#216: My Story of Healing Anxious Attachment

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If you’re in the thick of anxious attachment right now, it can feel completely overwhelming.

You might be stuck in a relationship you know isn’t good for you. You might feel like you’re constantly on edge, waiting for the other shoe to drop. You might wonder if this is just “how you are” and if you’re destined to feel this way forever.

I want you to know: I have been exactly where you are.

You might look at my life now and think I’m miles away from your reality. But it really wasn’t that long ago that my life looked entirely different — and my anxious attachment was running the show.

This is the story of how I went from living in a constant state of dread and self-abandonment… to building self-worth, leaving a deeply unhealthy relationship, and creating the life and relationship I have now.

My hope is that in my story, you can glimpse what’s possible for you too.

What My Life Looked Like With Anxious Attachment

If we rewind to my early–mid 20s, here’s the picture.

On paper, things looked fine. I was a corporate lawyer, working in a big law firm, ticking all the boxes. I’d always been a high achiever. From the outside, I probably looked like I had it all together.

Inside, it was a very different story.

I had incredibly low self-worth. I didn’t really like myself. I shaped myself into whoever I thought I needed to be to gain approval. I wore whatever mask would help me fit in with people and environments I didn’t even like or respect.

My choices weren’t aligned with my values — and if I’m honest, I didn’t even really know what my values were.

On the relationship front, my earlier relationships had actually been fairly healthy. I’d been with mostly secure partners, which meant my anxious attachment never really got pushed to its edges.

That changed in my mid-20s, when I entered a deeply dysfunctional relationship with a very avoidant partner.

The Anxious–Avoidant Trap

His behaviour was unlike anything I’d experienced before.

He was inconsistent, dismissive, unpredictable, dishonest. There were constant breaches of trust and an undercurrent of disrespect. A secure version of me would have seen the red flags and walked away.

Instead, my anxious attachment and low self-worth locked onto him.

On some unconscious level, I made him a project. If I could get this person — this emotionally unavailable, avoidant, chaotic person — to change for me, then that must mean something about how worthy and special I was.

I put him on a pedestal and cast myself as the saviour. If I could be the reason he finally “sorted himself out”, then maybe I’d finally feel like enough.

That mentality kept me in a situation that was causing me daily pain.

After an initial nine months of intense drama, deception and volatility (the “you wouldn’t believe it if I told you” kind), I still stayed another three years. I told myself, We’ve been through so much already, I can’t give up now. Once we get through this, it’ll all be worth it.

This is classic anxious attachment:

• Internalising the problem — “If I just try harder, I can make this work.”

• Self-blame instead of situational blame — “If they can’t meet my needs, it must mean my needs are wrong.”

• Sunk cost thinking — “I’ve invested so much, leaving now would make it all a waste.”

Living in a Constantly Activated State

We eventually moved in together. He had a demanding job and was always “too busy”. I constantly felt like I was competing with his work, and I always came second (or third, or fourth).

I’d call to ask what time he’d be home, and he’d ignore my calls. I’d send a text, see that it had been read, and get no response. I’d send another. And another.

My nervous system was permanently activated.

I was furious and heartbroken and wildly confused. How could someone treat me like this? How could they not see how much it hurt?

But rather than see the relationship for what it was — fundamentally misaligned and unsupportive — I doubled down on trying to get him to understand.

If I could just explain it the right way… if I could get him to see things from my perspective… then he’d change. And if he changed, I wouldn’t have to feel this way anymore.

I didn’t yet see that this was my anxious attachment talking.

The Turning Point: Owning My Patterns

The beginning of the shift came when I started therapy. Up until then, I’d always seen myself as “fine” and “resourced”. But it was becoming harder and harder to deny that something deeper was going on.

My therapist gently held up a mirror.

Yes, his behaviour was hurtful, dishonest and disrespectful. That part was real. But she also helped me see that a secure person wouldn’t have stayed in that dynamic for as long as I did. Something in me had drawn me into it and kept me there.

That was confronting, but also incredibly empowering.

Because if I had a role in getting into this situation, that meant I also had a role in getting myself out.

1. Looking Honestly at My Relationship Patterns

The first key shift was taking an honest look at my patterns instead of focusing solely on his.

• Why was I so determined to “fix” him?

• Why did I see his behaviour as a reflection of my worth?

