#49 Common Anxious & Avoidant Attachment Patterns, with Staci Bartley

Love Is Us: Exploring Relationships and How We Connect

Come join us for a conversation about anxious and avoidant attachment styles and why they so often end up together. We'll also talk about conflict and what love has to do with this work. You'll also hear both of us get choked up at the end of our conversation and hear how lucky we both feel to be working with people like you!

Staci Bartley is an integrative couples therapist. she's also a Certified Divorce Mediator, Certified Strategic Intervention Coach, graduate of energy and intuitive science, lifelong study of psychology, human sexuality, and universal principles. She is a speaker and workshop facilitator for medical and mental health professionals and has contributed to two wellness programs for fortune 500 companies. She is the Author of "Feeling Like Marriage is Dead? A Divorce Mediators Guide For Ensuring a Lifetime of Love." She is also the host of Love Shack Live along with her husband Tom. Love Shack Live is a live weekly radio show being broadcasted on KKNW 1150.

Learn more about Staci:

Website: www.stacibartley.com

IG: https://www.instagram.com/stacibartley/

Learn more about Karin:

Website: www.drcalde.com

IG: https://www.instagram.com/theloveandconnectioncoach/

TRANSCRIPT

Intro:

Karin: This is Love Is Us, Exploring Relationships and How We Connect. I'm your host, Karin Calde. I'll talk with people about how we can strengthen our relationships, explore who we are in those relationships, and experience a greater sense of love and connection with those around us, including ourselves. I have a PhD in clinical Psychology, practiced as a psychologist resident, and after diving into my own healing work, I went back to school and became a coach, helping individuals and couples with their relationships and personal growth. If you want to experience more love in your life and contribute to healing the disconnect so prevalent in our world today, you're in the right place. Welcome to Love Is Us.

Karin: Hello, everybody, and welcome to season two of Love is us. I'm so glad you're here and I have so many great guests lined up for this next season and I wanted to start off it off with a bang and I think I accomplished that. I am talking with Stacey Bartley today. She is a couple's therapist and she has been doing this work for a really long time and her depth of knowledge is impressive. But more than that, she's also just this really warm, loving person and I just could keep talking with her for hours, I think, so it was hard to keep it to an hour, but I think that this episode is just jampacked with great information. We talk specifically about that familiar pattern of these different attachment styles where one is more anxious and one is more avoidant and how that seems to be a common pairing. So we talk about why that is and what happens and what to do about it and also talk a lot about conflict. So I think you're going to enjoy this one. I really hope that you will share it with others and also leave me a review because that will help this podcast be seen by more people. So thanks again for being here. And here we go. Hello, Stacey.

[02:15] Staci: Hi, Karen. Good to see your beautiful face.

[02:18] Karin: And yours too. It's good to see you again. This is our second go round. We had had a really fun conversation a couple of months ago and our technology failed us. So lucky us, we get to spend some more time together.

[02:35] Staci: I know. I think it's really kind of a get to. There was no disappointment in that whatsoever. It was more of like, yes, wonderful.

[02:44] Karin: And I'm excited to talk with you. And so we decided just to kind of shift just a little bit, just because, yeah, we had that conversation and now I want to have a different one. So we're going to talk a bit about attachment today, but I wanted to start off with my standard questions and the first one is, where are you in the world?

[03:05] Staci: I am in Sacramento, California, in a little hilltown called Auburn. It's about 25 miles northeast of Sacramento, so it's beautiful. I have my private practice here as well, so we get a little bit. I'm from Utah, so I have this association with park city, if you're familiar with that. It's kind of like a little mini, quasi park city. It's very rich in food and music and art and culture and the little place where I live, I get to just walk everywhere. My office is about five minutes from where I live, so my husband and I share a car. I often say, gosh, we're kind of like college students. We have this one car that we share, but good. Really good. So that's where I'm at in the.

[03:55] Karin: I didn't. I knew you were in the Sacramento area, but I don't think I realized you were in Auburn. I've been through there. I haven't spent much time there.

[04:03] Staci: Yeah, we're about an hour and a half from Tahoe, from the sierras there, so we can go skiing, but we're also just shy of 2 hours to the coast. So we're kind of located in this little pocket where we can have access to many things. And then another hour and a half to Napa and wine country and Sonoma. And so there's some beautiful places in the world here, and that's why we stay. We love it so much there. So much here.

[04:30] Karin: Yeah. Wonderful. Well, tell us what you do for work.

[04:35] Staci: So I work with individuals and couples around relationships, conflict repair. Families often get brought into that. But that's the crux of my work. Through my studies and my journey, as we all have one, I realize that relationships are kind of at the heart of the human experience and that our mental, emotional, physical pain comes from relationship either with myself or others. And so I thought, that's where I want to double down. I want to go right to the heart of the matter. And so that's why I chose to do relationships. I could just see their impact on the human experience.

[05:14] Karin: I feel you. Absolutely. And I'm curious. I know you didn't start necessarily doing the work you're doing now, so how did you get there?

