around about ourselves, well, we this is just the way I am. I guess I'm stuck.

Oh, oh, here it is. You know, and I think that that frame is the basis of a lot of the challenges that people can have with making meaningful changes in adulthood or unlearning some of this

stuff. So, okay, how do we do all of

stuff. So, okay, how do we do all of this as an adult? How do we build that secure base? I think the same way that

secure base? I think the same way that kids do, except we layer on some extras because your brain becomes a little bit less plastic as you age. Sometimes a lot of bit less plastic depending on uh who

you were and what's going on and and how old you are in life. But a rough outline here. First, forming a coherent

here. First, forming a coherent narrative. That's making sense of what

narrative. That's making sense of what happened. Second, reparing. This is

happened. Second, reparing. This is

giving yourself the things that weren't there when you were younger. Third, what

I'm going to call object relations rescaling, which is not the tidiest phrase, but we're going to go with it here. Uh, this is kind of turning toward

here. Uh, this is kind of turning toward yourself and valuing yourself in different kinds of ways. Building up

that sense of like big strong self and also big world. And then finally, healthy exploration. What we were

healthy exploration. What we were talking about a lot in the intro. This

is going out into the world and having experiences based on that secure base.

So, starting at the beginning there, Dad, forming a coherent narrative. Could

you explain what this means and maybe give an example of it?

I recall having uh clients who come into my office and they're unhappy and they don't feel very alive and they're kind of trapped in certain relationship

paradigms and I'll ask them about their childhood and they'll say, "Oh, it was great." Oh, okay. Tell me more. Do you

great." Oh, okay. Tell me more. Do you

what do you what's your earliest memory?

Oh, I was maybe 10 or 11 years old and in fifth grade and so forth. Oh,

interesting. You don't remember anything before you were 10 or 11? Oh, that's a yellow flag. That's kind of a clue. Oh,

yellow flag. That's kind of a clue. Oh,

u what do you know about your parents in your childhood? For example, what kind

your childhood? For example, what kind of uh pregnancy did your mom have? Uh

were you intended? Uh what kind of parents did your parents have? Uh what

was your living circumstance during the first few years of your life? Oh, let's

see. Well, we my dad was in the merchant marine. and he was gone all the time. My

marine. and he was gone all the time. My

mom, well, we learned later my mom was drinking an awful lot while my dad was at sea. And you know, and that's kind of

at sea. And you know, and that's kind of where I was. And we lived in one place after another, not very stable. Oh,

interesting. Well, you're starting to form a picture and a picture that this person was in complete denial about.

They were completely out of touch with what actually happened. And then

gradually you start sorting out events, understandable impacts, other people, the complicated motivations and messy

processes of your parents who usually want to do a good job and often are unable to do a really good job. So what

happens then? So that's forming a coherent narrative. And in the process

coherent narrative. And in the process of that, it's not like Woody Allen able to write a PhD dissertation about, you know, the first three years of his life.

It's more like you just kind of come up with a a narrative, a story that that's meaningful to you. It has the ring of truth. It makes sense and it brings in a

truth. It makes sense and it brings in a kind of freedom for you. Oh, you know, there's a kind of Oh, yeah. That's how

it was. Having an explanation is a really beautiful thing in terms of how do you how you relate to yourself, how you relate to other people. When I was uh learning a little bit more about this, I bumped into something that just totally blew my mind. And this comes

from Mary Mane. This is the adult adult attachment interview research. And she

was trying to predict what helped a parent transmit secure attachment to their kid. So not what was the

their kid. So not what was the attachment style of the parent, but what was the factors that led to that attachment style then being internalized

or not internalized by the kid. And what

she found was that what was most predictive was not necessarily whether that parent themselves had a good childhood. Of course that helped a lot,

childhood. Of course that helped a lot, but there was another big factor and it was whether they had a coherent narrative about it. whether they could

talk about their own experiences and frame them and understand them without being kind of overwhelmed by them. Um,

and about 20%ish of adults with difficult early histories have what's called an earned secure classification.

They went through tough stuff, but they got to a more secure attachment style in part because they could relate to the past a lot more effectively. And I thought this was so cool because for starters,

it validates that you actually can do something about this. And second, it emphasizes like how important this making sense process is. Uh you get to

that aha moment where it's like, oh, oh yeah. And I also think that it can be um

yeah. And I also think that it can be um you know, make it not so much about who you are as a person and it can frame things more in terms of what was going on at the time. And yeah, kids

contribute to that too, for sure. And

like their own unique nature is a piece of the puzzle. Um but having that context, I just think it's like so helpful for people, right? Um I think maybe something to give a kind of

recommendation about this. I think this is more useful for people when it's not a purely intellectual process.

We can have a lot of thoughts and a lot of oh this was happening then and that was happening then. How does that all make you feel? You know how do you relate to it on maybe even like a physical level? Do you have a sensation

physical level? Do you have a sensation in the body that comes up? Do you have an emotion that comes up? For a lot of people, uh, coherent narrative work can be quite cathartic because this stuff

will pop up and they just see it in a different way than maybe they saw it in the past. I don't know if there's

the past. I don't know if there's anything else you want to add here, Dad, about what kind of makes this a juicy helpful process for people.

Huge question. popping up to the bird's eye view that can see what happened to you in your childhood 0 to 20 which

includes a lot of stuff with peers.

Um when you pop up to that bird's eye view and see it more impersonally and can sort of accept it as the unfolding of all kinds of impersonal

processes that may have been terrible but they they weren't personal in a lot of ways in a funny kind of way. Doing

that can bring you back into a very intimate and tender and personal uh nurturance for yourself.

