That feeling of life is going to be hard, but I'm going to be here.
That's what we get to give our kids.
We do not get to give our kids.
You will never feel pain.
I'm going to protect you from pain.
I'm never going to let anything happen to you.
I would pay money, big money for that.
We don't get to do that. But we can say whatever you go through, we go through together.
I'm with you. So I feel like the phrase attachment styles, it's become this kind of buzzy thing.
Are you securely attached?
Are you anxiously attached?
Are you avoidantly attached or some other hybrid?
What does that even mean?
I'm pretty attached to dark chocolate, my favorite sweatshirt, and the color teal.
Is that what we're talking about?
Well turns out no. Attachment is about how we connect or not with people, especially those closest to us, our parents, kids, family, and friends.
Turns out we have this primal human need for close emotional connection or attachment.
And the way we do that, it shapes who we become and how we relate to others from the moment we're born.
And in no small part, it shapes how good our lives are or are not and how they might become.
Yet so many of us struggle to create these nourishing bonds, often carrying patterns of profound insecurity, disattachment, or detachment rooted in our earliest experiences.
And I wanted to understand what these are, how they influence us, and how we sometimes inadvertently pass them on to our kids and families and also whether they can be changed if they're keeping us from being okay.
So today I invited Eli Harwood, a therapist and author on a mission to help create more securely attached people, one relationship at a time, to dive into the whole attachment shebang.
In the last three decades, Eli has been pretty much nerding out on the fascinating research behind attachment theory.
In her new book, Raising Securely Attached Kids, using connection-focused parenting to create confidence, empathy, and resilience, she distills these insights into an actionable guide for parents.
But this conversation isn't just for parents, it's for everybody.
And our conversation, Eli, really illuminates the transformative power of secure attachment.
We explore how to identify and heal insecure patterns while cultivating the safety and connection that children and all of us, by the way, so deeply crave and need.
Whether you're a parent or not, get ready to rethink what it truly means to form meaningful bonds that allow people to flourish, including you and me.
So excited to share this conversation with you.
I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project.
So excited to dive in. So I'm a parent.
Our daughter is a young adult at this point, but close enough so I remember a whole lot.
And we're also in a really interesting transitional window of we're all reimagining our relationships with each other, my wife, my daughter, me, and it's sort of like, huh.
And also learning where do we lean in?
Where do we let go? How do we stay connected without being overbearing?
And it's such an interesting moment in time.
But as we think about and navigate these questions, and I know you speak and write and work with oftentimes families with kids who are at a younger age, but I feel like a lot of these issues, they don't magically disappear.
No, they do not. They follow us.
Yes. So the main focus of a lot of your work has been around this concept of attachment.
And I think so many of us have heard that word.
And I feel like it's a little bit of a pop-cultury type of word these days in concepts.
So I would love to just do a little bit of fleshing out when we talk about this concept of attachment.
What are we actually talking about?
Yes, we're talking about an instinct, actually.
It's an instinct in human beings from the day we're born until the day we die, which is that we form close relationships as a part of our survival, as a part of the way we develop, and as a part of how we thrive.
So we have lots of studies, and I don't need to list all of them that have really clarified that life, it's our people.
It's the close people, the people we identify with, we belong with, we have family with.
And so attachment really is this movement towards other people to create close proximity and relationships where we depend on each other that helps us adapt and survive.
It's been talked about in pop culture in a lot of different ways, and as someone who really is very loyal to data in ways that are sometimes perturbing to me where I'm like, oh, that's not really what that means.
There was a trend in the 2000s that was like, attachment means you breastfeed your babies and they sleep in your bed, and what was the other?
Oh, you wear them. None of those things are harmful to attachment, but attachment is far more nuanced and complex.
It's a social information trading.
It's you're born and you have caregivers, and you have caregivers who are entirely in charge of your survival because you are incapable of surviving.
There's no baby that is born, comes out of that birth canal and looks up and goes, I think I could do better.
You get what you get. And so the rhythms of relating that are between a child and a caregiver have particular music to them.
And we all know this. And as people are listening to this, they're going to naturally think about the children they have or might want to have and the ways in which they were parented.
There's no human that didn't have an attachment experience.
It's not possible. But what we know from the data is that we have very different experiences in terms of the level of security in our attachment relationships.
So we have all of these incredibly nerdy scientific people who've been researching since the 1960s and doing studies that are just so brilliant.
So if a kid has a caregiver who responds when they're in pain, who is warm, who is empathetic, who says, oh, you're sad, I'm here.
I mean, that's an oversimplification about, man, that's a powerful thing to hear in life.
Oh, you're sad I'm here.
I mean, how many of us have needed that recently in our lives?
That experience of having someone who can co-regulate, that's the core of a secure experience.
It's someone who is calm enough, confident enough, and connected enough that we don't have to feel alone when our nervous system is flooded with neurochemicals.
And that helps our brain to feel safe, which helps our brain to develop in more high complex ways.
If on the other hand, you have a caregiver who they had insecure experiences growing up or maybe traumatic experiences that interrupted their ability to be secure.
Maybe they are avoidant of emotions and emotional distress.
And so you're sad as a little person and their responses, you're going to have to figure that out, kid.
We all do. We don't do that here.
And we're not going to do that here.
You're fine. Right? That dismissive tone.
Well, that creates an insecurity because I am on my own now.
And so I have to figure out a cope with these floods of emotion and the complex dynamics in my world without support.