[05:27] Staci: Well, I'll try and shorten that. But started in my own journey in 1996, I was going through a divorce and questioning. It was that pivotal moment in my life where I was questioning the foundation which I had built my adult life on. And it was a divorce that had finally caused me to start reevaluating all kinds of things, my religion, adult life, the foundation and premise that I was building my life on. So I started my own journey of trying to put my hot mess back together. Studied hypnotherapy first. That's where I started in hypnotherapy. That just made the most sense. Right, let's just short circuit this and go right to the way the brain thinks and began there. And then when I stepped in and opened up a private practice of hypnotherapy, I had a lot of fear and insecurity around doing the work that I do. Come up and I went, oh, no, this isn't for me. I'm not doing this. I've not selected correctly here. And so I actually embarked on a journey of going into medicine and thought I was going to pursue that route and did some premed courses and started learning about the body and digestive health. And again, I wanted to go right to the heart. Like, what affects health in a human being? Digestion. Digestion is not working. Then everything else goes haywire. You can start to see a theme emerge there, right. For me, I'm always kind of looking at what affects what and what's the pivotal heart of it all. And what was interesting is, as I opened up a wellness center focusing on digestive health, I would always find myself in these relational conversations, and I was also able to start seeing how the emotional and the physical work in tandem, firsthand, in my experience, which was exceptionally fascinating to me. And then, of course, the realization that I've already shared with you, like, look, if you really want to support a human being, then go to the emotional side, because that's the part that's more challenging, number one. And number two, that's the catalyst for so many things, right? So that's when I doubled down and started much of my trauma work, my art therapy work, my divorce mediation work, was finally the cherry on top, because, quite honestly, I was very conflict avoidant myself. I did not like conflict. I was very uncomfortable in it. And I thought, man, if I'm going to get good at this, I've got to handle this for myself. So had a mentor teacher that brought me in and allowed me to work in her practice for three years, teaching me divorce mediation, allowing me to work side by side with her, and was able to overcome a lot of the conflict stuff that I myself was a little adverse to.

[08:12] Karin: Yeah, it is interesting how we do tend to be drawn to the work that also helps us, and if we can recognize that and do the work for ourselves, then we can be so much more effective, can't we?

[08:30] Staci: 100%. Well, I think that's the thing that's going to keep you in it. I love the saying, we teach what it is we need to learn. And the fastest way and easiest way for us as a human being to learn it is to teach it and share it. So I learn it and teach it, and then I learn more. Right. So I always say to my clients, you're teaching me as much as I'm teaching you. Like I'm here, probably because I need it more than most, not because I've got it all figured out. So let's just be clear about that. That reciprocal gift of human interaction and relationships is, I think, one of the most precious gifts we get from being a human being. Sometimes we forget that and thank you.

[09:09] Karin: For that, because I think that is so important. And I think it took me a little while to figure that out, that I wasn't going to be coming in and saving people. I wasn't going to be coming in as someone above my clients, and that wasn't going to serve them. And when I could learn that we are all in this together, and I'm going to hopefully help facilitate something with you. But I'm no better than anybody else, and we can all help one another.

[09:40] Staci: In different ways, 100%. What we're good at in our profession, in my humble opinion, is we're just good at helping you explore the answers for yourself. I'm not going to give you answers for your life. What I am going to do is help you select and choose the ones that are correct for you. And I feel like for me to do otherwise would be very misleading. How dare I make a choice for your life the likes of which you're going to live out, and I'm going to go home and continue to do life on my side. Right. And yet I've perhaps overstepped a boundary there and said, this is what you need to do. This is your answer right here. I'm giving it to you. It doesn't work like that. I might have my ideas on my thoughts and suggestions, which I'll share, but ultimately, you've got to make the choice, and it's got to be one that works for you. It's got to be one that serves you. It's got to be one that you're willing to take, because you're going to be the only one that lives out that choice, the only person in the conversation who's going to reap the consequences of that choice. So I think it's an important piece for us all to remember. We don't get to make choices for other people. We can only help them sort through the choices that they need to make for themselves and find those answers. And that's what we get really good at, regardless of the medium that we're using.

[10:56] Karin: Right. So today we're going to talk about attachment. And I would love it if you just went through the four basic styles and gave people just a basic overview of what those four different styles are.

[11:11] Staci: I think the four basic anxious, anxious is something that we're very familiar with. And most of the conversation happens around an anxious. And then the second one is avoidant. Avoidant is the seemingly reach for. And we can talk about that, why that's such a famous pairing together, the anxious and the avoidant, and how those attachment styles coalesce together and why they're so attractive to the other person, how that has the interplay there. And then there's the anxious avoidant, disorganized, which means I have a little bit of that, but I'm really disorganized in the way that I attach. And then there's the secure attached, and of course, that's the one that we're all seeking for. And as we dive into this conversation around attachment style, I think it's really important for us to just let listeners know that we don't, as a human being, step into an attachment style and stay there. It's not like we finally arrive at being securely attached and then we've got it all handled and done. Relationships and the emotional experiences of relationships don't work like that. And I think sometimes we hold that idea, especially when we talk about attachment theory, that it is a place that I finally can arrive at and then just stay there. When we really think about the honest experience around that, we start to see, actually we cycle through those, even the best of us, who maybe come from securely attached households or have been given many demonstrations about what securely attached looks like. We ourselves are going to cycle through places of feeling avoidant or anxious. A little disorganized at times where I'm kind of wrestling with both, but we can just more quickly go back to finding a secure place to stand on. And to be quite truthful, I can see times in my life where I was exceptionally avoidant for a long decade of my life after coming out of a divorce. Right. I didn't want to get close to anybody. Relationships were going to be done on my own terms. I made it up in my mind and in my thinking that I didn't need anybody, it was dangerous to attach to somebody, to fully get in. And so, yeah, I'll have a good time and we can go on dates and hang out and stuff, but don't ask me to commit. Don't even ask me to go there. And I can also see in my earlier life where I was very much a pleaser and wanted nothing more than to be loved, to be appreciated, to be seen, to be validated, to be held and comforted, and to feel safe, I was exceptionally anxious in my attachment style. And so just to put a disclaimer out there that these are experiences in the relationship journey and not places that we are stuck in, which is good news for any of us who might be struggling in an avoidant or anxious pattern. And it's also important for us to remember that just because we're experiencing a period of secure attachment doesn't mean that the person I'm in love with changes, or our circumstances changes, or life throws us a curveball and all of a sudden we can start feeling like we're experiencing some of the other three attachment styles. And I'd love to get your thoughts on that too.

[14:34] Karin: Yeah. And I love that you said that because it really isn't about a diagnosis or putting people in a box. Because we can experience all of the attachment styles, we are not one style, and different people might bring out those different tendencies in us. And it can vary across our lifetimes. And I have absolutely experienced probably all four. Certainly the anxious, certainly the avoidant and the secure.