• Why did I believe my safety depended on controlling the people and environment around me?

I started connecting the dots back to my family system and childhood. I began to see how I’d been primed to suppress my own needs, rescue others, and equate love with emotional labour.

This wasn’t about blaming my past — it was about understanding it.

Seeing the architecture underneath my anxious attachment helped me feel less crazy and more compassionate towards myself. It also gave me a clear sense of where my work was.

2. Rebuilding Self-Worth and Self-Respect

Next, I started working on my self-worth.

At that time, I didn’t just struggle with self-love — I didn’t even like myself very much. I was harshly self-critical and equally critical of others. It was like my ego sat on top of a deep well of insecurity.

So I began a kind of life audit:

• Where was I consistently engaging in behaviours that left me feeling ashamed, anxious or out of integrity?

• Who was I spending time with that didn’t feel good to be around?

• What environments was I pushing myself into just to gain approval?

I started “cleaning up my act” — not in a moralistic way, but in a self-respecting way.

I looked at my relationship with alcohol and nights out that reliably led to anxiety and self-disgust the next day. I looked at my work and realised I was spending most of my waking hours in a career that didn’t align with what I cared about.

Deep down, I knew: This cannot be my whole life.

I didn’t want the life of the people ten years ahead of me on the corporate ladder. That felt suffocating. So I allowed myself to admit that and started exploring other paths.

One small but powerful example: I set myself a challenge to run 100km in a month. For real runners, that might not sound like much. For me — someone who didn’t see herself as “a runner” — it was huge.

Showing up for that challenge, pushing through discomfort, and doing something I’d always told myself I “wasn’t the type of person” to do was incredibly identity-shifting. It became a physical metaphor for growth on the other side of discomfort.

All of this — the self-respect, the discipline, the values work, ultimately leaving my law career — formed the foundation of a new kind of self-worth.

3. Learning to Work With My Nervous System

Another complete game-changer was learning about the nervous system and how to self-soothe.

Through somatic therapy and my coach training, I came to understand that:

• When we’re in a stress response, we lose access to the parts of us that make healthy relating possible: empathy, nuance, curiosity, perspective.

• If we’re constantly perceiving threat in our relationships, our system is too busy surviving to connect.

Looking back, when I was sending ten escalating texts in a row, I wasn’t “crazy”. I was dysregulated.

My body was screaming: Danger! You’re being abandoned! Do something!

The work wasn’t about shaming those reactions. It was about learning how to create safety within myself so I could respond differently.

I built a toolkit — breath, movement, grounding, co-regulation, self-talk — so that when I got triggered, I had options beyond lashing out, protesting or spiralling.

Now, I rarely get triggered in the same way, and when I do, I feel equipped to stay with myself instead of being hijacked by the reaction.

4. Validating Myself Instead of Chasing Validation

A huge shift was learning to validate my own experience instead of obsessively trying to get my partner to do it.

For so long, I believed:

• I was asking for too much.

• My needs were unreasonable.

• If he told me I was “demanding” or “intense”, that must be true.

Because he was so chronically invalidating — and often gaslighting — I became fixated on getting him to agree with me so I didn’t feel crazy.

The real turning point was deciding:

I don’t actually need you to agree with me in order for my experience to be valid.

I started saying (internally and externally):
My needs are reasonable. My feelings make sense. The bare minimum I’m asking for isn’t a negotiation.

Once I stopped playing the game of trying to convince him, the truth became much clearer: we were not compatible. What I wanted and what he was willing or able to offer were fundamentally misaligned.

That clarity made leaving possible.

5. Learning Boundaries and Letting Go of the Saviour Role

Boundaries used to be a foreign concept to me.

I had a strong rescuer streak. If someone I cared about was struggling, I’d drop everything, rush in, and take on responsibility for fixing it. I thought that was just what it meant to be a good person.

Therapy helped me see the cost of that.

I began to understand that:

• I’m not responsible for everyone’s feelings and choices.

• I can be loving without self-abandoning.

• Other adults are capable of sitting with their own discomfort.

That boundary work was absolutely crucial when I finally left the relationship.

After the breakup, my ex called constantly, apologising and begging me to take him back. Past-me would have felt intense guilt and pressure to make him feel better — and probably would have gone back.

