The How and Why of Attachment: Love, Loss, and Our Insecurities in Relationships

In this heart-to-heart episode of the #PracticalGrowthPodcast, we unwrap the invisible blueprints that lay the foundation for our relationships – yes, we're talking about attachment styles. 🧩

"Are you seeking closeness or space in relationships?" 🤔 We all dance to a unique rhythm in our partnerships, often choreographed by our attachment styles. Whether you're the secure-confident type, the freedom-loving avoidant, or the warm and sometimes anxious sort, recognizing how these styles play out can be a game-changer for your connections. 💞

This episode is your map to understanding:

• "What's my attachment style – and what does it say about me?"
• The tapestry of attachment styles – why knowing yours could be the Rosetta Stone of relationship dynamics.
• How to steer the ship of your relationships knowing the tides of attachment styles.

Join us as we explore the alchemy of attachment and transform relational lead into gold. Knowledge is power, and self-awareness? That’s your superpower. 🦸‍♂️✨

Don't forget, the conversation doesn't end here! Join me and fellow growth enthusiasts on social media using #PracticalGrowthPodcast. Got that hunger for deeper change? Apply to work 1:1 with me (TheRealEBJohnson.com). And remember, for the daily dose of growth and wisdom, make sure you're following me on TikTok, Medium, Instagram, and Youtube.

Keep those heads up, eyes on the stars, and hearts open to change. Until next time, grow on! 🚀💚

Chapters

• 0:00 Understanding Attachment Styles in Relationships
• 11:49 Impact of Anxious Attachment on Relationships
• 16:30 Unhealthy Attachment Styles and Secure Relationships
• 26:57 Navigating Attachment Styles for Healthy Relationships

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the Practical Growth podcast with me, ebi Johnson, author, nlpmp and cognitive reappraisal coach. This is the podcast created for people like you, people looking for more, more health, more peace, more happiness. Each week, I explore a new topic in pop psychology and help you build a better life and better relationships. Join me for special guests, exciting ideas and practical advice that you can use to improve your life from the inside out. Let's get into it. Hello, hello, hello, my lovelies, welcome back. It is me, ebi, your favorite podcast host, your favorite tech talker, your favorite medium coach, your favorite NLPMP. And we are back, back, back for another episode that I think is going to inform and inspire you. We're going to get started a little bit differently today. I want to see if you've ever heard this quote and I want to know what it means to you. What does this quote mean to you? The way we love is how we have been taught to love. What does that mean to you? Because, to me, it very much harkens back to our relational blueprint. Our relational blueprint how we learn to form the connections that we form with other human beings, and that's what we're going to be talking about today. Today, we are going to be focusing on attachment styles. We're going to explore how attachment styles play a pivotal role in shaping our relationships. We're going to look at the specific attachment styles and how they might be helping your relationships or holding them back. And once you've got a handle on this, folks, let me tell you the entire perspective of your relationships change. So that's what we are going to be getting into today, but just before we jump in, I've got a little bit of housekeeping for you. This is a little call to action for anyone who has been interested in being coached by me, whether you want to get the skills that you need to build a better relationship or you're just looking to get some accountability, get some company, get a clear path set on your healing journey, recovering from trauma or a big relationship upset. If that sounds like you, if you are any of those people, then your time is running out to sign up for the wait list for my one-on-one coaching program. This is a two-month private program where you work one-on-one with me directly to develop the skills that you need to regulate your nervous system, to regulate your emotions and change your behaviors so that you can change the quality of your life. If that sounds like something that you're interested in. If you are ready for a ground-up way to rebuild your mental and emotional health, then you need to apply now, because this wait list will not stay open much longer. To do that, you need to head over to therealebjohnsoncom and click on Working With Me To Apply Now. This is just for the wait list and I do only take on a few clients at a time. So this is only for those who are serious, who are ready to work and who are ready to find some sense, some peace, some calm from the inside out in their lives. So if you are ready to do that, if you are ready to work with me, then head over to therealebjohnsoncom and click on working with me to apply.

