Transcript of Amir Levine (on attachment theory)

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, Experts on Expert. I'm Dan Sheppard. I'm joined by Lily Padman. Hi. Hi. We have the author of an incredibly popular book. Yes. Read by millions.

Millions, indeed.

His first book was Attached, Amir Lavine. He is a psychiatrist, a neuroscientist, and of course, a best-selling author. He has a new book out answering as he talks about attached, outline these different attachment styles. Then people were naturally curious, Can I change mine? And so his new book is to address that exact question, Secure: The Revolutionary Guide to Creating a Secure Life. Please enjoy Dr. Amir Lavine. This episode of Armchair Expert is presented by Apple TV, the new US Home of Formula One. Starting March seventh, you can watch complete all-access live coverage of every Grand Prix, including practice, qualifying, and sprints all in one place. Watch every race live only on TV. He's an option expert. He's an option expert. He's an option expert. Hi, Moni. How are you?

I'm good.

Did you have a good weekend?

I did have a good weekend.

Anything spectacular happened?

Nothing spectacular, which is a good weekend. Okay. You know, I'm moving this week.

Friday?

I'm sleeping there on Friday.

Oh, my God. Monica has been building a house across the street for what? Five, six years?

It'll be six years.

Wow. Congratulations. Thank you. That's amazing.

Thank you. It's been a long time coming, so I am very excited. This week is a big week because there's a lot of moving parts and getting the stuff over.

I wonder if any of your attachment theory stuff is coming up. Oh, I hope.

I hope. I'm so obsessed with attachment theory. I'm so glad you're here because I I'm obsessed with it, and I don't think I really understand it. I think a lot of people feel that way. They reference attachment theory a lot, but I don't know if we're all doing it correctly.

There's a lot of myths and misconceptions for sure.

Okay, great.

Well, we're going to- Where are you from, Amir?

Originally, I grew up in Jerusalem.

Okay. Do you find this to be true that the Israelis, they tick up highest on the disagreeability category? We've had a lot of experts talk about that.

Oh, that Israelis disagree a lot? Oh, yeah. It's part of our culture. Yeah, I like it. It took me time. Americans would consider being rude. It's actually just normal way of speaking. They go like that. She's like, No, I don't agree with you. That would be considered so rude. No one would speak like that here.

Do you know Orna? Yeah. Does she work at NYU in some capacity?

I think she does. I don't know her personally, but I know her work.

But you're at Columbia?

I am at Columbia, yeah.

Well, we had her on, and I was saying to her, she has this wonderful gift of she's endlessly hopeful and empathetic. And I asked her, I'm like, Is this the Israeli site? You can also on a dime be like, Okay, disagreeable time. You're very comfortable in the disagreeability. I'd say I'm high on the disagreeability.

Not only that, I think that's how I got into Columbia to do my residency there. Really? Yeah. I went to medical school in Jerusalem, and they said, Don't bother. They don't take foreign medical graduates. I said, Okay, I'll just go, and at least I'll get to talk to all these interesting researchers. I read about the research, and some of the people I knew about the research. Because usually, you go and you go to Grand rounds. You spend the day on the wards, and they said, No, I want to meet with the researchers. Then I met with one guy who seemed old and very non-threatening, and I knew about his work. I told him how much I liked his work, but I could have been approved. There's all these different shortcomings in this methodology, and it went on and on. I was just like, What do I have to lose?

You had nothing to lose.

At the end of it, he said, Okay, I want you to meet with a few more people. He called a few more people around. It was the Department of Epidemiology. They all got together and wrote a letter on my behalf to the head of the residency program. Oh, you're kidding. That's how I got in. That's great.

Oh, I love that. Well, am I right, or at least to believe from this book that you were originally definitely aiming at being a therapist of some variety?

I still am a therapist.

Yes, but the original site was set up.

I was going to be a psychoanalyst. That's how I basically ended up where I am today in a completely unexpected way, because back then, in order to become a psychoanalyst, you had to do a year of analysis before going into analytics school. I love this.

Personal analysis?

Your own analysis. Oh. Like four times a week on the couch, talking whatever, they sit behind you, you don't see them.

Oh, wow. Yeah, we've had numerous. In fact, we just had someone on who they themselves were a therapist, and they got to a point in their life where they had to return to therapy. And how much there can be a resistance to that, even from therapists.

Yeah, Ford said that there's always resistance. It's like It's built into the treatment. It's always the part of the work as a therapist is working through those resistances.

Yeah. So during this year of therapy, you came to realize in some free association that you really still yearned for the biological.

I was going to do potentially epidemiological research. But then during that time, I was looking for the research that I wanted to do. I got some advice, and they said, a researcher's life is a really hard life. A scientist's life is really hard. You better choose something that you're really interested in because it's going to be a rough ride. I looked to see what I really liked. I've always had an affinity to basic science and to molecular research, but I didn't really pursue molecular. I didn't have a PhD, but I really liked it. It was the analyst who said, Well, maybe you should give it a try. But he didn't really know what it means. I didn't barely knew even how to hold it by pet. But I found this one paper that I really, really liked about long term memory and how long term memory is conserved and epigenetic changes in those neurons in apleasia, which is a sea slug.

That has enormous neurons?

Yes, huge neurons. Then I went, and again, I guess that theme of going and talking. I went and I talked to the last author in that paper, but he wasn't the one who masterminded it. He listened to me for two minutes. His name was Eric Kindale. And then he basically said, Let's go up a floor. And we went. That's where I met James Schwartz, Jimmy, my first mentor. I basically talked to him a little bit about my thoughts again, the same thing about the research and the ideas that I had. Then he said, Okay, we'll I'll give you a try for three months and see how you fare, and then we'll see what happens after that. There I was going into the lab, which I've never imagined that I would do, behind the bench, starting all these molecular experiments. Yeah.

Now, do you think you had a primary question about life in humans that you thought was going to be answered in psychoanalysis or the pursuit of it and the practice of it, and that you saw in this epigenome work? Well, maybe the answer lies over here or had not even occurred to you yet. Do you think you had a driving curiosity, a primary question?

I really did want to understand what makes human tick, and I really wanted to understand the brain better. But I don't think that at the time I had a specific idea I've always had this thirst for knowledge, which maybe will explain why I did what I did, because at that time, I was almost done with my residency. It's been many years going to medical school and then coming here and doing another year of internship. I had to do two years, I had to repeat a year of internship. Then I did adult psychiatry and then child psychiatry altogether in another five years. After doing all that training- You were 71 years old.

Seriously, you're aging backwards.

When we think, Okay, it's time to make money, right? You have to open up your private practice and start making money. And then, wait a second, I still really want to learn more, and I'm going to take a salary which maybe is a 10th of the amount and just continue with my education and learning. But I didn't even think about it that way at the time. Now, looking back and can see, Whoa, these important years where you could have saved money for retirement. It didn't occur to me at all. I just really wanted that pursuit of knowledge. That's what I did. I went to the lab, and then for many, many years, I did a lot of molecular biology work.

Okay, so I'll over share with you. So I ended up doing Anthro, and I really think about why did Anthropology. I think I was immediately drawn to the fact that, oh, there's a lot of different ways you can live. And I think that was comforting because I felt like with the single and go, Mom, and all these other things that we didn't click so well with the culture I inherited. And then so I was quite critical of the culture I inherited. And I wanted to know, do we have any basis to think that this is the way we should do things? So I guess I'm wondering for you, can you think of any primary angst?

Definitely the pursuit of knowledge is a huge one. And I grew up in that environment. I had a very unusual upbringing. My mom had even more unusual upbringing. The education that she received, it was very, very progressive. They didn't care about grades at all. They didn't have exams. They just would give them comments about what they did. Yeah. And so she lived in a kibbutz, so it's like a commune. So they had to work a lot, also agriculturally. They didn't live with their parents. So they wanted everyone to be equal. So they separated. It's crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So she came from a very, very unusual upbringing. But I grew up in Jerusalem. I grew up with my parents. But she also, she didn't believe in grades, and she didn't really care care about school so much. So I could actually stay home whenever I wanted from school. And I did. I stayed home a lot and we had this huge library, and I would read a lot. It was completely uncensored. Seven, I would read the Kama sutra. I was trying to make sense of it. Different books that I read at the time that I could barely understand, but I just read them anyway.

And especially on days when we had exams, I didn't have to go because she didn't believe in exams. Oh my God.

It's crazy you ever went to medical school.

It was very unusual. And whenever we would come home, we would read together. It was a very rich intellectual environment. And my mom, she was the editor of the equivalent of Scientific American. Oh, no kidding. So there's also a lot of talk about science and popular science. So here's why I ended up also writing popular science and popular psychology. I really grew up with it.

And by the way, I would say in probably the best motivated way possible, which is intrinsically. It's not about getting the good grade. It's not about getting the test right. Just for betterment.

Also, to think about something original, something that can make people think differently or look at things differently.

Were your parents divorced?

They're not divorced. Very, very long relationship. So you're asking because I didn't mention my dad yet. Yeah. If you're asking about a motivation to understand human behavior. They were completely opposites, my mom and my dad. My mom was a single child who came from an Ashkinazi European ancestry, Jewish ancestry. My dad was a Sephardic Jew. They had 10 siblings. He came from a very poor family, and he never even finished the fifth grade. Wow. Yeah, he had horrible ADHD. He was bouncing whenever the teacher would come into the classroom. It was like, you out.

Get off your desk and leave the classroom.

By the fifth grade, he was done with the formal education, but he was a very smart person and very, very unusual person also. Exactly the opposite of this progressive- Even high on the disagreeability scale within. Completely high on the disagreeability scale. Off the charts. Can I tell you what he did once we were at the hotel? I don't remember who the president was. The President of the United States was visiting. He was there with all of his entourage and everyone surrounding him. They're all wearing these suits, and I got nervous. So I clutched on to my dad's hand and he said, You have nothing to be afraid of. Here, they're all humans just like you. Let me show you something. Oh, boy. And he took out a quarter and he flipped it in the air and then he fell on the marble floor and he made this little sound. And they were all looking down to see Sure. What had fell. It was like an instinct. And you see, you see, we're all the same.

Oh, I love that example.

I thought he was going to do something wide. Lunge at the President? Yeah. This is a weird question, but were you embarrassed by him because he was so different?

We were so different. I think it took me many, many years to now really more understand what was going on in that relationship. It was not an easy relationship. For many, many years, I saw it from really my point of view of He was really difficult, stubborn. Everything had to be done his way. So the opposite of what my mom was. With him, if I didn't make it to school, that was a big deal. Thankfully, he wasn't around a lot, and that's how I was able to get away with it. But if you were around, eventually, he let my mom do whatever she wanted to do. But he was very, very difficult. Later on, and actually, that's part of why I even wrote this new book, Secure, because all of my understanding and everything that I understood about our relationship really shifted. I see it now from a more secure your place?

Because he was more an avoidant.

Oh, gosh. He was definitely somewhat avoidant, and I think also somewhat fearful avoidant, a mixture of it.

Now that we know a lot more about ADHD, the rigidity in the game plan, how much different that is for his experience in your mom's or other people's.

Definitely.

Maybe a little compassion.

I have so much more compassion to him now. And then because of this whole process that I went through in understanding how to look at the world more securely. And that has helped me so much because, yes, he was difficult, but I was not easy either. And I was this smart ass kid who was really highly educated, was reading all these books.

Belittled him.

Yes. And corrected his language and was like, do all these things. Triggered his insecurity. Yes. Constantly. Yeah.

Isn't it so sad that we realized this all? Is your dad gone?

He's gone, yeah.

Yeah, mine too. And I'm like, I just hate that I now have all this compassion for him because I was the great challenger of him as well. Just like me, yes.

Kids, that's almost part of their role. They are there to challenge. It's normal.

I know. But he can get vicious.

I know. It can. Trust me.