[15:06] Staci: Yeah.

[15:06] Karin: This is not to say that there is anything wrong with anybody, and yet some of those styles can get in our way of really enjoying our relationships and connecting at a deeper level. And so understanding what's going on and working with it can be really helpful.

[15:25] Staci: I completely understand that. Yeah. And I totally agree with that as well. It's kind of like being able to give us the you are here map, right. It doesn't mean you're stuck here, it just means know where you are and at the heart of it, what is it you're really needing? And what I find very interesting, especially in the anxious avoidance, since that's such a common pairing, is that everybody's really wanting the same thing, which is to feel safe emotionally in the relationship, to feel validated, to feel valued and important. And the way of coping with my fear and insecurity in that dynamic is just different. It's not right or wrong or good or bad. I get lots of questions on our social media about how do I get my avoidant to admit that they're avoidant? And maybe it's not about that. Maybe it's more about understanding why they feel like they need to be avoidant or what their inclination emotionally is to pull away and seek refuge in their coping style with their fears and insecurities around that, that might be a better conversation to have. Right. And understand, rather than forcing them to take the quiz and do several things. That kind of gives the anxious the I'm right. Right. I've got it all figured out. I know I've got to the bottom of what our problems are. And sometimes we don't realize in just that conversation it can be very negating, very invalidating.

[16:50] Karin: Yeah. So maybe you can talk a little bit about what anxious attachment looks like in a relationship.

[17:00] Staci: An anxious is constantly worrying that they're doing enough, that they're showing up in a way that works. They're doing a lot of emotional, what I call emotional weightlifting for the relationship. They're hypersensitive to everything that's said and done, and they're interpreting what that means along the way. And because we have these internal narratives, we all do as a human being, we are probably going to insert, more times than not, the interpretation that comes from a lot of my fear and insecurity. And so anxious is very good at probably self doubt and self judgment and criticism. And so when you forget something or you say something that fires off my fear and insecurity, or you don't want to have sex, all of a sudden I'm not good enough and I need to fix it and I need to understand why, and you've got to fix it for me so that I can relax and feel like we're safe. I need a tremendous amount, typically, of validation, reassurance in this place, because what's playing for typically anxious is just the reeling that I'm not getting it right, I'm not doing it right, I'm not enough, I'm not pretty enough, I'm not smart enough. And I can show and find evidence in my internal environment all the way around me of proof that that is indeed what you are making up is true, which, when you stop to think about it, we're making up a lot of stuff there. Based on my fear and insecurity, that probably is not true. And the avoidant actually has the separate coping side. Right. The more they need to reassure and validate and give, the more exhausted they get. So they run out of emotional gas pretty quickly and then they just think, I got to get back out of here. I can't do this anymore. This isn't working for me. I'm feeling stuck. I'm feeling suffocated. I need a break. I need some space. And that's what drives that anxious avoidant. Interesting to note, though, that when the avoidant pulls away and the anxious continues to invite them back into the relationship, that is very, very reassuring for the avoidant, right? They're getting all of this attention and love and thoughtfulness and, man, maybe they really do care, right, because they're pulling away because of their own fears and insecurities as well. And then they get a tremendous amount of reassurance and outreach and outpouring from the anxious person. When they have pulled away and decided they needed space and that feels pretty good, all of a sudden they start hearing and seeing and witnessing evidence of things that they are valued and important to the person. It's not just all about them. And so often this pairing goes round after round after round in this dynamic. The avoidant comes back, the anxious feels better, and we go through this period of time where it's like we're never going to do this again. And then the fear and insecurity starts to flash again. And we go through another round of just that. The anxious feeling like the avoidant doesn't love them, they're doing all these things that are wrong. The avoidant gets tired of hearing it, pulls away. The anxious goes, oh, my gosh, I'm realizing, I love you, come back. And they go, jeez, that feels pretty good. Yeah. And now we know why that's such a common pairing.

[20:24] Karin: So a few things come up for me. I think about when I have clients who are experiencing that anxiety in their relationship, I hear a lot from them. I hear a strong self critic. Like you mentioned, they're very self critical and judgmental of themselves. And I also hear from them, oh, I just hate to be so needy. I feel so needy. There's that that comes up so much, and it's just like this cycle of acting out and trying to get that other person close to them, but then hating on themselves for trying to get that closeness and trying to repair that relationship or get that reassurance. The other thing that I notice with the person with that anxiety is that they're very other focused. It's about seeking that validation outside of them. And they seem to have a harder time with self love and being able to soothe themselves.

