Episode Description
Unresolved emotions and insecure attachment styles can silently shape our relationships and lives—but what if you could break free? In this second part of a two part series, Bev Mitelman, a certified attachment practitioner and founder of Securely Loved, explains how deeply rooted attachment patterns influence everything from emotional regulation to the way we connect with others.
The conversation goes beyond just theory, though. Using practical examples, Bev highlights how attachment styles govern the way we interact with our partner - especially the cycle of approach-avoid that often traps couples in an endless cycle of “I want you/I need space.”
Using cutting-edge techniques to reprogram the subconscious mind, Bev demonstrates how clients can heal core wounds, build emotional resilience, and foster secure attachment with those they love.
Whether you’re struggling in your marriage or seeking to deepen your other relationships, this conversation reminds us that true transformation is possible.
Show Notes
About Bev
Prior to becoming a Certified Attachment Practitioner and founding Securely Loved, Bev was an Executive Leader, University Lecturer and published author, having obtained her Masters' Degree in 2006. She has dedicated her entire career (25+ years) working with adults in the realm of personal growth and professional development.
Bev specializes in attachment theory, as it relates to dating and relationships, LGBT+ communities, sexuality, childhood trauma, complex family dynamics, narcissistic abuse, and respectful parenting. She believes that radical honesty is the way to authentically connect with people, in a world where more and more of us are feeling isolated and disconnected.
Connect with Bev
You can connect with Bev on LinkedIn at Securely Loved and on Facebook at Securely Loved. You can follow Bev on Instagram at Securely_loved and on YouTube @SecurelyLoved. To find out more about Bev’s work visit her website at Securely Loved and book a 20 minute consult here.
Key Takeaways From This Episode with Bev
- Attachment styles are crucial in understanding relationship dynamics, with roughly half the population having a secure attachment style and the other half having various insecure attachment styles (anxious, avoidant, and fearful avoidant).
- Emotional dysregulation is a key indicator of insecure attachment, manifesting through behaviors like frequent mood changes, outbursts, road rage, and reliance on addictive behaviors to cope with stress.
- Core wounds are deeply rooted emotional patterns originating from childhood experiences, with different attachment styles having characteristic core wounds: anxious-preoccupied fears abandonment, dismissive-avoidant carries a shame wound of being "defective", and fearful-avoidant fears betrayal.
- Changing attachment patterns is possible through targeted interventions, with Bev Mitelman's approach focusing on reprogramming the subconscious mind using techniques like auto-suggestion, imagery, and emotional repetition.
- The "anxious-avoidant dance" is a common relationship pattern where an anxious, people-pleasing partner and a dismissive, space-needing partner create a cycle of approach and withdrawal.
- Personal growth involves identifying core wounds, understanding one's needs, and developing skills like setting boundaries, emotional regulation, and authentic communication.
- The subconscious mind controls 95-97% of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, making traditional conscious awareness techniques like daily affirmations largely ineffective.
- Healing is not about going through entire personal history, but identifying and changing current limiting beliefs and patterns that no longer serve an individual.
- Changing oneself can transform relationship dynamics, even if a partner is resistant to change, as personal growth alters how one interacts and what one tolerates in relationships.
- Bev Mitelman's approach offers hope, suggesting that with committed effort, individuals can break free from old patterns, reduce chronic stress, and reconnect with joy and authentic living within about 14-16 weeks.
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Transcript
Why Do We Love the Way We Do? A Deep Dive into Attachment Styles (Part 1)
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
attachment, security, attunement, patterns
SPEAKERS
Karen Covy, Bev Mitelman
Karen Covy Host
00:10
Hello and welcome to Off the Fence, a podcast where we deconstruct difficult decision-making so we can discover what keeps us stuck and, more importantly, how we can get unstuck and start making even tough decisions with confidence. I'm your host, Karen Covy, a former divorce lawyer, mediator and arbitrator, turned coach, author and entrepreneur. And now, without further ado, let's get on with the show.
With me today I have Bev Middleman, a certified attachment practitioner and the founder of Securely Loved, a collective of relationship and attachment trauma practitioners. This is part two of a two-part series, so if you haven't listened to the first part of this interview, I strongly suggest you go back and do that first, because that's going to make this part of the conversation so much richer and so much more meaningful.
