How Anxious Attachment Impacts Your Struggling Child, with Trevor Hanson

ABOUT THE EPISODE:

Trevor Hanson had accumulated a pretty good life - from living on a beach in Hawaii, to getting a great job at Tesla and engaged to be married. One year later, he was unemployed, his engagement and his jaw were both broken, and he was living alone in the Reno desert.

Trevor suffered depression, nightmares, and suicidal thoughts before deciding to seek therapeutic help. He developed a real appreciation for the process of therapy – but he also had ideas about how it could be better.

Today, Trevor holds a master's degree in marriage and family therapy and has helped thousands of people around the world, specializing in a topic critical for everyone, especially parents, to understand: attachment. Trevor has undergone training from some of the world’s top attachment experts, and today he brings his expertise and unique concepts to the podcast.

When I sat down with Trevor, we discussed the basic types of attachment styles, why our ‘style’ can lead to difficulties in relationships with our kids, and why being part of a supportive community is a vital part of helping us move from anxious or avoidant attachment, to secure.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Secure Self Club

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Transcript

Trevor: 0:01

The parent who is able to have a deep sense of peace and safety, knowing that like no matter what happens, they will be okay in themselves, right? There can be tragedies that happen, there can be pain that happens. It is painful. But they also have other sources of peace where their happiness isn't contingent on like their child's sobriety. They do not see. Their child's behavior as a threat to their own worth. Right? I'm such a bad mom. I'm such a bad dad. I'm sure you see that all the time, right? That's a shame narrative.

Brenda: 0:46

Welcome to Hope Stream, the podcast for parents of teens and young adults struggling with substance use and mental health. I'm Brenda Zane. I've walked this path with my own child's addiction and high risk lifestyle. Each week we help you gain clarity, learn new skills, and most importantly. Find real hope in what might feel helpless. You are not helpless and you're not alone anymore. Find more resources@hostingcommunity.org. Hi, friend. So nice to feedback with you today. I love our team here of elite level parents, the ones who wear superhero capes that not a lot of people ever see, but I see your cape and I am glad that you're here to tap into your tribe. Today I have a conversation that I think is gonna shed a lot of light on why we as parents and as people react to situations the way we do. I sat down with Trevor Hanson, who's an internationally recognized coach and therapist dedicated to helping people transform anxious attachment into secure, fulfilling relationships after overcoming his own anxious attachment, breaking his jaw, which. Side note, there's a fun story about that in the episode, ending a toxic relationship and leaving a corporate career at Tesla. Trevor found his passion as a therapist for healing and helping others with a master's degree in marriage and family therapy and advanced training from some of the world's top attachment experts. Trevor has helped thousands of clients around the globe. He's been featured by the Gottman Institute and is the founder of The Art of Healing. Where he teaches his unique method, this secure self journey to overcome attachment issues to people around the world. I realized that after 280 plus episodes of this podcast, I'd only ever talked specifically about attachment once. So I thought this was an important topic to cover because it impacts how we show up with our kids. Including how we navigate through the crazy and difficult things we end up dealing with as parents of kids who struggle with substance misuse. It was great for Trevor to break down what your attachment style actually means because it can feel a bit vague and woo woo, and he takes us through his tempo framework that helps to interrupt the cycle of panic or anxiety that we can often find ourselves in. The overarching message. As parents, we need to work on healing our own attachment wounds so we can stop the perpetuation of insecure attachment styles through our own generational line. And the really good news, it's totally possible. I'll put a link in the show notes to the Secure Self Love. It's a transformative of 20 program and community designed for people ready to go, both anxious and insecure, and confident and secure. It provides a comprehensive roadmap that guides you through the exact steps you need to heal anxious attachment, build solid confidence, and find peace within yourself and your relationships. I'm so excited for you to hear this one. Let's listen in now to my conversation. With Trevor Hanson, enjoy. Hey Trevor, thank you so much for coming and hanging out with me today to talk all things attachment. It's a topic that I think does not get enough attention. You would probably agree, which is why you probably do what you do. So thanks for coming on Hope Stream.

Trevor: 5:29

Yeah, I'm very excited about it. You were telling me a little bit about how this whole thing came together and it makes me even more excited to chat with you.

Brenda: 5:36

Yeah. I think attachment is one of those things that I didn't even hear about until I was well into the journey with my son. And

Trevor: 5:44

yeah,

Brenda: 5:45

once I heard about it,'cause I think that word can feel a little overwhelming to people. Maybe it's a little abstract. And so I'm really happy to have you here to. Break it down for us. But first I gotta, I gotta ask you this because I was reading in your bio, first of all, fellow broken jaw person here. I broke my jaw. Oh really? Yeah, when I was 16. How old were you when you broke your jaw?

Trevor: 6:14

Oh, it was when I was like 26 or seven, something like that. Oh my gosh. Okay.