And I'm too. So we're looking at the nuances of the ways in which our caregivers related to us as kids and how we are relating to our kids and then how those patterns get transferred to all of our other relationships as we develop.
It's so powerful. And you describe this notion of the feeling of security, secure attachment.
And then what you just described also use the word avoidant.
And I've heard those two phrases related to like attachment quote styles.
I don't know if that's an appropriate way to even address it, but it doesn't sound like it does.
Well, no, actually it is confusing.
So we have two different bodies of research and one body of research is from the developmental psychology and they're really dedicated to studying the relationship.
So the labels that get used are about a relationship dynamic.
But then the social psychologists have taken some of that and done some different research that kind of looks at how does the patterns and experiences in childhood come to a culmination into a general style of relating in adulthood.
And unfortunately, the bodies of research don't correlate, which is super annoying actually.
It's like, oh, well, suffering second-tache, that would have been really nice to see that all.
But I think they both are valuable bodies of research.
My only complaint about the word style is that for many people, what we do in each unique attachment relationship in our life is different.
So we can have one pattern with one caregiver or one ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend or ex-partner and a different pattern with someone else in our life.
And so I think that's where styles gets a little confusing because it's like, well, sometimes I do this, so I don't know what Harry Potter character I am.
I don't know how to put myself into this matrix.
And I would say, well, it might be that you have more complex experiences because you had many caregivers and therefore adapted to different people.
Yeah, that makes so much sense.
And it makes a lot of sense that it would be both person and context dependent because we've probably learned to just function through different experiences with different people in different circumstances and get reinforcement about what is okay, what's rewarded, what's not rewarded, what's rejected in those contexts and with the different categories
of people. So it makes sense that we would carry that into adulthood and not just be this monolith of, oh, my style is secure or my style is avoidant and that just is across all domains.
The avoidant part, though, I'm curious also because it would seem to me from the outside looking in that avoidant would not be an attachment style or a type of attachment but would actually be almost like the opposite of attachment.
Oh my gosh, you're asking the best questions.
This is so good because when we say avoidant, we're actually talking about what does someone do in order to create closeness in moments of tension and emotional tenderness.
So when someone's avoidant, they aren't avoidant of attachment.
They're avoidant of expressing their emotional tenderness and needs and often noticing or acknowledging other people's tenderness or needs.
So if you've developed an avoidant pattern, it's because you had caregivers or a caregiver who was incapable of being responsive and soothing.
So you could have had somebody as a parent who believed that feelings were worthless and so they dismissed everything you felt.
Why would you bring your feelings?
That would not work and that would actually create more tension in that relationship.
So instead you learn to shut it down, swallow it, pretend it's not happening.
Or you could also have a caregiver who was overly intrusive with their anxiety.
So if you had a feeling, they freaked the flip out.
Oh my gosh, are you okay?
Are you sure? Okay. Do we need to go to the hospital?
So they added distress to your distress state and at some point, and this is very young, so you actually don't remember these choices.
The research says it's around 12 to 18 months of age that we really establish these patterns.
So it's pre-memory. It's pre-verbal.
But kids adapt that quickly, they go, oh, when I'm upset, my parent either shuts down and disappears emotionally from me or shames me or scolds me or they get so much more upset that I actually feel worse.
So I'm going to maintain closeness to my caregiver by keeping the melty stuff on the inside and not letting them see.
And what's interesting is when we do research on babies who have this avoidant pattern, they don't show their distress outward.
There's a particular protocol called the strange situation where we basically get babies to feel a little bit worried and then we look at what they do in response to their caregiver.
And the babies who are avoidant don't actually look worried.
They look like they're just focused on playing with their toys, but we've tested their cortisol levels and they have a high stress response.
They just don't show it outwardly.
Whereas the secure babies express their distress.
They actively seek their caregiver and they feel better afterwards because they can trust that their caregiver is able to handle their emotions and help them regularly.
That is so interesting.
So a child or an adult with an avoidant approach to attachment is very likely actually like they're avoiding or stifling or withholding because in their mind, that's actually the way that they maintain or deepen into the relationship.
Closeness. They're intuitive, but actually really intuitive.
Yes. And the deep message for someone who's avoidant is my needs are a burden.
Emotions and needs are burdensome.
And so I'm going to love you by not letting you see all the messiness.
And what's heartbreaking of course is that oftentimes partners and sweethearts and friends end up being very angry and dissatisfied at that avoidance because they're like, stop keeping the good stuff from me.
But that's a hard thing to convince somebody of.
Your messiness is the good stuff.
That's where your humanness comes through.
That's where intimacy comes through.
But man, that was not what that person experienced in childhood.
And so they're really confused about how to build closeness within a secure dynamic.
No, that makes no sense.
And I think it probably is important also just to note here that as you described, a lot of these things, these patterns of form between 12 months and 18 months, super young offense or like pre-memory later in life, and that the circumstances that lead to them, like this is not a shame and blame thing.
This is not like, oh, you were trying to do this to me.
You were pushing me away.
You wanted me. This is like a parent or a caretaker or whoever is that is on the patterning side of it is very likely trying to do the best that they're trying to know how to do also.
Well, you know, I mean, I look at my generational inheritance and, you know, we could talk about both sides of my family for three days.
So on one side in particular, my grandmother's parents left Russia.
They were Germans who lived in Russia under Catherine the Great.
They left during the Bolshevik Revolution.