[21:24] Staci: Maybe it would be helpful to just talk about judgment for a minute. I think the behavior of judgment is a fascinating human behavior that we can all relate to. And when we think of judgment, we're referring to it within sight of ourselves, which indeed is where judgment comes from. I can't have judgment of others unless I have judgment of self first. And I think that's just an important thing to remember. So when I'm judging others or I'm focused on others, as you said, other focused, which is so true for an anxious attachment style, what's really driving that is the judgment and the criticism of myself, and that's why that so dovetails. So as a human being, I experience judgment when I have a harsh critic internally and it's judging me on, oh, goodness, it could be a myriad of things. I'm going to just pull one tiny little piece out so that we can just see how it works. Let's say I'm a big girl. I'm like six foot and just shy of a couple of hundred pounds. So I'm a big girl. And when I go out in the world, I am towering over most women. And so a judgment of mine from very early on, within sight of myself, is that I'm trying to always look, not now, but sometimes now, I'm trying to fit in. You can't miss me. I've got red hair, big green eyes, and I'm six foot, and I have a very loud voice. And I walk into a room, it's like I'm trying to just sit in the back. And so I have some self judgment about it. And I very much have struggled with body image and those kinds of things, being a woman and wanting to be a feminine woman, et cetera. So when I go out into the world, if I'm in a place where I'm judging myself, what am I going to notice? I'm going to notice all of the little women, all the people who are smaller than me. And that's what I use in my experience to go see stace, better cut back on, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You better work out more, you better drink more water. That's the narrative that starts to play in my mind. As I'm noticing in the environment, there's a variety of all kinds of women and men, quite frankly, but I'm picking up on, and my brain is in tune to all the ones that are smaller than me. And then my brain is also going to notice the other side of judgment, which is all the people who are bigger than me. Why? Because it reassures me. Oh, okay. At least I'm not 7ft, right? Okay. Maybe I'm going to be okay. And so that's how judgment works. Whatever I'm judging myself with, I'm going to notice everything that I'm not, which is the others focused. And then I'm going to use the alternative of even more so than me. So if we were to put this in wealth, for example, and I'm beating myself up about not being able to stay within my budget, or yet again, I'm finding myself in credit card debt, I'm going to notice everybody who has a lot of things that I want. And that's what I'm going to be that judges myself harshly with, man, if I could just pull it together, I could do that and wear that and have that and be that. But I'm also going to notice the other side. Whoo. Thank goodness I'm not homeless. Oh, that poor person. She's not that bad. Right? And that's how judgment works in us on any given topic, education, anything that we could criticize ourselves from just to help us see that judgment is actually an internal job. People who say things that are unkind. Right? Well, am I being kind to myself? Does that make me so sick and fired up to my stomach because I spend hours a day doing it within? Is that why it's so intolerable? Right? And then I also seek all the people who are sweet, and that might even irritate me. Like, you're so sweet.

[25:25] Karin: Yuck.

[25:26] Staci: Gross.

[25:30] Karin: Right?

[25:33] Staci: Just so we can have an understanding of that. And as we start to plug it into attachment style, it makes a lot of sense. Right? What is the anxious judging themselves for? Not being enough.

[25:43] Karin: Right. Not being good enough for a relationship. They can't possibly love me because I'm not good enough.

[25:51] Staci: And I'm constantly messing it up, and I can't trust my own decisions. And I'm floating at a tremendous amount of doubt, and I don't know how to see myself through that. So I need this person to reassure me all the time that I've made the right choice, that I'm pretty enough, that I'm good enough, that I'm lovable. It's going to be okay. And at first, the avoidant loves to give that right. It starts out as, yeah, you're beautiful. You're amazing. I love being around you. You're the best thing ever. And as that starts to wane and their fears and insecurities start to pop up, and the anxious fears and insecurities and self judgment goes on steroids. Because, remember, the more you care, the more that's going to flash. Like, the more I want this relationship to work, the more insecure I'm going to feel. Because think about it. We go back to the conversation of judgment. Everything I am is on the line. My physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well being is in it. And anything that somebody can do right, and my partner is going to affect me. And we know this. We just don't talk about it. So I'm all in. We're doing this relationship thing, and the more I care and the more I want it, it's only a matter of time before the insecurities and fear that I feel within sight of me are going to flash no other way around it. It's kind of like a relational rite of passage. We have to get through that and find a way to dance with the fears and insecurities within our relationship, or we're not going to probably last.

[27:22] Karin: Yeah. And so what can people do who are experiencing that right now going, yes, that's my experience. So what do I do with that? How do I not feel so desperate and so self critical?

[27:37] Staci: Well, it's got to start with finding better ways that you can speak to yourself. And that's a lot of the work that you and I do. Right. We call it self love, but really what it is is learning how to validate myself. Right. And that step begins with first, just translating your own thoughts, feelings and emotions into a language that first you can understand. Because if you don't understand it and what's going on and what's coming up for you, and we're kind of dead in the water, I won't know. Your person won't know. You won't know. That's often why we're so focused on others is because I'm avoiding understanding myself. So if I can understand them and understand where they are and figure them out, then it's going to be okay. Right? I can morph myself into becoming what it is they need me to be, and they'll stick around. Problem solved. It's going to be great.

[28:31] Karin: And it can be easier to focus on the other person than focus on myself. That's really hard, right?

[28:38] Staci: It's one of the most courageous things we do as a human being. The turning and facing off with yourself to discover what's in there, to be able to translate those thoughts, feelings and emotions into a language first you can understand. It's the road to freedom. But it's also, in the beginning, terrifying as heck. We usually have to get ourselves in a tremendous amount of emotional pain before I'm willing to go. Okay, I'll do it. I've tried everything else. I'll do it. I'll face off with myself.

[29:11] Karin: Because there are some benefits from being where we are. Right?

[29:16] Staci: Absolutely.

[29:17] Karin: Yeah, absolutely. That self critic really works hard for us to keep us safe in the world.

[29:23] Staci: Yeah. I was just reading or participating in a wonderful piece not to get us off track here at all. Dick Schwartz, who was the creator.

[29:35] Karin: Yeah. I'm trained in.

[29:39] Staci: The realization that actually, the parts that are critical, the parts that do appear sometimes negative in our coping abilities actually have really good news. Right. They're actually a wonderful gift to us. And I think sometimes, as frustrating as our partners can be in this dynamic of anxious, unavoidant, we don't realize what it is they are bringing to the relationship to help me see and understand myself in ways I can't on my own. Therefore, relationships are always going to be something as attractive as a human being. They give us the opportunity to see our fears and insecurities work with them, and we will absolutely create do overs, I call them lovely do overs, where I have as a human being the uncanny ability of redupplicating with uncanny precision emotions that I have yet to heal from or understand or dance with so that I can see and understand myself better. That's what I would call healing. Right. It's the understanding and acceptance of myself and understanding why I've done and behaved. I'm sure you see this in your work, too. When you understand the narrative that's driving the behavior, the behavior always makes sense. It's like, of course you would do that.

[30:52] Karin: Exactly.

[30:53] Staci: If I was living in that space between my own ears.

[30:56] Karin: Right.

[30:57] Staci: Yeah, that makes sense. On the front side, you kind of think, okay, what's going on here? But when you dive in it, it always makes sense. It always absolutely makes 100% sense.