Because I’d done the work, I was able to hold my boundary:

“I’m really sorry this is painful, but this is my decision and it’s not going to change.”

It was still uncomfortable. But I didn’t wobble. I could stay anchored in what I knew was right for me.

6. Creating a Bigger Vision and Raising My Standards

The final piece was allowing myself to imagine that life could be so much better than what I was currently tolerating.

At the time, my life felt small, stressed and constrained — by my job, my relationship, my own beliefs about what was possible for me. Dreaming bigger felt almost ridiculous… and yet there was this tiny inner voice saying:

There has to be more than this. It can’t just be this forever.

Once I’d done enough inner work to no longer feel like I was trying to patch over a void, I could start asking:

• What kind of relationship do I actually want?

• How do I want to feel in my life day-to-day?

• What would a joyful, values-aligned life look like for me?

I began to raise my standards — radically.

I decided I was no longer available for:

• Relationships that were defined by chaos, anxiety and emotional labour.

• Work that drained me and felt meaningless.

• A life where my primary experience was stress and self-doubt.

I didn’t know exactly how I’d get to the life I was imagining, but I committed to taking aligned steps towards that vision, again and again.

Where I Am Now (And Why I’m Not an Exception)

Fast forward to today.

I’ve built a business that allows me to do deeply meaningful work supporting thousands of people on their own healing journeys. I host a podcast that reaches people all over the world. I have a relationship that feels like a genuine partnership — not a project — with someone I love, respect and admire, who loves, respects and admires me.

We have a beautiful son. Is our relationship perfect? No. No one’s is. But it’s grounded, mutual, kind and safe. It feels like a place to rest, not a battlefield.

And truly: the life I have now is beyond anything my younger self could have even conceptualised.

I share all of this not to say, “Look at me, I did it,” but to say:

I am not an exception to the rule.
If it’s possible for me, it is possible for you.

Your anxious attachment is not a life sentence. It is a learned way of being — and what is learned can be unlearned. You can build self-worth. You can learn to regulate your nervous system. You can set boundaries, leave misaligned relationships, and move towards ones that feel safe and nourishing.

It won’t happen overnight. It will require courage and commitment. But it is absolutely, deeply possible.

If You’re Ready for Support

If you’re reading this and thinking, This is me. I’m in that relationship. I’m in that pattern, I want you to know you don’t have to figure it out alone.

My course Healing Anxious Attachment distils everything I learned in my own journey — and in guiding thousands of others — into a clear, step-by-step framework to help you:

• Understand where your patterns came from

• Work with your nervous system instead of against it

• Build self-worth from the inside out

• Create healthier, more secure relationships

If you feel a little spark reading this — that quiet knowing that says, There has to be more than this — I encourage you to honour it.

You deserve a life and love that feel safe, steady and deeply good.

And no matter how far away that feels right now, I promise: this is not where your story ends.

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FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:

• FREE TRAINING: How to Heal Anxious Attachment and (Finally) Feel Secure in Life & Love

• Download the FREE Anxious Attachment Starter Kit here
  

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[00:00:00]:

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. Today's episode is a really special one and I apologise in advance for this. Very scrappy. If you're watching the video of this, it's very scrappy. Video recording. I am in a hotel room in Belgium and I had to put out a podcast episode today and I was thinking about what to do and I decided to share with you a video that I recorded a little while ago on my journey, my story with Anxious Attachment. You know, what my life looked like when I was really in the depths of my anxious attachment and how I dug myself out of that hole, how I walked away from a relationship that was really unhealthy and how I ultimately built self worth and built the life that I have now, which looks very different to the life that I had then.

[00:00:45]:

This is a video that you may have watched if you have downloaded my Anxious Attachment starter kit, which is a free resource that I offer. But for most of you that haven't, I really hope that what I share in today's episode in this video gives you some hope and optimism that, you know, you might look at me now and think that I'm very far away from where you might feel. You can rest assured that I know exactly what it feels like and I remember it well to stand where you stand. And so I'm hoping that in sharing my story, you can see that we're not all that different and that there is hope, no matter how hopeless it can feel when you're in the thick of it. Before we get into today's episode, I wanted to remind you about my Black Friday sale. My Black Friday offers this year are by far the steepest discounts that I've ever offered on my programmes. I'm offering two bundles, one for breakups, one for relationships. So in both bundles you get Healing Anxious Attachment, which is my signature course.