They lost contact with all of their family members as far as they know, everyone was either murdered or sent off to Siberia, never to be heard of again.
And they came to the US without knowing a single soul.
And they settled in Nebraska and they had to learn.
And so, you know, I'm imagining myself as a parent with children, taking children from Russia to New York, like across that ocean, not in modern times, like just the stress, the fear, you know, at that point as a parent, you're in full survival mode.
At some point, it's very valuable that your kids are quiet and subservient because that is how you're going to get through that journey alive.
Right. And I think some of these things go generations behind us and we don't always know that because when there is trauma in a generation, it's not speakable if it's not resolved.
So the irony is those of us who have the most generational inheritance usually have the least generational stories in order to understand our inheritance in terms of trauma, the most traumatic.
Let me try that again. Those of us who have the most traumatic generational inheritance usually have the least amount of information or stories to understand our inheritance.
That makes so much sense.
You also mentioned a fascinating by this study where you said looking at a small child, maybe toddler who has this avoidant patterning from the outside looking in, they kind of look like the other kid.
But then when you actually measure cortisol levels, which we know as a marker of stress or nervous system dysregulation that you see an elevation there, I would imagine if you're picking up on that as a kid at the youngest age and then you track that state into adulthood.
I mean, that's kind of devastating.
Yeah. Actually, the people who look the most numb or disconnected in their intimate relationships often are the most terrified of the level of grief they hold because it's a lot of grief to go through decades of your life without feeling truly known and feeling like your needs are a burden to other people.
I mean, there's so much sorrow and loss in that experience.
And I would imagine also beyond the emotional and psychological effect, I mean, there's going to be a somatic effect.
Now we know that stress leads to inflammation.
Inflammation leads to disease and all this, the cascade of actually physiological manifestations of this thing that was set in motion at the youngest of age without any ill will or bad intention.
And we think about, I'm so curious on this and so many levels now just as an adult relating to other adults, but also just kind of like stay on parenting or caretaking.
I don't want to assume anyone listening is a parent, but we probably all have some exposure to kids and some influence on kids of all different ages.
So this speaks to everybody really because nobody, we don't live in a vacuum.
So when we think about the way that we might be relating to kids and we start to understand the benefits of trying to create this more secure patterning, what are the things that we would key in on with a child to start to raise an eyebrow and say, like, huh, I wonder if there's something that's not being expressed externally that this kid is suffering or struggling
with that might be related to this attachment patterning.
If children aren't seeking out caregivers when they are scared in particular, when they are in a state of distress, disorientation that makes them feel truly like, I don't know what just happened or I don't know what to do or I'm in danger.
If their instinct is not to seek proximity to a caregiver, that's concerning.
So if they shut down or if they are dissociative or they blow up, a lot of kids with trauma, when they feel tender or scared, they get angry because that's been the only protector they've had is their anger.
So it comes in a lot of different flavors and sizes.
Perfectionism is a real clue that a child is not getting that type of relational support they need in order to feel secure in the world.
What I kind of want to do is ask myself a next question.
My old man's got there. Okay, my next question for myself is if we recognize or we have a hunch that a child does not have a sense of security relationally in their world, how can we be a protective factor in that child's life?
Because what I want everyone to know is that this is not something that gets shaped when you're 12 to 18 months of age and then can never change.
I can't imagine myself researching something that hopeless.
That would just be heartbreaking.
It's absolutely possible to heal attachment wounds both as adults and ourselves to put in that work, but also to be someone in a child's life who changes their understanding of what relationships with supportive people can be.
So if you are in relationship with any child, whether that's your child or your teacher or you have a niece or nephew, here are the four things I want you doing.
So everybody take notes.
It's not hard to remember.
One, I want you to light up when they come in the room.
I want you to be looking up from your phones.
I want you to be demonstratively expressing to that child in some way physically so that they can see it and feel it.
I'm so glad you're here.
I do this when my kids wake up in the morning.
It's like a little party every time I see them.
They think that they're waking up is glorious because I think it's glorious.
Because I'm like, hi, good morning.
And obviously this changes in different stages.
My nine-year-old, it's a little less of a jumping up and down and big arms out wide.
It's like, hi, buddy. But that tone and that bond of I'm glad you're here is like medicine to a child.
Because if I belong somewhere, I'm wanted somewhere, there's a sense of worthiness, there's a sense of resilience that develops from it, and there's a sense of trust in their relationship with us.
Think of the people who light up for you.
Oh, it's so good. Yeah, it's amazing.
So here's my question. It's fine, have you found any clinical practice at all talking to that you would talk to some parents and even kids facing parents and kind of them to be like, do I really have to do that?
Don't they just know that?
Yes. It's far more frequent than you would imagine.
Or I mean, I can do that. But also, when they come to the door, they need to make sure their shoes are in the right place.
They need to be patient with other things that sort of distills that moment and doesn't allow deludes, not distills.
What's the word I'm looking for?
Deludes. Yeah, deludes maybe.
Deludes the moment. Okay, anyway.
That deludes the moment so that it's that joy and that magic gets lost.
Anxiety on a parent's part can get in the way.
Discomfort. A lot of parents were children who were humiliated for having needs and desires and emotions.
And expressing delight is a very emotional process and you look like a goof.
No one looks cool while they're expressing delight.
It's beautiful, but it's not cool.
And so I think if you've ever experienced humiliation, that can be a barrier to lighting up around anybody.