01:10
And for those of you who have listened to part one, you know we've been talking about attachment styles.
01:17
We've been talking about the secure attachment style, which is roughly half the population, and then the insecure attachment style, which is the other half give or take, and it breaks down into three different kinds of insecure attachment style.
01:33
And what I really want to dive into, Bev, with you in this section of the conversation is why any of this matters and how the attachment styles relate to each other and what people can do if they find themselves in a relationship that's not working because of their own you know attachment style, or their spouses, and how they can work through that.
So I know that's a lot. Let's just start with you know, maybe go over again. There's the three insecure attachment styles, which are the anxious, preoccupied, the avoidant and the fearful avoidant, which is in between those two. So if someone thinks that they have an insecure attachment style, if they see themselves in the words that you're saying or they feel themselves in what you've described what to do about it, how can you identify your attachment style and start to change it if it's not working for you?
Bev Mitelman Guest
02:41
Yeah, such a great question. Thank you for asking that. So, absolutely, awareness is the first step, right? So if you recognizing yourself that you are most of the time emotionally dysregulated, right, and we'll talk about that.
Karen Covy Host
What does that mean?
Bev Mitelman Guest
Okay, so, emotionally dysregulated will mean that you are responding at usually a heightened or not a healthy way to common stressors, right? So have you ever been in a car with someone and you're driving and all of a sudden, this road rage comes out and they start driving like a maniac and they're flipping the bird to someone and like and you're like, what is going on? This rage just came out of nowhere.
03:28
Okay, that is a sign of emotional dysregulation impulsivity, people who have a hard time, you know, handling a stressful moment and then coming back down to baseline. People that have frequent mood changes, bursts of anger, people who are crying very frequently. What this means is, generally, it's a sign that you're in your sympathetic nervous system mode, which is your fight or flight. Okay, so we have two modes, right, and it's so interesting because you talk about off the fence. Right, decision making. We are not capable of making good decisions when we are in our survival mode, when we are in fight or flight and many people, without even realizing, live years stuck in this chronic stressful mode and their cortisol is flooding and they're just trying to survive and get through the day. And if you pay attention to what's going on, they're having frequent outbursts, they're not getting along with people, they have all sorts of emotional problems with people in their life and the other telltale sign is they are often, very often, reliant on external sources to cope, and what I mean by this are addictive behaviors, and so when someone's feeling like they are just, you know, I'm overwhelmed. That person who cannot wait for a five o'clock happy hour, they're starting it at 3 pm. That is a sign.
05:11
Alcoholism, yes, but the alcoholism, the addiction, from my point of view, isn't the issue. The issue is they're using a substance to be able to try to calm down their nervous system because they're in fight or flight, and I want to be clear about this right. So our cohort of people who use addictive substances or addictive behaviors fall primarily in those who have an insecure attachment, so those who are able to regulate and have a conversation with someone and keep their emotional system for the most part, their nervous system at a balanced state. They're not the ones who need that cocktail. They're not the ones that turn to drugs. They're not generally the ones, for example, who use casual sex as a mean to just release stress. There's so many addictive behaviors. We have people who use food. We have people who use shopping, we have people who are addicted to pornography All sorts of things that distract us from the difficult and uncomfortable emotions that we're feeling because we haven't learned to work through them.
06:32
But when you learn to work through them you no longer need all of these outlets, right? Because these emotions, even if you are a master at repressing and pushing everything down as we know our dismissive avoidance are very good at doing it always comes out. It always comes out in your thought pattern and in your behavior.
Karen Covy Host
06:58
But I want to stop you here because you know you'd said earlier I believe it was in part one that everything exists on a continuum, right, that these behavior patterns exist on a continuum. So I think we've all at some point said, you know, I just can't take it anymore. Or you get frustrated or overwhelmed or angry, or name your emotion, right, the emotions that you don't want to have, and so I can see a tendency for people to say, okay, I've had these emotions and maybe I yelled at my kid, maybe I yelled at my spouse, maybe I acted out in some way. Does that automatically mean that they have some sort of insecure attachment? How do you distinguish between? This happened this time, but it's not characteristic of my attachment style overall.
Bev Mitelman Guest
07:55
Yeah, we're looking for patterns, right. So you know, if once a year I lose it and I go, that's it. I need a drink. Like we're not going to establish that there's a, you know, a primary issue there, but after every workday I'm coming home and I'm having four beers. That's a pattern right.