I know. For me, it's just sad. It's like, here's this man on Earth that had this boy he clearly loved, and I could have adored him more, and that would have filled him up more. And that was on the table for me to do, and I didn't for all my many reasons. That's a bummer.

It's like karma gets you eventually. So now I have this little dog who's really, really cute, but he likes me, but He always growls at me. He has a contentious relationship with me. He's you. Yes, basically. I see how much I love this dog. That also helped me. Again, it's those secure shifts that I've had in my understanding of myself and my life that really helped change how I see things. Now I understand, wow, my dad really loved me because I see how much I love this dog, even though he's so mean to me. I'm like, yeah, my dad really loved me because even though I was mean to him, I know that he did, but then I had this idea, how did he feel about me when I was behaving towards him in that way? And now I know because I can feel it inside me. Yeah.

I don't even think it's ever anger. It's just hurt. It's just even sad. He's just angry about it. Okay, So at some point in your 65 years in academia and residency and all this stuff, you yourself come across attachment theory, and you're learning about it. So just give us as brief as possible explanation of attachment theory, which started maybe in the '50s or something? Yes.

I came across adult attachment theory by chance. When you learn to become a psychiatrist, psychologist, you know about childhood attachment. But I didn't know that adults have attachment styles and that they attach. During that time when we worked in attachment therapy with kids and their mothers, I would love it so much. So I read everything that there was about it. That's where I came across adult attachment. There's the anxious, avoidant, insecure, and fearful avoidant. And at the time, I was going through a breakup, and it explained so much. It felt like a light bulb running in my head. I'm like, Wow, now I understand what went down in this relationship, why it didn't work out, and what also happened in other relationships. Basically, do we really need to understand about these attachment styles?

Yeah, let's start with the children.

With children, the way that it works, Balby is the founder of attachment theory. He had this idea that wasn't prevalent at the time because Freud always thought that we attached to our mothers and fathers. Freud blames the mother a lot. We attached to the mother because she gives us sustenance and food, and it's a byproduct of that. But then Balby, who actually worked with children because Freud didn't really work with children.

No, he did coke and sat in his room and thought. Pretty much.

He actually said, No, I beg to differ because he saw what happens when children get all of their material needs met, but they were not given the attachment that they needed. And so he said, No, attachment is a basic need. Just like food and water, it's not a byproduct. It's something that we need. And then there's the Harlo experiment that shows even in monkeys, how much they really need.

These poor little monkeys clinging to a cloth.

Instead of the wired mother versus the cloth mother. The wired mother gave food and the cloth mother, it was just a piece of cloth. Gave intimacy. Basically, basically. Yeah, but it was cold and metal, but there was this cloth, and the monkeys went to the cloth. Oh, no.

At the expense of food.

They would eat a little bit and then go to the cloth. But remember what he said, because we don't really understand it so much in adulthood. Bobby did say that a tantrum starts in birth, actually starts before, and then goes on until we die. I would argue even after. Here, we were talking about our fathers.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow, great point.

Basically, he said that. But then came Mary Ainsworth, who was more of an experimental psychologist. So brilliant. She discovered these attachment style, anxious, avoidant, and secure in children in something that's called the Strange Situation Test. Tell us. Tell us. The Strange Situation Test, it's basically you bring a toddler and their caregiver into a room full of toys, and you watch them through a one-way mirror. You can see it on YouTube. It's really remarkable. You bring them in, the child sees the toys, immediately, I want to play, I want to play, starts pointing at things. They rush over, start playing, and then they ask the caregiver to leave the room. Immediately, they drop what they're doing. They run to the door, they start banging on the door, crying. Then they ask the mother, the caregiver, to come back to the room. It's in that reunion, that moment, where Mary Anzworth identified the three attachment style, the anxious, avoided, and secure. It's remarkable to see. It's basically how effective is that bond in regulating the child's emotion. Oh, interesting. It's very important, actually, that co-regulation is so important and also translates to adulthood. I'm stressing it. I'm really making a point of it.

Basically, the secure bond, the mother picks them up, and immediately, it's just like magic. They just come down right away and then start pointing the toys wanting to engage again. Anxious, not so much. What happens? What do they do? It just takes a long time to calm them down. Sometimes they come down and then start crying again. It's called the calm on calm paradigm. So the bond is not as effective in regulating their emotions. The avoidant, sometimes they don't even cry or even they do a little bit. They stay limp in their mother's hands.

Is it fair to say they're pissed at the caregiver?

You think, Oh, sometimes they look like I don't care, whatever. But when you look at their blood pressure, their pulse, it's through the roof. So they're blocking their attachment needs. But at the same time, they're alone in trying to regulate their emotions. They don't know how to utilize the bond to regulate their emotions. Oh, interesting. It all has to do with how good are people, children, and then adults, in using others to regulate their feelings and emotions?

Do we know what the contributing factors are that end up in an anxious attachment versus the avoidant attachment? Are there patterns within that parenting style that produce that outcome?

That's a very good question. We do know a little bit. It's like a wild field because apparently, there's something that's called the Adult Attachment Interview. The same attachment styles in adulthood, but they have nothing to do with the other attachment styles, the more romantic ones or other relationships, it has more to do how we remember our childhood, not so much the memories themselves, but how we narrate our childhood. There's the adult attachment interview. It gets scored by a psychologist, and that can predict to some degree the attachment of the child. So how well if you're very structured in your narration of your past, then the child will be more secure in the strange situation test.

If the parent is? Yes.

Oh, wild. Yes, it's pretty wild.

So if they have a pretty coherent chronological story of their own life- That makes sense. That's coherent, makes sense. Odds are they're going to have a more secure- Yeah, there's a better Again, nothing in this is like one to one ever.

Yeah, of course. But that's predict to some degree the child attachment style. Then if you're avoidant, then if you're like, Oh, my God, the most amazing childhood. But then actually, when you talk about their memories, there's a discrepancy Yeah. Then the child is more avoidant and the anxious jump around from one topic to another. But I still don't really know what to make of it.

Yeah, right. This is very hard. Now tell me how you, you're going through a breakup, you're learning about this.

Lo and behold, adults also have these attachment styles, anxious, avoidant, and secure. Only we don't play with toys like that anymore, but it has to do with our attitudes towards closeness and intimacy on the one hand. Then on the other hand, how sensitive of a radar do we have for infractions in the relationship? What I mean from an attachment perspective is when all of a sudden we feel that the other person is not available to us because attachment is really a radar of availability of other people. It's a safety system. People think it's such a deep thing about bonding. It really is a very rudimentary safety system. It's how we feel safe in the world. We survey the environment and we have an idea in our mind, and you two probably also have an idea in your mind where your loved ones are and they're there okay. But if I were to tell you that, God forbid, and I even hate saying that there's something that happened somewhere, you won't be able to continue to have this conversation. You'd have to stop and immediately check to see that they're okay. We have this surveillance system going in the back of our head all the time.

People with an anxious attachment style, their surveillance system can pick up on very subtle changes of that availability on potential threat. But the research also shows that it's not the only thing they're very good at picking up. They're picking up on picking a lot of different social cues. There's a downside to it, but it also comes with a huge upside. Let's say if you're, and I've seen it so many times with patients and just in people in the world, if you're better at day trading, can really see See subtle changes that other people won't be able to detect. They're just very good at detecting. Then also one then questions, and that's what I really try to do in this book, is turn around that whole causality thing because oftentimes people blame their parents for their adult attachment style, and it's completely wrong. But think about how hard it is to raise a child that has that level of ability, really super powers to pick up cues from the environment.

It can be a little stressful for all parties involved.

I gave an example in the chapter because I really was trying to look for an example that people don't understand. No, it's not only about danger, it's not only about bad things. True, they can also identify danger. But in the book, I give an example about a woman who has an adopted daughter, and she takes her to the first day of school. She starts playing with another girl there that she also finds out he's adopted. And then all of a sudden, she stops and like, I can't believe I'm seeing this. These girls are sisters. And she saw in their facial expression, They weren't exactly the same, but you could detect the similarities in their facial structure, in the way that they smile, the way that they move. And she started talking to other people and said, no way. No one believes her.

The odds are staggering.

Exactly. But she kept at it. And Lo and behold, they actually are sisters.

And what did she do with that information?

These two sisters are bonded. She found her daughter, her sister. I think it's years later, and they're as close as ever. So it's a really good story. Yeah.

You're right, though. We tend We have to pathologize every single thing that we know about. And it's like, all these things are trade offs. They all come with some benefit or you wouldn't have gotten to this point.

I'm glad that you said that because I would say that my biggest mission in this book for people to realize that attachment That's one of the biggest misconceptions. When you look on social media, that people equate anxious and avoidant with pathology. That's why I'm so drawn to the science because attachment, it doesn't come from the medical model of pathology and healing and curing pathology. It actually comes from social psychology and the neurodevelopmental model. The question is not about what's wrong and how we can cure it or heal it. It's more about, is it effective or is it not effective? Is the bond effective in regulating the emotions? Is it working for you or is it not working for you?

Is it servicing your goals or not?

From an attachment perspective, it's specifically, are you able to use this? It's something that's called a secure base. Is it giving you a secure base? Because the point of view of relationships from an From an attachment perspective, remember, it's like a safety mechanism, is for you actually to fit into the background. In the strange situation when the child wants to play with all these toys, then every once in a while, looks back to see if the mother is there. That's the point of a relationship. We can check to see if they're there, but not to think about you that much. You to be in the background. We don't play with toys, but we have hobbies, we have careers, we parent, we have all these different things. So attachment is really linked to our exploratory drive. When we feel safe, we can explore. So it's more related to that.

Okay, but to bring everyone up to speed. So you wrote with Helen attached, which was applying this attachment theory to adults and specifically romantic parents.

Because that's what he was initially about. Yeah.

And so this book is enormously successful. And it also has a very peculiar trajectory as a book in that it's hockey-shaped in its distribution. Didn't it just continue to swell over time? And there were some interesting catalysts like COVID TikTok.

Initially, when we wrote a book, we had this running joke between us that it's only going to sell one copy to the Library of Congress.

They have to mandate it to get it.

I went through this breakup, and she's my childhood friend. And so instead of just how you talk about breakups incessantly, so I said, You know what? Instead of wasting all that energy about talking about the breakup, let's make something good about it.

Can I ask what your style was? Was it anxious?

With this person? Yes. It wasn't so much anxious. I didn't understand what was going on. Then that It's close to this idea, like all these myths that we have. If you don't know about attachment theory, we have this idea that everybody loves the same. But science doesn't show that everybody loves the same. We love very differently if we're anxious, subordinate, insecure. We haven't even gotten to it yet, which we'll get to in a moment, but we love very, very differently. For me, I was more like the anxious, secure part. Then it was certainly driven more towards anxious when the other person stopped responding on. They said, When I really like someone, I actually think about getting on a plane and moving away to the West Coast. For me, it didn't make any sense because why would you want to do that? If you really like someone, don't you want to see a future together? Don't you want to think about being together? But avoidance, they don't like too much closeness. And oftentimes, when they feel too much closeness, they want to bulk, they want to run away. But I didn't know that, that that's 25% of the population, that it's scary for them, that it means that they feel a loss of independence.

I'll add a layer because I think when I was younger, I probably... You'll be the first to acknowledge it, but these are all spectrum categories.

That's what This new book is really emphasizing.

Also, we are very fluid and context dependent, so I'm relationship dependent. Yeah, I'm one way here, I'm one way there. But if I had to say what I lean more towards, is actually zero fear of intimacy. Being close, that felt wonderful. But I would be immediately overwhelmed with the responsibility of that. Then this fear, almost in an OCD way, well, if I have to break up with this person, this is going to be so painful. I'm now so afraid of this responsibility of potentially hurting this person, then now I'm starting to feel a little trapped by it.

So, yeah, it's a version of avoidance.

There's all these hues of it.

It is, yeah, exactly. You weren't afraid by the physical closeness.

Or even the emotional.

Yeah, you weren't afraid by that.

None of it scared me.