[00:01:44]:

Over 3,000 past students. And then, depending on where you're at, if you've been through a breakup, the Breakup Bundle, you also get Higher Love, which is my best selling breakup course. Or if you're in a relationship or dating, the Secure Relationship Bundle. You get my Secure Together course for couples and navigate the Anxious Avoidant Dynamics comics that I recorded with my partner Joel. And with both bundles, you get my entire masterclass library. So every masterclass workshop I've ever taught included free. And none of those are available for individual sale anymore. So this is the only way to get them.

[00:02:18]:

And on top of that, you also get an invite to a live Q and A with me. So it really is an exceptional deal and it's at a very heavy discount. There's also a payment plan available. I really tried to make it as accessible as possible for you, so if that is of interest to you, definitely check it out. The sale is only live for a few more days, and I would really love to welcome you in if you are wanting to do this work and really commit to yourself. And I should say, if you're feeling a little overwhelmed, I know it's a pretty busy time of year. You get lifetime access to everything, so it's not like you have to sit down and dig into all of this work straight away. You could start it in January if you wanted to, or just chip away at it at a pace that works for you.

[00:02:55]:

So don't feel like it's adding stress or adding things to your plate at a busy time of year, because I know that that can be a factor as well. Okay, I really hope that you enjoy hearing about my story in today's episode, and I'm sending you so much love. Hey everybody. In this video, I am going to be sharing all about how I healed my anxious attachment, which is something that I've touched upon in podcast episodes over the past couple of years, but something that I've never really shared in this kind of format. So it's a bit of a vulnerable one for me. And I really hope that it is not only helpful, but a source of inspiration for you. Because if there's anything that I've learned in my own journey and in guiding thousands of other people through the journey of healing anxious attachment, it's that healing is absolutely possible. That anxious attachment is not a life sentence, as much as it can feel overwhelming and unfair and so challenging.

[00:03:55]:

It is a learned way of being. And that means that we are able to learn another way of being, a way that is more secure, that allows us to feel safe within ourselves and trusting of others. In relationships where we don't have to be on such high alert all the time, where we don't have to worry whether someone loves us, whether they care, whether they're going to be there for us, when we don't have to work so hard to get other people's attention and affection and approval and keep it where we can actually rest in our relationships, in the knowing that we are loved and valued and cared for. And it frees up so much energy to focus on other things in life, on joy and things that you're passionate about and other relationships. So much becomes possible when you commit yourself to this healing work. So I'm really looking forward to sharing with you in this video how I went about that and how you can too. So you might look at me today and wonder whether I really understand what it's like to have anxious attachment. And I can understand that because frankly, my life today looks very different to what it did not that long ago in the scheme of things.

[00:05:07]:

But if we were to rewind to my early to mid-20s to paint the picture for you of what I was like, what my life was like, what my relationships were like, and how anxious attachment was a common thread through all of that, which was making things pretty challenging for me. So I used to be a corporate lawyer, so I was working in a corporate law firm, working very long hours. I was in a relationship which was in hindsight such a mess. But at the time I was so swept up in it all, in the drama of it. I had incredibly low self worth. I really didn't like myself very much. But on the outside you may not have necessarily perceived that because I was ticking all the boxes. I'd always been a high achiever, things had always worked out pretty well for me on the surface.

[00:05:59]:

But deep down I felt very empty. I didn't respect myself and the life choices that I was making were incongruent with my values. I think I really didn't have much of a sense of what my values were. And so I cut corners, I showed up in whatever mask I needed to wear to get the approval and to fit in with people who frankly I didn't even like or respect that much to fit in in environments that thought were bullshit, if I'm being really candid with you. But that was just what I did because that was what I felt like I needed to do to almost feel or overcome the deficit of self worth that I felt deep inside. And on the relationship front, well, my first couple of relationships I was quite lucky were with secure partners. So from my teenage years and then my very early twenties I was into mostly healthy relationships with secure partners. And so my anxious attachment didn't really come to the until my mid-20s when I entered a very dysfunctional relationship.