08:14
Uh, if every time you know I am in a lineup or I'm delayed, I become antsy and I'm irritable and I'm agitated, there's a pattern. So I always say pay attention to what you're complaining about, because what you're complaining about, what is upsetting you in that moment, gives you the clue, it is the answer for the wounding that you need to work through. So, for example, going back to the individual who, every time they get into a car, they become a different person, like, they're like into the road, rage, and they could be very calm, but they get into the car and if someone cuts into their lane I've seen this people become rageful. So the word we use is crazy, it's dysregulated. But why? Why, in that moment, did that person become rageful? Well, it might be, for example, that they have a core wound that they're feeling, uh, that they're still carrying around unprocessed. I am disrespected. So when someone touches on that button, that explodes them.
09:36
So what's so interesting about this work is we know, for example, from studying veterans who have gone off to war and we know that a cohort of them come back with CPSD complex post-traumatic stress disorder. Do you know approximately the percentage? Like if we sent 100 fighters overseas, the studies will suggest that there's a percentage that will come back with PTSD. Do you know what that percentage is?
Karen Covy Host
I have no idea what the percentage would be.
Bev Mitelman Guest
It's about 20%, which means that if you take a hundred people and you put them in a circumstance, 80 will handle it one way and the other 20 will develop traumatic response. What we know from this research is that those who are developing a heightened traumatic response, it's because it's touching on something that the wounding was already there, they already had a scar, and it's touching on something that has been unhealed from their childhood. That's the differentiator. And so, when we talk about attachment styles, it impacts everything in terms of our lens, of how we see the world, how we interact with others, the level of trust that we have of ourselves, our self-esteem, the level of trust that we're willing to afford others, and our ability to emotionally regulate or not.
11:11
And so if someone is, you know, like you know, I'll share myself as an example, because I lived primarily most of my life as a fearful avoidance, which was very confusing for me, for my husband. I didn't understand my own mind. One minute I wanted to hold hands and the next minute I would hide in the bathroom for hours. Right, it's unusual. Now, without getting into too much detail, I understand now.
11:36
My patterns were just copying things that I learned in my childhood. They were my coping mechanisms. But the reason I bring this into conversation is because I would some days wake up and this lasted for years, so we're not talking about an isolated incident. This was a pattern. I would wake up, nothing's happened yet, and my anxiety is like an eight or nine out of 10. Like, and so all you had to do was look at me the wrong way and I couldn't handle it. I would start to cry, I would explode, I would yell, I had no emotional bandwidth to deal with anything.
12:15
And so this is why this work is so important, because those core wounds that we carry around, just like if we were to have a physical wound on our body, right, like, it's so interesting because we go to the doctor. Let's say, you know you have a cut on your arm and you go to the doctor. The doctor will maybe bandage it. The doctor you know might give you some medications. Does the doctor heal your wounds? no, you do. you heal the wound. The doctor gives you those conditions to best be able to heal the wound, and that's what you know, the type of therapy that we do. We identify the wounds that are there and then we give you a set of tools to be able to work through it. Because once you work through some of those core wounds that you're carrying with you from childhood, your emotional patterns change, your thought patterns change, your relationship to boundaries change. That's a whole other topic. Your behaviors change. It's fascinating. So that's why this to answer your first question that's why this is so important, this work. It's that impactful.
Karen Covy Host
13:34
Yeah, I can see that and it makes total sense. But in the context of spousal relationships, intimate relationships, right, A lot of what I see is somebody who has identified the core wound, if you will, of their spouse, They've identified the attachment style of their spouse and they want to change that. Or you know, like, what do you do? Because we both know you can't heal somebody else. They have to do it themselves. So what can you do if you find that you are in a relationship or a marriage with someone who you're not compatible with in terms of attachment styles?