Speaker 1: 3:38

All right, all right, attachment styles, let's talk about it. Let's talk about it. The first thing I want all of you to kind of get an understanding of, take a look at, is attachment styles as a whole, as a concept. What am I talking about? When I even say attachment styles? You have to understand the basis of this before you go and start slapping a label on yourself like avoidant or disorganized or whatever it is. So what is essentially an attachment style? What is it actually, in short, when I say attachment styles, what I'm talking about is the patterns of how we relate to others, okay, particularly people in close relationships with us, and particularly those relationships that were formed early on in life. Okay, and all of this comes down to attachment theory itself, which is super, super interesting. I highly recommend you go and take a deep dive. You could explore this for hours. But attachment theory is essentially a focus on relationships and bonds like the longterm, like the meaty, real, intimate bonds between people. Okay, especially the parent-child relationship and especially our romantic relationships. Okay, attachment styles can affect anything, but what we're gonna be talking about today specifically is that relationship between parent-child and the romantic partners. Okay, essentially, when you understand your attachment style, when you're learning about your attachment style, you're learning about the psychological explanation for the emotional bonds that you form with others, right, and that's a really, really, really big thing.

Speaker 1: 5:13

Now, attachment theory itself kind of came into being thanks to John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth, okay, and John Bowlby was a British psychologist and he was the first one to kind of describe this attachment, this concept of attachment, and he described it as a lasting psychological connectedness between human beings, which is, you know, and both incredible and accurate. Now, it was Bowlby who got the ball rolling with this attachment theory, but it was Mary Ainsworth in the 1970s, who really drove it home, who really kind of broke the ground with this kind of pioneering understanding, and she did it by this study, in which researchers observed children between the ages of 12 to 18 months and how they responded in situations in which they were left alone and then reunited with their mothers. You guys have probably seen this study right, it's a really, really, really, really, really big deal. It was actually Ainsworth's research that came up with the first kind of attachment styles, and she came up with three attachment styles secure attachment, ambivalent insecure attachment and avoidant insecure attachment right. And those have been added onto, obviously, as we're gonna discuss later. But that's the meat and potatoes of where this whole concept of attachment theory, true attachment theory, comes from, right, it's not just some internet buzzwords.

Speaker 1: 6:33

Nowadays, we have essentially four recognized forms of attachment. Okay, that's how things have grown now. That's where we are at now, and you probably fall within some combination of these four styles, and these four styles are this Number one there is the anxious or preoccupied attachment, and this is one of the hardest forms of attachment to deal with. Okay, it's people who have this core fear of abandonment. They've probably experienced a lot of rejection, abandonment, abuse, neglect, all of those kinds of things, and it taints every choice they make in and out of their relationships. They're desperate to be close to their partners, but they're constantly scared and need constant validation and a lot of them need constant physical presence in order to kind of feel quote unquote loved and safe in their relationships, which is exhausting. Their partners can't keep up with it, so that's why it's a big problem.

Speaker 1: 7:26

The second type that we now know and recognize is avoidant or dismissive attachment. Okay, when you have an avoidant attachment, you tend to shut down. Okay, when something gets hard, something gets difficult there's big issues, big emotions you go inwards, you shut down, you get silent, you pull away. You may even end a relationship all these kinds of things. And more often than not that's linked to childhood. Okay, this generally starts in childhood with parents who make it unsafe for you to share your feelings or who make you feel insignificant. So then in adulthood, if you become avoidant, dismissive, you tend to struggle with intimacy and you have an inability to open up emotionally and kind of put minimal investments into your relationships because you're afraid that it will be a waste for you to do otherwise.

Speaker 1: 8:14

Now the third form of attachment and this is kind of dysfunctional attachment as well is disorganized, fearful, avoidant attachment. Okay, this is chaotic, this one's chaotic, and it can take people years to figure out what's going on with them when they are a disorganized or fearful, avoidant type of attachment person. And that's because they both resist and avoid interactions with their partners, right? So if something gets really difficult or comfortable or awkward or they're unhappy, they will just like avoid their partner completely. But at the same time they often step into what is considered to be like a parentified role and they take on partners who, quote unquote, need to be fixed, but then they're like distant in the relationship and walled off so that they don't have to deal with the full emotional consequences of that hardship. Okay, and all of that just reinforces their apprehension, it reinforces this feeling that they have towards relationships that they are, you know, pointless or always hard or always miserable. You know this whole thing because they, a lot of them, seek out these people that they have to fix.

Speaker 1: 9:22

Now the fourth and final type of attachment is secure attachment. Okay, it's secure attachment, it's the big golden finish line, the golden pony at the end of the rainbow. Okay, it's the goal that we all believe, that we strive for. It's the blue that we all kind of like work toward when we're consciously working within our attachment patterns. But it's hard to achieve. It's hard to achieve if you haven't had healthy attachment and childhood.