Brenda: 6:20

I kind of wanna hear that story. Can we hear it like short version of your broken jaw? It was

Trevor: 6:24

not even that exciting. Oh. So it's funny, I broken two bones in my face on two separate occasions doing the same thing. So I grew up like skiing and I am, if there's anything I'm like really good at in life, you know, the thing that you're like, it's not even bragging, it's just true. Yeah. Like I'm good at skiing. Yeah. And yeah. And so. The first one I broke my jaw and I don't remember it at all 'cause I was like fully knocked out, concussed, no idea. And apparently I was just going down and next to a guy and we kind of didn't see each other in a blind spot and we collided and it broke my jaws like somehow. So that was that one. And then the other one was way cooler than that, which I. Actually doing this, there's a trick called a Cork seven, or a Cork seven 20. So you're kinda like off axis and you're spinning twice. And then your feet kind of come back around underneath you and I, I like did it a little weird. And when I fell. I hit my face on my knee and I like shattered my eye socket. And so actually to this day I've got double vision. Like I see two of everything except for in like certain little spots. Like we've corrected it over like four different surgeries for the most part. But like reading down here. Double vision, looking up high, double vision looking here in front of me, like it's pretty good, but it's, it's pretty limited. So yeah, I've I just have a thing against my face. I just, like, I, I'm just the, the God made me too beautiful and he is like, you need to be humble. Like, IM gonna beat you up. I'm gonna take care of that. Yeah. He's like, I'm going, I'm gonna clean up this humility thing real quick. Like, or this pride issue you got. So yeah. Now I got a crooked nose and double vision because of it. But you know what? There's definitely worse things. You're

Brenda: 8:00

making it work. You're making it work, okay? Yeah, absolutely Hilarious. I appreciate it. Story is that my broken jaw was also skiing. We don't have time to go into it. What? But I was not a good skier. Like you. I was a terrible skier. I was learning how to ski. And I fell down and somebody came off a jump above me who was a good skier. However they landed, oh no, on me and skied across my face, which is, oh no, oh no. What broke my jaw. So that's a very interesting fact that we have in connection with each other, but also I love getting into people's backgrounds. What. So, I know you used to work at Tesla and now you are a therapist. Please help me bridge that gap.

Trevor: 8:45

Yeah, so honestly it, it's all connected in a lot of ways. So like I was going to school at BYU Hawaii and BY Hawaii is kind of like a small university. People don't really get like big corporate jobs. And at that time in my life I was. Just, I was pretty insecure. I don't know if I would've called it that. I don't know if I would've been insecure enough to even say that. That's what it was. Right. Right. And it's, but it was this, and by insecure, I'll define it as a little bit of more sensitive to or afraid of, like abandonment or rejection. Always feeling like I'm not good enough. Right. In dating, I was kind of the bit of the clingy guy. Like I wanted the, I wanted the commitment quickly.'cause I wanted to lock you down. Right.'cause I was afraid you're gonna leave me kind of thing. Right. Which is. Everything we're gonna be talking about today too, we'll explain more. But I, I got this job at Tesla and it almost felt like it was one more thing that kinda like propped me up and made me feel like I was good enough. Like, right. It's like, oh yeah, I flew out to Tesla to do my interview and I'm like, this and that, you know, I'm feeling good enough and I got the job and I went from like, beautiful. Hawaii with all these friends living on literally the beach right? To Reno, Nevada. Everything was brown, everything was rocks. It was just work, work, work. I was living alone and it was super hard. Anyway, I did that for a while. It was great. And then all things kind of collided at once where I broke my jaw. That's part of that story. Mm-hmm. I was engaged. To a girl who thank heavens that did not work out. It was not a good situation. Right. A lot of toxic patterns. And I also lost my job at Tesla all at the same time. It was like consecutive everything run at one at once. And when I lost my job, it was due to a corporate wide layoff. And I was like managing all these like, sales and delivery teams and they just changed the structure and like, you know, just. Pulled you out and with a company that big, it's wild how many people didn't get rid of so quickly. But anyway, I was one of them. And I also, on the tail end of that, like everybody could see, you know, nobody really knew like what was going on in my relationship except for maybe my close family members, because all my friendships were isolated because she was really afraid of. It kind of the fears of abandonment and rejection. She also had 'em, and they were like turned up really big to the point where I kind of was isolated. I couldn't really see people, and everyone was always asking me like, oh, are you healing? Okay. And they were talking about my jaw. But I would like, in my mind, feel like they were talking about my heart because my heart was just. Ripped up, like I was waking up from nightmares. I was depressed. I had scary thoughts about not wanting to be here and all the things, and I just was like, you know what? I'm gonna go try to fix this. I'm gonna figure out what's going on. So I went to therapy, discovered that it's really cool. I could totally make and this is, I don't know, this sounds cocky but I was like, I think I can make this better. Meaning like, I did it and it was helpful, but I realized there was also some kind of, some gaps in like the way therapy is done. And so I was like, you know what? I, I love my business mind. I mean, I apply that to an industry that maybe doesn't have as many business minds and I'm gonna also help people. Like the, like the people that I was, the people who were fearful, insecure, and help 'em build like strength and confidence in themselves. So that was the Baja was part of the journey. Like you're asking all the same questions really.

Brenda: 12:01

Yeah. Amazing. There's always a connection. It's so interesting and I think it's so interesting that you recognize that when you are the recipient of therapy that, oh, okay, this is helpful. And it could be different. And it could be better. Yeah. So that's, that's really, really cool. Alright, well that's, that satisfies my curiosity about the broken jaw and all of that.

Trevor: 12:25

Those are good, those are good things.

Brenda: 12:26

So like I said, I think attachment. Can be a little mysterious and a little woo woo. Yeah. And a little like, I don't know what that is. So could you just like base level outline for us, what does it mean For sure. When we start talking about attachment, and then we'll dive into all this, all the stuff.