You've learned to kind of John Wayne yourself like, I don't need you.
You don't need me. So if you reject me, it doesn't hurt me because I wasn't trying to connect anyway.
I wonder how much technology is also playing a part.
I mean, because so many people, like somebody walks in the door, like whether it's a kid or a partner or a parent or a friend, and your head is just in your device.
And like so many times I've caught myself like, wait a minute, somebody I truly love and I'm excited to see just walked in and I'm still looking at my device.
Like that's actually not okay.
And yet that's become a default state so often.
Yes. I'm so thankful for Jonathan Heitz work right now.
I don't know if you've come across his work, but I feel like he's like taking care of that.
I'm sort of like, okay, Jonathan, you got this.
Like address this whole problem we have.
Let's all work on it. I consciously have made a commitment to myself that during times of reunion where my children and I are coming back together after having not seen each other and my partner and my sweetheart and really anyone I'm trying to have a close connection with, it's phones down faces up for me.
That's my role found down faces up.
And so if I know my kids are coming home soon, I'm getting off my phone ahead of time and entering that state of presence and availability.
And does that happen every single time?
No, but that's the pattern.
And this is another important thing to know about attachment.
It is not about getting it right.
We have longitudinal studies that show it is far more important to be repairing and apologizing and coming back around when things are off course than it is to be perfect at this and that a secure relationship is in sync and connected about 30 to 50% of the time.
So that's an F in every other subject in life.
And thank goodness we're being great on a curve.
So that's pass. That's all I'm trying to do.
Right. And it takes a pressure off also because if you think I have to be 100% perfect about this all the time, it becomes like then you just start shaming and blaming yourself because there's no possible way to do that.
We're humans also. Yes.
And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.
So that was the first item.
Walk me through the other three here.
Okay. So number two, we're going to show up for these two very important things.
We're going to show up for the tender moments.
So when our kids are sad, scared, overwhelmed, ashamed, like they're in that soggy state or they're full of a sense of fear or overwhelm, we're going to show up.
And showing up does not mean rescuing them.
It just means, oh, I see what you're feeling.
I'm taking a sip of it so that I can relate to what you're feeling.
And I'm offering you presence.
And sometimes that presence is 30 seconds and they feel better.
And sometimes it's hours or seasons, but we show up for it.
I'm here. How can I support you?
I see this in you. I know this in me.
You're not alone. And their triumphant moments, when they're little and they want to show you the roly poly that they found and probably killed, you're like, oh, wow, that's so exciting.
Or when they're older and they ask somebody to prom and they said yes.
Or they've overcome a struggle in their life.
I mean, thinking about our kids don't stop being our kids just because they turn 18, right?
Like they're 35 and they get sober.
Like show up for those triumphant moments, not just a little bit, like with emotion and with presence.
Because when we feel celebrated by people, that is also medicine for us.
Let me ask a question about the first part of that, showing up for them during moments of challenge or struggle or hardship.
I would imagine that not infrequently, a parent is going to have a kid that at some point experiences something really tough, that that parent has experienced and developed patterning around and almost has this vicarious trauma.
Seeing their kid go through something that is close enough in a circumstance level so that it triggers the same thing in them.
How do you show up when you're experiencing this vicarious trauma at the same time that this kid you love is experiencing their version of the very same thing and you want to feel resource and you want to show up and you want to be present for them?
How do we do that when you're going through like you're literally re-experiencing the same thing yourself in that moment?
I love this question. I love your questions.
You reach for your people.
So we as relational creatures need to be co-regulated also.
So if my stuff is active and I can feel it and I'm panicking, I need to have people in my world that I can call up and really vulnerably say like, this is what's happening in my brain right now and I'm pretty convinced that this means X, Y, or Z.
This means I failed or this means my child is never going to function in the world or this whatever catastrophic overwhelming meaning is filling our bodies as a result of our trauma to get support from other people and allow them to throw us life rafts and to grab a hold of them.
To hear someone else say like, I don't think that this is what that means or like, gosh, I think maybe it was unrealistic to think that you could prevent that from ever happening to your child.
I think it's normal and I think the difference is that you went through that without any support and your kid's going to go through this with you by their side and it's not the same thing.
Helping to bring that perspective in and taking care of that.
That's obviously easier said than done, especially if you have an avoidant pattern or if you're someone that has more of a, we call it resistant in the developmental research, but in the kind of social research we call anxious pattern, all insecure patterns are anxious.
So that's one of the reasons I like the developmental research better because I'm like, the avoidant folks are anxious, they just aren't showing you.
But what we call an anxious pattern where someone is preoccupied with others and they struggle to settle and soothe that kind of stuff.
So if you are in your stuff, you need people to help you edit that story, regulate your body and separate the past from the present.
Which is also just a reminder that these patterns may have been installed in us in the earliest days, but until and unless we do something to process them, to heal them, to shift them to something more constructive and healthy for us, they're not going to change on their own.
No, no. Wouldn't that be so nice?
Wouldn't it? I'm all about research.
If someone can come up with something, I'm all in.
My first book, I made it as a guided journal because that was the exact thing I know people need and I know it's hard to find the right therapist or even afford therapy to be able to do that work.
But the data says one of the most important things we can do for our kids is reflect on our attachment experiences, is to take the time and answer the questions.
What was affection like in your family?
How did your parents respond to these various emotions?
What happened when you got angry?
What was the message around your sexual development?