[00:07:10]:

And this was my first experience with a very avoidant partner. And because I had mostly secure partners prior to that, his behaviour was so confusing to me and it really reeled me in. And that combined with my low self worth meant that rather than just looking at his behaviour and seeing of what it was being that he didn't treat me very nicely and he was confusing and dismissive and Disrespectful. Rather than seeing that thought it was and saying, okay, I'm not interested in this person, something within me lit up and took on the challenge and saw that as an opportunity to transform him, to change him, to win over his approval and affection. And it was almost like on a subconscious level, if I could get this person to change, this person whose behaviour was unlike anything I'd ever encountered before in relationships, if I could get him over the line, then it was almost like I'd win the prize and that would prove to me and to everyone else that I was really special. Because if I could change him, if I could be the reason for his metamorphosis, then that must mean something about how valuable and worthy I am. So it was this weird combination of really low self worth together with I think, some ego stuff on top that drove me into this dynamic and kept me there in the fact face of behaviour that drove me absolutely nuts and left me feeling so confused, so disrespected, so dismissed all the time. And in saying all of that, you might think that, oh, this was just like a little fling of a relationship and then I saw the light.

[00:08:56]:

Well, I wish that were true, but you know, after the first kind of nine months, which were completely insane, if I were to go through all of the gory details of it, you probably wouldn't believe me. So much drama, so much outright dishonesty, so many breaches of trust. And yet from that point, from when I knew all of that, I pushed forward. I almost thought, well, we've got it all out in the open now and I don't want to give up that whole sunk cost mentality of, well, we've been through all of this, why give up now? And so from that point I proceeded and continued to be in that relationship for another three years from that point. So just to contextualise how deep I was in this mission of trying to get this person to change and this intense saviour complex that I had where I just couldn't give up, I couldn't see the situation for what it was. I couldn't reconcile the fact that I had completely abandoned myself in an effort to change this person and to get them to treat me well. So I just had to keep pushing because at least if I could get him to change, then it wouldn't have all been a waste. It wouldn't be so humiliating that I had let all of that happen because the story was have a happy ending.

[00:10:15]:

So that's the backdrop, right? That's where I was in my anxious attachment. And as I said, his behaviour would drive me crazy every day. We eventually moved in together and lived together for two years. And he worked in a very demanding job and was very much focused on work. So I always felt like I was competing with his work and coming up second best or frankly, further down the list after all of the other things that he would prioritise above me. I would call him him to see what time he was coming home from work and he would ignore my calls and I'd text and he'd read my texts and not respond and I'd send a million of them. Just this incredibly high stress activated state that I was in, so worked up and so infuriated that someone would just blatantly ignore me asking a simple question like, are you going to be home for dinner tonight? All of these things that really, again, I was so deep in it that I was unable to see it for what it was. And I was unable to just say, clearly this isn't a good fit, clearly this is not a satisfactory relationship.

[00:11:20]:

Clearly this is not working in my mind at the time. The only thing I could do was tell him over and over again how much he was hurting me. And how could he do that and how could he not see that any normal person would behave like xyz? It's like I had to get him to see things from my point of view so that he would change, so that I wouldn't have to feel the discomfort and the stress and the anxiety that I constantly felt. So that's the backdrop, right? That's where things were at now. Thankfully, I saw the light at some point and I think gradually over time I became less and less invested in trying to get him to change. And I think I started to see things for what they were. And frankly, I think I lost respect for him along the way. And I maybe stopped putting him on this pedestal of needing to get him to choose me and started to realise that, you know, this was just not going to work.

[00:12:20]:

And I started to get this sense that maybe there was something wrong with the situation rather than just something wrong with me. That tends to be a really common thing that anxiously attached people do is rather than there being something wrong with the situation, there must be something wrong with me. If this person can't meet my needs, I'll just try not to have them. Or if this person isn't respecting my boundaries, I guess my boundaries are wrong, rather than maybe something's not right with the situation. So I think a part of me started to clock onto this to go. There's probably something that's not quite right with this situation. And a really big step in my journey was that I started going to therapy for the first time in my life. I was always someone who thought that I was mostly okay and I had everything together and I was pretty well resourced.