Speaker 1: 9:50

Okay, because those were secure attachments. They have trusting and lasting relationships. They don't have problems trusting the people that they're with. They pick good people to be around them. That's not to say they never get hurt or upset, but you know they're better at those things. They're better at balancing the nuances and complexities of relationships and they have high self-esteem. That's a really big one. People with secure attachment have high self-esteem and that's why it's easier for them to share their feelings. But that's also why they pick higher quality people to be around them and are better at enforcing boundaries with people who take advantage of them. So when you have secure attachment, you always have this kind of sense of social support and you know your relationships are more amenable, they're more friendly, they're more emotionally mature and all of those things. So that's kind of the goal of what we're working with in that as a whole is what the four big attachment styles essentially are.

Speaker 1: 10:40

So now I want to ask you a question, and now that we've talked about those four different styles, go back and listen again if you need to. I want to ask you a question. I really want you to think honestly about the answer. Go home tonight and journal about it, okay. And the question is this do you feel at ease in your relationships or do you feel that in general, there is an undercurrent or an error of fear and disconnection Overall? Do you feel like there is that little river of doubt and fear always moving underneath the surface or do you think you kind of have it all figured out? Sit on that one. Sit on that one because we're going to come back to it later.

Speaker 1: 11:21

Now, before we get into the impact and how you're going to fix how your attachment styles may have affected your relationships, I want to tell you a little story, and I want to. I know this is going to resonate with you. Okay, I know this will resonate and this is a better example of what I'm going to be talking about next. Now, essentially, it all starts with my friend. We'll just call her Elsie, okay, no, that's not her real name. I'm not going to use her real name. Essentially we'll say Elsie. Okay, elsie again.

Speaker 1: 11:49

She was a friend that I met later in life, in college. But she had to start much like mine. Okay, she had two parents, emotionally abusive, emotionally distanced. Dad worked all the time. When he came home he was in a horrible mood, took it out on everybody. Everyone was walking around on eggshells all the time and he just wasn't really there. He wasn't really there physically or emotionally right, because he spent most of his time, as much time as he could, out of the house working Yada, yada, yada, fought with the mom all the time, right in front of Elsie, right in front of Elsie. So she grew up seeing this. Her mother, of course, took it out on her because dad's not home. Elsie was an only child, she was the only one there to take it out on. So Elsie's mother had this tendency to be very emotionally horrible to her and when she wasn't emotionally horrible, she was emotionally neglectful, because she spent most of her time on, you know, when she wasn't having to put on the show of being a good mom, she was, you know, wasted somewhere, drinking a lot or pills or whatever.

Speaker 1: 12:46

So Elsie had a rough childhood. She had a rough childhood. You want to talk about parents not coming to band concerts and stuff like that? That was Elsie okay. She had no support. She grew up not feeling loved. The only time she had positive interactions with her parents was when she did something really big at school, like getting straight A's or winning an award or something for dance or whatever. So all of that added up to what was essentially an anxious attachment style for Elsie. Okay, she grew up, she left that house and she had no sense of what it meant to be loved, because she had never been loved in a healthy manner by her parents. So, shock and surprise when she finally met the guy that she fell in love with seriously and she wanted to be with forever, that attachment style came roaring out, like all of that experience of her childhood came roaring out.

Speaker 1: 13:33

The relationship she had with her parents came roaring out into this relationship. The closer they got and the more sure she was that he was the person she wanted to spend her life with. The clingier she got, the crazier quote, unquote she got. She wanted constant validation from him, constantly begging him to like, tell her he loved her and she wanted him there all the time Over to he was really good. Right, he was really, really good about this at first.

Speaker 1: 13:57

Ethan was, and he again not his real name. He was really good about it. First he was very understanding. She told him where this all came from. You know she wasn't in therapy yet, but she was doing the work of kind of digging in and figuring things out. But eventually it took a toll on him too. It was so stressful, so exhausting for him and his friendships got affected by this. His family relationships got affected by this and eventually they had to part ways. They had to. It ended up in so many fights because, out of her anxiety, out of her fear, out of her constant need for presence and validation, lc was forcing Ethan into places he didn't want to go, forcing him to do things he didn't want to do, causing a lot of stress, suffocating the quality of his life, and that wasn't fair on him, and eventually they split. That ended up being what put Elsie into therapy finally. Finally, and she uncovered all of these destructive patterns and it wasn't just happening in her romantic relationships. Okay, she's doing a friendship.