But somehow it felt like, whoa, this is a big responsibility. Definitely a tinge of avoidance there. Also, I listened to some of your podcasts. I saw also there were moments of change, and I really put a lot of emphasis in this book of those small moments of change. I think, Monica, you brought it up in one of the podcasts about the glass of water story that you used to have. Oh, yeah. Oh, with Kristen. Yes. That is like, why should I get her? No, she should get it herself.

We're both sitting here.

Yes, exactly. No, why should I do that? Then I was like, potentially, what does it mean?

What pattern am I setting on? Is it the rest of my life I'll be waiting on this person?

Right, exactly.

Or I'm getting taken advantage of, that type of thing.

And then the leap of faith of, no, actually, hold on. Do I think this person is someone who will exploit and take advantage of me because I'm nice this one time? And then that was the breakthrough. It was like, no, I don't think this person is that way. I don't need to have this fear.

In that moment, that shift, that's exactly how our brain changes towards greater security. I love that example. That's what I thought I would bring it up because it's such an important... It seems like, oh, yeah, but it's really a major shift for our brain. So you're able to use what we call metacognition, which is thinking about our thoughts. And hopefully, you got up and got a glass of water. I did, yeah. I didn't know what happened.

I haven't minded. But then it starts all over again when you have kids. Am I setting them up for a pattern that I think is untenable for their life?

I heard that. Maybe you mentioned something about when they call from the kitchen. Yeah. They fall, something happened in the kitchen. Like, oh, I don't want to get up. And then Eventually, no, but maybe I should. And sometimes you do, and sometimes you don't, but you've evolved.

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The thing is what I'm trying to really show in this book is that it's not necessarily a bad thought. It's more like this belief that every person should take care of themselves. And it's not a bad belief, it's just a belief. We then assign it blame or bad or even give it a potential causal mechanism. But if we just examine it phenomenologically for what it is, it's a belief. And then you say, but is it working for me or is it not working for me?

But some people could be in that exact same situation and probably have an anxious attachment. Oh, yeah, of course. So it's not like one equals this, a different person in that exact same environment.

Well, your genetics are hugely in the mix, too, right?

Yes, of course, because there's so many different parameters that go into this mix. So you're right. Some people will actually say, well, because I didn't I have a mother that doted on me, now I have all these issues, and now I can detect threat when someone tries to pull away because I can identify it.

It looks so familiar. I know what this looks like.

I think I have anxious fear.

I wasn't going to self-diagnose you, but yeah. I mean, look, the way you would pray for your family members.

A lot of fear.

Superstition. If I miss this prayer, they're going to die.

But that's not really attachment, or is it?

I think it's more about how effective is the bond between you two. If you reach out to them, how quickly can you calm down? Anxious attachment is not necessarily just having separation attachment. It's more about being afraid that the bond, that you're not going to be loved as much as you want to be loved, that other people will leave you that other people will fail you. I do have that, but I don't know why.

But I bet it's more peer-derived than parental.

I definitely... Yeah, it's weird because I don't have that at all with my parents.

But her otherness in her peer group.

So that's the beauty. And that's why I really wanted to... I mean, look, 15 years has passed in my last book, and a lot of new information was discovered about attachment. I really found that there's a potential here to help people flourish. Actually, after I finished writing the book, then all these people started coming to me asking, Okay, help me become more secure. But I didn't have an immediate answer for that because we never really learned about it in the clinical world. Basically, Rachel and I took it from papers and tried to breathe clinical life into it, but I didn't have an immediate answer to how you become more secure. Then the answer came over time from the lab, actually, not from my work, from understanding the brain.

Not from cocaine use in your study.

Yes, exactly. You told me. But really from understanding the brain.

Yeah. So the first book helped you understand your attachment style, and then people want to know, how do I change it? Right. And now this book, Secure, is going to help us change into a secure attachment.

As a neuroscientist, it's the therapy I wish I could go into with people know more about the brain because most therapies, they haven't been updated. Some of it is not the blame of the therapies because the NIH doesn't really sponsor them on studies about new therapies. But there's so much more that we know about the brain. It's like the therapy that me as a neuroscientist would want to have, but it didn't exist. And so over time, I didn't have this grandiose idea, I'm going to create it. But it just over time just happened on its own. And I created these tools. And the whole idea is If you know that a part of your life is much more secure than others, that certain relationships are much more secure, then why not then really increase the volume on that part of your life and just shift the attention and the focus to create a more secure life. And that really changes the brain on such a fundamental level.

What you do is you merge together three different fields. You've all harare this. You're doing the neuroscience, you're doing the clinical psychology, you're doingComing. The attachment. The attachment. And you're creating what you would call now- The secure priming therapy.

But it's not only therapy and coaching, but it's also the way I started creating it, actually. I started creating a course for high school. Anybody could learn. I had a student, and she wanted to do some a science exhibit on the social brain. She asked me, what would be the most important lessons? I came up with five. Then actually three of them made it into the book. It was the things that I thought would be the most beneficial for people to know. Then I thought, oh, I can actually make a course out of this where people can actually learn if you really believe that you should only count on yourself. That's not a bad thought necessarily, or it's not a pathology, but it's really more to explain about how the brain responds to exclusion. Our brain hates exclusion, and I call it a cyberbull effect. And then I developed an antidote to it. How do we then create the opposite? Because our brains love hyperinclusion or hyperconnectedness? How do we then orchestrate that in our everyday life? So these are the three lessons that I start the book with.

Yeah. So you talk about the science of the brain in part one. So what do we need to understand about how the brain works?

So our brain loves exclusion. That was the most important thing that I would start with. I call it the desirable effect. The biggest thing is safety because we're not descendants of eagles or elephants or lions. We're not. We're like these primates who live for a long time in the middle of the food chain. And it was only when I was on a safari in Africa You realize how fucking vulnerable we are. Because we went, they took us... Most of the time we're in those vehicles and you feel it's okay, even though one time an elephant charging it out. It was pretty scary. But at one time we walked outside in the wild, but they had a guy with a rifle behind us and a guy with a rifle in front of us. We had to keep a single file, and at no point could we have actually opened the gap. If we did, they would tell us immediately, close the gap. Then I realized, well, when we were there, there's no people with rifles in the front. Then it's not about just like, Oh, I like being hyper-included. It's so nice. I love it. It's so comfy and warm and cozy.

It's more of like, if you're excluded, then you can fall prey at any second. You're dead.

Yeah, you're dead. It's life or death.

The fact that we're all close to each other here, for example, now. So if a predator came, I have 66% of survival better than if I were to remind myself because they're going to go after you. Rob's fucked.

He's going to get picked off back there behind that wall. Well, no.

Not if they come in this way, then he'll out that door and he'll be saying.

That has to take into account the fact that we can warn each other, we can try to fight them off together.

We have a 360-degree view right now between our combined perspectives.

So we can alert each other. We can use all of our senses to help each other, all of which happens. You see it in so many different social animals. Even you see it in social birds, peck, peck, peck all the time. Every once in a while, they swoop up, they look for food, and then to look to see if they're going to be prey. But then if they have more birds around, they will swoop up, they will look up a lot Their brain computes it into the mix. Our brains also compute it into the mix. You're not in New York, but walking into an empty somebody car in the middle of the night, I don't know if I will do that. I would go to the somebody car, there's more people. Or an empty alley, we instinctively feel it.

It's a safety thing. You intuitively do that math. The birds know like, Oh, there's three of us. I should be looking up a third of the time, even though they don't know that.

Yeah, exactly.

And there's a hundred. So it's like, Oh, I only got to look up 1% of the time.

Because it was hugely advantageous to do that. And then those who didn't They didn't get that social monitoring upgrade, they couldn't really compete. There was such a huge advantage. They got picked off. Because they were constantly looking up and they were all eating while they were looking up.

Then we get into so much fun stuff. It's like the birth of lying comes from this. There are calls for chimpanzees to say leopard and this and that. Oh, yeah. They would make a fake call so they could go fuck the high status female while the alpha was looking over here.

Yeah, it becomes very intricate in humans and also in other social and also even in some birds. We have an upgrade to the system because we compare ourselves to others There's a whole chapter involved to why we compare and why we can help it. But part of our ability to compare, it's really about assessing the other. Are they stronger than me? Are they not stronger than me? But also we have this upgrade that we can determine, are they going to work well with me or not? That ability to compare, to evaluate, it's key for us as human.

This is theory of mind stuff, yeah? Yeah. I can think about how you're thinking. I can assess your thoughts.

Yeah. Are you going to be there for me? Yeah. I can get her a cup of water water because she probably has my back and she'll also get me a cup of water later.

It'll be reciprocal.

We have that ability to assess, and that's a key part in becoming more secure. I even have a questionnaire there. It's like, Oh, assess how good is your collaboration, and then also rate how close you are to different people, and then see, are those really good collaborations also the people that are closest to you? Because if not, maybe you want to think about changing your priorities, your relationship priorities, in the process of becoming more secure. Interesting.

Yeah, cyber ball effect.

Right. So the cyber ball effect is based on a cyber ball experiment. Basically, what happens, you're playing a game of catch with two other people on a video game, a very rudimentary video game two-dimensional. All of a sudden, they stop throwing the ball in your direction. The brain hates it, and psychologically, we hate it. Do you see areas of pain, distress, self-scrutiny? In the brain, they all light up.

The amygdala is on fire. Is that what's happening?

Parts of the amygdala, other areas of self-scrutiny. It's all like threat and what's happening and why is it happening? Potentially also pain, not too different from physical pain. It's very distressing. And psychologically, they looked and they found that certain domains are being affected, that I personally was very surprised by it. We feel that life is less meaningful, less in control of our life, and less self-esteem. Oh, yeah.

And less self-esteem.

Yes. So things that I always thought my self-esteem is not related to or how much control I have over my life or that life is meaningful. Why does it matter to who is interacting with me? It's things that come from within. They don't come from within. And they found the opposite of the solvable effect when you actually put the person in the middle, and now I'm in the middle, and I'm throwing the ball to you, you'll throw it back to me. I'm throwing it to you, you're throwing it to me. I'm hyper-included now. Basically, you see the opposite. You feel that life is more meaningful, you feel more self-esteem, and you feel greater control in your life. These are amazing things that we can create by hyper-inclusion. But then the question is, how do you create that? How do you create that?

How do you create that?

Teach us. That's when I came up with these five pillars. Carp? Yes, the CARP, the five pillars of secure life. Which consists of consistency, availability, responsiveness. Then you also have to make sure... It's not enough that it's like, Oh, I'm consistent, available, and responsive. You have to make sure that the other person experiences you as reliable and predictable. That creates CARP. It's like a two-factor authentication. It's something that happens in a relationship. If you learn to be CARP and you can also teach others to be CARP with you, then you can really create that hyper-included. It's not that hard. It's actually pretty easy. That's what I'm trying to explain to people. Attachment is not a very sophisticated system. It's a monitoring system. If you give it what it needs, remember I told you, you are supposed to disappear into the background. You just have to learn how to strategically give that. So you don't wait until a child is super hungry to feed them or super tired to put them to sleep. You try to anticipate what they need and give it to them, and then you can Coast.

It is funny because I'm sure all the listeners When you think about people in their lives who... They don't have to think about the fact that they're there. They're not worried about that relationship. It's just there. It's constant. You and Aaron. There's people like that. And then you have people that you're like, Do I need to check in on them? Or maybe that's just me because I'm anxious. But people who are more on the fence of, Are they there?

Yeah, they're not carb. So what happens is they push your button, they activate the radar. But I like how you said, We always have these people that we know that they're there. But what I find is that oftentimes people tend to ignore those people because there's no drama. We tend to shift more to where the alarm goes off. So let's see where it goes off.

You're inversely rewarded for being carped sometimes in some relationships.

Yeah. And then what happened in the course of writing this book and the course of this work, I really learned to fall in love with the secures of this world because there's just so good relationships. And so what I really try to teach my patients and my students, and when I supervise, is to really shift the focus and find those people because we really ignore them. Instead of like, why is this person not texting me? Oh, but this person text me all the time. Why shouldn't I text them?