And that also builds up that internalized secure base because you can count on yourself eventually to discern the truth. You can count on yourself to

the truth. You can count on yourself to gradually figure things out to clarify what was really going on, what was really the case. You don't need to have it perfect, uh, but you know, you have

it good enough. So, that's part one.

part two um just like you're saying the the felt sense of it to to really feel in other words what were the experiences

that you were actually having and why when you were or not having yeah 9 years old or even you can kind of guess and intuit it when you were 9 months old what were the experiences you

were having and then those all kind of fit together that gives you a sense of freedom okay that happened it also will often move you to uh different kinds of

forgiveness, you know, including a greater understanding. You know, you don't take

understanding. You know, you don't take it so personally. You were there when it happened. It was really unfortunate. The

happened. It was really unfortunate. The

impact on you was real and you may be dealing with the consequences.

Um, but you start to understand more that unless it's some really quite extraordinary, deliberate, even sadistic form of abuse from some parents or

caregivers of different kinds, uh, that you know, your parents were a hot mess and a mixed bag and you you can kind of hold it in a fuller way. So you're not

carrying along a pathizing that's excessive of your family of origin and you're not carrying with you the burdensome, you know, kind of grievance

centered case against the people who brought you up. You're not letting them off the hook, but you're not carrying that kind of hot burning coal around with you.

I think I think that can really go either way for people. You know, there are some people where they do this kind of reflective process and it it does what you're talking about. You know, it

helps them see their parents as flawed individuals who did dumb stuff, but you know, well-meaning and did the best they could given circumstances. And you can

sort of appreciate the sacrifices that your parents made or the efforts that they put in maybe a little bit more when you're, you know, a parent yourself or getting a little older in life, uh, than

you can when you're a 16-year-old or whatever it is sometimes. Um, I've I've had a small amount of that myself and I'm sure I'll have even more of it when I uh produce kids if I do ever produce

kids. Uh, also some people go back and

kids. Uh, also some people go back and they do this process and they go, "Man, that was messed up."

Yeah, man. That was really screwed up, man.

man. That was really screwed up, man.

What were they thinking?

Oh, what were they? Oh, yeah. And and

you can really go the other way with it.

So I I've seen it go both ways, but I I think that kind of reckoning with it is unquestionably really helpful for people in the exact way that you're describing.

It's kind of a a good exercise for people to write a bit of an autobiograph autobiography about themselves that that

is very accurate and also tender and nurturing and supportive. That's when

one way into a coherent narrative about who you are. Another way into it, if you really want to be bold, is to write your own obituary.

I did that in a retreat one time uh focused on living and dying and living and going back to your favorite author Irving yellow uh a matter of death and

life, his great book with his wife. Um

anyway, we each wrote our own obituary for about 10 minutes and then we exchanged it with others. So you would hear another person reading your obituary.

And not to be morbid about it, but it's a really sweet way in if you can do it uh into kind of like telling the story of who you are in in ways that are um

kind and and accurate.

Well, that's some that's some deep and I think it'd be really useful for people. I mean, I've done various things

people. I mean, I've done various things that are are in that lane as as I've I've talked with you about. I have a bit of um I don't know what the kindest way to put this is. A bit of a death preoccupation for it feeds my

existential bent. I don't know what the

existential bent. I don't know what the chicken and the egg on that one is. Uh

but one way or the other. But I think those kinds of processes, you know, we we often have a arms length relationship with uh the reality that the ride's coming to an end for all of us. We've talked about that a lot

us. We've talked about that a lot recently in some of the the episodes we've done about existential approaches to therapy and things like that. Um, but

doing that can be remarkably crystallizing for a person, including in how we tell the story about ourselves.

Yeah. Yeah.

Sorry for the brief interruption here.

Thanks so much for watching my channel.

But it's come to my attention that over 60% of the people who are watching this right now are not subscribed. So, if you could take a moment and uh what's what did they what did they say? Smash that

like button, subscribe to the channel, whatever it is, we'd really appreciate it. All right. So, thanks a bunch. Well,

it. All right. So, thanks a bunch. Well,

I want to ask you about number two on our list here, which is reparing yourself. Yes. Which I don't think we've

yourself. Yes. Which I don't think we've ever formally talked about using the word reparing on the podcast in the past. Uh you had actually this fantastic

past. Uh you had actually this fantastic riff again in a episode a little while ago that we did on the inner child, which I love that episode. If you know it's on YouTube, it's on the podcast feed. You can look it up if you haven't

feed. You can look it up if you haven't uh listened to it yet where you talked about the role of parents in general.

And I think we can basically steal that for what we're trying to accomplish here in terms of what we're trying to give ourselves. So, you want to run through

ourselves. So, you want to run through that? You had these four categories that

that? You had these four categories that I really loved.

Oh, that was sweet. And I I kind of did it off the top of my head, but it's sort of like And you did do it off the top of your head. It was literally off the dome.

head. It was literally off the dome.

There was no prep. You just did it. And

I was like, "Wow, stuck the landing." 10

from the 10 from the judges. Yeah.

Well, it's sort of like when you just see what's true. So

nurturing, celebrating, guiding and receiving such fundamentally important qualities

in parents and I didn't do it perfectly, but still we can make efforts in the direction of nurturing, celebrating, guiding, and receiving. So

I think you were pretty darn good about these things, Dad. I would say you were in the the top percentiles one way or the other. Yeah. Oh, well

the other. Yeah. Oh, well

you were pretty easy to nurture, celebrate, guide. You were tough to

celebrate, guide. You were tough to guide man.

Tell the truth.

Thank you. I'm glad you told the truth there, Dad. Um, yeah. No, I mean, real

there, Dad. Um, yeah. No, I mean, real real talk. Uh, I was not that interested

real talk. Uh, I was not that interested in other people telling me what to do.

That's for darn sure. So, anyways, keep on going here.