[31:07] Karin: Yeah. And that's a question I often ask my clients. It's like, okay, well, what's the story that you're telling yourself? So let's follow that. And that is such an important part of the work, is understanding why. And I think that really helps the self critic to ease up and realize, oh, okay, yeah. Working with that self critic, realizing that all these different parts have a reason for getting us to do the things that we're doing, understanding that we're not just crazy or stupid or dumb or anything like that. There's a really good reason that we do the things that we do. But understanding that first can help us to then figure out, okay, if that's what's driving me now? How can I try something new?

[31:58] Staci: Yeah, I think it's fascinating with this critic piece when you go back to parent child dynamics, which is where attachment theory comes from, right? Studying children with their parents, and we start to see the different emotions that play out in that attachment style. And as a child, as an infant even, or as a young person who doesn't have any control over the environment or what happens in the household, I find it fascinating that we adapt in our own thinking. If I can't change my parent and I can't change the environment, I have no effect over it. But I'm highly acute and aware that I'm also not capable of surviving on my own. Then what do I do? I turn on myself rather than turn on the partner or the person or the caregiver that I need in order to survive. And so even in that moment in our psyche, emotionally, et cetera, it's actually an ability to survive that's playing out there, right. So I can't turn on my parent. I can't remove myself from this environment. So where do I go as a human being? Oh, it must be me. There must be something wrong with me. There must be something I can do to affect the change in this environment so that I can have what I need to survive. And that's the beginning basis of some of these things that continue to play out. And where are they going to flash in our relationship lives in that do over I just talked about? They're going to show up in our relationships when I care and when I am interdependent on someone else because their actions are going to greatly affect my life on every level. So what flashes again and comes up for me to look at some of those old ways that I coped in the beginning when I felt like I didn't have any control or I felt stuck and didn't know how to operate in that. And that's what anxious, unavoidant is. Or disorganized. It's going back to. Right. They're going to come up. It's okay that they come up. They're going to flash my old coping skills of surviving. And thank goodness we have them because you're here, right? We need to give them the credit that credit is due. You're here today to even have this conversation and to explore this journey. So bravo. That was brilliant on your part. And now we can give it an upgrade. And the more I look at it and the more I understand it and accept it as part of my experience, as a human being, the easier time we have of just giving it an upgrade, it's still going to happen, it's still going to flash. It just doesn't mean you're now a slave to it. And I think that's what makes us feel stuck.

[34:29] Karin: Right.

[34:29] Staci: We feel like we have no effect over this feeling. And so I just react without realizing, no, you're going to feel it, but you don't have to react like you always have.

[34:38] Karin: You have a choice.

[34:38] Staci: Do something different, but only if you're willing to get up close and personal with it. Right.

[34:44] Karin: Yeah.

[34:44] Staci: You can't change something you don't understand. You can't give it an upgrade. And if you got to keep it buried in the backyard again, you're going to react to it. You're going to be subject or slave to it.

[34:56] Karin: Right. You're going to be pulled along by it. But awareness, that's the first step.

[35:01] Staci: Very much so.

[35:03] Karin: I don't have anything to add to that. Well said.

[35:05] Staci: When we were getting ready to record, we were talking about conflict. And in this, you start to see the conflict so much isn't about others. The conflict is actually about the conflict within sight of me. Right. And that's your stuff coming, what creates the conflict.

[35:25] Karin: Right, exactly. One of the things I help my couples do is do a uturn. All right, so what's going on inside of you? Which can really do a lot for helping couples understand the Dynamic that's playing out in the relationship.

[35:42] Staci: Yeah. Something I spend a lot of time with as well, in that vein, is recognize and realize that people are going to do things that are going to fire you up. Right. And it's our partners that get on our last nerve. Right. They have this uncanny ability to fire off stuff inside of me I didn't even know was there. Right. And we can get to a place where I'm, like you said, other focused, and I make it up that if I can just get them to stop or start doing this thing that won't fire that off in me anymore, then we're going to be okay. And if they do this, this and this, then I'm entitled to do this and this and this and this to them. And that's typically how we interact with conflict. Right. So it's kind of like I allow myself in the conflict of their behavior to do all kinds of things that, on the backside, I feel terrible about. Right. As many clients have said to me, this relationship is turning me into a monster of myself. Why? Because I'm allowing myself to behave in ways that are not congruent or in line with the person I want to be. It's because you've done and said these things. Now I'm entitled to do these things. Well, what if we could just not go there and recognize and realize that I don't want to show up ever as a version of myself. I don't want to be that. I want to to the very best of my ability. However this rolls, get to the other side of it and feel good about how I played it. That's our win. Not about getting your person to stop or start, but about feeling good about how you navigated through it on your own accord. And that's going to cause all of us to do what I call emotional push ups, emotionally regulate myself to such a degree that I can navigate through this in a way that at the end, I know I gave it my best shot. I said what I needed to say, I asked for what I needed. And then where I end and you begin becomes exceptionally clear. If I'm in it and I'm adding my own piece of conflict to it, it becomes very, very muddied. And the guilt and shame just crescendos. Right. For both of us and what we have accomplished, there is just more conflict and more pain. More pain, yeah.

[38:05] Karin: And I think that that's a really important piece that I think gets missed for a lot of people, is that self regulation piece when you are triggered, being able to self soothe so that then you can really understand what's going on and be more present and aware and then be able to make that choice rather than getting caught up because your nervous system is activated. And when we're in fight or flight, it's really hard to be thoughtful and use our rational brain and all those things.

[38:41] Staci: When I think sometimes when it comes to conflict, we don't realize we have a brake pedal. Right. All we're all familiar with is a gas pedal. And it's like, the more I spin up, the more I hit the gas pedal. Right. And as I like to say, has that ever gone well even one time for any of us? Could we all just compare notes? Let's think about when it is we start to spin up and things start to escalate. Right? Have we ever gotten to an escalation point where your partner or your friend or your child says to you, aha, I see the light. You are so right. I get your point now. I mean, it's comical.