More energy there.

Yes, exactly. And so you create that shift. And then what happens is we come to the final tool, which is when you start to pay attention, and it's not in the big things, it's in what I come to call the seemingly insignificant minor interactions, which is also short for CIMIs, of everyday life. It's in those little moments, like that glass of water moment, that a lot of major change can happen because it rechallenges your brain. If you have this belief, yes, I really have to work hard for people to interact with me and need to get their attention, otherwise, they wouldn't want to be with me, they wouldn't want to necessarily reach out to me. That's more the anxious thing. Instead, you get all these experiences, all these see me's that are counteracting that world belief because really, attachment styles are basically a world belief which is set in some ways, and then our brain sifts information based on that world belief. What I'm asking you to do is don't sift information based on your world belief. Look here to your right or to your left, and there's additional information that can change your brain with those little semes.

One of my issues with all this That stuff, again, is trade offs, there's positives, there's negatives. But in the mass pop psychology genre of social media, what I seem to see the most of is identifying somebody. Everything's about another person's problem. You know if you're with a narciss.

And then also from childhood. Yeah.

So either childhood's to blame or these other people are to blame.

Or they have terrible pathology.

I don't find a ton of it about how about you make yourself the thing that you think you deserve and then just see what happens downriver from that. For this is priority number one to make sure you're carb.

I'm so glad you asked that. One of the reasons it was so important for me to write this book because it's just like, I don't see things that way anymore. Instead of going back to this idea as a child, just like, no, but you can see things differently. Here, maybe try to look at it from a different angle. These are little tricks to full your biology that wants to go in a certain way and make it see things a little bit differently so the The brain can see, well, things can look different. I'm not even saying you have to take accountability. I'm not even going there. I'm just saying, look, but the thing is, anxious and avoidant have to use those tools very differently. That's where it gets a little bit more tricky.

Well, this is where we get into one of my favorite AA scenes, which is like, it's easier to act your way into thinking different than think your way into acting different. Maybe explain a little bit what's happening biochemically with neurons. Why does this work with neuroplasticity and neural pathways?

What's happening? Yeah, exactly. Because we have this surveillance system that was in some way may be very sensitive and may be the opposite. I'm constantly suppressing it. Then it starts ruling our life. If we get triggered, then two different things happen for anxious and avoidant. For secure, the thing is they don't really get triggered that often. They just don't see a lot of threats. So even maybe I think there would be the last people to know if someone cheated on them. They're not going to see the signs. Interesting. It's just not something that they'll see or even at work. They can give you so many different scenarios. The other day, someone emailed me and they said a Hey, when do you have a time to talk? And then my sister said, Oh, my God, she probably got fired. I said, Why would you say that? She just wanted to say when we can talk. Sure enough, she got fired. See? Yeah. Then more research recently have shown that it also affects how we interact with our health care providers. Even if we have a chronic illness like pharmaelgia, how much pain we're going to be in.

And then it affects how we shop. Secure people don't care so much about logos. Why are you laughing?

I just love shopping so much.

But you can love fashion, but it's maybe less about status and more about... Or maybe it's also about status.

Status is in the mix. I have to be honest. I don't want it to be, but it is in the mix.

You're such a good girl.

But it's fine. I think I said it from the beginning, about 25% of population are avoidant, about 20% are anxious, and about 50 something% are secure, and a very small percentage are fearful avoidant. These are just variations on the norm. There's different studies that show the amazing advantage to have that variability within the population. They had one study where they had a little smoke come out of a computer in a group of people, and the anxious ones were the first to notice it, and the avoidants were the first out the door. And everyone other people followed. But you can see there can be an advantage. It's like, You know what? Fuck you all. I'm out of here. But I want to go back to what you said about this whole thing on social media. We're pointing it to others. I just think that it's the wrong conversation or the wrong way of I'm looking at it because there's this whole potential, and that's the beauty of this science, that we all have these secure people in our lives and secure experiences from our own childhood that we can tap into and become more secure in the opportunity and the advantages for being more secure in that way.

We can really flourish. I want my patients to flourish. I do want them to heal from trauma, and I'm not saying that's wrong, but I want to take it a step further. I think that this science, really understanding and combining neuroscience with the attachment, really can give people the opportunity to flourish.

I just stumbled upon this chatting with my brother in New York. We took a trip for three days before Christmas, and we were discussing there's a lot of good social science behind Although I don't believe in the secret, the book, I do believe in an aspect of it, which is your focus and attention can create a bit of confirmation bias. So if you're looking towards the future and you're thinking of only the ways you're going to fail, those Those are the ones you're going to focus on, and you're going to see proof of that more often. Then you will see proof of a different theory that you're trying to service. I was talking to my brother. I was just telling him, honestly, I'm like, I'm writing this memoir and I feel a bit guilty because it's really the highlight's real of the bad stuff because that's drama, that's everything. That's a good book. I said, But when I'm being honest, that probably in all ear and eyes combined stuff, that might have maybe been 0. 2% of our overall waking experience.

That's amazing, actually.

And why wouldn't the same premise apply to looking backwards as it does forward? You and I could construct any story we want. We have enough info back there to come up with any story. Perhaps by us focusing on these things that were, no doubt, gnarly, we're excluding all the other stuff that would confirm, no, we actually had a very blessed, lucky childhood.

The way that you described it here is a big part of the essence of the secure priming therapy is really recasting your past from a more secure place and really looking at the other influences and the other people that were in your life. Even the people where things were difficult, that's how we started the conversation. I was able to see my part in it also and really also see other times when actually my father really loved me and gave me attention. That moment when we were in the hotel lobby, when he threw the coin. Actually, that shift It's huge for our brain, and it can really help us. It really changes also who we are in the here and now. Remember that narrative and how we create the narrative? It's richer and it's more true.

It's more true, yeah. And weirdly, I'm dealing with it now. It's really crazy that I can intellectually understand that, and yet I do have this fear of letting that go. I know. I think it's so interwoven in my quote, identity, that to let go of it would be threatening to my identity.

And we live in a world that's is really ruled by Freudian psychology, that everything is because of these things happen to us in childhood. But actually, the science shows that the attachment styles that we have as children predicts less than 10% of the attachment styles that we have in adults. That's a huge- A lot of what really changes our attachment style happen later.

Well, that's mind-blowing. It's counterintuitive, and it's encouraging.

Completely encouraging because you can change your attachment style and you can evolve. That's why actually I thought that it was fair to write this book because the science shows that you can change it.

Yeah, I want to know a little bit about neural pathways. What happens when you dwell on those five? For me, I had two terrible stepdads. I had four great teachers. Why aren't I looking at the You're a great teachers?

I was actually going to agree with that example because I listened. I did my homework. Such a good student.

Yeah, I'm telling you. I feel like he used AI, though, to scan all of them.

Oh, no, I listened.

He went back to school 80 million times.

He listened to 2000 hours.

No, actually, it was fascinating. I have to say. I love that story of the math teacher who recognized it was geometry.

Yeah, we had the little blocks and we were learning.

Then he asked you to teach the other students. Change my life. Something that happened in a moment, someone did something really good by my brain. He changed my brain to the different trajectory and made me really see myself differently and think about things differently.

Is the muscle analogy not good or is it good? When we use certain thoughts that emboldens certain pathways.

Oh, definitely. It describes it really, really because what happens, our current belief is that our memories lie in our synapses, in the structure of the synapses. Usually, LTP, long term potentiation is like electrophysiology that we strengthen memories. The synapses get tighter and there's more, even there's actin growing in the synapses to build the structure. So that's why the analogy of the muscles, the actual molecules, some of them are the same molecules. And then when memories weaken, which is very important part because we also have to forget. And forgetting is an active process in the brain, an active molecular process. Synapses actually weaken, they get further apart. That's why I brought up the whole CMEs thing, because people when you go to therapy, I think I have to talk about my childhood, really difficult events that happened to me. But really, the avenue for change in the brain are through those CMEs, because every interaction gives you a moment, a chance to rewrite something, to strengthen those synapses or weaken those synapses. That's basically the synaptic plasticity idea.

It's such an empowering way to look at it all because You have absolutely no sway over what happened to you 30 years ago. That's done.

But also, if you think about it, we're a social species. We're not particularly strong animals. We're actually pretty weak. We live in every niche on this planet just because our ability to collaborate and cooperate so well. So it doesn't really make sense that we'll say stuck in something that happened to us really early on. What advantage is there in that at all? It's just like it doesn't make sense to me. We need to socially versatile, and we are extremely socially versatile, much, much more than we give us credit for because of that Freudian biology.

You're so right. When it hits me the most is I'll be watching some documentary on chimpanzees, and they're probably our closest thing to look at.

Oh, yeah, they are.

And these little babies, they get fucked up. These alpha males will come through and they'll be thrashing the jungle and they'll throw 130 feet and everything. And I just have watching that and I'm like, it's curious It's obvious to me that they're so resilient. They go through what we would call capital T trauma almost daily. Oh, yeah.

Their lives are vicious.

They still persevere, right? And I look at that and I'll go, as much as I do like honoring what has happened to us, we also have forgotten how fucking resilient we are. You can't live with this many members of a group and not be traumatized many times.

So that brings me to that chapter 10 about causality.

Yes, I've circled that one. I wanted to talk about that. Anne, you want to tell the story of Anne?

A woman who, as a child, had terrible separation anxiety. But unfortunately for her, her dad had to travel a lot for business. And so whenever he would travel, she would cry and really hold on to his leg and really don't go, don't go. And then she would have a hard time falling asleep. They would try to reassure, but he had to go for work. But they didn't know she had separation anxiety. There's actually good treatment for separation anxiety in children.

You said 4% to 6% maybe have that.

Yeah, it's very prevalent. Eventually, she learned it's not going to work, and I'm just going to bottle it up. They thought it was over, that she was fine. In many cases, it does go away. So it wasn't unreasonable to think that. But she really kept that fear inside for many, many years, and she couldn't fall asleep. She just kept a brave face. And then when she was an adult, she had a really hard time in relationships. She would be in a relationship, but she would always want to leave. Every day was like, Should I stay or should I leave? Should I stay? And she would keep even boxes packed because no, no, no, I shouldn't unpack them because I'm going to leave. And that happened in several relationships.

She was afraid they were going to leave? She was trying to get ahead of it?

Because she just didn't feel any safe. She's just like, No, this doesn't feel right to me. I don't know what's going to happen here. This doesn't feel right to me. I don't know if I belong here. Is this the right thing for me or is it not the right thing for me? And so as someone who learned psychology and learned to do therapy, then you said, Well, because as a child, even though your parents were loving and cared about you, still there was that basic experience that relationships are dangerous. Relationships are a source of pain and anguish. So I'm going to be very careful how I'm going to approach this relationship. Relationship. The truth is, I would have given this explanation, and I would have stood by that explanation until I became a scientist. Once I became a scientist, I said, Wait a second. When you're a scientist, finding causality, that's the Holy Grail of scientific discovery. That's so hard to do.

Do you want to explain the difference between correlation and causality? I think people think they're experiencing causality.

We think in causality, but oftentimes people find things actually correlate or confound. The best example, because I love that example when you talked about how you came from a family of little means. You had to fend for yourself and you had to make sure that you're taking what you need. The best example is that marshmallow test that has been disproven.

Oh, really?

Yes, it's been disproven.

Who did marshmallow?

Oh, no, I don't remember.

They tried to replicate it and it was completely disproved. Come on.

This is an exclusive.

What?

Tell me.