I mean, there's all sorts of layers to this.
And so when we go back and we reflect, that allows us to a little bit separate the past from the present.
If we don't reflect, the past comes up in feeling states.
And then sometimes you're freaking out about your child in a way that doesn't really match the moment and you can't stop the train because it left the station without your permission and then you have to kind of figure out how to repair all that.
So I think as much as we can actively acknowledge, what was my attachment inheritance?
Did I get an inheritance that was secure or insecure?
And if it was insecure, how did I cope with that?
What were the patterns I developed to cope?
And now, how can I work on learning more secure patterns?
Yeah, now that makes so much sense.
Take me into the third element here, the further I'm...
Okay. Listen up. So when we take the time to truly hear children, and this is not just the long-winded story about how one time this happened and that happened and you're going land the plane.
What are we talking about here?
You know, but it's... No parent has ever felt that ever, by the way.
It's like, can we just get there already?
Dinner's about to boil over.
Like, uh-huh, uh-huh. Yep, yep, yep.
And then the quala bear.
Okay, okay, okay. No, the things they're telling us in their patterns, like what do they love?
According to their rhythms and their movements and their words so that they are known by us.
You know, I think of each of my kids as a PhD that I'm working on, and I'm probably never going to finish, which I think happens to a lot of people who do PhDs.
I'm going to keep trying to finish these PhDs by constantly studying and paying attention and hearing them, both verbally hearing what they have to say and also non-verbally.
What is it that moves them, scares them, overwhelms them, lights them up?
It goes back to also, I mean, all this is so, they're nuanced variations of kind of the same thing, which is like being present.
Yes. You know, I think I made these four categories up in this particular way because it is hard to be present as a modern parent.
And so it's like, I need those guidelines to hang on to and be like, don't forget to light up, don't forget to show up, don't forget to listen up.
And the last one is makeup.
Don't forget to be the leader of repair.
We get off tracks. My son's favorite way to label my moodiness is he calls it harsh mom.
He's like, harsh mom's back.
Like, oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's really just stressed mom, but yes, yes, yes.
That's right. You're seeing something.
You're not crazy. That's happening.
And it's like, how can I acknowledge that enough in myself and with him that we can get back into a rhythm of generosity, of support, of calmness, right?
What needs to happen in there?
So that process as a parent of, I don't expect myself to be a good parent.
I'm trying to be a good enough parent.
That's my only goal. And I guarantee that when my kids get older, they're going to have feedback for me.
I hope they do because I hope they get the opportunity to improve on their experience.
That's part of the gift of humanity is we keep trying to improve the situation that we're in.
And so I don't want to get defensive.
I don't want to go, I was good, mom.
I was trying so hard. I don't want to go, oh yeah, I could see how that wasn't your favorite thing that I, you know, I have this funny habit where if I'm sitting with my kids and they don't have their shoes on, I always check if their toenails need to get clipped.
It's like some neurotic impulse in me.
It drives them nuts. And I'm like really trying to work on it.
Because usually it's they put their legs up on my lap.
It's like a moment of connection.
And my little, you know, OCD brain is like, is this the moment?
Should I go get the clippers?
Should we do it right now?
And you know, I think that feedback loop that our kids have for us where they let us know like, mom, dad, parent, you're missing it.
Don't miss it. I would imagine they're sending the signal all day, every day.
And it's like, that's part of our work, right?
It's actually attuned to it, to be attentive, to see it.
And modern day life, I mean, as you said earlier, that's hard.
It's like you open your eyes and the spin cycle starts and the distractions start and I feel like so many people feel that they're just so pulled in so many different directions and sometimes a lot of good things, but still a lot of different directions simultaneously.
And there's, they're trying to be there and be present.
It's kind of why I like like these four things, rather than just saying be present, it's like here are four specific ways to be there, to do this.
Yeah, related to that last point though, the sort of like the coming back and sort of like the corrective, you know, like part of this, like, oh, I messed up or like I kind of blew up or I said this thing.
And I wonder if this is what goes through some people's heads is, okay, so I'm the parent, you're the kid, I'm supposed to be the quote authority figure here, you know, and which is a dominance oriented stance.
Correct. I feel like probably a lot of folks have come up in a way where they feel like that is the right way to actually be a parent.
He like, you are supposed to come at this from a place of I know the thing, like I get to control and I get to exert some authority and dominance.
Your work basically says no, actually, that's a pretty major disservice to both of you.
Yes. I think people really confuse that idea that we have to exert authority when we actually just are the authority.
Like that baby comes out and there's no question who's in charge or who's responsible.
And I think the fear that if our children have opinions or they push back on things, that means somehow we've lost control or if they're struggling that we need to sort of go in with that kind of intense show of authority and dominance.
It actually just erodes trust in that relationship.
But I do want to say that the group of people that really is like, no, no, no, we have to do this usually sees the other side of that spectrum as problematic and they're not wrong.
The other side of the spectrum is also problematic.
If we allow our children to guide our decisions, meaning, hey, we have some structure, but my child's upset about it and doesn't like it.
So I change the structure.
And we give them the position of dominance and authority and we don't hold to the guidelines and we don't ask them to grow and we don't allow them to experience discomfort and suffering.
So if we go from dominant side to the opposite end of being very permissive, that's also a problem for secure attachment.
Our kids need us to be both soft and sturdy.
So they need us to care about what's happening for them and to have really clear ideas about what we want them to learn and where we're helping them grow and be guided.