[39:20] Karin: Yeah. When you yelled at me at that high pitched level, then I got it right.

[39:26] Staci: Then it really sunk in. And it's like it's not worked 100% of the time for 100% of humans, right? But yet, because we don't know what else to do, instead, we continue to go back there and back there and back there thinking, if I just yell a little louder and I get a little more pushy, or I tell you for the 1275th time, then you're going to get it right.

[39:56] Karin: And it's not to. We're laughing, but it's perfectly understandable, given people's histories, their patterns, what triggers them, and that they don't know what else to do.

[40:09] Staci: Well, and I don't know, Karen, maybe we need to come clean. We're laughing because we do it, too. Right?

[40:15] Karin: Thank you for that. Yes. All right. We're human. Oh, yeah.

[40:21] Staci: I'm supposed to be the professional, right?

[40:26] Karin: We are all in it together.

[40:29] Staci: We are all in it together. And so that brake pedal becomes very fundamental. Like the minute you feel yourself going, there would be the easiest time we all have of saying, you know what? I'm going to pause right now. I'm going to come back to this. Let me get clear about what I'm thinking and feeling, and then we can have a conversation about that. And instead of looking at conversations that we're trying to avoid in conflict as a one and done, it's kind of like we wait for the conversation to be put on the table, and then we feel like finally there's the opening that we've been waiting weeks and months for. And then we feel like we've got to handle it right now. And it's a setup. It really is. I want you to think of conversations more like rounds of a workout. Every round counts, right? Every round. You're going to learn something about yourself and your partner and your relationship. And if it takes us 50 rounds or 150 rounds to get some clarity and understanding about a piece of our relationship, that's really challenging for both of us. Take the 150. What's important is that the conversation continues and continues and continues. And the only way it's going to continue is if we can count on each other to say, I'm not in a space to be doing this right now. Right. Because nothing good happens once we hit the gas pedal. And the only way we're going to be able to use the brake pedal is very early on in the conversation.

[41:54] Karin: Yeah.

[41:55] Staci: Because once it's in motion, stopping, as we all know, is exceptionally difficult and highly unlikely.

[42:03] Karin: Yeah. And there's so much we can say about conflict, but I also want to bring it back to attachment and talking a little bit more about the avoidant type. I'd like people to understand a little bit more about what that looks like and why they behave the way they do.

[42:23] Staci: Yeah, avoidance oftentimes because anxious have the physical outward appearance of suffering greatly with their emotions. Right. There's this physical outward expression of the anxious style. And so we, of course, have a lot of empathy, but it's easy to understand because we can see it playing out. And they're very expressive. Typically, too. They're going to be probably the more verbal party in the relationship. And so they're talking and sharing with friends and family and a support system. They're probably going to be the one that's going to reach out and get help and support. Right. With professionals such as ourselves. And so there's this very obvious. I just see it and it's much easier to understand it from that angle. I think avoidance are very misunderstood in that they don't care and that they don't have emotion and emotional pain and suffering around this experience. Instead of expressing it, though, they very much internalize it. So it's a very silent experience for them. And just know that sometimes what hurts the most can't be seen within us as a human being. And that's very much the experience of an avoidance. They're not having a good time either, especially when I care and I love you. And I thought this was going to go much different than where we're finding ourselves in this moment. They're just internalizing it all. You also might see it in explosive behavior where they'll hold it for as long as they possibly can. And then it's going to come out in this outrage or holes being punched in the wall, or it comes out in these very egregious ways. But the sweetheart message to that is I don't want to say anything because when I do, it always comes out wrong. One, two, I don't know. And not had a lot of success in saying what it is I want to say. And we don't realize that that is very much a skill. That is very much something that the more I talk, the easier it is. The easier it is to find the words to use and to go to those places within sight of myself. If I'm just internalizing them, I'm just sitting in it in isolation, which can be a very dangerous place to be. Nonetheless, the emotion is very much spinning. And so they're going to run out of emotional gas pretty quickly just because of all the internalization of this emotional experience that they don't know what to do with. They feel terrible when they have these huge explosions, which are going to be inevitable. It is for any of us. As a human being, I can only hold emotion for so long before there's going to need to be some expression of it. And when it gets egregious like that, we've just simply held onto it too.

[45:12] Karin: Long.

[45:14] Staci: Then they are see, they're the problem, right? That's what's going on. It's their fault. It's easy for us to point fingers at the physical demonstrations that we see without realizing there's a lot of internal suffering that's going on there. So I just want to reassure the anxious that as much as you're struggling, so are they. One is not inferior or superior to the other, but it's just a very similar emotional journey that we are expressing in very polar opposite ways. I think it's important to say that.

[45:48] Karin: One of the things that I hear a lot is that, oh, he was just so narcissistic, he was so toxic, and I think it's overused. And I suspect that sometimes what's really going on is that their partner is just avoidant. So how can people, what's the difference between those two things? Because there is a significant difference, but sometimes they can look the same.

[46:15] Staci: Very much so. Let's talk about narcissism overall. Let's just maybe touch on that for a moment. It is something that we finally gave a name to a certain set of behaviors, and then it was kind of like we all jumped on the bandwagon and went, that's it. That makes so much sense. We've finally been able to categorize. I call it emotional organization.

[46:37] Karin: Making sense of things, right.

[46:40] Staci: Making sense of things. Right. Because emotions can be sometimes nonsensical, and we don't understand what we're thinking or feeling with them. And they can be so fluid and fast moving. And so when we find something that helps us categorize or organize emotional experiences, we love to label them because it helps us make sense and organize them in some kind of a category. Just as we were talking about attachment styles, though, we can all be narcissistic, and I'm sure in our lifetimes we all have been narcissistic, which is I become solely focused on my own emotional needs, and then I'm going to act out, or feel entitled to act out in order to accomplish those. If I was just to kind of boil it down into its very simplistic form, I will allow myself to do many verbal and physical demonstrations of getting that need met. And I know there's going to be a price to be paid, but in my mind and in my narrative, it must be done because I need this. I want this. This is where I want to go. And I have a narrative that entitles me to do that. And sometimes the story of that justification is quite fascinating. And so we probably have all been narcissistic at some point in time in our lives, right?