Okay, tell everyone. The Marshmallow Test, they took children and they put a marshmallow in front of them and they told them, If you wait for a certain time, then when we get back, you'll get two. They waited a certain time and some kids were able to wait and got two and some weren't able to wait. You can see them sitting on their hands singing, trying to to have distracted themselves. Then they found that those kids who didn't have that impulse control, then they didn't wait. They didn't fare as well later in life as the kids who had better impulse control. There was a whole theory about impulse control and how good it is and how important it is and all of that. Lo and behold, they did a larger study with a larger cohort, and they didn't find any of that effect. Interesting. And not only that, they found that the original studies were confounded by socioeconomic status. Oh. Of course, it would make sense if you could come from a lower socioeconomic status to jump at that, much more.

There are no two coming back.

Yes, exactly. Bullshit. Yeah, that's why- And everybody knows that socioeconomic status is- The biggest predictor.

Yes.

Oh, my God. They've been lying to us this whole time.

There have been thousands of books written on the shoulders of the marshmallow.

But that's the beauty of science. When I work with single molecules, I can give you astounding examples. I worked with mice and apalasia, much simpler animals. Even those, when we think we found causality, at some point, they thought PKM zeta, it's like a molecule. That's the reason why we have long term memory. It's responsible for long term memory. There's a big splash in science paper, and everybody believed that. Then they gave this medication that inhibited PKM zeta. They could erase memories, prevent them from happening. Amazing. It's all done in mice. Very simple fear memory stuff. Several years later, another study came out in Nature, science survival. It's like, No, sorry. We actually were able to knock out P. K. M. Zeta for mice. They remember perfectly well. And not only that, we gave them the medication that you thought, and they don't have P. K. M. Zeta, which they thought was specific. It did disrupt their memory, and that medication is not specific. It actually completely, I'll just say it in the way that it will make it more simple, it completely fucks up the brain. So that's why they didn't have it. It was not specific.

It's a systemic collapse of brain activity. Exactly.

Of which memory is a part.

Yes, exactly. Something like that. Oh, wow.

Yeah. We hit him in the head with a club. It connects us to memory.

Exactly. Something of that, yes, basically. So even a single molecule in simple animals is so hard to establish causality. How can I really stand behind such causal inferences? In mice, even, If you take them, if you expose them to a bully, I don't know how long they put them there, and they beat them up. Then sometimes some of them, I think maybe 50% will really suffer and develop symptoms of depression, anxiety. Another 50% will completely like nothing happened. Right. So we don't know.

That's a simpler animal in a much more controlled environment.

You still don't know.

My therapist actively does not like talking about the past.

Because a lot of the evidence-based therapies really focus on the here and now. They really is evidence-based therapies for depression or anxiety. I really try to create something that will help people become more secure while focusing on the here and now, while creating these small interactions that gives your brain another chance.

Exactly.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, If You Dare. Okay, so let's talk about secure mode and what life actually looks like daily. We didn't finish Anne. What did we figure out?

Basically, with Anne, when I became a scientist, it's like, Yeah, I can get that story. It's good, but it's not fact. I mean, you can think about it as a narrative that can potentially help people. I can say, maybe there are echoes from the past, which is fine. But the truth is, we can work in the here and now to really instill meaningful changes that will really help you. And that's what we did. Luckily, she had a very secure partner. That's always good because that's That's the first step. It's a vehicle for change because they're like, I told you, I fell in love with the secures of this world because they're having a built-in relationship coach in the relationship. It can be in friendships, in romantic relationships, it can be at work, it can be in so many different areas of our life. Those relationships are really, really important. Then he didn't take it personally. And it's easier for secures not to take things personally because they don't sense danger. So it's like, Oh, it's easier. And so, yeah, I understand this is something that comes up. And so she was able to learn to open up to him and talk to him about her fears, and then slowly to unpack the boxes.

All the angst that prevented her started to melt away, and it worked really well. But it worked in the here and now, and it really didn't depend so much on understanding the past. But there is something to be said about recalling past events in therapy or in general, even with friends. What actually does happen is an opportunity to rewrite your memories. You're recalling something. And what we now know is that from a neuroscience perspective, when we recall a memory, we to some degree disrupt it. We know it in animal models, when they recall a memory, you can prevent the new protein synthesis. I'm maybe getting too technical, but the new protein synthesis in order for long-term memory to re-solidify, you need new protein synthesis, you completely erase their memories. Basically, by recalling something, you disrupt the memory and you have a chance to not just create a causal connection. I think it's actually more powerful to change the actual memory to edit it to suit you more now to where you are now.

That's why everyone's memories of the same experience are very different. Very different. Because over time, they're thinking about it and they're changing.

Constantly editing it. Constantly. It can be affected by how other people talk to you about it, how you recall it. Memory is very vulnerable in a good way, I think.

I'm with you, and I am concerned about modern pop psychology for all the reasons we're listening. One thing I found about going through my past when I actually did therapy starting five years ago, I guess. I was telling these stories that I had told a million times. But in this context with this man, I do believe I was feeling the emotions attached to those feelings that I had never let myself feel. And I feel like I got to actually cry when I was telling the story for the first time. And I felt like I was allowing myself to experience and grieve for something I just never made space for because I thought it might have killed me. So for For me, I felt like there was utility in it. And then I had delayed the emotional response to some of these things for so long in that once I had the emotional response, they got smaller. I knew somehow on the other side of that door was crying, and I was just not going to go there. Then once I did that part, I did feel like it liberated me to go forward.

Completely. That's the second. The first part is reediting those memories. The second part is that when you sit together with someone that you trust, and how often do we get to talk those really difficult moments or intimate moments and recall them with someone that you fully trust, that you have a very unique therapeutic relationship is unlike any other relationship in the world, that you can open up and they're there just to listen and to help you and to understand you. If you feel that connection, they give you the secure base to be able to process some of the information and really change it in a way that now actually feels more secure. That's the thing. Actually, a lot of studies show that it doesn't really matter so much the modality of the treatment. You know there's CBT, there's IPT, there's all these different types of treatments, but actually it's more about the fit with the therapist. So again, we come back to the attachment thing. Exactly. How well do you feel that you connect with someone and how much attachment is powerful? I like to say that attachment is both at the base of suffering and healing from suffering.

Because remember this strange situation, how effective it can be in regulating our emotions. So We have an attachment hierarchy in our head. We all have it. I know that if something bad happens to me, I know exactly who's number one I'm going to go to, who's number two. You see, you're all nodding because you know, too. I know exactly who to go to, and that's very important for our brain. Then if I'm securely When I attach to them, most of the time, a single word from them or a sentence or even a hug will calm me down immediately. There's just no Xanax or clonopen in this world that can be as powerful. No wonder because it works on so many different neurotransmitters reminders altogether, like opiates, oxytocin, dopamine, you name it, it works on those and other things that we haven't discovered yet. It's so powerful, but the opposite is also true. Insecure attachments can be the most powerful instigator of emotional distress. So attachment is the basis of both suffering and healing from suffering. And part of the reason why I wrote this book is to really try to shift people towards getting better and making things work for you better.

Then being stuck in that place where your brain constantly surveying and feels that danger. So interesting. Another part of the book talks about biological diversity and hidden sparks of talent.

So please tell us about that.

When you become a molecular neuroscientist, you see the enormity of molecular diversity that we all possess and how different it is. We know it because we all look a little bit different and we all have these different abilities, even just in the way that we can flip our tongue or even with our finger, all these different things. But also it goes way, way further than that. Evolution loves diversity. It's really one of the best survival mechanisms. But we don't really fully appreciate how diverse we are and also in our talents. Not only that, Oftentimes, especially people with insecure attachment, sometimes their biggest talents, they perceive as impediment. But here, a hidden spark of talent that someone actually identified was your math ability. When you lean into that ability, how it can really profoundly change your world.

It was dominoes. If I'm actually good at math, maybe I can be good at other things.

Right. I find that when people can learn to identify both theirs and other people's hidden sparks of talent, it really changes the way that they look at others and themselves. For example, if someone is actually very, very generous, but they give to everyone, but his wife doesn't like that he gives to everyone, but he also gives to you also a lot, too. You can't just decide, Oh, I want him to be generous to me instead of mean to everybody else. It doesn't work that way. It's almost like a hidden spark of talent. So when you learn to look at things that way, you say, Oh, wow, actually, I see that. I don't have to resent that he gives and he gives and he gives. I'm also the recipient of that giving. So I can see that as a hidden spark of biological talent.

As you said, it's a system that's scanning how available someone is. So you could misread that as a lack of availability because they're available for other people.

Yes, exactly. Now you're talking from the attachment logic because that, Oh, am I being left out?

Scarcity.

But that's where we can really learn to transcend our biology using metacognition, basically. Metacognition, how we think about our thoughts. It was like, Wait a second. Yeah, I mean, I have that solvable effect. Am I feeling... But hey, look at... And That's where also it's good to have, I call that secure people in your life, a secure buddy, where if you get upset, and that's what I do in the secure therapy, I just real-time, sometimes with text, you're also the recipient of it, and it actually doesn't take away from you. You teach them a secure way of looking at things that secure love is actually bountiful and not scarce. Remember, secure relationships are not about being attached to the hip. All it needs is a little bit more acknowledgement, so a little bit more texting. The other thing is, it's actually said, Well, I wish you were here. Or actually, also remember that hyper connectedness to always give an opportunity, if possible, to include, Oh, it's too bad you can't come. Everybody Everybody talked about you. Everybody mentioned you. So there's a psychological way of including people, even if they're not there. Everybody talked about you.

Oh, my God. Everybody meant to like, How come? And then even in the middle of the dinner, Hey, this food, you would have loved it. So you include it even if you're not there. It's easy to do it.

Yeah. I feel like just telling people you miss them is so huge because I'm thinking about you. I know you're not here. I'm thinking about you. Exactly. It's a lovely way to include people.

Was there anything I've left that you would want to cover?

I don't know if I actually really defined. I should have done it. I always tell it, put myself over the head. I should define those attachment styles early on. Should I define it? Just in case if you wanted to- Let's do it. Let's do it. It all has to do with how comfortable we feel with intimacy and closeness, but also how sensitive radar we have to potential danger in the relationship. If we have an anxious attachment style, we love closeness and intimacy, but we also have a very sensitive radar to a potential danger. If someone doesn't become available, we notice it right away. That can lead to thoughts of being rejected, take things personally. That's the anxious attachment. Then secure attachments are people who are warm and loving, and they love a lot of closeness. As much as you can give them, but they're also not sensitive to danger in their relationship. If you don't give them that much closeness, they're fine with it, too. They just don't see, Oh, my God, something is wrong. They don't like me anymore. No, it just goes over their head. That's secure attachment. People who have an avoidant attachment style, they also want relationships because we're a social species, but they just don't feel too comfortable with too much closeness.

They want you, but they want you from a little bit of a distance. They find ways of creating that distance so they can feel more comfortable.

What might that look like? Because when you say the anxious attachment, I immediately, I think we all can, you can think of your big friendship group, and you can think of the ones that are really upset monitoring when they've been invited and when they've not. This is a brag, but it's like, I don't notice that. I don't notice on Instagram. It's not a bag. It's just this group was at dinner. It doesn't even cross my mind. To me, that's a very obvious example. What does the avoidant one look like?

I'm glad that you said that you don't notice that because secures don't notice it oftentimes, but if they're asked to do it, they will do it. Yeah, right. A avoidance, they have a harder time with it because they have this worldview that you have to be independent, you have to be self-reliant, and they are to themselves, but they don't understand. We said they're about 25% of the population. They don't understand that they're the minority. They're not the majority. Most people need other people to help in their time of need when they come to you. So when you come to them in time of need, it's like, What do you want from me? Take care of it. But then it actually triggers your Even more. It's like, No, no, no. Now you've become the center of their problem. I'm coming to help and you're not helping me. They forget about the bad thing that happened to them, and now you're the bad thing that's happened to them. So they fall into these constant traps unknowingly often, not knowing how to manage It's just like, no, you're the minority report. You need to understand that when people come to you, they can't deal with it on their own.