Trevor: 12:47

Yeah, so we'll make it, we'll make it pretty simple. So you think when somebody says your attachment style, that's just like a cute little word to describe the internal programming you have going on in your head. Specifically about two areas, how you feel about love and connection with other people and how you feel about yourself. Two things, and they're usually tied together. So we'll describe kind of the different programming. There's the more. We'll call 'em anxiously attached sec attachment style. Those people are kinda like I was the hallmark of that is that these are people who carry around beliefs that they're not good enough, okay? They, or it's kind of in question, they start to wonder, am I good enough? They, they don't feel very secure in themselves, in their own worth. They sometimes don't trust themselves. They don't trust their own decision making, and they also carry around some sort of fears of rejection and abandonment. Right. It feels like people are gonna leave me. It feels like people aren't gonna show up. If they discover that I'm not good enough, then they're definitely gonna leave because obviously I'm not good enough, right? Mm-hmm. So these are the kind of narratives, the behavior of that type of person. They'll be more just anxious. They'll be the one who wants to solve everything in an argument. They're the one chasing you around the room saying, no, we gotta figure this out right now, and we won't go to bed until it's figured out. They're more clingy in dating. They're the people pleasers, trying to keep everybody happy so that they don't get rejected. Right. If I keep you happy, then I'll be okay. They also tend to pick partners who might be seen as kind of like a project. If I could be valuable, then. It'll make up the gap for the fact that maybe I don't totally feel lovable. Right. And and you'll stay. So that's the anxiously attached programming. Okay. Then there's the avoidantly attached. These are those who operate more from a fear of rejection or a sensitivity to rejection. They will. Also sometimes have a bit of a narrative of I'm not good enough, but they protect themselves in a different kind of way. They're the ones that. Use kind of the shield or the wall or running away. Mm. This is the person in a conflict who shuts down and goes silent. They just wall up. They get out of there. Vulnerability is not safe. Getting too open and too close is not safe.'cause I don't want to get hurt. Mm. This is it seems to be more common in men than women in most of the situations that I. Work with, but that's not always true.'cause I'm more the anxiously and my wife is more of the avoidant if we, you know, lean one way. Mm-hmm. And they will oftentimes have a hard time committing in relationships in like dating. And then there's kind of what a lot of people dream deem as like the goal or the dream.'cause it's the most healthy style is the securely attached. And there's, there technically is a fourth, but for simplicity's sake, we'll just use the three. There's the securely attached. They know their worth, they know their value. They know that no matter what's happening in their relationship, that they're still okay. They're still lovable. They kind of can fill up their own cup and then the relationships in their life just overflow the cup. That's bonus material. It's good. At that point, they tend to set more firm boundaries because they respect themselves. They know what they want. They are able to set those boundaries from an emotionally regulated place, so they're not gonna make people mad and just be critical. Right. It's not like telling you what to do and being all in your face about it. They're, they're just. Calm, secure, connected with themselves and with other people, and they tend to have more. Healthy relationships with better, better patterns because of simply how they feel about themselves and how they feel about love. And I'll, I'll pause. So those are three types of programming we can talk about, like where they come from, but I think that kind of lays the foundation of what an attachment style means.

Brenda: 16:39

Yes. That is super helpful. And I think what, when as I hear you talk about that. I am obviously thinking through the lens of a parent and thinking, okay, if I have an anxious attachment style, I can see how now that's going to impact how my relationship is with my child, because yes, what I see a lot in our parents who have kids who are struggling, right? The kids. Are legitimately at risk, right? This is not just

Trevor: 17:10

right.

Brenda: 17:11

Oh, I think my 3-year-old might die if I don't feed him organic baby food. Like this is, my kid is legitimately in some seriously scary situations. And so we tend to wanna control. We wanna control everything. Yep. We wanna know where are you all the time. And we wanna, so is that, is that. The anxious attachment style or like, how do I understand my responses in that situation? Yeah,

Trevor: 17:40

yeah. So it's, you know, we put these labels on things just to make it easier and keep track of 'em. It's not like. Like a virus. Like I get a virus, you can find it in my body. Right. You know, like by its molecular construction that that's what it is. This is not as cut and clear as that. What I think is almost more important than deeming like, is that anxious? Is this avoidant? Like whatever. It's just looking at where is my feelings, my emotions, and my behaviors coming from. Mm. So for example, the parent who is maybe. Really anxious, really controlling, you know, the, what you might call a helicopter parent, whatever. Yeah. You know, an example of understanding that first 'cause we'll understand where it comes from and then the impact. Those are two separate things, right? The past and then the future. The past says. Well, maybe you feel that way because you had that happen to you when you were young. You got the message that you aren't okay on your own. You can't make your own decisions. Mom has to be the one to take care of you, and maybe that robbed you of some confidence and because it robbed you of confidence, it built into you a lot of anxiety. And all of a sudden you're the mom and then you feel a little bit out of control already.'cause you don't really trust yourself. You don't really even know that you know you are good enough or that you can handle things and then you kind of project that anxiety on your kid. Mm-hmm. Doubling down on control. Right. If I don't feel control it within me, I'm gonna try to create control externally. Yeah. Or another example could be, there's so many forms of this is. Maybe, you know, maybe there was a high critical home. You know, mom and dad always coming down in you and always telling you, you know, basically the message was, you gotta be perfect for all the neighbors. Nobody can see that we're flawed. We nobody can see we're a family of human beings, right? Like we gotta look like perfect little angels that just got shot down here by God like yesterday. And because of that, you carry in this anxiety to be perfect. Because you don't believe you're good enough. Every time you make a mistake, you feel like you're flawed and then you might project that onto your child.'cause they're in the most imperfect state they could possibly be. If they are, you know, just ripping through all of that difficulty that, you know, drugs and alcohol brings, they're in their most shattered state. And that can bring such heightened anxiety where you're projecting that same fear of not being good enough or onto them. That's like a couple of examples of maybe how it could affect. The parent child relationship.