You would smile, shrug, and just go your own way, you know? I did have a tendency to smile and nod and then do whatever I was going to do in the first place. Yes.

Within reason. Within reason. Within

reason.

Not too crazy.

Yeah. And receive. So, um, can we do this for ourselves? So, first off, nurturing. And I I'll just hit them kind

nurturing. And I I'll just hit them kind of quickly and then I know you've got some good stuff to say about it. So,

what is it to nurture? Well, to nurture is sort of like fertilizing.

You know, that's kind of where it comes from. We are fertilizing ourselves. We

from. We are fertilizing ourselves. We

are growing the good in ourselves. One

way to nurture ourselves is to help ourselves drop into settings that are fertile ground for us so the flowers and fruits can really develop there. You

know, you're nurturing a little bit like when you're with other people, do do you feel bigger or smaller after you're done talking with them? And for

me, that's kind of the giveaway, including if you're just starting to date people. Do you feel bigger or

date people. Do you feel bigger or smaller when you leave the room, when you're done? And people who nurture us

you're done? And people who nurture us help us feel bigger when we leave. Well,

what's it like when you talk to yourself?

Do you feel smaller after you're given yourself a big talking to or you feel bigger? Like maybe okay, there's some guiding. I'll get to that in a second, but you feel larger. So,

can you bring that quality of nurturance to yourself? Celebrating. There's a kind

to yourself? Celebrating. There's a kind of technical term in developmental psychology called prizing. That's really

important. That three-year-old kid runs into the room, "Daddy, daddy, mommy, mommy, look at this." And they've done some kind of fingerpainting. You say,

"That's fantastic. Oh, you really, really made a beautiful thing. You know,

I so appreciate your effort and what you brought to it. Tell me more about the colors, etc., etc., etc." I mean there's some good stuff about growth mindset

that we want to be a little careful about fixating on performance and as parents we want to give feedback a lot about effort and learning along the way.

Kind of like my example earlier. So tell

me good news. Tell me how you failed today. Let's celebrate your failures and

today. Let's celebrate your failures and what you're learning from them and the efforts you made to put yourself in a position where you could even fail because you ventured out into the deep

dark blue. You explored. You don't fail

dark blue. You explored. You don't fail if you're glued to your base, right? You

got to go out. So beautiful. So we

celebrate. We prize. And I'm astonished.

I'm just astonished by the dir of sincere acknowledgement in the culture broadly. I'm just kind of

perplexed by it. I don't get it. I see

all these people working really hard, doing a good job and other people kind of glancing their way, shrugging and moving on.

And this I'm not talking about sick of fancy like chat GPT or something like that you know. Oh everything is wonderful you know that was the greatest idea in the

history plus 2= 5. How creative. Way to

go Rick. No no no no not that at all.

Right. Uh but it's where you you celebrate your own efforts. You see

them. You see the tenderheartedness. You

see how scary it was but you still tried anyway. You spoke up. You raised your

anyway. You spoke up. You raised your hand. You opened your heart. You

hand. You opened your heart. You

admitted fault. Way to go. Right. We can

bring that to ourselves. Okay. And then

guiding. I love this idea of a guide rather than a critic. Guides will say things to you in my case like, "Stop whining, Hansen. Start climbing."

whining, Hansen. Start climbing."

Right? Uh but they don't do it in a mean way. There's an encouraging quality in

way. There's an encouraging quality in the guiding. There's a focusing on what

the guiding. There's a focusing on what you want to aim toward, not just where you're offtarget. You know, the meaning

you're offtarget. You know, the meaning of sin, I think, is you're offtarget.

Okay, that's informative, but it's even more informative to know what the virtue is. What's the positive, the good that

is. What's the positive, the good that you are cultivating inside yourself and building in the world. So, I'll finish there. Nurturing, celebrating, guiding,

there. Nurturing, celebrating, guiding, listening. Yeah, I think it's a pretty

listening. Yeah, I think it's a pretty good combination applied to ourselves.

It's a great one. Um, I think that that kind of receiving aspect is one that often gets missed for people. If you

have a contentious relationship with your inner child, which a lot of people do, that voice gets kind of tossed into the trunk of the car. To borrow a metaphor from Terry Real here, uh, his

version of things was that you don't want the inner child to have its hands on the driver's wheel, but you also don't want to have it all the way in the back of the bus, right? It's kind of

riding shotgun with you, you know, controlled setting. And there's a ton of

controlled setting. And there's a ton of material out there on reparing. We we

could do many episodes on it, many whole episodes on it.

But the crux of this is we're trying to have what people will call corrective emotional experiences.

And it's difficult for us to have those corrective experiences if we're locked into a pattern of behavior. If our

pattern of behavior with ourself is the opposite of all the things that you were describing there, Dad, if it's harshly punishing while also kind of weirdly being excessively permissive while also

not really providing a lot of uh listening to that inner child while also certainly doing very little nurturing of it, we're not going to have the positive experiences that then help people build

new ideas about who they are. So, we got to kind of like open up some stuff around that in order to be able to do all of this. So, like how do you do that, right? Um, lot of answers. One

that, right? Um, lot of answers. One

possible answer, work with a great therapist. That's why we're, you know,

therapist. That's why we're, you know, big advocates of therapy. And

unfortunately, not everybody has access to that. Another possibility here is for

to that. Another possibility here is for starters, just trying to relate to yourself in that more nurturing way can sometimes get there with people. They'll

often bump into a wall of self-judgment, self-criticism. This feels really hokey.

self-criticism. This feels really hokey.