Speaker 1: 14:58

She and I had hardship sometimes because she could be so intense, so intense and it really screwed her at work because she needed that constant validation and it Interestingly, turned into like an underhanded backbiting sharpness which alienated her from colleagues because she was willing to cut throats If it meant getting what she needed and not in a way like she wanted to hurt people. But just like you know, I've got to be self-reliant, I have to get this thing, I have to prove him worthy, I have to be perfect. She was doing this in the workplace and she wanted constant validation, to be told constantly or get awards constantly to prove that. Okay, because she had this ancient, anxious attachment at work. That's what I'm talking about when I say that your attachment style takes a serious toll on your relationship. Okay, it has a serious effect On your relationship, whether you like it or not. So let's take a look quickly at some of the most common effects when you have one of these like avoidant, anxious, disorganized forms of attachment.

Speaker 1: 15:59

The first big effect on relationships that I find with the clients that I work with is what I call the Sith grip, and for you that are Star Wars fans, you'll know what I'm talking about. But there's an episode for the very first Star Wars Grand Moff Tarkin. You know he's threatening Leia, and Leia says to him the more you tighten your grip, tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers. That's what I call the Sith grip. This like squeezing, squeezing, squeezing, hoping to hold on and control something, but really losing Grasp of it in the process. The Sith grip.

Speaker 1: 16:30

This happens in relationships with people who are anxious and disorganized attachment all the time. They are so fearful of rejection, failure, abandonment that they cling to their relationships so tightly that they suffocate them. They suffocate them like a little bird or fire or something. They push the other person away because they want to completely control and absorb their lives and it's not because they want to harm them. But they, at same time, they're so insecure that they think well, I have to control everything about this person in order to keep my love of this person for this person safe. And it's not true. It's not true.

Speaker 1: 17:02

Clingy partners are turn offs, turn offs. They are so desperate to be loved that they become pathetic, that they become annoying, that they become, you know, harm bringers in their own right. They can become emotionally abusive in their own right because they're so clean, so controlling. It's unhealthy to want someone's physical presence and 24 seven attention. Okay, no one should need that extreme level of emotional validation from another person at any given time. It's exhausting. No one can keep that up. Okay, so if you've got one of these fearful, anxious, avoidant attachment styles, you have to address that if that's behaviors that are coming out. Otherwise you will never be able to have Stable, healthy, trusting relationships that you can relax into.

Speaker 1: 17:54

Now the second big impact that you're looking at if you don't kind of confront your attachment styles, if you don't look into it, if you don't take charge of it and consciously change and unhealthy attachment style, is paranoia, paranoia, paranoia, paranoia, paranoia. There is an there's like a defining paranoia and underlying paranoia. That kind of is the backbone of everything for many fearful, avoidant, anxiously attached people. Okay, people on that end of the attachment spectrum tend to see the worst. They tend to expect the worst of their partners and everything else. Right, they expect their partners to get everything wrong, to cheat on them, to hurt them, and they expect everyone in the world is coming at them to try to take this love away from them and try to destroy it as well. This comes down to how little they think of themselves, of course, right, it's a lack of self-esteem, so they believe that they are only deserving of being hurt and abandoned. And that's where the development of that attachment style comes from. They think that they are only ever going to be served hurt and abandonment on a plate. So they design these coping behaviors, these coping mechanisms, these coping beliefs that are designed to minimize the harm that they see around every corner. But the problem is that those pessimistic assumptions tend to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Right? If you're super paranoid and you walk around expecting the worst out of everybody, what are you going to see the worst, what are you going to get the worst out of everybody? Paranoid partners tend to detonate their relationships with increasingly extreme behavior it gets more and more extreme as it goes on which can make their partner feel undermined, it can make them feel disrespected, it can make them feel controlled, unappreciated, neglected, abused all of the above. So the paranoia that will come from an unhealthy fearful, avoid anxious attachment style and it's up to you to fix it.

Speaker 1: 19:49

Thirdly, here I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the desperation that comes off the back of these same attachment styles, this kind of fearful and anxious. There's a desperation in the fearful and anxious attachment people Because again they have that low self-esteem and they see relationships as something that has to be clung to so tight. They tend to settle for less than ideal partners because they are so desperate for that love. And ultimately, what it comes down to is this toxic mix of insecure beliefs that pushes them into making poor choices. A lot of them see their worth as inextricably linked to their relationships. They become more likely to settle for bad treatment, unfulfilling, subpar partners. Their desperation to avoid rejection ends up putting them in situations where they get rejected over and over and over again, because relationships that we forge and desperation are not going to be good, they're not going to be healthy. We're not going to choose the best people or show up as our best selves, as our strongest selves, as our most confident selves, if we're moving from a place of desperation.