Brenda: 20:10

Right. That it makes a ton of sense because we do, and it's funny that you said that about men maybe tending more towards the avoidant because this, we see this all the time too, which is mom is like, I am gonna step in, I'm gonna figure this out. And the tendency is to lean toward control. I need to control everything. And dad tends to, and for all the dads listening, I'm not saying this is you, but this is, yeah. This is the trend that we see is dads tend to kind of turtle in and shut down and be like, okay, you know, my partner, my wife is gonna deal with this. I can't deal with this. Like I, I'm, I, yeah,

Trevor: 20:52

yeah.

Brenda: 20:53

They just shut down and it's so interesting to me.

Trevor: 20:57

Totally. To shed some light on that. If we look at maybe even some of the cultural factors that go into that, so like men, I feel like, you know, they are okay to have all of their feelings until they're about 13 years old, about like 12 or 13, and then from their male like attachment figure or their, their dad, they get the message that basically says like, no, we remove those feelings. Those are feminine. You can feel anger. You can feel excitement you could feel happy. And outside of that, for the most part, everything is not okay. Like if you're gonna cry, you gotta go to your room until you can come out and be part of this family again. Oh, you hear the message in that, right? Yeah. It's like you literally are exiled if you have these feelings. And so what did they learn to do? Become hyper independent, right? Swallow it, go quiet. Don't say anything. Avoid shut down. It's, it's call crawling into the foxhole or the, you know, the bomb shelter. I'm going to just brace for impact. You'll see it in. In conflict too, like between partners. She's just freaking out being like, why don't you say anything? And he's like, I am so scared. I don't want to say anything. Right. Yes. And so I can, it's interesting to hear you say that that's the trend.'cause I don't have a ton of experience with that situation, with the, the parent of a child who's dealing with that. But it doesn't surprise me. That's totally falls into the pattern.

Brenda: 22:21

It's so common. And again, not a hundred percent, but it tends to be that way. And of course there's times too when mom shuts down. But we, we tend to see the more of that need for control and also just the anxiousness, this constant, it's like there's this little, you know, anxious hamster just running in our chest and our brain, because a, we may be just. Anxious by default, by our wiring.

Trevor: 22:50

Yeah.

Brenda: 22:50

And then we have a legitimately an anxiety producing situation going on.'cause I think even for a secure parent, let's say you've got the magic secure, you know, designation a situation like this is going to be anxiety producing, so it, of course it just makes everything more complex. And I just wonder, yeah. If somebody is listening and they're like, whoa, that's me. Like I do tend to avoid more. I am more on the anxious side, like, what do we do with that? Who do we, because I don't think you can just talk yourself out of it. Right? It's, it's no really hard.

Trevor: 23:35

Yeah, you really can't. And well, you know, and, and before I, I go there too, I wanna paint a, a picture or a dream of what, what is the alternative to, because some people who live in either the avoidant place or the anxious place, they don't really know what it would even look like. Mm-hmm. You're like, what else am I supposed to do? Right? Like, this is, you know, this sale's impossible. So. What it could look like. And I'm going to describe a person in like the most perfectly secure place, right? Okay. And this is not a person that actually exists all of the time, right? So don't make this your goal, but the idea is no, no. It is your goal to get closer. And closer is the word, right? Yes. It's not to just be this all of the time. Because I will tell you what, in that kind of crisis situation, like you said, the most healthy, grounded, secure individuals are going to have moments where they just lose it. Yeah. They just lose their freaking marbles. Yeah. And they're like, I cannot clean them. Even on my own, this is too hard. And so I'm gonna describe it idealize it a little bit and give that caveat, okay, before we do so, the more securely attached person, in that scenario, a few things are gonna happen. One, instead of being, maybe coming down on their child with like a lot of pressure, and sometimes that pressure could look like criticism, right? When you just lose your mind and maybe you, you. Screaming 'em just to get their stuff together or, you know, whatever it is, you know, the, the criticism that could come.'cause it's frustrating when a kid is doing that over and over and over again and you feel like. Gosh, this is so obvious. You gotta just do something different, right? So the criticism, the heavy control most likely that's going to push the child away and not create a dynamic where they're more open to receiving help. Okay? So the opposite of that is the parent who is able to have a deep sense of peace and safety, knowing that like no matter what happens, that like they will be okay in their, in themselves. Right. There can be tragedies that happen, there can be pain that happens. It is painful, but they also have other sources of peace where their happiness isn't contingent on like their child's sobriety, for example. Right. It's not contingent on that. It's contingent on other things like it own sense of self-worth, their own connection with maybe their higher power, their connection with meaning and purpose deeper in their lives. Right? Yeah. They, they do not see. Their child's behavior as a threat to their own worth. Right? I'm such a bad mom. I'm such a bad dad. I'm sure you see that all the time, right? Oh my gosh, yes. They're removed from that narrative. They realize, okay, maybe some of the things I've done have influenced this in some regards. Sure. That's what life is and okay. Well, what are we gonna do about it now? But it's not the, I'm bad, right? Yeah, I'm, that's a shame narrative. Yeah. So they, they're removed from that. They also have the capacity, we'll go to the avoidance side. That person has the capacity to engage, okay. To engage in. The process and it's not emotionally overwhelming for them to where it feels like, well, this is too much. They're able to engage in vulnerable conversations with their child or with their partner, because it's hard to go through that with a partner, right? Yes. Super hard. Yes. Where I can even see it now, right? The one who shuts down a little bit more is, you know. Yelling about, how do you even care about our kid? What are you doing? Like I feel like I'm on my own over here. The other one feels like they're a piece of garbage 'cause they're getting yelled at. And so they shut down and the more they shut down, the other one feels like they're just being abandoned. And so they get louder. And the more they get louder, the other one feels even more unsafe. And so it does, it extends to the couple dynamic as well as the parent child dynamic. They follow very similar patterns and the secure are able to have those conversations be vulnerable while being honest, without being critical, while staying connected and knowing that no matter what happens. Like My worth is intact and that's not going anywhere.