This is really dumb. what am I actually doing here? So, that can make it a

doing here? So, that can make it a little bit tough. What you can do or what most people can do in most situations is try to seek out people or

activities that give you more of the experience that you're looking for. So,

this could be trying to find more friends who are nurturing and supportive and celebrating and guiding and all the things that we're talking about. It

could mean engaging in activities that give you this kind of feeling that you're trying to give yourself, uh engaging with art, meditative practice, uh doing things that increase your

overall sense of like bigness of who you are. And I think it also actually

are. And I think it also actually connects a little bit to what we're going to talk about next to your dad, which is the the rescaling the object relations part of it. But I'm also wondering, what do you think about this?

Like what helps people build this different kind of relationship with themselves? because it's it's great to

themselves? because it's it's great to say, you know, guide and prize yourself to somebody, but the actual how of that can be pretty tricky for people.

It's hugely important. Um, and it's been absolutely central for me. You know,

I've talked about taking in the good, filling the hole in my heart.

Very Rick Hansen 101 kind of stuff.

Yeah.

Yeah. And part of what's at the heart of it goes back to the very first thing we started talking about existentially.

What can you count on in this topsyturvy, turbulent and unreliable world? Can you have that sense of trust

world? Can you have that sense of trust applied to yourself that you will catch yourself if you fall? You will pick yourself up. You will repair yourself.

yourself up. You will repair yourself.

You will regulate yourself. You will

guide yourself. And that's very very intimate. You want to build up a sense

intimate. You want to build up a sense of being able that you are someone you can count on. So you have that sense of determination and moxy inside. You are

going to help yourself. You are not going to have a life that sucks.

Whatever the past has been, you are going to do everything you can going forward every day. You know, it's the spirit of that. It's the spirit of that.

And then if you're doing then on the basis of that I think the number one way to help yourself is to repeatedly um

find or mainly self-generate these kind of experiences in which you're nurturing yourself, you're celebrating yourself, you're guiding yourself and you're really listening to yourself. You're

giving yourself the experience of really being heard. You really can do that. You

being heard. You really can do that. You

can be nurturing to yourself, right? you

can see the good in yourself. And then

when you're doing that and you're having the experience of being nurtured, the experience of being celebrated, being um

skillfully guided, being listened to, take in that good five or 10 seconds at a time a thousand times over the next

few years. Bingo. You can tell I have

few years. Bingo. You can tell I have I've I've done this myself. I've seen

many many people. I've guided many many many people to do it. It really works.

Yeah. I I'm thinking of a person who is hearing us say all of this and their internal feeling about it is some

version of well that sounds really great but whenever I go that way with myself and

try to it feels inauthentic kind of fake more critical voices come in pretty easily.

So, I know you're telling me to kind of just do it, but I I don't know. When I

just do it, it goes sideways on me or something.

So, I'm wondering for that person. Yeah.

Yeah. Totally right. Um, well, two things. One, just like you would, I

things. One, just like you would, I would ask, oh, okay. What's the function that serves?

Yeah, good question. One of my favorites. What's the payoff for that

favorites. What's the payoff for that form of self-doubt or that rapid swerving away? Oh, I just can't do it.

It doesn't.

How does that serve also that kind of critical voice to some extent? You

swerving away.

It protects people.

Um, and it, you know, what does it protect them from? Because logically

they they want what they're trying to create, right? They want to feel uh more

create, right? They want to feel uh more whole and worthy and theoretically Yeah. inside. uh but probably being more

Yeah. inside. uh but probably being more that way is associated with risks of different kinds of dreaded experiences and so unconsciously they just shut the process down. So it's helpful to

process down. So it's helpful to surface. What do you think would happen

surface. What do you think would happen that would be scary for you if you had more faith in yourself? So the next one

on our list here is rebuilding our sense of self and other. And most people have that sense of kind of small me big scary world or at least most of the people who deal with this kind of an issue of that

sort of internalized sense. What do you think helps somebody rebalance that a little bit and build up more of that sense of like I am just as strong and just as reliable and just as fill in the

blank, whatever fill in the blank is for that person that they're going for and I can deal with all of that stuff out there. It's not so much that we're

there. It's not so much that we're trying to make the stuff out there smaller. We're just trying to make

smaller. We're just trying to make ourselves a little bit bigger here. For

me a revvelatory example of this uh to credit came from I think the work of James Mastersonson. Imagine two circles

James Mastersonson. Imagine two circles uh you know like a big circle and a little circle and imagine that the big circle is like a planet and the little circle is like a moon orbiting the

planet. For many people their object

planet. For many people their object relations of world and self are given in this image. The world of other people

this image. The world of other people looms large in their mind. They are

preoccupied with other people and they're very referenced to other people and they orbit other people in a way

that prevents them from both landing into full intimacy or breaking free into full individuation.

And they tend to preserve an optimal distance. They neither come fully close

distance. They neither come fully close nor break freely away. And to be able to both come fully close and to break freely away that goes to your material

and mine about autonomy and intimacy.

That autonomy is in the service of intimacy. So building up that sense of a

intimacy. So building up that sense of a big me um enables us both to enter into real intimacy with with appropriate

people as well as to live our lives uh in ways that are not contingent on or or bound to or um

in reference to other people. That's the

great opportunity. So how do we do it?

And I love that image of myself. Um it

really helps first to just do regular mindfulness practices where your own inner world becomes richer for you. It

becomes more salient. It has more volume and you explore it. And the more you explore it, the vaster and more layered becomes. As you increase the granularity

becomes. As you increase the granularity of your mindfulness in both space and time, you're able to notice smaller and smaller and smaller units of experience, particularly non-verbal experience. And

in terms of time, you're able to track things that move very quickly in the stream of consciousness. Beautiful.