[00:13:02]:

But it was becoming clear to me that was maybe not true, and that there was more going on under the surface in me that needed my attention. So, thankfully, I plucked up the courage to go to therapy and I found an amazing therapist who was really instrumental in my journey. And she gifted me so many things that were ultimately key pieces in the puzzle for me in becoming more secure, in stepping away from that relationship and stepping towards the life that I have now, and really trusting in myself to be able to build all of that, and trusting in my capacity to want more and trusting that I was deserving of more. So I'm going to walk you through now six of the changes that I made ultimately allowed me to heal my anxious attachment and build the life that I have now, which is so far beyond what I ever could have dreamed of back then, when I was in the dumpster fire of my previous relationship, and all of the stress that brought me to picture my life now, it would have been like a dream. So I'm going to walk you through all of that, and I just want to emphasise that I'm not some exception to the rule. If it's possible for me, it is possible for you. It's not easy, it's not overnight. It takes courage and it takes commitment.

[00:14:24]:

But if you can relate to anything that I was just saying about some of those relationship patterns that come along with anxious attachment, then listen up, because this is the roadmap that you need. This is what you need to focus on if you want to also build up your sense of self worth and start to build the life and relationships that you want. Okay? So the first thing that I did was I had to look really honestly at my relationship patterns and my role in them. So when I was in that dysfunctional relationship, it was so easy for me to look at everything that was going on. And I deeply believed that he was the problem and that everything that he was doing was the reason for all of our troubles. He was the one who was lying all the time. He was the one who was unreliable and inconsistent and unpredictable and moody and erratic and all of these things. In my mind, I was the perfect partner.

[00:15:17]:

I was, like, stable and lovely and reliable and all of those things I was bending over backwards all the time to try and smooth out our life, to make everything function well and to make everything work. And he was like this tornado of volatility. And in my mind it was like, if you just don't do all of those things that you always do, then everything will be fine. And that was really the story that felt very true to me, that I had no role in the dysfunction, that my behaviour, to the extent that it was anything other than perfect, was in response to his behaviour. And some of his behaviour stopped, then so too would mine and everything would be good. And as it happens, that wasn't quite true. The more that I learned about attachment, the more I realised that, okay, there's maybe a little more to this, and that my behaviours, which I perceived as being a perfectly reasonable response to his behaviours, there was a reason that I behaved the way that I did and responded the way that I responded, that kept the system intact, kept the cycles going. You know, a secure person would not have been in the situation that I was in.

[00:16:31]:

And I had to really reckon with the fact that something within me got me there and kept me there. And that was my responsibility, that was my work. And even the part of me that believed that I just had to change him in order to create safety for me, that was one of my pieces of work to do, right? Because again, a secure person doesn't tend to think and operate in that way. A secure person would say, thanks, but no thanks. I'm not available for this kind of behaviour. This is so clearly dysfunctional, right? So I really had to own that some of my stuff was showing up here. Things that had maybe been latent within me in my previous relationships, where they weren't so triggered, where I wasn't brought into contact with them in quite the same way. This person who I was in a relationship with, it's like it woke up these parts of me that were already there, that, like, the architecture had already been built for all of those those things from earlier in my life.

[00:17:29]:

And that was another piece of the work, is really connecting the dots and understanding where this came from within me. Looking really honestly at my family system and how my childhood environment had shaped me in that way and primed me for that kind of relationship and that kind of dynamic of suppressing my own needs and being the saviour and trying to make people show up in a particular way, believing that my safety came from controlling the people around me and the environment around me. All of that stuff was mine and originated with me. Now that's not to excuse his shitty behaviour. That was still there and that was still a big piece of it. But I really had to own how I got to be there and what had kept me there for so long. So looking really honestly at all of that, which was something my therapist was able to help me shine a light on, that was really instrumental in me feeling like I had more responsibility and more agency over this situation. Because before I was able to see that, I felt very powerless and incredibly frustrated because I was convinced that he held the keys to my happiness and he was withholding that and that was selfish and unfair and unkind.

[00:18:40]:

And so I just kept in this cycle of blaming him and feeling like a victim. So when I was able to see things a little more clearly, I was able to also see my part in it and start to own where my work was in shifting those patterns. And that was really empowering because it allowed me to actually take, take things back into my own hands. Okay. The next key piece was that I focused on building my self worth. So this was big and it was a process. But as I said, I had really low self worth. I didn't like myself very much.