Bev Mitelman Guest
14:19
Yeah, and, by the way, attachment styles really is the biggest predictor of the quality of relationships that you will have in your lifetime. It is the biggest predictor. It's also the biggest predictor of how well a romantic relationship will work, depending on the pairing there and whether both partners, if they do have an insecure attachment, are willing to work towards change. So I do get people that contact me because they want to change their partner. So this is the part where it gets. You know, sometimes our ego gets in the way a little because nobody wants to put a mirror to their own face, right, it's tough, but I can tell you that people generally who are securely attached are attracted to other people who are securely attached. That's generally what we see. And people who are insecurely attached are attracted to other people who are insecurely attached. And so you know someone that says to me you know, my husband is emotionally unavailable and I'd like him to open up a little more. Well, you chose the unavailable partner, knowing full well. Let's take a look at what brought you to that place for choosing that type of person, right? So in that case, usually what we're looking at is someone who's anxious, preoccupied, with a dismissive avoidant. This is an extremely common pairing and they always seem to find each other because they really, in the beginning, love what each other brings to the relationship, but it's ultimately what drives them apart. So the dismissive avoidance is used to being neglected and ignored. And that anxious preoccupied comes along and they are all giving. They're people pleasing, they're very warm, they're very communicative, they're fun, they want to be with you all the time and the anxious person's like, wow, this is great to get so much love. Until they realize that they need more space. Right, and they start to pull back because they need space, because their attachment wounds get triggered, they feel engulfed, they need space. And then this person here on, the anxious preoccupied, their abandonment wound gets triggered, so they start pushing further and then this person's running away. So we call this the anxious avoidant dance. It's so commonly seen.
17:06
Again, you can't force a partner to change. The strategy is always let's see what's going on with your thought patterns, your emotional patterns, and once you become more secure in yourself, I promise you that you will start to seek out a partner who is more secure, because once you become more secure, like you're, you no longer rely on other people for approval. You no longer need that attention, that validation. You know you start to put your needs first, so you move away from some of those bad habits of people pleasing and advancing yourself. So the type of person that you will need will change. Your criteria will change.
Karen Covy Host
17:53
I totally get that. But what do you do if you're in this situation, because I've seen this play out in so many couples right, it's the approach avoid, approach, avoid. One person's like you know, no, I need you. And the other person's back off, back off, you know. So you go through, as you called it, a dance, which is the perfect description. But if a couple finds themselves in that pattern, what can they do to break the pattern? Because it's great to say, okay, you know, as you grow as a human, as you change your own patterns, you will find somebody. You will be attracted to people who are also secure as you become secure. But what if you're trying to work on the marriage? I mean, how can you break the pattern and start to find out if there's space in the marital relationship to make it work?
Bev Mitelman Guest
18:48
That's such a great question. We do work with couples. A lot of the work that we do is independent, right? Because the issues that they're having is within their own thought patterns and their own mindset. So we'll work with someone independently and then we'll work as a couple.
19:07
And for me, really, again, it's what are the major complaints? I say complaints because that's layman's terms, that's what people use. So what are you complaining about? Okay, well, we might have someone who's complaining that they're responsible for all the housework and the other one's complaining that they have no freedom. They want to spend their weekends the way they want to spend their weekends. Okay, so what does this feel like the conversation really is? Why does this feel so affronting to you, so threatening to you? You know what are some of the emotions that come up and what are some of the changes? Like, we can actually negotiate. Okay, well, instead of the whole weekend, what if it was just Saturday? Would that be enough for you?
19:53
A lot of times, couples are not even able to get to that place of having a rational conversation because they're busy yelling at each other. They're in fight or flight mode right and whoever can yell the loudest wins. And so we always say to people communication is key in a relationship. But the issue is before the communication, we have many, many people who have never really identified for themselves what do I need as a person to feel safe and secure and fulfilled in this relationship? And it goes back to your core wounds again. So, for example, the core wounding, the primary one for a fearful avoidant, will be I will be betrayed Because they experienced abuse in childhood, they have a really hard time trusting others and they have a betrayal wounds. So what does that mean for me as an adult?
20:59
For me as an adult, I know that in order for me to feel safe and relaxed in any relationship, especially a romantic relationship, that I need full transparency, I need depth of connection, I need variety. These are some of my personality needs, and so I can actually say to someone look, I ask a lot of questions because I like to go deep. That's how I get to know. You See, I'm like okay, because otherwise that could be pretty annoying to someone else, right? So it's about saying this I do this because that's what you know allows me to get closer to you. It's not that I don't trust you, it's not that I suspect you're doing something, but this is what's important to me.
Karen Covy Host
22:00
It seems like that would take a very high level of self-awareness, like I don't know that people, especially someone who has got an insecure attachment style, is going to come out of the box, understanding that this is what I need, why I need it, how it might affect you, but it has nothing to do with you, to be able to say that it's huge.