Well, is that's a really direct way that's under your control to grow that sense of self. Another thing you can do, and it's an exercise that I've done

deliberately, is to notice the degree to which when you're walking across a room, you're doing that in reference to other people. Like how

do you walk across a room when there are other people in the room versus how do you walk across the room when you're the only person in the room? And if you want you can imagine this frankly without

clothes on, right? How would you be in different conditions, right? And notice

what it feels like to be able to walk across the room without any reference to anybody else. And then see if

anybody else. And then see if increasingly you can do that when there really are other people in the room.

When you're insecurely attached, the object, the caregiver looms large in your mind because you've got to monitor them. There's a lot of evidence that

them. There's a lot of evidence that shows that. In other words, if you are

shows that. In other words, if you are used to a parent who's very supportive and you launch across the visual cliff, you might look back once or twice, but you know they're going to be watching you the whole time. So, you don't have

to keep monitoring them and they don't punish you for separating from them or manipulate you to come back, right? You can count on that. You

back, right? You can count on that. You

don't need to keep checking, right? But

if you're insecurely attached, you got to keep checking. So, you want to be aware of that tendency to keep checking.

What do you think about me now? Are are

you still impressed with me? Still

impressed with me? Do you still think I'm cute? Do you still like me? See if

I'm cute? Do you still like me? See if

you can be aware of that. And then

increasingly just diff, you know, let it go. And I um myself I draw in some of my

go. And I um myself I draw in some of my own background as a meditator to realize that the messiness of my own stream of consciousness

and the way that it's 97% unrelated to anything happening around me in the world including with you right now.

What well that's the case for other people too. We are just kind of you know

people too. We are just kind of you know a bit player in their personal drama today. They don't care that much.

today. They don't care that much.

They're not that preoccupied with you.

It's okay. And you don't have you can be a kind and virtuous person, but you don't you don't have to feel so bound to all the flatsom and jetums that you think might be streaming through, you

know, the consciousness of that other person. Those are those are good ways.

person. Those are those are good ways.

I'll leave it there maybe. What do you think? What's worked for you?

think? What's worked for you?

I thought those are all great. And I'm

going to approach this maybe a slightly different way. When we don't know the

different way. When we don't know the answer to the question, who am I? We are

very interested in other people's opinions about what that answer should be.

Yeah.

So, we go out into the world and we do things and we look at other people's reactions to what we're doing. Did you

like that? Was that okay? Was that good?

Did I get praised for that? And then we start calibrating our own not just our own behavior but our own internalized likes and dislikes and sense of who we

are based on those reactions based on what we see do well with other people.

Get a rise out of them earn us praise all of that kind of stuff. And then over time, this is what builds up that sense of big, powerful, external, other,

small, little uncertainty because we're highly leveraged into all of these other people's opinions, all of the other answers to the question, who am I that we receive along the way from other

people. Uh, you know, we joked earlier,

people. Uh, you know, we joked earlier, joked, not joked earlier about me being a little bit of a a difficult bean to guide in some ways because I would, you know, nod along and be like, "Yes, yes."

and then, you know, do whatever it was that I was going to do. I was able to do that because I knew that your guys' love and affection was not contingent. You

know, I could do it and I would and you know, yeah, okay, this might I might get into a little trouble here, but end of the day, I know that's going to be all right and I don't have to be constantly monitoring, you know, in terms of like will will

they love me? Will they take me back?

All of that. Um that I know that many people have to constantly monitor when they're a younger person. And then we we learn that that's the behavior that gets us where we want to go. So, okay, what

helps us answer that question for ourselves? What helps us care about our

ourselves? What helps us care about our own answer to that question? And here's

where I think a lot of the coherent narrative stuff comes in as well. Like

these two tend to dance together in really nice ways cuz you go back and start asking, wait, what did matter to me? Wait, what

did I care about? wait, what was going on for me in that moment that I was kind of ignoring or not paying attention to or whatever. Uh even valuing your own

or whatever. Uh even valuing your own sensations. For a lot of people, it can

sensations. For a lot of people, it can be really novel to be like, "Hey, I'm uncomfortable."

uncomfortable." And to express that to other people, actually, I'm not comfortable right now.

I would like it if I could sit over there.

Wo, that's like a novel communication for them.

Cuz maybe they weren't allowed to make that kind of a communication, you know?

So it doesn't need to be all at once and it doesn't need to be dramatic initially but there are these little ways where we start going okay you know we're uh we're

with other people in an elevator and the elevator is very crowded and that's life. We're constantly surrounded by

life. We're constantly surrounded by others. We're constantly jockeying for

others. We're constantly jockeying for space but you are allowed to take up at least one human's amount of space inside of that elevator. You do not need to make yourself this tiny little shrimp

that's huddled in the corner. You know,

you are allowed 130th or whatever if that would be a very packed elevator, but you take my beating here. 130th of

the space in that elevator. If not, hey, maybe even a little bit extra in certain circumstances. So, that's kind of how I

circumstances. So, that's kind of how I think about it. And and that frame of like how do I answer that question? How

do I care about my answer to it? I think

it'd be really helpful for people.

That's really lovely, Forest. Um,

you're reminding me of some things that worked for you and I think I could use a couple of examples.

There were also plenty of things that didn't work for me, but go ahead with some of the ones that worked here, Durious about your take on this.

Yeah, we're talking about individuation.

Yes.

And an aspect of which is differentiation. I'm going to get to

differentiation. I'm going to get to that in a second.

So, I think about two things that I can look back that I think were real, three things really that were very vital for you. One was starting to play Magic the

you. One was starting to play Magic the Gathering. And

Gathering. And no, this is a good point because this actually this got me out of the house. I

was engaging socially with other people.

I was kind of unsupervised as a, you know, 14-year-old. Oo. Being dropped

off at the game store.

Sometimes younger. And you were good at it. And you made it your own. And

it. And you made it your own. And

I felt good at it. Yeah.