[00:19:12]:

Never mind the self love stuff, I didn't even like myself. I was highly self critical, but also highly critical and judgmental of others. Again, it was this kind of ego thing sitting on top of really low self worth. And so I had to to get honest about behaviours that I was engaging in, people that I would be around, environments that I'd participate in that really reliably led to me feeling bad about myself and not liking myself. And I had to clean up my act. I used to go out drinking all the time and then I'd behave in ways that the next morning I'd feel so humiliated and embarrassed and uncomfortable about how I'd been so much anxiety. All of that sort of stuff I had to really audit like where am I engaging in behaviour that reliably leaves me feeling bad about myself and where do I need to bring my values and my choices into alignment so that I can actually just say I'm comfortable with who I am and how I'm showing up? And that was really important. Another key piece of building self worth for me was working on my self respect, which part of that was the values work.

[00:20:20]:

But it was also self discipline and really changing the stories I had about the type of person that I was and what was possible for me. So I've told this story before of a little challenge that I set for myself as I was nearing the end of that relationship. It was almost like it was preparing me to pull the trigger and walk away. And I set myself the challenge to run 100 kilometres over the course of a month, which, you know, is no great feat for people who are runners. But I was not a runner. At least I never thought of myself in that way. It wasn't something that I regularly did. And so it was a very lofty goal for me at the time.

[00:20:54]:

And I set that goal and I did it and I kept showing up and it was really hard and I did it and I showed up again and again and it got easier, go figure. And doing something like that was actually really formative for me in serving as a physical embodiment, a physical reminder of pushing my comfort zone. And the fact that it's okay to be uncomfortable and that that is part of growth and showing myself in real time that I can be the type of person that I've always said I'm not that type of person. And that's not possible for me. And so having that as a embodied reminder of growth happening on the other side of our comfort zone sounds corny, but it's very true. And starting to push the edges of that for me and build my capacity to be more than I had ever really allowed myself to be. And dismantling all of those limiting beliefs and stories that I had held and that had shaped me and kept a lid on who I was up until that point. So really working on building my sense of self, working on, on liking myself more, you know, a really big piece of that puzzle, which I haven't really touched on, is that I ultimately quit my job as a lawyer, obviously doing this now because for me that was another piece that was just not in alignment.

[00:22:14]:

And I knew deep down this cannot be my life. Sitting in a cubicle till the early hours of the morning, every day, doing work that at times it was exciting, but it didn't mean anything to me. I didn't believe in it. And the idea that I was going to spend the next few decades of my life in that most of waking hours until I'm at retirement age, it felt so existentially overwhelming and soul destroying that I had to really own that. And looking around me, I didn't want the life of the people that were five or 10 years ahead of me in their careers. And so I really had to reckon with the fact that I was walking with my eyes open into a life that I didn't want and that actually felt quite suffocating and stifling to me and who I was at a core level. So I made the decision and that I wasn't gonna do it. And I started researching what alternatives might look like and pathways to doing that.

[00:23:09]:

And I had always been so passionate about relationships and psychology and this kind of work. And so I got to researching on how I might go about making a career change. And long story short, I pulled the trigger. And I did that without much of a plan, to be frank. But I had developed enough self trust by that point that I believed that I would figure it out. And here we are. Rest is history. So that was another key piece of the puzzle for me, which I put under the umbrel of cleaning up parts of my life where I was out of integrity and where the vision that I had for myself and the yearnings that I had deep inside were really at odds with the way that I was living and the choices that I was making.

[00:23:47]:

Okay, the next really big puzzle piece for me in my journey to healing anxious attachment was that I learned about my nervous system and how to self soothe. Now I did not know any of this before I started out on this journey and it was so groundbreaking. Paradigm shifting light bulb moment for me, a series of light bulb moments to learn about. And this was stuff that I learned because my therapist was a somatic therapist. And also the training programme to become a coach that I enrolled in was somatic and focus. And so I was really immersing myself in learning about the nervous system and how our stress responses and the states that we're in shape everything. They shape our perception, they shape our relationships and our experience of safety. And really understanding that until we can create this experience of safety within us, that we are going to be driven by stress.