And I have a colleague who runs the Giants Institute for Parenting and she says, open hearts, sturdy or strong spines.
And I love that. It's like, and the presence we want to bring is I got you.
And I got you is also we are going to go to bed tonight.
I understand you don't want to go to bed.
Sometimes I don't want to go to bed, but we take good care of our bodies by making sure our bodies get sleep.
It's a bed. I don't want to.
I know. But yeah, I understand that your other friends, parents are saying that you can spend the night at the house where there are no parents.
But at 13, that's just not something I'm comfortable with.
And I understand you're going to be mad and upset and it's going to make you feel like you're left out.
But those are things that are less significant to me than the risk of something really awful happening at this stage in your development.
So you can't go, right? Like I care about what you're feeling and I'm setting limits.
It doesn't have to be. How dare you question me?
You know, that aggressive kind of threatening punishment based way of relating, like it's just not necessary.
If you are sturdy in what you're doing and you've created and cultivated the kind of connection with your child that has led them to feel trust in you, it doesn't mean they're going to obey you all the time.
But they will generally come back to you as a place and source of support and guidance.
And that's what we want to be seeing over time.
Yeah, that makes so much sense to me.
You're kind of bringing in speaking, it sounds like a bit to boundaries as well.
The notion of boundaries versus more of like a punishment orientation.
Let's establish this, acknowledge, like I see you, I hear you, I understand you.
And what you're feeling is valid.
And at the same time, here's the decision that I'm making and here's why.
And this is kind of like, this is why we're going to move forward this way.
And I get that you're not going to be happy about it.
And that sort of is what it is.
And we can be creative in that.
I think sometimes we feel like we have to stay it, they have to receive it.
And then if we haven't that somehow that the system is broken, it's like, well, sometimes our kids just aren't getting it or there's some element we're not getting.
You know, like, oh, wait, what happened on Tuesday?
Carla told you she thought you were approved.
And so now not going to this party is feeling like it's proving the point.
You know, like, oh my gosh, let's talk more about what happened and how we can get through all of this.
So it's, you know, we can hold gently within our heart.
Our children are doing the best they can with what they have.
And that that best can be really desperate responses to our boundaries.
And I think I know that this is an important boundary.
And this also goes back to your other question of like, what do we do when this is getting hard or triggered?
It's like, please find people you respect to talk through these things with.
Because sometimes we're stuck on something and someone goes, well, so why not blah, blah, blah.
And we start explaining it and we realize like, oh, I'm really in a real serious anxiety state.
Okay. And they might have another solution or idea of what you could do.
And we are not meant to do this in isolation.
This is an unbelievably complex, messy developmental process for us as parents.
We need a lot of people around us helping us through each nuanced situation that we're facing with our kids.
Yeah, because especially if you've arrived as an adult and then the gift of being a parent or a caretaker, but you are carrying capital T trauma with you and you still exist in the state of hypervigilance and anxiety.
Then when that kid comes to you with, and it's a very different kid with a very different sensibility and maybe more grounded and actually connected to like what's real than you are in this moment, but you have this impulse to keep them safe.
And like that impulse is based on your stuff.
I love the fact that you're like, you got to talk to other people too because these boundaries, these sort of like guidelines that you feel are completely rational, maybe it makes sense to revisit them sometimes.
Yeah, sometimes it does.
Or you need more creative communication tools.
You know, like I have a kid who has sensory processing disorder and probably will get diagnosed ADHD at some point in their journey.
And I have a group of people, I have a language person and an OT person, you know, who's there just helping me brainstorm.
I'm going, okay, so we need to do a checklist.
I'm going to make it visual.
Like what do you think the order should be?
How can we have this work?
Because even though I have studied the baloney out of all of this stuff, when it comes to my kid, I get overwhelmed because she's my love bug and I don't want her to, you know, struggle and I don't want us to be at odds.
And sometimes we're just at odds at a volume that I'm like, hmm, we need some extra resource around us.
And, you know, that might be professionals, that might be friends, that might be a partner.
Right. But like how can I find other people to help me get creative around whatever this thing is?
I might know my child needs to learn this, like my child needs to learn to stop biting others in anger.
Okay, check. That's, that's something they need to learn.
But who can help me do that, you know, or help me settle up for another six to seven months of it because they're just developmentally not there yet.
You know, we need people.
I mean, obviously, can I beat that dead horse anymore?
I'm just going to keep doing it.
And we need people not just for this, but we need people for everything.
And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.
You shared, I don't know, it was a while back on Instagram.
This post that kind of caught me in my throat, which I just thought was so beautiful.
And it was five powerful phrases to say to your children that you said, I say to my children, can I share those with you and then just have you respond to each one of them?
Yes, I'm going to cry while you do because they're like so powerful to me.
But yes, please. So the phrase to say to your children, there is not a single thing in life that we can't figure out together.
Amen. That feeling of life is going to be hard, but I'm going to be here.
That's what we get to give our kids.
We do not get to give our kids.
You will never feel pain.
I'm going to protect you from pain.
I'm never going to let anything happen to you.
I would pay money, big money for that.
We don't get to do that. But we can say whatever you go through, we go through together.
I'm with you. You can ask or tell me anything.
Literally, I will always be a safe place for the weird, scary or awkward conversations.
Mr. Rogers, one of my personal heroes and childhood mentors, never in person, but man, man, man toward me as a little person watching his show, he says, what is mentionable is manageable.