So that's one thing. The other thing, sometimes they create a lot of closeness. Well, they spend a really amazing weekend together. Everything is very intense and fun. And then comes Monday and they need their time. Okay, we've had enough. They have this idea that they can carry it forward like credit. But attachment doesn't work that way. It's a radar. Exactly. So they actually disappear. They do the opposite of what they intended to do. They actually increase the change, the delta Now you're actually even more, what's happening? Why are you not answering?

It feels like love bombing.

Yeah. They don't understand what's happening. Why are you disappearing all of a sudden? So remember the consistency available, responsive? They don't even understand what's happening.

They're like, yeah, don't you feel filled up?

Yeah. Then the last thing that happens is that sometimes when they get too close too quickly, they don't pace themselves because they're like, No, I want this to happen. I want it to work now. I've looked for all these people and it doesn't work, and now I want it. So they get very close real fast because they think all the other people that I met, they weren't the one. This person is going to be one. I may just swoop in and go in full force to make it work. But that's exactly what they don't need to do because the problem is not that they weren't into that person. They were into all these other people. The problem is that there's too much closeness for comfort, and then they have these deactivating strategies. Like, I don't know if I like this person. I don't like how they chew. They start all these little things. They start seeing. Their toenails. Yeah, there's these deactivating strategies. They have to learn to pace themselves, and they have to learn not to get, I call it the closeness overdose, because then they're going to tell like, No, this is suffocating.

I don't want you anymore. Then again, they create this push-pull. You can teach them how to engage in more carb seenies, basically. Yeah.

Did you once say that one of your criticisms of your own book, Attached, would be that you didn't necessarily give the avoidant-Oh, I'm glad you brought that up. Yeah, the avoidant group. That's true. As much compassion as maybe they deserve.

I feel this is my amends. But it's not entirely my fault. This book is definitely my amends to the avoidance, not just mine. I have to say also just the research in general, because research is also biased and the questions that people ask are biased. I feel that in this book, I really present a much more biological explanation of avoidance. It's not necessarily, again, blaming them, mothers, that your parents were not responsive to you. I don't think that's the case, and I really make a strong case of it. But I really think that we presented the data, the science, and the show, They have a wondering eye. They don't take care of you so well if you're sick. And so we just wrote it out there. But then over the years, working with avoidance.

Are you laughing at me? Yeah. She's laughing at me. When someone gets sick, I'm like, Just go deal with it, man. I do. He's like, We all get sick. Yeah, we all get sick.

You see? But he's sick. I was sick, too, but I didn't fucking bother you with it. Yeah. Exactly. Because they don't. They don't bother other people.

Yeah, exactly. I'm so guilty of it. What's happening biological with me.

Biologically, I give an example in the book of Cee Elegance, which is like a tiny worm that neuroscientists love because they have, again, huge neurons. They can be manipulated and experimented on. In Sea Elegance, they found that they have two types of feeding behavior, solitary feeding behavior and social feeding behavior. They eat E. Coli. Thank God, we don't want to. I know. When the social ones, they detect E. Coli, you see a whole pile of worms, voracially eating. No, thank you. And then- I hate that image. I know. I'm sorry. But it's important because the solitary one, if one swims in that direction, they swim the other way. They're chemo tactically repelled But the other worms. And it's a change in a single amino acid, in a single protein. They can switch solitary to social and vice versa. Yeah, it's very- The case that I'm trying to make is that This preference for closeness and distance, a lot of it is also biologically driven. We can see it everywhere around us. Even you can see in pets, some people say some dogs are like cats. They don't like to be that close. They actually will stay away.

It's like, Okay, I like you from a distance. Some cats will stick to you, and they actually are not that separate as you would think. You can see it in birds, and you can see it in people. Some people feel more comfortable with more closeness, and there's a big, big, big spectrum. But if we can also focus on the here and now and make these changes that can really lead us to be in secure mode. It's a way to flourish in the world, to feel safe, to not worry all the time. It's so much so, and that's like chapter four in the book, I write about energy in the brain because you really have to understand that the brain is a huge energy guzzler. It can't really get reinforcements. It can only deal with the amount of energy that it gets. It can't increase the blood flow all of a sudden, like our muscles can or when we eat. That's not possible for the brain because it's encased in the skull and the pressure will mount and we'll have a bleed. You get the amount of energy that you get, which is 20%, which is a huge amount.

The brain is 2%, but it's taking 20% and the children, even more, five-year-olds, it's like 50%. It's crazy. Then all that you can do is you can divert energy from one area to the brain to the other. If you feel safer, and especially those prefrontal areas that we think and abstract and create, these are the ones that are most energy-heavy. When you create a safer, a secure mode environment for yourself, you can free up that energy to be diverted more to thinking, like the child in this strange situation, like playing, doing things. It's not just about, Oh, this is nice to me. I don't really have to worry about what the other person is doing. It's really more about this frees up energy to actually achieve more. To live your life. Yeah.

Then the last thing, and this is now stemming from immediate defensiveness. Obviously, it's also, I think, tempting for us to label ourselves one thing across all domains. It's like, I could be avoidant in caregiving of an illness. Then if you call me for AA, I've got unlimited time for you.

I think that's the promising part of this whole book, our versatility and our ability to change, to understand, to accept certain things, and also knowing, so if you're not such a great person when you get sick, then why shouldn't I call someone else? No, I'm serious. Why does one person have to do everything? It doesn't make any sense. Yeah.

Okay, great. Amir, this is awesome. Please, everyone, check out Secure, the Revolutionary Guide to Creating a Secure Life. This is just so encouraging and hopeful, and I really appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks so much for coming.

Yeah, thanks. Yeah, it was fun, actually. I was nervous about it, but I enjoyed it.

We aim to be fun. All right, be well. We hope you enjoyed this episode. Unfortunately, they made some mistakes. When does mom and dad They land at like 3: 40.

Okay. Probably like 5: 00, 5: 30.

Lax? There's no good Burbank.

Mm-mm, which is sad.

We got to expand Burbank. I know, but then it- But only to the destinations we want.

Yeah, because then It's going to become the same situation, which we don't.

I will support an Atlanta route if you support a Nashville route.

Yeah, there is a Nashville. They had one flight, one time to Atlanta at a Burbank.

A single flight in the history? Yes.

Yes. Calleigh and I took it home for Christmas.

Was it Air Kmart?

No, it was Delta. It was Delta? Yeah. It was a lot of years ago. They tried it. I guess they decided it.

I'm not going to call them out, but I am going to say what is really weird is how much these airlines jocke you for quality. If I go back 15 years ago, what I would have listed is the best quality airline, the cleanest, most up to date, everything. That has ruffle dramatically. And I don't really understand that. I want to know what forces make these ones that were good just tumble. I guess it's management. I'll just say someone at Delta has turned that thing into a real wonderful airline. It's a great airline. But I used to have to fly it nonstop. They absorb Northwest.

Right.

And I always had to fly Northwest because Detroit was a hub for Northwest. Basically, the Northwest love to fly anywhere where you might get snowed in. And have to get a hotel room.

Yeah.

But it wasn't whatever.

Well, Delta probably is... They took it and they're like, We're making it good.

I just want to tip my hat to them. They're not a sponsor. I want to tip my hat. They have really upped their game, I think.

They're not a sponsor, but they are my preferred airline. Except we did fly Emirates to India, and that- That was nice. Was really nice. That was nice. That was nice. Really, really, really Nice.

Are you excited about anything? It's a very exciting time for me. Oh, go ahead. Motogp returned last weekend. So we had our first race of the year after four months layoff. And Formula One has been gone for three and a half months. They've been in their winter break. Right. That returns this weekend. So I'm coming out of my three or four month fast of racing, and I'm pretty excited about it.

That's fun.

Knowing that you don't have something like this, where it's multiple events over the course of a weekend. And I may or may not partake in all them, but just knowing if I wanted, there's a lot of stuff on Friday I could check in with, Saturday is a big day, and then, of course, the race on Sunday. The power of having something to look forward to is gigantic.

Yes, that's huge. Speaking of that, we really dropped the ball on the Olympics this year. We didn't We didn't talk about it. We didn't do anything. That's upsetting.

I read a thing that it was the most viewed Olympics in 16 years or something.

It was?

I was a little shocked to see that, no, it was a hugely successful and watched Olympics.

I'm surprised by that, too, not because I wasn't interested, but because no one I knew was talking about it at all. And even on podcast and stuff, I wasn't hearing about it.

I tried, right? I was in Miami when they kicked off. Erin and I were excited to consume some Olympics and do some napping while we did that because it's good napping material because there's a lot of downtime. It's like someone does a run, then you hear a lot of waiting for scores, whatever. And so when I... This is terrible to admit, but when I checked in, I was having this feeling of like... Because I was watching on YouTube TV, so I can see every single thing that's happening. It's all there. And I'm like, did they take some events out of the Winter Olympics? What is it I like? I liked snowboarding, aka Sean White. I loved watching him perform every year. That was an exciting thing. But I'm watching... The first thing I watched was people cross country skiing for three hours.

Yeah, it was on my face.

I was like, I don't know. And then another one was like, they were cross country skiing, but there's a little bit of downhill. I was like, still not very hair-raising. And I was like, what is I don't know. I got confused, and then I just never went back.

Sure. I like ice skating. Right. A lot.

But I even forgot about ice skating.

Ice skating is the main one for me. I did watch a couple clips, and there was a whole story about this Olympian who was in the Olympics maybe a couple of Olympics ago. And then she was really, really young and was She was treated and was like, You know what? I'm not doing this anymore. She took life back into her own hands.

Good personal story.

Yeah. Then she's back on her own, with two feet on the ice. Ice? Yes. She won.

Oh, great.

It's like, great. Normally, I'd be so into all of that, but I don't know what happened.

I don't either, but I was sad in that I wasn't interested in it. Hockey was fun this year. There we go, Rob. Thanks. Yeah, that's what I should have been watching. Hockey was- Men and women, US1.

Yeah, that's right. I did hear about that.

Boys and girls. In overtime. It was the first time US beat Canada since the '80s.

See, all that's cool.

I take away everything I just said.

Well, no, you can't take away that you didn't care. I'm like, either did I, and I don't know why.

My critique would have been to start day one with some more exciting stuff than the cross country thing for three The Hours, maybe. But I bet there are people riveted by cross country skiing.

Of course, there are.

And there's people that watch the competitive walking.

Yeah. There's people... There's a lid for every pot. I forgot to tell you the other day that something weird happened. I almost got in another person's car.

Oh, tell me.

It was strange. I was leaving a place with Jess. It was at night, night, bad eyes, and I was a a little sick. I don't know if that has anything to do with it. But we were walking and I start to get in his car, and he was like, That's not mine. I was like, Oh, silly me. Oh, Yeah. Silly me. Then I'm walking up further, and there's his car with the light like he had done. It's flashing the light. Yeah, he had unlocked it. So the lights came on. So I go to get in the car, and then there's a man standing there and he says, That's my car. And I was like, Oh, oh, oh, oh, my God. I'm so sorry. And then I look over- So you tried to get in two wrong cars? Yeah. I look over and just as I crossed the street- You were on the wrong side of the street, Monica? Well, we were both on the wrong side. And then in that interim time, when I saw the flashing lights and thought that was his, he had crossed. Were you tipsy? It was not that. It was really not that.

I was And I was like, What's going on?

Yeah, because you lost me at wrong side of the street. I think you should have your bearings of what side of the street you guys parked on.

I'm not very good at that. I don't know. We were Both walking on that side for a while, down the sidewalk. And then he just crossed in the middle where the car was, I guess. No, he dropped me off to get in line. Okay.

See, I knew there was an explanation. If you didn't remember what side of the street you parked on, that's alarming.

Okay. That is something that might happen to me, just FYI. I'm not good at directions. I'm not paying that much attention. If I'm not driving. But he did drop me off to get in line. So I did not muscle memory know where the car was parked, that type of thing. There we go. That type of thing. Well, that explains that. Yeah, but it was still- Otherwise, you're in Strokeville. Right. Well, anyway, he was right there, and he was like, That's my car. I was like, Oh, my God. I'm so sorry.