[48:01] Karin: Teenagers trying to do who are development, it's developmentally appropriate. They are more self focused. But yes, it can come off as.

[48:11] Staci: Very narcissistic when they are and they're so self centered. It's all about them and what they need, and it's very difficult for them to think outside of their lives. That's a great example. That is a great example of that behavior. And so I agree with you. We do overuse it. I think when we feel like we are less than or treated as less than in a relationship or perceive that I'm being treated as a less than, then my automatic reach for in this label is narcissism.

[48:46] Karin: Yeah.

[48:47] Staci: Now there can be a twofold punch to this. Are they narcissistic or am I just not really good at advocating for myself? I've seen that very much in a couple dynamic. Right, where they're labeling their partner as narcissistic. But when you start digging down into the behavior and the dynamic between the couple is, I never speak up, I never say so you're always calling the shots that I feel like I have to go along with because I'm not advocating. I barely have a voice in this conversation. And if we're not careful, we can hold ourselves as a victim there and then label them as a narcissist. And I see that dynamic happen, especially in anxious avoidant attachment styles, because remember, what is the anxious experiencing a tremendous amount of self doubt. And in that self doubt, I'm probably not very good at advocating for myself or telling you what I really would like and need because that's hard for me when I'm doubting myself and I don't give myself enough credit for who I am and what it is I do do. I'm feeling like there's always more I have to do in order to be loved. So when we're coming from that narrative, we often are not very good at advocating for ourselves or truly disclosing what it is I ultimately need to be happy and fulfilled in the relationship to keep life moving. Then it puts somebody else in the position of taking care of all the decisions and calling all the shots and making all the choices, which causes me to look like a what?

[50:21] Karin: And the other thing that comes up for me is that because avoidants don't often feel comfortable talking about emotions, they can look like they're not in touch with their emotions, and above it all, and that there is a power play in between the anxious attachment and the avoidant attachment, where the anxious attachment is always one down, because the avoidant one is really the one calling the shots. And so that power differential can also feel like narcissism. Like they've got all the control and they're not in touch with their emotion. They can't even talk about their emotions. And so that can start to look.

[51:03] Staci: Like narcissism and not to minimize that. I mean, it's real.

[51:09] Karin: Yeah, right.

[51:10] Staci: But as far as being extreme covert narcissism, percentagely speaking, it's probably a lot less than you think.

[51:19] Karin: Yeah. And I think the other important thing is that the avoidant usually really does want the relationship to work. And if you can communicate to it in a way that they can hear it, then they're more willing to work on the relationship, and they do care about the other person.

[51:44] Staci: Some of my most precious memories in the work that I do is with an avoidant who finally admits that they love deeply and they want this to work. I always like to say, look, when there's a crusty exterior, there is usually a very squishy, gooey person on the inside. Otherwise, why the need for the crusty exterior? You wouldn't need it stronger. The armor trying to protect if you weren't trying to protect something. And so those are precious moments and memories for me that are a huge driver in the work that I do, is the person who's feeling misunderstood and mislabeled and misdiagnosed, and nobody understands what's truly going on. Maybe sometimes not even me. I'll be the first to admit I act out, and I'm not handling this well, but I've not found a safe place where I can really open up and explore those things within me. And then when you do, there is the sweetest human in there. They're just precious. They've just not ever had a safe run at interrelating in the relational space. They've always been hurt or mistakenly taken advantage of or negated. So the reason why they're behaving the way that they are as an avoidant, remember, comes from a long line of experiences for themselves. And this is what they've made up they need to do in order to protect themselves. I think sometimes we forget that and we get hyper focused on just the behavior that's presenting today without realizing that came from somewhere. That was what I call that thing I do, that coping thing I do to survive, maybe some pretty challenging stuff. And that was probably genius, as I've already said, like, bravo, you made it. You're here. We can have this conversation, right? We can take another go at this. I think those are things we all need to remember.

[53:45] Karin: What's the pattern that you see between anxious avoidant in their sexual relationship?

[53:54] Staci: The pattern I see is the anxious probably has sex more than they really want to. They feel like they have to in order to keep the relationship good. Over time, that very much backfires because they feel like they've given all of the decision making sexually to the avoidant. So the avoidant is very much in control in regards to how intimacy plays out and what we do and how we embark on it and the frequency, et cetera. And that just adds to the doubt. And then I feel more used. I feel like I don't have a say. I feel like I'm not getting my own sexual needs met and the avoidance just going, I didn't know. I didn't know that's what you were feeling. You've never told me that. And now I'm being demonized as the person who's now insisting that it happened like this. This is the frequency. This is how we do it. This is how it's going down. And you can start to see what I was just talking about a moment ago. Do you have the ability to advocate for yourself? And that's really difficult. If I have a lot of self doubt, I've seen it also go the other direction, where the anxious is begging and pleading for intimacy, and the avoidant doesn't want to get too close because they're having a difficult time emotionally coping and because they're typically the ones that are calling the shots and making a lot of the decisions. They refuse to engage sexually.

[55:22] Karin: Yeah.

[55:23] Staci: Which is just destructive to the anxious. Like, we want to talk about poor gasoline on an anxious attachment.

[55:32] Karin: Yeah. I love that you say that. It really can go either way because I've seen that as well. And so understanding their motivations behind what they're doing, I think, is really important. And, of course, you have someone who's anxious and might be with anyone, and they can feel like sex is like confirmation that everything is okay.