And I think I've seen so many people as adults process the things they didn't feel they could say to their caregivers because it would have been uncomfortable or off limits.
Or I think it's so important.
I've also worked with so many survivors of sexual abuse who did not share because they didn't feel like that permission was really there.
We just don't talk about those things.
We don't say those words and we don't do this stuff.
And I just really want my kids to always know it might be big and messy and awkward and I can handle it.
The next one you shared was, it's not your job to make me happy.
It's your job to figure out who you are and be true to that.
This is really a gift from my mom.
My mom is the first cycle breaker in my family.
And when I was nine years old, she was struggling with severe PTSD, depression, and at the moment that in that time period was feeling suicidal.
And instead of ending her life, she did the very, very hard thing of checking herself into a psychiatric hospital.
And it was this U-turn in her life and in our lives.
And she really started doing the work to process what her childhood had been, who her parents had been to her, some of the really scary things, especially that had happened at the hands of her dad.
And I don't know, my mom's kind of just this amazing person.
But so she at some point got really clear that she didn't want us to ever feel like we owed her anything.
And I think there was something in her that had always felt like it was her job to make everybody else happy.
That's what her trauma had said.
And so she really was clear with us.
My wellness, my happiness is my job.
And so I'm taking care of you is also my job.
And if you're feeling some certain way about me, that's my job to deal with that.
That's not your job to deal with that, right?
And if I'm feeling some certain way with you, there was a real sense of permission to just be ourselves and to not have to live in the trauma state that she had lived in, where her whole world had to be oriented around keeping her dad happy and keeping her mom feeling loved.
And I think those two burdens really got in the way of her life.
I sometimes think, like, what would she have done?
I mean, she's smart as a whip.
What would have happened in her life had she felt safe in the world?
I don't know. But she gave us that gift.
And so I'm running with it.
I mean, so powerful. And the last part of that phrase also, because there's certainly a second sentiment in there, which is it's your job to figure out who you are and be true to that, which is really powerful permission giving, because I think a lot of people don't ever feel that they often feel it's my job to live up to the expectations of my parents, my family culture,
my community. But I think that's because a parent has mistakenly believed it was their job to create a path for their child.
And that loving children means prescribing for them a certain way or a certain job or a certain belief system.
And so it's like, if I love my kids, I'm going to make sure that they X, Y, or Z, as opposed to what a real secure mindset is, which is my job is to be here in support of my children as they discover what paths they belong on.
And then I actually don't get to make those calls.
I don't really want to make those calls.
A lot of those paths turn out to be terrible.
I don't want to be responsible for that.
I just think that's something my mom did really beautifully.
I really have always had permission to do what it was that felt right to follow passions and desire.
The fourth phrase that you shared is, if you tell me that someone is hurting you or scaring you, I will always believe you no matter who it is.
And that one comes from probably a work trauma over the years for me of just bearing witness to the number of people who have said to their parents, this is happening, someone's doing this or someone's doing that and who were just given either no response.
And once this goes away or who were basically told, I think you might be overreacting or you might be making that up.
Are you sure that happened?
Or I think there is pain in being harmed outside of our family.
There's pain in that, but it is not nearly as excruciating as the pain of being harmed outside of our family and not believed within our family.
Yeah, it's a level of gaslighting from the people who you want to be seen most by that with just piles on the suffering there.
The final phrase, you don't owe me anything.
I brought you into this world and the joy of being your parent has given me more than I could ever have imagined.
So this is what my mother said to me when I was graduating eighth grade.
You went to healthy habit salad bar, which I don't think exists anymore, probably for like sanitary reasons.
She had a little necklace for me and it had my favorite flower on it and she had this whole talk ready for me.
And it's interesting because I'm like eighth grade, you know, I'm like 13, I'm not that old, but I think for her, she wanted to make sure that as early as possible, she planted freedom in me and the obligation she had felt with her caregivers and her family that had felt burdensome to her.
She didn't want me to carry those burdens.
And ironically, of course, like the second my mom gets into some, you know, mind or physical state where she can't take care of herself, I am going to be taking care of her, you know, because there's this freedom in our connection.
I've never felt obligated and that just makes me want to do it more.
She actually had a, oh shoot, I'm gonna forget the technical term, but she had a one day memory lapse.
It's like this weird thing that can happen occasionally where you lose all your short term memory.
She's in the house and all of a sudden she looked around.
She didn't know where she was.
She didn't know what's happening.
My stepfather who was blind called me like, this is what's happening.
What do I do? I was like, call the ambulance.
You know, I'm immediately at the hospital and I'm like, you know, so full of all the feelings thinking like, does she have a stroke?
What does this mean? Like, have we lost her?
You know, oh, and you know, I just sat there in the hospital with her and held her hand and just kind of repeated the questions she kept asking because she couldn't keep short term memory so she'd go, where's Baba?
And I'd go, he's in the waiting room with Scott and she'd go, oh, Scott's here?
And I'd be like, yeah, and then two minutes later, where's Baba?
And it was this strange flash forward.
I hope we don't do this for the reals for a very, very long time, but no part of me wanted to be anywhere but in that room taking care of her because she's done that for me.
There's something about when we offer our children the freedom to go live their own lives that the gift is natural to return.
You know, it's like, I'm sure there will be hard times, but man, it will be an honor to care for her because she has made it an honor to care for me and I want my kids to have the same.