Speaker 1: 20:58

The fourth big problem that you're going to encounter, especially if you're avoidant and kind of dismissive in your attachment styles, is these huge emotional walls, these huge emotional divides. When you are dismiss and avoidant, you put up a bunch of barriers so that you don't get hurt. Rather than confronting issues or going deeper, you distance yourself emotionally. There's always something in the middle that kind of keeps your partner at arm's length and keeps you from being harmed. But if those emotional walls are up then you can't form that foundational connection. You can't go deeper, where you need to go to form a lasting relationship with that person. There's a lot of alienation that happens. Partners end up feeling shut out, locked out of their own relationships, and it makes a breeding ground for frustration and conflict, and that only grows if it's not addressed. So when we're dealing, when you are a dismissive, avoidant person, you tend to want to outrun the big stuff, think you can outrun the big stuff and that it will result in a happier relationship. But it doesn't. It results in partners who don't feel loved, valued, appreciated or listened to.

Speaker 1: 22:05

But what about emotions? That's the fifth big problem that you're going to run into if you've got an unhealthy attachment style and you're trying to build a healthy relationship. Because relationships, if they are filled with one thing, it is big old honking emotions. It's not just about love when you're in a relationship with somebody right, it's also anger, hurt, frustration, confusion, all kinds of stuff, sadness, guilt, shame.

Speaker 1: 22:30

There's so many big things that you have to deal with and for you to do that you have to be able to find balance. You have to be able to not be completely overwhelmed by your emotions. You have to be able to talk through them without fear or without believing that you're going to be abandoned for having emotions. Right, that's a big ask. For someone who's got a fearful, avoidant attachment style, right, it's a really big ask to tell them oh, you've got to balance your emotions. You've got to, you know, not believe all of your emotions. You've got to learn to talk things out, because these kinds of people tend to think they have to chase other people to get their needs met. Okay, they wear their emotions on their sleeves and think, well, if I just keep throwing stuff at people, then it will work, and they become highly reactive. They become highly triggered because they're like all this emotional vulnerability just being thrown at the wall all the time. Okay, it doesn't have to work that way. You can find the balance. You don't have to be stuck in a reactive couple hoods screaming, yelling, lashing out, pushing someone away because they've gotten too close to that deep well of hurt that's inside of you. Okay, you can change that.

Speaker 1: 23:34

But you first have to contend with what your real attachment style is and how it's affecting you. But if that's how all the unhealthy attachment styles affect us. What about the one healthy attachment style Secure attachment? Sorry, you guys can probably hear my dog snoring in the background. What happens when you finally reach that point of safe attachment? Or if you already have safe attachment, what do those relationships look like? How does that affect your relationship? How can you expect your relationship to be affected once you develop safe attachment? Man, is it heaven?

Speaker 1: 24:07

People with safe attachment are gleaming examples of relationship standards. Right, and you may not be able to see it at first, you might have to get up close, but they move toward their partners in compassion. They move toward them in honesty. They hold space for the fullness of not only their experience but the other person as well. That means having friends, having life experiences outside of the relationship. Right, studies have shown that people with secure attachment, with secure attachment partners, are more satisfied. Their relationships have more longevity. Why? Because they're better equipped to work with their partners and spouses as a team. Because they can find the balance, they can talk through things. They stop letting the fear and the paranoia from the past control their decisions in the present, when things are tough.

Speaker 1: 24:53

Okay, the secure partner doesn't need 24-hour access to the person that they love. They can spend time apart with them, from them, without triggering insecurities. They trust their partners, they communicate openly and they know they're on the same page. That's the really big one. They know they have the same goals. They know they're working toward the same things. A securely attached partner is independent but still leans on their partner when needed, and vice versa. It's a beautiful, magical thing and it can be yours if you get serious about confronting the hangups in your current attachment style. If it seems like a big ask, it's really not right. I never leave you hanging.

Speaker 1: 25:31

There is a path to healthier attachments. If you have anxious attachment, if you have these insecure, fearful, avoidant attachments, yes, there's therapy. There's little mindful relationship habits. You can build supportive social networks. You can read things, you can go to classes, all that kind of stuff. That's a good start, but it's not the end. All be all Okay. You also need to have self-compassion. You need to focus on building your self-esteem.