Brenda: 27:48

Hey, I wanna pause for just a sec to talk about something that has been life changing for so many women who started right where you might be. By listening to the show, if you're feeling the isolation, the exhaustion, like nobody gets what you're going through, there is a place designed specifically for you. The stream is our private community for moms and female caregivers, for parenting teens and young adults through substance use and mental health struggles. And when I say private, I mean completely confidential. It is not connected to Facebook or any other platform, or your business could become everyone's business. What members love about this stream is that you can be as visible or as anonymous as you want. Some moms jump right into conversations and calls. Others like to read and learn quietly in the background. Both are perfect. It's not social media. It's genuine community focused on learning growth and breaking through the isolation that might be keeping you from moving forward. Right now. Whether your child is in active use in treatment or early recovery. You'll find practical strategies and tools that actually help motivate healthier choices because we know you wanna see positive change in your family. Check it out@hopestreamcommunity.org. We would love to welcome you into this village of support and understanding. Okay, back to the show. I think the thing that stood out the most to me, what you said is somebody who can see the bigger picture. Somebody who isn't tying their self-worth to what their child is doing or what their spouse is doing, or I see it like a broader lens. Like, okay, yeah, this is going on and this is going on, and. I'm gonna be okay. And I think that takes, yeah, a lot of work to get to that place. Especially if you were raised in a home where there was a lot of one or the other, like, you know, things were leaning heavily one way or the other. And you also mentioned, you know, leaning into your higher power, which I think is so important.'cause as you were going through all of that, I was like. But how would you do that? But how would you do that? But how would you do that? And the only thing that I could come up with was you, for me at least, I know I have to believe that there is something bigger. A bigger force in the world that Yeah. Is at play because what I see in front of me is chaos and craziness. Yeah. And so those are all really helpful points that you made about being able to be vulnerable, being able to engage, even if it is difficult. I just, to me it felt like a very well-rounded person. A person who could be calm in the face of crisis.

Trevor: 30:39

Yes. That's true right there. Oh,

Brenda: 30:41

wow. Can we just, is there like a button that we, A secure button that he,

Trevor: 30:46

that we could hit? Yes. Well. Here's the good news is that in it is not one single button, but there's a lot of buttons that Yeah, if we push them, it will move you towards that. And it's not some like weird little mystery, like how do we become that? It's, there's part of the work that I've dedicated my life to do is figuring out systems and processes to help people to become that, to become secure and, there's, there's so much here that I could talk about. It's almost hard to, to know where to start, but maybe I'll start with a few things. You know, tying back to how I'm seeing that there's some gaps in therapy. What I do now is strictly within like the category of coaching. Mm-hmm. At this point, because we've leaned a little bit outside of like the traditional therapeutic model and there's, there's a lot of people who come to us who are saying. I am in this either anxious or avoidant camp. I've been there my whole life. I don't feel good enough. I'm a people pleaser. I don't regulate my emotions and they're like, I wanna feel confident, grounded in myself. All the things we just described. And most of these individuals have been doing therapy for years. Mm-hmm. They've been going and they've been going and have been going and been stuck. They've been reading all the right books. Oh, I read attached, I read this, I read, you know, GoBoard Mate book, like whatever. Yeah. And they've got the knowledge, like, goodness gracious, they could teach. Class on it. Yeah. Probably better than I could at some of them. Yeah. And, but what I've recognized that they're missing are a few things. There's four elements, and maybe we'll talk about these because this will help a person.'cause if you're listening to the podcast here, I'm gonna guess that you're trying therapy, you're trying all sorts of stuff. And that's why I'm going to this instead of to more of the nitty gritty basics on like how we become that. But I wanna focus on the process, right? Yeah. Because if you can fix the process, then. Everything else starts working better. So the first one is we have to think about how these. Attachment styles are formed, they're formed through emotional experiences. I mentioned too, a critical mother who always makes you feel like you're not good enough. An emotionally distant father who kind of leaves a question mark there of, am I good enough? Like, is, are people gonna leave? Maybe somebody who actually left. There are just moments, right? Or maybe living in a. Highly like a religious home where there was a whole lot more obedience taught and not a lot of grace taught, right? Mm-hmm. You have to be perfect. Mm-hmm. In order to be loved was the message that you got, whether they meant to or not. Like that's the one you got. So those were all experiences where you felt something, you felt not good enough. You felt afraid that you were gonna get left. So what we need to do is create corrective emotional experiences, logic and information will never create a transformation. You, I, I, you can't, I don't know if you see the picture frame, but I, I have one on my wall here. It says you have to feel something to heal something. Oh, wow. And so the idea is that we. Need to, you would need to, in order to make this transition from more anxiously or avoid attached to secure, is you need to have emotional experiences where you feel quite literally with inside of you. The opposite of what drives the anxiousness, which is you need to feel a deep sense of self-compassion, like actually feel. It's gonna bring some tears to your eyes kind of thing. A sense of self love, self nurturing a connection or maybe a love to your higher power feeling like seen, loved and chosen there. Feeling strong or a sense of confidence. And so that's kind of where, you know, my job is I want to provide experiences for people that facilitate, are almost like. Manufacture sounds weird 'cause it makes it sound like it's fake, but like, for lack of a better word. Yeah. Yeah. Manufacture those feelings live in the room. So that's, that's pillar number one of the things that we're missing. But I wanna pause because I don't wanna go on too long here.