Yeah, which also, I mean, it kind of sets up us zooming up a little bit in the conversation, you know, like becoming full circle a little bit also, you know, like when you're able to actually develop this level of connection, this type of connection, this sense of secure attachment, and as your kid grows up, or maybe you're even a teacher who just develops like just
a really deep connection with the student, whoever you may be, you know, like this applies to just all sorts of different relationships.
And then, you know, like that kid reaches adulthood and then that kid, it's time for them to go off and start really creating their own life.
It's interesting because on the one hand, you're like, I hate my 30 to 50% like they're rock solid, they're confident, they're loved, they know that they're good, they can express their emotions, they know how to feel safe and ask for what they need.
And then you're like, but they don't need me now.
It's a tremendous identity shift for us.
It takes up so much meaning space in our lives.
Like, I mean, there's nothing that is more meaningful than the care we give to children, really truly.
And so when their need for us shifts, I mean, it's we've done our job well.
Like that's actually one of the goals.
And we have to then figure out how now to shift the way we find meaning in our world because I do see a lot of parents just keep trying to play that role and it ends up isolating them and their relationship with their adult children because they're all children and like get off my back.
I'm not a kid anymore. You know, I can't tell you how many times I've heard that in therapy like I'm not a kid anymore.
And why is that happening?
Well, it's happening because a parent is not facing the grief of the shift of this sacred role that we play for a short period of time in our child's life.
I have another post where I talk about how I want to talk to my children once they pick a partner because I think it's so important that we pass the baton of that centrality of our role in their life to their sweethearts and to their besties to whoever they choose to kind of partner within life.
And then we kind of say like, I got my turn.
I loved my turn. What a gift it was.
I'm, look at me. I'm crying.
My kids are, my oldest kid is only nine years old.
So anyway, this is also slightly ridiculous.
You know, like this is the greatest honor of my life.
And now it's your turn to do this with other people.
I will always be here. You know, you want to come home for Thanksgiving, of course, come home.
You want to talk to me about something you're struggling with, of course, but I don't need you to need me because that's a burden you don't need.
So I'm going to, I don't know.
My plan is gardening. I'm just going to become like an obsessive gardener.
You know, like I can't grow my children anymore, so I'm going to grow a lot of tomatoes.
But we, we honor that relationship.
The last chapter of my new book is called, when letting go is staying close.
And it's like, it really is a paradigm shift of like, ooh, now if I hold too tight, it will actually push them away.
So we have to find ways to say, you go and you be free and I'm going to miss you.
And I'm going to be a little bit jealous that your roommate knows more about what happened in your classes today than I do.
But it's okay because there are other places for me to grow things and I will figure that out, you know, next round of my life.
Yeah. And I, I shared when we started this conversation, like my wife and I are in this moment right now as we have this conversation.
So it's interesting to sort of like hear your perspective and, and I'm nodding along.
Like this makes perfect sense and it's still really hard.
Yeah. It doesn't change how hard it is.
Like you can, the knowing, I mean, I think of that when like, when, when, when people haven't had kids, you know, they're, they're like getting ready, they're pregnant or whatever.
And I think like, there's no way for me to describe to you what you're about to go through.
And I can give you information that will at least help you anticipate some of it.
But at the end of the day, when you're in it, it's like, holy Moses.
This is way harder and more complicated than I could have ever imagined and also more beautiful.
Like I'm sure that what you feel when you see her living her best life.
Oh, it's amazing. It's a joy you can't even imagine.
I'm sure I cannot imagine it.
No, there's a Buddhist phrase and also a Yiddish phrase.
I kind of mean the same thing.
And Buddhism, one of the four measureables translates roughly to appreciative joy.
And then the Yiddish phrase for that is nachis, which is effectively it's, it's the joy that you feel when you love somebody so unconditionally and you see them flourish that you feel their experience has your own.
I'm crying again. It's like on the one hand, you're in this and it's like your heart is breaking while it's exploding open with joy.
And it's such, it's such an amazing and strange and beautiful experience.
You know, it's funny. I think when your kids are little, your brain is breaking while your heart is exploding with joy.
And then they leave and your heart is breaking.
It's lowers down in your body as the years go on.
Where the breaking happens.
Exactly. Exactly. It feels like a good place for us to come full circle as well in this conversation.
So in this container of a good life project, if I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up?
To live a good life, show up as much as you can as your true authentic self with the people who have the ability to see you, know you and appreciate you and become the kind of person who can see, know and appreciate others so that your life is filled with deep and meaningful relationships.
Thank you. Hey, before you leave, if you'd love this episode safe bet, you'll also love the conversation we had with Dr.
Shafali about raising kids.
You'll find a link to that episode in the show notes.
This episode of Good Life Project was produced by executive producers Lindsay Fox and me Jonathan Fields, editing help by Alejandro Ramirez, Christopher Carter crafted our theme music and special thanks to Shelly Dell for her research on this episode.
And of course, if you haven't already done so, please go ahead and follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app.
And if you found this conversation interesting or inspiring or valuable, and chances are you did since you're still listening here, would you do me a personal favor, a seven second favor and share it maybe on social or by text or by email, even just with one person, just copy the link from the app you're using and tell those you know, those you love, those you want to
help navigate this thing called life a little better so we can all do it better together with more ease and more joy.
Tell them to listen, then even invite them to talk about what you've both discovered because when podcasts become conversations and conversations become action, that's how we all come alive together.
Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project.