Yeah. And it was your own. We're talking

in a way about claiming your own life at this point, right? Creating a big circle yourself. So, and and yeah, I mean, an

yourself. So, and and yeah, I mean, an equivalent for me a little bit in a different mode was Boy Scouts where I got to go camping. I got to be out in the wild. I had a natural feeling for

the wild. I had a natural feeling for it. I mean, you got very good at magic

it. I mean, you got very good at magic really quickly. You have a natural

really quickly. You have a natural feeling for it. So, you were successful in it.

Second was theater and third was dance.

And this this takes you through young adulthood. You're still a young whippers

adulthood. You're still a young whippers snapper.

Yeah. took me

early 20s. Yeah.

Before you turn into Well, that's that's a very generous interpretation, but but I appreciate it, Dad. I'm hanging on over here. I'm

Dad. I'm hanging on over here. I'm

hanging on. No, I I think this is very well diagnosed, actually. Um,

and and I think you're right, and these were to some extent like three kind of developmental phases. I mean obviously I

developmental phases. I mean obviously I was doing all of them to varying degrees over over longer periods of time but um there was a lot of initial game playing exploration the experience of being good

at something all of that with some of the magic stuff and then theater was predominantly a high school thing a lot of self-expression in that um and including something that my parents had

zero feel for whatsoever in terms of theater and dancing like that was I mean mom a little bit with uh did some has a little bit of a dance background but um it wasn't something that I got into

because you told me, "Hey, Sunny, this is what you're going to do at all." If

anything, you guys were like, "What?

Where is this coming from?" But I was I was really supported ballroom like what?

You know, I was really supported and enabled in that pursuit of my own individuality. Um, and so I guess the

individuality. Um, and so I guess the question for people is how can you give yourself more of that sense now, which like what was going on for me?

Well, I felt safe. I felt secure. And I

cared about what I liked.

Yeah.

And so I wonder about developing developing that for people like do you care about what you like? What would it be like to care more about what you like? All of that kind of stuff.

like? All of that kind of stuff.

And you backed your play. Um you on my own side.

Yeah. You were supporting yourself in in flowering and blossoming in certain domains and you were interested in it.

It was in positive feedback based off of it from you guys. You were really supportive of

you guys. You were really supportive of it and and these all these things fed fed each other. Yeah.

Yeah. So, I think it's a great point.

Yeah. Looking for like passions or interests and developing them. Great.

Another one. Now, I'm going to put you on the spot a little bit and I think it's okay because um many people will have seen the person

the other person I'm talking about. U

you and Elizabeth are similar in some ways and different in other ways.

Radically different in most ways. Yes.

Okay. Except for like core nature ways were very similar. All the important stuff very similar. All the

presentational stuff radically different.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And I love Virginia Satir.

One of the episodes maybe we'll go back and Yeah. We got to do a satir episode.

Yeah. We got to do a satir episode.

Yeah. And really explore people like who knows Ronald Fairbar. And I love the fact that in Scottish his last name means beautiful child, right? So anyway,

I love that. Uh of course. Um yeah,

Virginia Satir, she had a thing about the importance in family therapy of normalizing differences because some we need to differentiate in order to integrate. We need to be

autonomous in order to be intimate. So

it's a good path for a person to name differences. I'll give you some

differences. I'll give you some examples. for a person who grew up let's

examples. for a person who grew up let's say with a big powerful dominating authority figures that always had to be taken into account to be able to say to

them for example I have a different opinion or well I understand these parts that

you see and in addition I see this that's really scary for people or to say well I I understand what you're saying

and it's just not true.

Oh, or well, I get what you want here and I want something different.

Or well, you like me more than I like you and that's okay, right? Or something really matters to

right? Or something really matters to you and you think it's God-given that it really ought to matter, like never having a dirty dish in the sink.

Frankly, it just doesn't matter to me. I

may accommodate you, but it's never going to matter to me.

You could just kind of feel if I were doing this in a room of people, it would start getting pretty Oh, this this is totally novel for many many people. The idea that you even

many people. The idea that you even could say things like that. Yeah.

And that's another way you can really help yourself. Now, maybe you need to

help yourself. Now, maybe you need to practice saying these things as I did. I

had to practice saying no to my father.

Two letters, N O. First time I did it, my heart was pounding. I was in my mid20s, believe it or not. Uh when I did it, and uh so maybe you want to write stuff out or journal or practice

offstage and kind of sort out, you know, don't take stupid risks, da da. But uh

communicating differences and normalizing differences is a major way to grow your circle and to shrink the size of the other circle in your mind.

Love it. I think that's a great summary of what we were talking about inside of that section in general and emphasizes how hard it can be for people to do that kind of a process and like stick up for

themselves in that sort of way. And then

that gets to what we want to talk about at the end here, which is the idea of healthy exploration that we can build a kind of selfrust by going out into the world and then

being able to really come back to ourselves. And that takes us all the way

ourselves. And that takes us all the way back to this image that we talked about at the very beginning. You know, the kid looking over their shoulder, seeing the parent, and that seeing is what then

allows them to go out further. And a few things here to emphasize. First, the

parent doesn't have to do anything.

They're just being there.

That's right.

Ideally, in a kind of like warm and supportive way, but yeah, they're not they're not, you know, fireworks going off. They're

not doing anything crazy. They're just

there. That's it.

So, the adult version of this, can you go out into the world, take your lumps, or have your victories cuz could go either way, and still have something to

come back to. still something that's there. You know, it's not excessively

there. You know, it's not excessively rah. It's not excessively punishing.

rah. It's not excessively punishing.