Brenda: 34:39

Yeah, no, that, that, that sounds very logical. And I think it's, I, I actually like the word manufacturer because we, we talk about that often with our parents is sometimes you have to manufacture a situation. That meets the needs of whatever your kid needs, right? Like, sometimes you just have to do that. And it isn't that it's fake. It's that it's, maybe the better word would be intentionally crafted versus Yes. Manufactured, right? So we intentionally create these experiences that just makes so much sense that, that create those feelings. And you, and do you have to do that for. A certain amount of time, like does it take repetition to be able to sort of like, ah, counteract the original

Trevor: 35:22

Did. Oh my gosh. I, I'm smiling. I feel like people are gonna think we talked before and planned this because we did not talk before. No, not at all. I just barely met you. Yeah. So here's the craziest part is that the. The second pillar that I'm, I notice that a lot of times therapy was missing is repetition. You literally said the word and it's number two. So oftentimes people go and they rely on their therapist week to week. Yeah. And they'll go in there and they'll feel pretty good, and it's nice and like sure, they're getting some progress. Like there's some work being done not to like discount the entire thing, but then they leave and there's no way of getting in any more reps. Mm. It's like, well now what do I do? How do I go deeper? You know, you told me to journal, like, what does that even mean? Like journal about what? Like, just write about my day. Like, I don't know. It is just a lack of an ability to get in those reps. And so yes, repetition is important. The more frequent and the more intense frequency and intensity. Sometimes you're gonna have like a gourmet pizza where it's like, oh my gosh, this is so awesome. I'm feeling so much self love, I'm literally crying. And I wanna shout it on the rooftops. And the other times you're gonna be in a situation where it's more like a little Caesar, so it's like a $5, but it's good still. It's like, okay, I'm in the moment. I'm feeling a little triggered, feeling like I'm not a good enough parent right now and I'm closing my eyes and giving that part of me a little bit of compassion. And that feels good. That feels nice. Like I'm not crying. It is not off the charts, but it feels good. But those are different kinds of reps. Yeah. And we need a lot of different kinds of reps.

Brenda: 36:54

Yeah. That I could definitely see that. And also sometimes you get off track, right? Like you're, you're doing your reps and then something like side, side rails. You over here. Yeah. And then three months later you're like, wait a minute, what? What was I doing back then? And you have to go back to that. Yeah.

Trevor: 37:12

Yes. Yes. And you know, as we speak about this, one of the, one of the more tangible ways of getting reps that, like we created in, in what we do is we will give people like a library of like videos and modules where they can like go back to, and it's like. You're already curated, so you're not guessing, right? Because you can pick up every book and every random podcast and hope to maybe figure out, what's my rep here? But you first have to discover the rep and then you have to execute on it, and you don't even know if it's the right one for you. Right? It's like wandering into the gym if you've never. Worked out before and you're like, I don't know, I'm just gonna pull on this rope and like push this around. And like, did that, did that work? How many am I supposed to do? And so that's one thing I feel like people are just missing is clarity. And that's kind of almost like the third point is they're missing oftentimes a structured framework, like step-by-step, clear path because we can get so disorganized in our process of trying to become more secure by just grabbing every random bit of information we can find on the internet. Yeah. And saying like. Okay. That's me. Right. Saving Instagram reels, listening to another book. Are you watching my phone? I, I, I'm watching everyone's phone. I know what that is. I I totally do it too. And you never look back on those, those reels you save hardly ever. No. And yeah, and so it's, it's a repetition, emotional experience structure, framework. And then the last one is honestly, community. Like, there's, there's a difference when you're trying to. Become secure when you're trying to overcome these negative beliefs. The, you know, heal the parts of you that are steeped in fear and self-doubt, and you have other people there who really get it and understand why you're stuck in the ways that you're stuck. And they're not the friends who are just like, well just like get over it. Or like, no, it's not your fault. Like, you don't have to think that way. Okay. If I could, I would stop. Right? But I can't. But when you have people in your corner and community that really know what's going on for you, it's, it's so healing. And this is the craziest part. I have to mention this. I know I'm going on and on, but the experiences. That created this anxiety or this anxious attachment or avoid an attachment, whatever it is. Those were experiences where in the presence of somebody who was supposed to be there for you in one way or another, they were not. Mm. And it doesn't mean mom and dad were bad. Yeah. It might mean like you needed somebody to come and scoop you up when you were crying, but mom was taking care of like six other kids. Yeah. Oh. There's nothing bad with that. Yeah. But it left in you that fear of no one's gonna be there for me. And then you get into a community and the opposite happens. You come vulnerable, raw, real, authentic, yourself. Scary, scary, scary. And then you are just loved. You are scooped up and held with so much kindness and compassion and that just. Heal your little nervous system down deep. It's without even knowing that it's happening. It's just, it's like, it get, it's like your brain. Your body gets a hug internally from being with the people that are around you. And that's one rep. That's a rep of the emotional experiences that I'm talking about.