Speaker 1: 26:00

But there's three big things that I want you to focus on moving forward from this day on as you're working with your attachment style and improving it. Number one I want you to know who you are and know exactly who it is that you want to pick, to be in a relationship with you. That should take you time to figure out. You may want a journal, you can draw stuff, you can make a vision board. Whatever it is you want to do, but you need to know exactly who it is you want to be. You don't have to be that person now, but who is it you want to be and who do you want to be standing beside you? You better get detailed. How do you want to feel with them? How do they want to feel? What do you want to do for work? What do they do for work? What do you do for fun? How do they compliment each other? What are your life goals? Know all of those things if you want to improve your attachment style. Number two and this is such a big one please, if you take nothing else away from this podcast, please take this one away.

Speaker 1: 26:57

Treat your attachment style as a puzzle piece, not a personality. The label of your attachment style does not have to define you. You do not have to walk around and tell people that you have a crush on them or you're interested in it, or you're a partner that you love. I'm an anxious avoidant, and so you should this. Don't do that. Don't do that. It's just a facet of who you are. It's literally a sequin in the ball gown. That is your life, right? It's only a small part of who you are as a human being, so don't make it. The center of your personality. Is not the end, all and be all to your life.

Speaker 1: 27:34

Last but not least, number three, create new, healthier behaviors. Develop new relationship skills. Yes, relationships are a skill that you should have been taught by your parents in childhood. How to have these communications, how to work with your emotions, how to relate to one another all of those things should have been taught to you, and if they weren't, you have to create them for yourself, and you can do that by getting help from a professional right. You can go to therapy, you can go to a psychologist, you can hire a coach like me, or and also you have to build on a base of knowledge. You've got to learn everything you can about healthy relationships. We don't just know this stuff and you probably have not learned it by just looking around at everyone else's relationship or what you see on TV. That's not reality. So if you want a healthy relationship, you're going to have to learn what that looks like, actually learn, and if you care about it enough, you'll do the work to learn what you need to know to become a healthy, safe and loving partner for yourself and anyone else you bring into your life. And alongside all of that, just keep reminding yourself self compassion, self compassion, self compassion. Okay, change is a gradual process. It doesn't happen overnight, especially not when we are rewriting our beliefs and behaviors around our intimate relationships. Be patient with yourself, and that's it.

Speaker 1: 29:08

That's my take on attachment styles. You got to know what an attachment style is right. It is that our attachment style is that psychological and emotional connection that we have to other people, that really deep, important connection to the key people in our lives. There's four different attachment styles, okay, and they graduate between anxious and avoidant and disorganized and dismissive. And then, of course, the ultimate goal is secure. No matter what your attachment style is, it affects the way you connect to others, and that's the really, really big rub. If you're not connecting to people the way you want to connect, then you got to find a new way to connect, and that all comes down to you.

Speaker 1: 29:57

Now, before I go, we're going to do something a little bit different before I kind of sign off here and leave you for the day. I'm going to leave you with some reflection and discussion questions and I want you to take those away, have a think about them, have a journal and come back and let me know. Get on Instagram, jump in the comments, get on TikTok, send me a message. I want you to go and answer these questions and I want you to see where this leads you on your path to improving your attachment styles. Number one what is your attachment style and how has it shaped your relationships? That's the first question I want you to answer. Number two have you recognized attachment styles in your friends, family or partners? How did it change your interactions with them once you did? The third question I want you to answer what steps can individuals like you take to improve their relationship through their attachment style? And, last but not least, number four how can awareness of your attachment style enhance your empathy and improve communication across your relationships? I want you to go away, answer those questions for yourself and see what answers you come up with. If you'd like to share them with me again, head over to Instagram, find me on TikTok and let me know. Just you know, hashtag healthy attachments and I'll see you.

Speaker 1: 31:21

Thank you so so much for listening today. I hope you got something out of this. I hope you're inspired, I hope you're motivated, I hope you're looking forward to a better relationship with your loved ones. Just know it can improve, it can change. I'm not saying you're going to completely heal and fix everything magically, but it can get better. So keep moving forward, keep working toward that goal.

Speaker 1: 31:44

Those of you who are interested in working with me, remember you can sign up for my waitlist for one-on-one coaching. Head over to therealevjohnsoncom slash working with me to apply. And to everyone else, thank you so so much for being here. Follow me on Instagram, follow me on TikTok. Please, for the love of God, go and follow me on Medium and read some of my stuff, because they really don't want my stuff read. So you know, if you can't read, share all my Medium content. I make my money as a writer, so anything you do to support that is great. You can also support my writing on Substack. Yeah, please, please, please, go read, share and thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you all for making this possible for me and until next time, keep your heads up, keep your eyes on the stars and keep moving forward. Bye-bye.