Bev Mitelman Guest
22:29
It's huge, it is. So. I generally work with clients for about 12 to 14 weeks once a week. I I'm not the therapist that you're going to see for five years. Every week I have a very specific program. We talk about your core wounds. We figure out where the core wounds are. We then work with your subconscious mind to reprogram them, so to create new patterns in the mind, which we can do. We have very specific ways of hacking the subconscious mind to be able to create those neural pathways.
Karen Covy Host
23:04
Yeah, super interesting. How do you do that? How do you, as you put it, hack the subconscious mind? So you can do that, because you know I've looked at your work, I've looked at some of the what some of the people say about it that it's you know that it really does work and it's so much quicker than traditional therapy. Why, what do you do?
Bev Mitelman Guest
23:24
So it's because the mind, uh, our conscious awareness, is really responsible for three to 5% of you know our thoughts, our emotions, our behavior, which means that the bulk of the work part of our mind that's actually in charge is the subconscious mind, right, Responsible for like 95 to 97%. So when we do these cognitive awareness, you know exercises, we do daily affirmations, they're not all that effective. They're working on our conscious awareness. So what we want to do is we want to hit at the level where the actual deeper patterns are stored, and so our subconscious mind doesn't speak language in the way that you and I are communicating right now. Our subconscious mind speaks in a very specific way, through imagery, through emotion and repetition, which is precisely the same way that the patterns got programmed in the first place. What you repeatedly heard, felt and experienced, that was attached to usually a negative emotion, that gets imprinted. So what we can do is we can use the same approach, right, and we can use imagery and emotion and repetition purposeful repetition to create new patterns.
So if I have a core wound let's say the anxious, preoccupied we talked about, their primary core wound is I will be abandoned, but there's a series of them, right, it could be. I am unlikable, I am unlovable, I am not good enough, I will be excluded so many of these things, right. So if I'm working on reprogramming a wound with a client, I am unlovable, right. We know that's not true, that's just something that the mind has made up, Right. But you can imagine, if someone believes it to be true, what that does to their thinking, their emotions, their behavior, Right. So this is why we find these people often very sad, very lonely, very anxious. So we can actually create, we do this exercise. It's called auto-suggestion. It's a beautiful exercise where I'll work with a client to create a list of very specific pieces of evidence 10 to 15 pieces of evidence that you are lovable, right. Like very specific stuff, right, that carries a strong emotional charge. So, for example, my son came up to me and gave me a hug this morning and told me I love you. Beautiful example that you are loved. Put it on the list. My sister called me yesterday and said I don't know what I would do without you as my sister. What a great example. Put it on the list. My husband tapped me on the butt this morning and said have a good day, sexy, Great, Put it on the list.
26:46
The problem is is that people, we tend to focus on the negative, and this exercise is hard because people are like I'm having trouble thinking about things. I'm like dig a little deeper. You do have good moments. People have said things to you that have shown you how lovable you are. It's allowing the brain to see the goodness, and then we use this as almost like a visualization exercise for a couple of weeks. The brain doesn't work overnight, but a couple of weeks, and you know, I allow them to feel the emotions associated with each one of these sentiments, and so you may feel like a warmth, or you might even smile, or you might be thinking about getting that hug or the tap on the butt, whatever it is. Allow yourself to feel that, and if you do this over a period of a couple of weeks I promise you weeks I promise you that I am unlovable will start to atrophy and your mindset will change. But again, just saying to yourself I am lovable doesn't work in the same way as the imagery and the emotion work.
Karen Covy Host
28:07
That we do with it. Well, that makes all the sense in the world, because I know that. You know, and I've used affirmations for years and years and years, sometimes to better effect than others. But a lot of times, if you say something that I guess subconsciously you don't believe is true, it's like I am lovable. And then inside the little voice goes, yeah, no, you're not. Yeah, no, you're not Right, so that that tends to be counterproductive.
Bev Mitelman Guest
28:35
Yeah, that's exactly it. So, you know, one of the one of the best things, too, is that you start to you start to notice the inner voice. Not everyone notices the inner voice, right? So that inner voice tends to be critical of us, and that's everyone. We all have this, you know critical little voice that's running, and so those patterns are the same thing, right? So we've got a whole set of patterns that are running on autopilot, that are that are just taking, that we repeat every day. We repeat these like.