Brenda: 40:19

Right. Right. That's funny because I was gonna, I was gonna ask you, so how does community play into this? So you, you're right.

Trevor: 40:26

There we go. Right on the same tangent. We're on the same wavelength today. Wave. Love this same wavelength.

Brenda: 40:30

Exactly. It's

Trevor: 40:31

probably 'cause we both broke our jaws we're like, I think it's resonating. I think that's it. I

Brenda: 40:34

think it's the broken jaw club. But I agree, and that's, you know, we have a, an online community for our moms who are going through this experience, and I see the same thing where it's like, oh, I can be vulnerable here and I can show up here not knowing what the heck I'm doing, and it's okay to do that.

Trevor: 40:53

Yeah. And

Brenda: 40:53

I, I'm curious too, what, I don't know how to phrase this. Like what comes to mind for me too is it takes a certain amount of mindfulness. So even if I'm doing my reps and I have this structured path, it seems like it just takes a certain level of being able to be aware of. Yeah. Oh, that's my old pattern. I might have,

Trevor: 41:18

yep, yep, yep. Done

Brenda: 41:18

that and now I need to do this. Do you see that

Trevor: 41:22

too? Yeah. Totally, totally. Can I give your audience like the, a gift? A hundred percent. I mean, I'm gonna give you a sweet gift right now. So I'm gonna give you a tool to do that and it's like the more, the most powerful things. So I run this. Program called The Secure Self Club. It's is what it sounds like. We become secure through the process. And one of the foundational tools that we give you in the very beginning is called the Tempo Cycle, T-E-M-P-O. Kinda like tempo to a beat or a song. And this is. One of the first things we do because it lays the foundation of awareness around what we call that cycle or that pattern.'cause it's a pattern, right? It's fears, beliefs, protective mechanisms, triggers like all, and it feels chaotic when you're in it. But with this framework, it makes it very simple to know where you're at and kind of how to get outta the pattern. So T is for trigger. Okay, so T is a triggering situation that brings up the, we'll, we'll take this scenario of the mom who thinks that she's not good enough. She melts into a little puddle anytime her son has a relapse or something, right? So that's the situation. She hears that he's not doing good. He does something, maybe steal something to go get some more drugs. Something happens. That's a, you know, perpetuating the addiction. And she starts into her tempo cycle. She recognizes, wow, that's the T. Those are my triggers. And you could line them up. I guarantee if you're listening, you could, you could pause this. You could write down every single situation that triggers you. Yeah, right. You could put a list and I would encourage you to do it. And then the next one is the E, the emotion that comes from that. Right. I feel anxiety, I feel worthless. I feel self-doubt. I feel sadness. Just write down the emotions. We're just being aware. Of what's there. And it's important because later on we start trying to fix the emotions through maladaptive behaviors. Mm-hmm. Or behaviors that aren't very helpful, but we'll go there in a minute. Then there's the MTEM. We're at the M. Now M is the meaning that I make out of the situation. My son, he just stole something so that he could buy more and therefore. I'm a bad mom. Mm-hmm. I raised him bad. Mm-hmm. This and that. You know, all the different meanings that you can tell yourself in that moment. We'll keep it simple. I'm a bad mom. Yeah. Okay, so you got this not good enough feeling. Anxiety in the a in the EM as I'm not a bad mom. That's the meaning you're making. And then T-E-M-P-P is for protection. P is where you protect yourself or you kind of go to a protective mechanism, protect them, protect you from whatever threat you're seeing, right? That might look like going into helicopter mode and like shutting everything down, which you know, let, let's say that's it, right? Coming down on your sun real hard. And, you know, locking him down more restrictions, more this, more that the O of the outcome is where the last piece is. Outcome is. He's pushing back, he's mad at you, he's screaming in your face, I hate you, mom. Like whatever's going on, right? And what that leaves you with is more of a feeling that you're a bad mom. It, it starts to cycle again. That's the new trigger. Mm. Maybe his behavior. If we were to do that with a couple, I'll do a really quick example.'cause we now know the framework. The T is your partner is shutting down because you guys are having some sort of argument, right? The tensions are high. He starts shutting down and the emotion. Anxiety and hurt. The m is he doesn't like me. He's leaving. He's you know, wishes he could find somebody else. The P is, I'm maybe gonna maybe either get more critical or I'm gonna try to people please to try to make him happy and hide my feelings. The O is, if I'm people pleasing, I'm gonna wind up resentful and he's never actually gonna know what I want and then we're gonna keep fighting. Or if I get critical. I'm gonna push him away even further. And so you can see, you can map it out like any, any t trigger. They didn't text me back and I don't feel good enough. There's a trigger, you know, that you could just line them all up. You know, my partner got mad at me when I came home from work. There's a trigger and you just plug it into the cycle. And what's so cool about this is the each stage of the cycle, you can interrupt it. Mm-hmm. You can interrupt it at the T by doing the deep internal work to help your nervous system not respond with so much fear. You can interrupt it at a e through, you know emotionally regulating your emotions in different ways. You can do it at the m by challenging negative beliefs. You can do it at a p by just choosing to do something literally different if everything's the same, right? The o you're kind of outta your control at that point. It's just, just what's happening. So you can't interrupt it there, but you can stop yourself from going into another cycle. But that's, yes, that is a tool that I would say if you. Work reps on that. You map it out, that's gonna go a long way.