It's just present. Approaching things in that kind of a way is a really beautiful mindset, right? The base has to be

mindset, right? The base has to be reliable for people regardless of what happens when you go out. Cuz a lot of the time the kid goes out and they stub their toe, they smash their head, and

then they come back screaming and mom's like, "Hey, it's okay.

No, we got you." Yeah, that wasn't like the smartest thing ever. I I wouldn't recommend trying to uh skateboard down the stairs next time. We're going to we're going to work on that one together. But, you know, the love is not

together. But, you know, the love is not contingent in that kind of the way.

There might be a little laughter, a little like, hey, kiddo, you got to mess that one up. Sure. Like you're saying, guidance is a part of this thing, but yeah, maybe wear a helmet set next time.

I don't know. But end of the day, you are not kicked out on the front porch.

You know, the base is still secure. And

I think that like forming that kind of self- relationship as we do this is just such a big part of this whole process.

So setting you up there, dad, is there anything about this differentiation part of the part of the puzzle that you want to emphasize here?

Um, you may have noticed that when you first started talking, I really lit up and you loved it.

And yeah, and I started getting a sense of like essentially the the parent, let's say, to the toddler who's going out over that visual cliff is simply witnessing.

Typically the parent would be told, "Don't say anything. just in a friendly way just keep watching and give your child the certainty that every time they

look back you are still with them. Okay.

Well, I thought it's actually easy to give ourselves bear witnessing

to have what it could feel like is a kind of depth in ourselves that is witnessing ourselves.

Some of the more active forms of reparing or self-paring, they're they're pretty active. you know, giving yourself

pretty active. you know, giving yourself nurturance and then when you start to experience being nurtured, then start taking in that experience. That's pretty

active. Takes some skillfulness and some deliberate effort over multiple seconds to do that. But the continuity of being a witness to your own experience, to

your own efforts, to being a witness to who you are being and becoming, that's a pretty low bar. And yet, much as with that parent who is simply

witnessing their child, it really can have a huge amount of impact.

Totally. And I I love that in terms of how you're you're just framing all of this here, Dad. Um I do want to ask you about a common question that people have about this, which is there's a kind of painful chicken and the egg to this

whole thing that I myself sort of struggle in terms of how to talk with people about it or or how to help people through this. They say, "Okay, you know,

through this. They say, "Okay, you know, I can't build self-rust without going out into the world trying and having new experiences." That's what you're telling

experiences." That's what you're telling me, right? You got to go try stuff in

me, right? You got to go try stuff in order to have these experiences of supporting yourself through trying stuff, right? But I also can't go out

stuff, right? But I also can't go out and try stuff without some self-rust.

So, how do what can I do initially to get to the starting line where I can start going out and trying stuff? And

I'm wondering what you think about that.

I think first, very consistent with Forest Hansen, um I would ask, "Oh, that's interesting. What is the payoff

that's interesting. What is the payoff for you of that inquiry?"

Yeah.

What function does that inquiry serve?

And maybe it it doesn't serve any function. It's just a super um simple

function. It's just a super um simple and straightforward at face value kind of question. But very often I find that

of question. But very often I find that people spin into these what-ifs frankly because it serves the function of

protecting them in various ways against things that they fear might might happen might happen. So that would be the first

might happen. So that would be the first point but then taking it at face value.

Uh I'm a big believer in building up your resources before you challenge yourself.

My grandfather uh apparently was taught to swim as a boy in Los Angeles maybe around 1910 or 20 by his father when he

was like five or six taking him to the end of this pier in Long Beach out into the ocean and throwing him over the side to sink or to swim. Well, that's one way

to learn to swim, but it's a lot better to resource yourself before you face that kind of a challenge. And so one ways various ways to do this to build up that sense of selfrust or your own

intermoxy, you know, know what it's like to see for yourself what you think about a certain situation. Just that

experience of being with a bunch of people or thinking about politics or looking out at the world to know what it's like to form your own considered

view that's discerning and grounded and mostly if not entirely true. What's that

like? You don't need anyone's permission to do that. Also, what's it like to do physically challenging things? Hold a

yoga pose. You know, I'm supposed to now do this weird dog calf cow. I don't even know what it's called in yoga to strengthen the muscles in my back to protect my neck. What's it like to hold

that pose? What's it like to actually do

that pose? What's it like to actually do that? Know what that feels like inside

that? Know what that feels like inside yourself. And then when you go out in

yourself. And then when you go out in the world with that well-chosen challenge and you succeed at it, bring that big spoon, really take in the good of that experience and do it again and

again and again and kind of build from there. That too is a wonderful path. And

there. That too is a wonderful path. And

I don't care how old you are. you know,

I don't care how even physically compromised you are. You

know, in your own mind, you can still engage in that process.

Well, I think that we could talk about this pretty much endlessly here because it is such a huge and important topic and we have a bunch of other episodes that dance around aspects of some of the

other things that we talked about today or some of the many things that we talked about today, I should say. All of

our episodes on attachment get on this at least a little bit. episode that I already mentioned about the inner child.

Really like that episode. I think there could be some stuff there for people. Uh

even some of our episodes we've done on parenting actually have some kind of implications here around how to relate to yourself in this kind of supportive way. As we get to the end here, Dad, is

way. As we get to the end here, Dad, is there anything else that you've had going in the back of your mind that you want to highlight? Anything you want to make sure that we say before we get to the end? How are you thinking about all

the end? How are you thinking about all of this? I love this topic and you can

of this? I love this topic and you can tell that it's been very important for me personally.

Yeah.

And one aspect of this topic is embedded in a truthtelling that the world is often very shaky and unreliable. Other

people often disappoint.