[55:53] Staci: Yes, very much so that I'm still beautiful and wanted and desired. Just recently, I'm thinking of a couple that's coming to mind where that's very much the dynamic. She is desperately trying to figure out how to get her partner to engage sexually with her. And they've had major blow ups about it. And he himself is the avoidant. Shut down. Doesn't really express, very much internalizes his emotions. And they haven't had sex in years because of it. And then he feels terrible. He knows he's not performing and showing up in that way, but he's afraid of getting too close and getting hurt. Right. And this is a way he doesn't want to bond any further sexually until we figure some things out. So there is a sweetheart message there, very much so. Like, I don't want to hurt you and I don't want to mislead you. So, no, I can't go there right now with you. Now that we're on to sex, we've really covered the gamut here today. That's something I'm very passionate about talking about and the reason why. And I know we won't go into that today, but we need to talk about it more. We need to understand and normalize the conversation around sex and intimacy. There's a lot of, even if we're really good at advocating for ourselves in what I call our daily lives, about professionally or taking care of household tasks or just budgeting the money and those kinds of things, we can even get good at advocating for ourselves there. But still, when it comes to sex and intimacy, we're not very good about talking about it and having conversations around it and exploring what works for me and what doesn't work for me. And I just want to highlight here that all the skills we teach in our professions, right, to soothe, to cope, to explore, to express those same skills, very nicely translate into the conversations we need to have around our intimate life, our sex life. And it's going to make your armpit sweat originally, but once you go there, you realize, oh, wow, this is just the same. Wow. Okay. We could be easily talking about the budget or when we're going to paint the house. Yeah.

[58:11] Karin: The more you do it, the easier.

[58:12] Staci: It gets and the less fear there is around it. And fear is what really cripples our intimate lives very much.

[58:20] Karin: Yeah, indeed. So is there something that people listening can walk away with after this conversation? What would that you want that to be for people, especially if they recognize themselves in this conversation as being anxious, as being avoidant?

[58:42] Staci: The first thing that comes to my mind is a quote by Leo Bascalia that so eloquently states what we've talked about and touched on in so many different ways. Most of us are strangers to ourselves, asking other people who are strangers to themselves to love us, and we start to understand the conflict and why we attach the way that we do. So just to highlight the importance of, gosh, I got to get to know myself because that is what I bring to a relationship. Like, you are the gift that you bring to another. Knowing yourself, being yourself, expressing yourself. And that is the greatest filter I can give you to finding and creating that love you say you so desire and, quite frankly, deserve in your heart. And then the second thing I'd want to leave with you is you are human being, and that gives you the dynamic ability to create anything. So please don't let anybody pigeonhole you in regards to an attachment style, a love language, a personality test, those are just things to help us see where you are today. But please know this, you are so much more than any of that. And if you want to take something on and make a change in your life, I want you to remember you have the power to do it. We just have this conversation today so you can see where you are on the map. Please do not forget you are a human being and you have the power to create. So use it. Do something with.

[01:00:18] Karin: Oh, that got me right here. Stacey, thank you. Beautifully said. Powerful.

[01:00:25] Staci: Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.

[01:00:28] Karin: But there is another important question I have that I ask all my guests. And that is, what role does love play in the work that you do?

[01:00:36] Staci: It's everything. Love is everything. I know that sounds very platitudeish. And now I'm going to get emotional, especially right now in the world. If I can come from a place of love, when it's hard and I'm fired up and I'mired in conflict, it is the only place I can affect change. It is. I have to remember that as I am hurting, so is another. And if I can come from a place of love for myself and for others, believing that, we'll figure this out as we go. There's my most powerful place as a human being. For if I give into hate, if I give into making it up that it's okay to mistreat or make somebody pay. We're all going to pay. We are all going to pay. What am I feeding? I am feeding conflict within side of myself, too, right? So I'm showing up as a version of myself. I do not feel good about. And my psyche, the person in me that holds the seeds of who it is I have the capacity to be, will flash off emotion that hurts in me in a measure to say, what are you doing? This is not who you want to be. Stop it right now. And so you start to see that that's usually what mires our conflict cycle, is me behaving in a way that spikes emotional pain in me. That's me saying, knock it off. This isn't who you want to be. This isn't how you want to show up. This isn't how you want to do it. Love yourself. Love others. Give some grace. Let it go. And then I say, no, because they've done this. I must do this. I must make them pay. That's how I'm going to feel better without realizing, the more I do that, the more emotional pain I create, not only for myself, but for everybody around me. And so you asked me, what is love? Love is everything. Being able to love somebody or at least attempt to stand in that place for yourself is the greatest gift we can give others and ourselves at the same time. The love of self that I don't have to make somebody pay, that I can show up as a version of myself that I choose to be, regardless of how you show up, is love in its finest form. And so it's everything.

[01:03:01] Karin: Thank you so much.

[01:03:04] Staci: Yeah, truly my pleasure.

[01:03:05] Karin: I really hope that people stayed to the end of this episode and heard all of that. So important. Stacey, I appreciate you so much and I want to make sure that people know how they can learn more about you and your podcast.

[01:03:22] Staci: Everything you could possibly ever want to know and more is on my [e-mail]. My podcast is there. Free resources, are there access to my book, to my conversation? Everything, and a history of myself. If you wanted to know more about me, like I said, you can find more out there than you'd probably care to know.

[01:03:49] Karin: This has been such a gift to be able to spend another hour plus with you. So thank you. I appreciate you.

[01:03:57] Staci: Bye bye for now. Bye.

[01:03:58] Karin: Thanks for joining us today on Love is us. If you liked the show, I would so appreciate it if you left me a review. If you have questions and would like to follow me on social media, you can find me on Instagram where I'm the love and connection coach. Special thanks to Tim Gorman for my music, Ali Shaw for my artwork, and Ross Burdick for tech and editing assistance. Again, I'm so glad you joined us today because the best way to bring more love into your life and into the world is to be loved. The best way to be love is to love yourself and those around you. Let's learn and be inspired together.