29:09
I'm sure you've experienced many times your subconscious mind coming on online but you didn't realize it. So, like, a very common example would be like if you were driving somewhere that's very familiar to you. You're driving to the grocery store and you drive there and for some reason, your mind is captured in a conversation that you had with a friend an hour earlier. I should have said this. I should have said that Anyways, I have to buy this. You're thinking about everything else, but driving, you get to the grocery store, you park and all of a sudden you go. I don't even remember driving here. Have you had that moment?
Karen Covy Host
29:50
Yeah, I think everybody has. You know, if you're a driver in any event, then you, because that becomes, you put that on autopilot while your conscious mind does something else, and then we have a subconscious mind, or we'd never get to the grocery store.
Bev Mitelman Guest
30:10
A hundred percent. So your subconscious mind's like got this, Don't worry about it. So we see that it's like a trance stage. We see this trance stage when people are watching TV. You can have a whole conversation with them and they won't hear you.
Karen Covy Host
30:25
Yeah, they have no idea what they and they're responding Right. That's the kicker is that it's not a one way conversation. This is a two way conversation that they are pretty much completely unaware of our subconscious, because we're most suggestible, so that's the best way.
Bev Mitelman Guest
30:40
So we're using you know it's real science we're using science here to be able to hack into the mind, to create these new patterns.
Karen Covy Host
31:02
So how long does it take? Because you've got people like you. I work with people who have been on the planet decades. There, you, these patterns have existed for a very long time. Probably the majority of time they existed, the person wasn't even aware of them. Now they are and they say, okay, I want to change, but it seems like such a daunting task. How long does it take to make that change so that they're not just being sucked back into the same old pattern?
Bev Mitelman Guest
Yeah, my program is 14 to 16 weeks and that's like you can break patterns in that period of time.
31:40
Yes, yeah, and I say 14 to 16 weeks because it depends on the amount of wounds that we have. Some people have greater wounds than others. It depends on how compliant someone is in terms of, you know, some of the exercises. So you know, if you and I both decide, hey, we want to lose 10 pounds, I might be able to do it in a month, and you might decide, yeah, I'm not that into it and it'll take you five months Because it's effort, right, it's a committed effort, like anything else in the body. You know, if you're committed to making the change, you'll see the results much quicker.
32:16
But it's not about going through your entire history. It's about identifying what you're still carrying around today, you know, and not just identifying it, but changing that and then teaching you real skills how to better communicate, how to emotionally regulate right. So there's techniques we can do with the body to help, you know, regulate the nervous system. And then you know it's teaching things that you might not have been taught before.
32:50
So someone who's anxious, preoccupied, who is very, very concerned with pleasing other people. They generally have no boundaries and so they don't understand how to say no. They don't think that they're allowed to say no because their worth is based on what they do for others. Right, right, um, especially in our society that really like values busyness and productivity, and it's like you know they, they don't understand. Well, if you're tired, you, you can go lay down. No, I have to do the laundry, I have to do this, I have to. They don't know how to say no, and so it's teaching them those skills as well, things that they should have learned early in childhood, but they didn't.
Karen Covy Host
33:37
Yeah, and you've mentioned a bunch of times now the concept of a core wound.
Could you explain what do you mean by a core wound and like does every person have one core wound? Does it mean that you can have a couple of them? How do you and how do you figure out what's your core wound ?
Bev Mitelman Guest
33:54
Okay, such a great question. So again, people who have a secure attachment, they can have core wounding. I think we talked about this in part one. It's generally they're lighter, they're not as deep wounding. So if we use the analogy of a cut, it's like maybe more of a surface level cut. Right.
34:17
People who have insecure attachment, their wounds go much deeper because these are wounds that they generally they would have, you know, interpreted vis-a-vis the relationship with their caregiver, the person they afforded the most trust to, that matters more, right. and you know we definitely can see there's the primary, uh, core wounds for each attachment style, like the anxious, preoccupied we mentioned, I will be abandoned, the dismissive, avoidant. Their core wound is and this is going to surprise you their core wound is a shame wound. It is I am defective.
Karen Covy Host
Oh, interesting, so interesting.