Conditions fall apart. You know, to quote a translation of our best guess at the Buddhist last words, things fall apart. Tread your path with care. Tread

apart. Tread your path with care. Tread

your path with care. With

conscientiousness and with heart, with care. Last, uh, for many people, me

care. Last, uh, for many people, me included, there can be found a sense inside yourself, kind of underneath it

all, deep down. Sometimes people talk about it at the core. Um, that is always coherent. It's always already present,

coherent. It's always already present, already wakeful, already witnessing, already wise, already supportive,

already at peace, already unsustainable and indestructible. And that's the core

and indestructible. And that's the core within every being. Certainly, even

without resort to anything transcendental or spiritual, you can get in touch with that part of yourself. And

for many people that innermost part kind of opens out into something transpersonal but minimally getting in touch with that core that too is a very

fundamental foundation for being able to for where you can stand as you trust yourself. Maybe one final thing at the

yourself. Maybe one final thing at the end end here is something that you mentioned actually in an email to me when we were preparing for this episode, but that I wanted to make sure that we

said, you know, a base by definition is kind of one stable solid thing, right?

If the secure base you're trying to stand on is made up of all these little fragmented parts, it's going to be really tough to find your footing. And

we can kind of relate to ourselves that way. You know, many people have a sense

way. You know, many people have a sense of themselves as being quite fragmented uh in different ways all the way up to uh clinically relevant forms of fragmentation that a person might

experience. What can we do to kind of

experience. What can we do to kind of bring all of that together to some extent, wrap our arms around it and view ourselves increasingly as a one person, you know, made up of many parts, yes,

but all of those parts are part of this whole. And sometimes for people that can

whole. And sometimes for people that can be supported by that sense of what I was talking about a little bit ago, caring about yourself, valuing yourself, being able to answer the question, who am I?

What are the what's the stuff out there that matters to me? Because in I and in me, there is an implicit sense of oneness and unity and this is the thing

underneath all of this stuff. And so

there's this kind of push pull in a lot of what we talk about on the podcast between on the one hand really recognizing, you know, you're a thing made up of parts. You are constantly changing. I is kind of a lie at the end

changing. I is kind of a lie at the end of the day. What do we mean by this thing that's looking through our eyes?

All of that good stuff all the way out to, you know, deep end of the pool that you like to go to sometimes, Dad. Um,

but for people who struggle with this particular kind of issue of that internalized secure base, getting your hands more around a sense of this is me and I am it and I matter too can be

really really important for people. So I

just wanted to kind of leave people with that at the end.

Thank you.

Oh, thanks a bunch buddy. Thanks a

bunch. So really love doing this one with you today. I had a lot of fun recording this and I hope that people got a lot of value out of it.

Beautiful.

I really enjoyed talking with Rick today about how we can become more of a secure base for ourselves. To put it another way, how we can become more securely attached to ourselves. This is something

that we are supposed to develop when we are very very young. But unfortunately

for a lot of people, their life circumstances, one where they just don't. Maybe they don't have a very

don't. Maybe they don't have a very supportive family environment. Maybe

there was other stuff that was going on that made this really difficult to develop. But for whatever reason, we

develop. But for whatever reason, we have to do it in adulthood. And that's

what we talked about today. So before I get into our brief outro here, I wanted to give you a quick reminder about Rick's course on healing insecure attachment. It's a 5week online course

attachment. It's a 5week online course from Rick. You can find more information

from Rick. You can find more information at rickansson.com/attachment

at rickansson.com/attachment and use coupon code beingwell 25 to receive a 25% off discount. Okay, so

what does it mean to be a secure base for yourself? A secure base means that

for yourself? A secure base means that we have a stable enough internal foundation so that we can go out into the world. We can interact with other

the world. We can interact with other people, experience difficulty, make mistakes, ups and downs, all that good stuff, and then return to ourselves.

It's Winnott's idea of the good enough parent, but you're forming that kind of positive, supportive relationship with yourself. And there are four ways that

yourself. And there are four ways that people can go about doing this that we talked about during this episode. I'm

sure there are many others as well.

First, creating a coherent narrative.

Second, reparing yourself. Third, uh

rescaling your sense of object relations. And then fourth, healthy

relations. And then fourth, healthy exploration. That's going out into the

exploration. That's going out into the world and trying new things from that secure base. And that image of a kid

secure base. And that image of a kid looking back over their shoulder at their caregiver and going, "Hey, are you there? Like, do you see me? Are you

there? Like, do you see me? Are you

still with me?" That's really the image that I'm going to take away from this episode. Like, how can we give ourselves

episode. Like, how can we give ourselves that kind of a relationship? going

through all of them quickly. A coherent

narrative is something where you look back over your life and you go, "What was going on here? What was happening when I was younger? What mattered to me as a person?" We talked about that a lot

at the end. What was kind of in the mix for me or for my parents or other other people who really mattered to me? And

how can I make sense of all of that as an adult? Then second, we talked about

an adult? Then second, we talked about reparing and particularly Rick's four categories of nurturing, celebrating, guiding, and receiving. That last one is

listening to what your younger parts are communicating and not just managing them. And this is one that a lot of

them. And this is one that a lot of people tend to miss. Then we talked about rescaling object relations. This

means developing a bigger sense of who you are and letting yourself matter as much as other people do. I think the uh the metaphor that I gave of standing in the elevator and making yourself really

small and tiny in the corner when really you're entitled to just as much space as anyone else is a pretty good one here.

That's like a good image to carry with you. And then finally, we talked about

you. And then finally, we talked about healthy exploration. We individuate.

healthy exploration. We individuate.

That's what we were talking about when we discussed object relations so that we can differentiate. So we can become a

can differentiate. So we can become a distinctly different person from the other people around us. We aren't

imshed. We aren't wrapped up in them excessively. We are our own unique solid

excessively. We are our own unique solid person. I hope you enjoyed today's

person. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you made it this far and you

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