I parked next year's at your car at the SAG Award.

Oh, nice. Yeah. He needs a wash. Is that what you were thinking? No. Okay. It really needs a wash.

I just thought, these two handsome cars.

Yeah, great. Very beautiful car.

What are your plans with mom and dad?

Yeah, my parents are coming today. I'm doing a tour of the rape treatment center. It's not funny.

Okay, well, you're laughing pretty hard. It's not funny. I'm not, just for the record.

It's not funny at all. Right. But I had planned to do that for a while. Okay. I was like, Oh, I can't cancel it. That's for one, bad. Two, I want to do it. But it's like, I don't know that my parents- That might not be for them. Yeah, I don't know that.

It's like a fun, you're on vacation, let's go to the- Let's go to the Rape Treatment Center.

Right. Yeah.

I I don't- Is it psychological treatment? That's what they're offering?

No, they offer- Rape kits? Yeah. It's like instead of going to a hospital, you can go to the rape treatment center. Great. Yeah.

And get your exam.

There is psychological resources and legal resources and things. It's a really cool thing. I am going to do that, but I think I'll probably leave them at home for that.

Yeah, let them lounge around the house a little bit. Maybe that's when I'll take your dad out for a beer and ask him about his previous girlfriends. I almost forgot my objective for this trip. Find out about past lovers for your parents. Remember I said I was going to ask them?

Yeah.

Their dating history?

I'm not sure if we're going to have time for that. Yeah, so I think that's really... We're just going to be. They're very, very excited to see the house and stay in the house because normally my apartment was so small. They stayed in a hotel when they came to visit.

They would just come in, you get ready, and you all leave to go somewhere. Yeah, exactly. Now your mom can watch her YouTube.

She will. Yeah. She will watch her YouTube.

I wonder what she's got her fangs into right now. I wonder. Is there any trials going on?

I'm sure she is very knowledgeable on everything that's going on with Epstein.

Sure.

That's probably the main thing she's consuming right now would be my guess, but I don't really know. I will find out. They'll get to go make their coffees and stuff, and it'll be really nice. It'll be really nice to have them. I did my final walkthrough of the apartment today.

To turn it back over? Yeah. What's that experience like? It was good.

I mean, it was good. It was sad. It's sad to say bye to something and the chapter It was also weird because it's empty, and I haven't seen it like that since I got it. I was like, Oh, yeah. I remembered going to see it. Lincoln came with me, I remember.

Oh, for the first walk through?

Yeah, to go check it out. And that was a long time ago.

I thought, I know you already know this, but I was sad to leave our old house, and I thought I was going to be really sad. And then we left, and I've never thought about it again. I've been shocked with the fact that I don't think about it at all. Because it held a very... It's like the epicenter of some of my favorite memories and experiences. I have such warm feelings about it, but I don't at all miss it. I thought I was going to.

But don't you think that's in keeping with-My personality?

Yeah.

Because same thing with relationships. You still have an affinity. You love the time and the people, but you're not missing them. I mean, you've told me that. Maybe that's incorrect.

Elaborate. Give me an example.

I guess that's just something you've told me, that you don't yearn for any past relationship.

I don't yearn to be romantically involved. To be with them. Romantically involved with any of my exes, but I still love being friends with them.

Yeah, that's what I just said. You still love the people.

I thought you were saying that when I walk away, that they're dead to me and I don't ever think about them again.

No, but that you still have an affinity and a fondness, and there's all these positive associations, and you love them as people. But But yeah, you're not like, Oh, you don't miss them.

I don't want to kiss. Well, no, I miss them as friends, but I don't want to kiss them. I was always saying this in reference to a lot of people have a pattern of hooking up with exes. Right. Which is great. I don't care about it. I'm not suggesting I have a moral position on it. No. I just have not had that. I've not had a pattern of hooking up with my ex-girlfriends. That part to me, when we several over dies. It's over. Yes. The romantic part. But the friendship part and the missing them and wanting to connect with them, for sure, I still have that. I'll randomly carry my girlfriend in high school I was with for five years. She and I love the same music. She'll find a new album and she'll send it to me. I love it. Then we'll have seven exchanges about it. I go, Oh, Kari's still so fun and so engaged in devouring life and finding new things. And I'm proud of her. She's maintained the essence of who she was when I met her that I found so appealing about her. And then I'll talk to Bri, and she's on fire for innumerable things.

Second time I've said innumerable, which is questionable.

Maybe it's your new word.

I hope not. And I get this swell of excitement that she is still held on to that sparkly curiosity. Yeah. But that's different.

That's different than what a lot of people feel, that there's a tug.

But I do have what you're saying about objects, which shocks me Because I have coveted objects so much my whole life. Then when I don't have them, I don't think about them anymore, which is a little shocking to me because I wanted them so bad or I coveted them so bad. Then when they're gone, I'm I don't even really remember that I cared. A lot of objects.

That house is a big, big object. It is.

It's symbolic. It's a marker of your life and your accomplishments. It can represent so much. It does. Then I see videos of the kids playing in that little area we had between the kitchen and the living room. That was like their zone. I go, Oh, yeah. I love sitting on the couch and watching them be a little babies. But I don't need to walk back in there. That's the weird part.

I wasn't devastated, but I was like, Yeah, this is the end of the era. That's happy. A chapter is closing. And sad. Just when new things start, it's like, Yeah, there's no going back. It's just a reminder that time keeps moving, and you can't pause it, you can't go back. And that's...

We have a guest today after this fact check whose book is about consciousness. And so I'm really locked into this book and thinking about life and consciousness. And yeah, many of the experts that he interviewed for this book try to explain that thought is... There was a traditional way of thinking, which is like, Renee Descart, which is like, I think, therefore, I am, and thoughts are one thought built to top another, and it's one thing leads to another. And there's other people who think more like it's a stream. There's no marker of this thought led to this thought. There's just this. And you'll never have the same thought or consciousness ever again is a fascinating thing. And it's what you're saying. It's like life's moving forward, and it's taking with it everything that preceded it. And so it can't ever be the same because more things are preceding it. And the way we rewrite memories every time we think of them, your brain is evolving nonstop. Your experience on Earth is evolving nonstop. And that can feel scary and maybe untethered. But it is the nature and facts of life. I think the discomforts when you're fighting that.

Right.

I think you You can feel it in Tether, but you're also just reminded of mortality. It's like, oh, yeah, that phase is over. Now I'm in this phase. There'll be another. And how many more do I have? Not very... Who knows?

We know the ultimate phase.

Yeah, exactly. Then ding, ding, ding with relationships, probably people who do hook up with their exes and stuff. It's probably more about that, wanting to go back in time as opposed to, I miss this person. I mean, maybe, obviously, there's a million reasons why, but I bet a lot of it is, I miss me then. I miss that time of my life, and that person is connected to that time. So I want to click into that. Yeah.

And I think, yes, that's the Esther thing, which I love. It's like people are cheating on you with themselves. They want to visit a version of themselves from the past. But I think the easy cycle to get into with going back to X is with some time away, when you come back, you can revisit the initial easy, uncomplicated phase of it. And that is very pleasurable. But the complications arise immediately after. But I think you succumb to the joy of getting to relive the part that was easy, the falling in love part. And then I just think quickly it ends up exactly what it always is. And I think that's the cycle that's appealing. It's like, oh, I want to go back to the original moment we fell in love and it was so easy. Complicated. Complicated.

Should we do some facts? Yes.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, If You Dare.

Okay. Amir, Attachment.

Had you read this book? I mean, this book was wildly popular. So popular.

The original book. I had not read it. I had just heard so much about it. You had. And I looked into the theories and stuff.

I wasn't aware of the book. I was aware that people were talking about attachment theory a lot, but I just assume that's in the same way people are talking about ADHD or whatever. That was just the thing we were-obsessed with at the moment. Zeigeist-y, but I didn't realize there was such a specific origin for it all.

Yeah. I find it very intriguing.

You do?

Yes.

Yeah, I talked about it. Yeah. I found myself talking about it a bit.

It's just interesting that we all do have ways of relating to others that are predictable and well worn.

I thought the thing that I was most interested in is I love anything that's counterintuitive, which is your attachment style as a child has nothing to do with your attachment style as an adult.

Yeah.

I would have thought it just led into your permanent may set this attachment style.

Totally, yes. I thought that, too. It made me think about a couple of people in my life that have very secure attachments. And I was like, Yeah. They're not threatened. They're totally chill.

Not taking stuff personal.

Yeah. It's pretty admirable. Yeah. Okay. Now, he told the story of his dad throwing the penny or the coin when the President was in town. I was trying to figure out which President it was, and I can't figure out Amir's age.

That's not known on the internet?

I didn't see it on the Internet. Maybe, Rob, maybe you'll see it, but I didn't see it. My guess is going to be it was in the '90s.

Yeah, no public information. How on earth could you be alive in the era of the internet and your age not be known?

Is he 50 around there, you think?

Because there's Amir Lavine Born on April 22nd, 1975. So he would have probably been talking about Reagan or Carter.

If it was in the '80s. But if it was in the '90s, it could have been Clinton.

But he would have been more a teenager, right? Versus a little boy?

Yeah, I couldn't tell exactly his age. I mean, I guess he was small enough that he was a little anxious. Carter visited in '79.

So four years old?

Yeah, four years old if he He was born in '75.

Maybe. Maybe.

Clinton started his visits in '94.

Where was he visiting?

Israel. Oh, Israel. The 1980s saw high-level diplomatic tension, particularly under Reagan, with key meetings occurring in DC rather than Israel. Oh, okay. So maybe he didn't really go there.

Right. I'm sure Carter went there. Yeah, he did.

He was the great- Yeah, he did. He visited in '79. Yeah.

He went to a bunch of places presidents hadn't gone in a long time. He was known for that. From Georgia. Peanut Farmer.

This says, no US President made an official state visit to Israel during the 1980s. It said, Carter '79 and then Clinton '94.

Oh, boy. Big gap, 14 years.

Yeah. We're going to go with Carter.

We're sticking with Carter. That's our final guess.

Yeah. Primates, middle of the food chain. Primates generally occupy the middle of the food chain, acting as both consumers of plants, insects, and as prey for larger predators. I wanted to figure out top of the food chain.

If it goes by continent, I'd like to guess.

Okay. We can do environment.

Okay. You could also do apex predators in the research.

Apex predators are at the top of the food chain is the first thing it says. Okay. Yeah.

So in Africa, that continent, I think it's the lion. And then in the subcontinent, India, I think it's the tiger. In fact, I think it's the tiger through all of Asia and into Russia, except for the polar bear in the Arctic, I think is the apex predator. And then I think in the Americas, it's the grizzly bear.

Okay.

Although we also have polar bears in the Americas. Then in South America, I would say it's the jaguar.

All right. Well, this says, Apex predators are at the top of the food chain acting as a highest trophic level. Trophic level with no natural predators. In various ecosystems, these include lions, tigers, polar bears, orcas, and great white sharks. Humans are also considered top predators capable of affecting or being the absolute peak of many food chains. Now, this also breaks it down by environment. Land, lions, tigers, wolves, polar bears, and grizzly bears. Grizzlies. Ocean, orcas, great white sharks, and leopard seals. Air, bald eagles, golden eagles, and other large raptors.

Raptors. I love raptors.

Reptiles, saltwater crocodiles, and komodo dragons. Oh, komodo dragons. Oh, boy, I see.

Oh, my God. Tell me about them.

I guess, where the saliva is nasty. Komodo.

Oh. Komodo. He loves their stinky mouth.

I guess you can smell them from quite a distance, those komodo dragons. Foul, bacterial-laden jaws become poison.

Speaking of that, have you noticed that there's somebody in your life who has not good breath?

As we've discussed, I'm Very sensitive, hypersensitive to bad breath.