Bev Mitelman Guest
35:06
And because they keep everyone at a distance. In their childhood, a child doesn't have the ability to critically think and say my parents is emotionally unavailable or emotionally neglectful, something wrong with me, or my mother would love me more, my mother would pay attention to me, my mother right. And so they grow up thinking that there's something wrong with them and if I let anyone close to me, you might also see that there's something wrong with me and reject me in the same way that my caregiver did. So there's that shame wound right, and the fearful avoidance in the middle has the I will be betrayed wound. So they have a very hard time trusting right Because they were betrayed at a really young age.
36:04
Now the interesting thing about the fearful avoidance is that they have some traits of the anxious and some traits of the avoidant. So they often have the most amounts of core wounds. So it could be a mishmash of I was betrayed and a couple from here and a couple from there, and so it depends on you know each person. So I've seen people have two core wounds. I've seen people have seven or eight. Ooh, yeah, right, and so we, we weren't. We worked through it with them.
Karen Covy Host
36:40
Okay, so what I love about what you're talking about in your work is that it's the we work through it with them part the idea that, because I think some people and especially some of the different insecure attachment styles that we've been talking about would be would hear what this conversation is and say, okay, I'm hopeless.
There's nothing, I can do And it sounds like you're saying the opposite.
Bev Mitelman Guest
37:22
Yes Know we first step is awareness and then we can work through this. It is not a life sentence. So if you realize that, that you know you're, you're behaving in a way that um is no longer serving you right. It once served you when you were younger to keep yourself safe, but it's no longer serving you as an adult. We can build new patterns and new skills around that. So, yeah, this idea that you know I had a bad childhood, I am who I am, that really only takes you so far.
Karen Covy Host
38:01
Right, right. And then at that point you start feeling like, okay, I'm just screwed and this is who I am in. My life sucks, and that's not what I hear you saying.
38:12
That's certainly not what my philosophy or my experience has been in working with people. No matter how old you are, who you are, what your core wound is, what your attachment style is, there's always ways that you can work through whatever is, you know, stopping you, whatever is the obstacles in your way. But what I'm curious about is that, because on some level, even if it's subconsciously, if you've got two people with insecure attachments of various flavors in a marriage or a relationship together, have you ever seen it where one person doesn't want to change, because it's almost as if they intuitively know that if they change their attachment style and they break free and become secure, they're going to lose the relationship?
Bev Mitelman Guest
39:09
So that is a mindset of anxious, preoccupied, I'm afraid to do something good for myself because I might lose that person. I will abandon myself at any expense to keep the relationship. That is not healthy, right. And again, the reason that we, that we do this work is because, at the end of the day, uh, living your life in a constant state of emotional dysregulation does not feel good. It's awful, right, like I mean, we've all experienced moments of, but I experienced years of it and I was constantly dizzy and nauseous and like you, have physical ailments. I had physical pain, I had headaches, I had, because the body also processes, you know, you try to stuff this stuff down.
40:02
But, um, so you know, in our climate today, where everyone's talking about health and well-being, this is the best thing that you can do for yourself is to rid yourself of these old patterns and to free yourself from these core beliefs which, by the way, other people call them limiting thoughts or limiting beliefs. Right, core wounds are limiting beliefs, right, that's like another term Because they hold you back and they keep you stuck right. That whole idea of stuckness and the people who are, you know, continuing to go down a path of I'm just going to ignore it, I'm going to sweep it under the rug, because that's what we always did in my family, and I'll just have another shot of vodka and I just will live out the rest of their days like that. But I would please like, maybe in the comment section, if anyone is listening to this and who's living that life right now where they feel like they're under chronic stress, dependent on a substance or you know, always irritable or like in a very heightened emotional state. Tell me honestly, are you happy? Like, are you happy? And because it's impossible.
41:24
So if you do this work and you calm down your nervous system, you can start to feel joy again, you can start to feel pleasure again. See, this is the thing is that when we repress emotions, we don't just repress some, we repress all. Like even animals do this, like when animals are under like immense threat, they play dead Right. Our body goes into a state. If we're under really like a chronic state of stress in fight or flight, we just disassociate, we just, we almost shut off, we're like zombies, right, and that's a protective mechanism. But I can promise you that when you're in that state and you're just trying to survive, you're not feeling any joy, pleasure, happiness, pride, all those beautiful things that you deserve to feel.