Brenda: 46:22

Yes. I, and I love tools like this because they're memorable and I, I can see that the more you worked with this, you might be able to like interrupt the cycle at the P and then at the M and then at the E, the maybe if you're getting really good. Yes, yes, yes. You could interrupt it right when you, you notice you're triggered. Oh my gosh. He came home smelling like weed again. We've had this conversation 11,000 times. There you go. There you go. That's

Trevor: 46:48

a good one.

Brenda: 46:49

And you know, that is a, such a common trigger. The action is a trigger. The smell is a trigger. Right. Sometimes it's actually the things like a smell or a, a sound sensory or sensory thing. Yeah. Yeah. And if you could notice it then, then I can see how that would just like whoop it, like rewinds all of the, the stuff that was gonna come afterward.

Trevor: 47:12

Yeah. And what's so cool about this is that you know, this is like an in the moment tool and a prevention tool. It's putting out fires. Yeah. And preventing them. How you use it to prevent them is you map it out when everything is good, when everything is calm and you kind of plan out in your head, wow, how do I want to respond here? And then it's also in the moment putting out fires.'cause what this does too is if you, in a moment of trigger, you're feeling all the feelings, if you can somehow get yourself to pause and map this out, what that will do is it'll actually activate a different part of your brain.'cause in your fear, you're down here in your base brain, everything's lit up there. And your front brain where you make all your rational decisions. It's just offline. It's on vacation, it's not doing anything right now. And so as soon as you start doing this, it's a very logical front brain process. And so you're going to activate the front brain, which is gonna calm you down, get you into a place where you're gonna be able to more rationally work, work through this. Mm-hmm. So it's, it's really cool. It could be used many, many ways.

Brenda: 48:13

It is super helpful. I love that. Very enlightening just to be aware of each one of those things. I think the more, even just following a, a framework like that slows you down a little bit. It puts a little bit of space between that trigger and. Whatever that outcome's gonna be. So that's incredibly helpful. And I know I have to let you go, but you do have a free seminar, right? From anxious to secure. Yeah. Is that something people can access? Yeah. Or how do we get Totally. Okay.

Trevor: 48:45

Totally. Yeah. So. There's a couple ways so that that seminar goes a little bit more in depth on the four essential elements that you need if you really want to become secure in the way that we've described it, and it gives you more in depth. It's free. It's a, it's a great place to start. Okay? You can find it in two places. Go to my Instagram, the Art of Healing by Trevor. That's where most people find me. Or you go to my website, the Art of Healing by trevor.com.

Brenda: 49:10

Okay. And that has everything there. And I assume they can access the Secure Self Club there too. I love the name, by the way. Yeah, it's so perfect. It's like this is what it is. No guessing.

Trevor: 49:20

This is what it is. You know, sometimes people

Brenda: 49:21

have these very fancy, fluffy, like crazy names and I just love the Secure Self Club. It's so perfect.

Trevor: 49:28

Yeah. Nice. Oh my gosh, I appreciate it. Thank

Brenda: 49:31

you so much. This is super helpful. I love how action oriented it is. Not that we don't love therapy, which tends to look back, but this feels to me like, okay, I've got this thing that I wanna work on and it, you give tools to actually like move forward in that. So thank you for that.

Trevor: 49:48

Yeah. Well, thank you for having me here. It's been great.

Brenda: 49:51

Okay, my friend. If you want the transcript or the show notes and resources from this episode, just go to our website, hope Stream community.org, and click podcast. That'll take you to all things podcast related. We even have a start here playlist that we created, so if you're new here, be sure to check that out. Also, if you're feeling anxious and confused about how to approach your child's substance use. We have got a free ebook for you. It's called Worried Sick, A Compassionate Guide for Parents of Teens and Young Adults Misusing Drugs and Alcohol. It'll introduce you to ways that you can build connection and relationship with your child versus distancing and letting them hit rock bottom. It is a game changer and it's totally free. Just go to Hope Stream community.org/worried to download that. You are amazing my friend. You are such an elite level parent. It is an honor to be here with you and please know you're not doing this alone. You've got this tribe and you will be okay sending all my love and light and I will meet you right back here next week.