But it's bad, but it's not- Objectively offensive? Yeah. I think I'm the only one who notices this, and it's an unexpected person. I'm not going to say who. Okay, great. I don't think anyone else thinks this. I've never been... No one's ever said it. Gossiped about it. Exactly. No one's ever said anything to me, alluding to the fact that that's the case. But yet it is It's competitive for me.

It's rough. I mean, I had a friend who I could stop going to the movies with. Just sitting next to them at the movies, all I could smell was their breath. And I just was like, I can't do it. I blame me, but I couldn't do it.

I know. And I just wonder, though, is it pheromones? Because why can't you guys smell what I'm smelling?

I think, obviously, we all smell different things, and we're sensitive to different odors. Again, I see people who are in relationships with people who I think have wretched breath, and I think, well, they can't smell it. There's no way. Because they're kissing and loving. I know. Yeah, I don't think... Or they're just not sensitive to smell, period. Because I I just think like, I can't. It's a deal breaker for me.

It's the same. But I just wonder also if it's actually more... Is breath actually... I mean, maybe there's obviously halitosis. There's some objective stuff, but maybe the rest of it is just pheromones.

Well, I also think there's certain medical conditions that give you a predictable outcome. And I'm going to leave it at that.

Well, yeah. I was somewhere, and I had already thought it, and then it was happening again.

And will it impact what activities you do with the person? Because There are certain things where it's not an issue. Yeah. And there are others where, again, the movies, you're sitting like, your mouths and noses are what? 18 inches apart.

Right.

And so that might be a nonstarter. I love this person, but I'm just not going to go to the movies with them. That was my decision.

Yeah, that's interesting. And then there's also the case, too, where someone, they have that, and then they also tend to talk close, and you're constantly trying to keep your distance, and then you wonder if it's obvious.

I think the only one I'm unsympathetic to or unforgiving of is I think when you're a dentist, you've got to be on it like no one's ever been on their breath.

Yes, we've talked about this.

Because they are in your nose. They work in your nose.

But they normally... The Hygienists often have masks on.

That doesn't fucking do a goddamn thing. If you have shit breath and you got a little paper between there, forget it. That's not... No way. Have your friend wear a mask. Just make up a reason why it's cute if they wear a mask. And see. You're still going to smell it.

It's not that strong. That's the thing.

It's not like- You're making a mountain out of a mole hill.

No, I just noticed it many times, and I just wonder if anyone else has noticed it, and I don't think they have, which has just led me to believe, Oh, this is something pheromonal.

It's me. You're like, It's me.

Yeah.

Which, again, is possible.

Well, it's not me. It's the way my nose perceives.

Yeah, I'm smelling an odor here that other people don't smell. Yes, exactly. In which case, I'm saying it's you.

Well, right.

I mean- Like you're the anomaly.

I'm the anomaly, I think. Yeah.

Yeah.

But I don't actually know. Maybe I'm not. You could ask around. I could ask around. It feels really good to do that.

Oh, man. I couldn't feel worse for someone who just can't help it. I mean, my God, I really feel terrible.

It's also because it's a specific... It is a specific smell.

A note.

Yeah, it's a note. I know in that case, it is a little pheromonal because it's not like, Oh, this person ate something just a second ago or something.

They don't smell like a hot dog. They smell like their body.

Yeah. It's interesting. It's very interesting.

You should ask if you can smell their armpits and their groin to see if it's consistent everywhere.

I mean, it's This is a very...

Do you think people with more secure attachment styles don't smell as much?

Probably. Maybe.

I think everything just ticks up.

Sure.

When you were listening to all this stuff, did you self-assess as being any part of this spectrum?

Oh, yeah. We talked about it in the episode. I definitely feel like I have an anxious attachment. Anxious attachment. And you were saying you felt like you did lean a little avoidant.

When I was young. But the more I When I read about it, I was like, I think I'm secure attachment. I think that's what I felt in general after learning all about the thing. But then I thought, oh, no, I used to be avoided. And then I think, yeah, you can change. Just the stuff I don't take personal. Again, back to the Instagram stuff, all this stuff that drives people nuts that I know that I don't even think about or getting invited to things or all that stuff. I don't.

Yeah. Well, we can find out- Is there a test? Yes. I know I can count on my friends to be there for me if I'm going through a rough time. Then we got our normals. Agree, strongly agree, neutral, disagree, strongly disagree. Strongly agree. I sometimes feel like I'm not good enough for my loved ones.

Strongly disagree.

I feel uncomfortable when my friends or family act like they rely on me. What's the middle? Neutral. Then there's disagree and agree, and then strongly agree, strongly disagree.

I would say neutral. Okay. Again, that has evolved.

Right.

I used to feel burdened by that, and now I feel lucky as much as I feel burden. That puts me in neutral. Okay.

I always make the first move, but usually become disinterested after I get what I want. I disagree. Disagree. I know I can be my true self in relationships once I have enough time to get Uncomfortable. A hundred %. I sometimes hold back on relationships because I feel that if I share too much about myself, I might get hurt.

I wish. Strongly disagree.

I tend to worry that my loved ones don't love me as much as I love them. Strongly disagree. I consider myself a good friend and a good partner. Strongly agree. I stay away from long-term relationships.

No, I've had nothing but long-term relationships.

So strongly disagree? Mm-hmm. Okay. Being alone sometimes scares me.

Strongly disagree. Although, I experienced great boredom last week being alone on a Saturday night. Oh. Because I had to... Chris was doing a play, and Lincoln had a play date. So at first I was like, cool. I had my whole night to myself. And then I watched like, Three episodes of fall out in a row, and I was like, I want to be with somebody.

I was like, I'm bored with just myself watching this show.

Interesting.

Yeah.

I was like, I am tragically social.

It hit me. I like going out with friends and family, but I still value my personal time and space.

I mean, I prefer being out with people than I do by myself, but I'm not afraid to be myself.

I don't know. What does that make me? You do value your personal time and space. You're always like, why are there so many people here? Why?

Space. Yeah.

What does that mean? I agree. I think you agree. Okay, I'll agree. I don't like relying on others, and that way I avoid getting disappointed.

Agree.

I find it- You know what?

Strongly agree.

Uh-oh. Yeah, I got to be honest. I think it's too late. Okay, that's fine. I find it difficult to express love even when I feel it. Strongly disagree. I prefer casual flings in serious relationships. Disagree. I avoid arguments with my partners, friends, or family to avoid the chance of losing them. Strongly disagree. Sometimes I want to be completely alone and then suddenly change to feeling like I need around people.

Well, that just happened, Sarah and I. Agree.

Agree. I never make the first move in a potential relationship for fear of being rejected.

Strongly disagree.

My friends and family often tell me that they feel like they don't really know me.

Oh, never.

Strongly disagree. If my partner went on a trip without me, I'd miss them, but would ultimately be happy that they're having fun.

Strongly agree.

A big portion of my self-esteem and self-worth comes from my relationships with other people.

Oh, strongly agree.

Sometimes when I feel like I'm getting too close to someone, I get scared and start to push them, pushing them away.

Strongly disagree.

I feel bad when my loved ones do things without inviting me. Disagree. I trust that the people I love want what's best for me.

The people that love me?

I trust that the people I love want what's best for me. Agree. I much prefer being alone, but I'll attend social engagements if I'm required to. Disagree. Even when things get tough, I feel confident that my partner will support me and will work through challenges together. Strongly agree. I often find myself over analyzing interactions with my partner, wondering if they truly understand my feelings and intentions. Disagree. Sometimes I push people away when they get too close, even though deep down I crave connection and intimacy.

Strongly disagree.

It's hard for me to relax in relationships because I'm always worrying about whether my loved ones truly care about me.

Strongly disagree.

I prefer to keep my emotions to myself, believing that vulnerability only leads to unnecessary complications and potential disappointment.

Can I go neutral on that one?

I enjoy spending time with my friends and family, knowing that we can share both good times and bad times with each other.

Strongly agree. It's really funny to answer these questions in my mind because I have two different families. Which one are we talking about? Are we talking about the family I created or the one I was born into?

I feel uncomfortable when people get too emotionally close to me. I value my independence and personal space.

Emotionally dependent on me? That was part of the question.

I feel uncomfortable when people get too emotionally close to me.

I value my independence and personal space. I'm not close. Okay, I disagree.

Knowing that I have a strong support system of friends and family gives me the confidence to tackle life's challenges with optimism and resilience. I disagree. I worry that if I show vulnerability or express my needs in relationships, I'll end up being rejected or abandoned. I'd go neutral. I appreciate the balance between independence and closeness in my relationships, allowing me to pursue my own interests while still feeling connected to others. Strongly agree. I often find myself feeling anxious about the state of my relationships, constantly seeking reassurance from my partner or friends to alleviate my doubts. Strongly disagree. I I'm trying to handle my problems on my own rather than relying on others for support or advice.

I agree.

My mind often races with thoughts about potential conflicts or misunderstandings in my relationships, making it difficult to fully enjoy moments of connection without worrying about the future.

Strongly disagree.

When I face challenges, I feel reassured knowing that my friends will offer their support and encouragement without judgment. Neutral. I tend to seek constant validation from my friends and romantic partners to reassure myself of their love and commitment.

That's a tricky one because I definitely like endless validation, but it's not to reassure myself that they like me. So I'm going to go neutral. I just enjoy validation.

I tend to downplay the importance of romantic relationships in my life, focusing instead of my individual goals and interests. Strongly disagree. Despite craving intimacy and connection, I struggle to fully trust others and often find myself holding back out of fear of being hurt or abandoned. Strongly disagree. I value the mutual trust and respect of my relationships, which allows me to be my authentic self without fear of rejection. Strongly agree. Spending quality time with loved ones fills me with a sense of warmth and security knowing that we have each other's backs no matter what. Strongly agree. I have a tendency to push people away when they try to get close to me, fearing that allowing them in will only lead to disappointment or betrayal. Strongly disagree. Despite my efforts, I struggle to shake off the feeling of insecurity that lingers in my mind, questioning whether I'm truly valued and loved by those closest to me. Disagree. I find it challenging to open up to others about my innermost thoughts and feelings, preferring to maintain a sense of distance to protect myself from potential rejection. Disagree. The fear of rejection or betrayal sometimes prevents me from fully investing in relationships, leaving me feeling stuck in a cycle of longing for connection while simultaneously fearing it.

Strongly disagree. Independence is important to me, and I prioritize maintaining autonomy in my relationships, often avoiding becoming too reliant on others for emotional support or validation. Agree.

I have to pay.

I'm going to do it. Don't do it. It's 195.

Just a one-off? They're tricky. That was smart. They let you do the whole task. I know. That's a feel betrayed. Is it his website?

I don't think so. Oh, no. American Express is not supported.

Yeah, I bet people...

Shit. I have to get my other card. No. Wow. Yeah, we have to know.

I think we know. You don't think we know? It's a fact check. Okay.

Oh, secure. Your attachment style is secure. Secondary, fearful. The secure attachment style serves as the bedrock for healthy and fulfilling relationships characterized by a strong sense of trust, emotional security, and a balanced approach to both intimacy and independence. Individuals with a secure attachment style have typically experienced consistent and responsive caregiving during their early years, fostering a foundational belief in the availability and reliability of others in times of need.

Okay. I guess my This time, my self-assessment bore out.

That's right. That's right. Yours goes 57. 5% secure, 18. 2% fearful, 16. 7% dismissive, 7. 6% Okay. Interesting. Interesting. Well, that was fun. Who did the marshmallow test? Walter Michel.

This is another one I've been repeating, finding out that the marshmallow test isn't real. Yeah. I mean, it's a real test, but the conclusions aren't. That's right. Yeah. It's incredible to think how much work has been built on the shoulders of that. I know.

That's not right. It's scary a little bit. The human brain consumes roughly 20% of the body's total resting energy, about 260 to 300 calories per day, despite representing only 2% of body weight. That's it.

That's it? Yes. Well, I enjoyed Amir. Me too. We'll die with the great mystery of how old he is.

Yeah. Anyway, yeah, Amir was great. Love you. Love you.