42:24
So, yeah, it really is individual work. And you know, if a partner chooses that they don't want to do the work, sometimes they just, you know, sometimes they need to see that the change in their partner to be inspired. Sometimes not, but there's nothing lost there. You will feel better, right, and oftentimes, when people start to feel better, the problems in their relationship start to seem like less. Because you know, if you're both a little calmer and you're both feeling a little more playful and a little, you could see how that would change the dynamic, right?
Karen Covy Host
43:12
Oh 100%. And I love that you're saying this, because I work with people all the time and they say well, how does the relationship change if he doesn't change or she doesn't change? Right, and I always tell people I echo what you say no, the only person you can control is you and if you change, the dynamic of the relationship has to change because you're different. You're not the same two people in the same doing the same dance.
Bev Mitelman Guest
43:42
Well, that's exactly right. So if at the end of the day you're no longer feeling eight or nine you know, out of 10 on the anxiety scale, ready to explode when the telephone rings, you know you're like nice and calm, and maybe, maybe you're feeling a little spicy and you're like, hey, babe, we have a half an hour before the kids get home because you're feeling good. All of a sudden your pleasure centers come back online. So yeah, you can see how that would change everything.
Karen Covy Host
44:12
Right. So I think I mean this has been a really fascinating conversation and thank you so much for being here, for sharing your wisdom with people. But I love that we're sort of bringing it all home and wrapping it up with a message of hope that change is possible. You don't have to try to change someone else because that doesn't work, but that if you change yourself, it does work.
Bev Mitelman Guest
44:41
Yeah, it does Like, again, you do this work for yourself and it'll impact the relationship and, ultimately, if the relationship doesn't, you know, have the longevity to serve your needs, once you know what your needs are well, and if you choose to, you know, partner up with someone different, you're in a completely different space. Now you know yourself really well, you're in a much more better place to truly love from an authentic place.
Karen Covy Host
45:14
Right, it's very different and it is, you know, to kind of. You know, tie it into the theme of the show which is getting off the fence. It gets you out of the stuck space and I don't know how you feel about it, Bev, but it's in that stuck space that people really suffer the most. Right? You know, once you make a decision one way or another, whether it's to stay in the marriage or leave it, whether it's to stay in a different kind of relationship or leave it, whether it's to stay in a job or leave it, no matter what it is, you are always going to feel better and do better. If you make a decision, commit to a path and try.
Bev Mitelman Guest
45:58
Yeah, and the idea of stuckness is such an important one, right? Because it's rooted absolutely in fear, right? So you know, what I know today might be better than the unknown, but you don't have to make a decision for the whole rest of your life. You have to make one decision, right? Do I want to invest in myself, to start feeling better? Right, and then everything else flows from there..
Karen Covy Host
46:29
yeah, yeah, 100 5 Bev Thank you again for sharing all of your wisdom. Where can people find you if they want to learn more?
Bev Mitelman Guest
46:34
Thank you. So we are a group. I think you mentioned this. We're a group of practitioners at Securely Loved, all working in the space of relationships and attachment trauma, so the website is securelyloved.com. We're also all over social media YouTube, Instagram, my. My adult children showed me how to use TikTok. We're on TikTok so you can find us everywhere.
47:05
But you know the easiest place would be securelyloved.com. I have courses online that teach some of the basics around communications and attachment style working through heartbreak as well, and we do offer a free 20-minute consult for folks who are interested in learning about the services. You can book online with me or any of the other practitioners. Yeah, and we try to make it nice and easy. We have group sessions as well. A lot of people prefer to learn in groups.
Karen Covy Host
47:39
Yeah, I love that. It sounds like you've got something for everybody.
Bev Mitelman Guest
47:44
We try, we try. You know it was important to me to start getting this work out in the field right Because, again, I believe it's really impactful. So thank you for the opportunity to talk about it and to me, with your audience. I'm grateful.
Karen Covy Host
48:01
Thank you. Thank you so much. I really appreciate our conversation and, for those of you out there who are listening or who are watching, if you've liked this conversation, if you'd like to hear more conversations just like this, do me a big favor. Give this episode a thumbs up. Like subscribe everywhere you listen to podcasts. Subscribe on YouTube. It makes a world of difference, and I look forward to seeing you again next time.