[00:24:38]:

And when we are driven by stress, we lose access to our empathy and our ability to reason and consider alternatives. And all of the things that make us good at relationships, they leave the building, they go offline when we're stressed. And so if we are constantly in this state of stress and we're constantly perceiving threat and danger in our relationships, then our capacity to be in the mode that allows us to build healthy relationships is. Is really offline, not available to us. And so learning about that and building out this whole toolkit of things that I could reach for to create safety within myself when I was triggered, rather than just riding the wave of the trigger and reacting and being really frankly when I was in that relationship, I would get triggered all the time and I would just lash out. I would fire off 10 text messages in a row that would just escalate and escalate in terms of trying to get engagement from my partner because his stonewalling was so infuriating to me. And I would get so fired up and so angry and so indignant and this sense of, like, injustice and how can you treat me like this? I would just keep amping up and amping up, and that's what my system did. And I.

[00:25:49]:

I started to understand what was going on there and, and what was happening in my body and how I could actually become the active operator of that, get into the driver's seat of that experience rather than just have it overtake me and drive me into more and more of that dysfunction. So I started to sh to more of, again, more agency around what was going on in my body. And now it's something that I feel, you know, I rarely get triggered now, but when I do, it's not something that I'm afraid of because it doesn't take over my system. It's something that I have the ability to observe and choose how I'm going to respond. And I have so many tools that I can reach for at any given moment that allow me to bring safety back into my body and then to respond in a way that is mature and thoughtful and conducive to the kind of person I want to be in the kind of relationships that I want to be in. So learning about my nervous system was a game changer. Okay. Another really key piece was that I learned to start validating myself rather than obsessing over trying to get my partner to do it.

[00:26:49]:

So I started to really believe that I wasn't asking for too much and that my experience was valid and that my needs were totally reasonable and that the things I was asking of him were not things that I should have had to fight tooth and nail over. And this is, you know, the pattern that I was so deep in was I would be begging him to just answer my calls. It had gotten so far removed from reasonable reality. But because he would get so defensive and come up with all of these excuses and tell me that I was asking for too much or that I was being too demanding or whatever, or just explain away. He was so chronically invalidating of me that I got sucked into just trying to convince him and persuade him and get him to see things from my point of view rather than than just having my own back, validating myself and agreeing to disagree on that and deciding the relationship wasn't right for me, which is eventually where I got to thank goodness. But that's the trap that I was in. Feeling so invalidated by him, feeling so dismissed by him, feeling there was a lot of gaslighting and stuff that went on in that relationship. I don't use that term very lightly, but there was a lot of that, right? Just total denial of reality in a way where it felt so confusing that I just had to keep trying to get him to agree with me so that I didn't feel crazy.

[00:28:09]:

And. And I stopped playing that game and I just started going, I don't need you to agree with me, but here's what I'm looking for, here's what I need. I'm not going to fight with you over the bare minimum anymore. And as soon as I stopped playing that game and stopped being sucked into the whirlpool of it, it became much clearer to me that we were just not compatible and that that was okay and I was okay with us just not being compatible. It felt very freeing as soon as I was able to start validating myself and my needs and my boundaries and my requests as being valid and reasonable, rather than needing him to do that in order for me to believe it. So that was a really big piece as well. I learned about boundaries and I practised setting them. So this is kind of related to what I was just talking about, but as it happened, I didn't know what a boundary was really.

[00:28:56]:

I'd heard the term, but it was only through therapy and through doing a lot of this work that I really started to appreciate how completely absent that concept was in my own life. I had such a streak of rescuing people and feeling like I was responsible for making everyone happy and if there was a crisis, like I would swoop in and save the day. And I think in large part that was about my own need to be the helper and to be that rescuer. But also because I felt like it was my responsibility to do that. And that's just what you do when the people that you love are in need. You go in guns blazing and have this full blown crisis response. But I also started to see through therapy what that was costing me. To feel responsible for taking care of everyone all the time.

[00:29:40]:

And it's not to say that I've swung to the other extre for not being helpful, but I've stopped feeling like I have to do that as part of my job. And I'm so glad that I did that boundary work in the lead up to leaving the relationship because after I had left there was a period where My ex was calling me a lot and apologising profusely and begging me to take him back and all of these things. And had I not done that work, I think I would have felt really guilty and I would have felt obliged to, to fix that or to sideline my own inner knowing that I had done the right thing by leaving to make it okay for him and to make him feel better. And having done that work, I was able to say, you know, I'm really sorry, but this is my decision and it's not going to change. So being clear in my own boundaries, being clear in my own worth there and holding firm on what I knew was right for me, and that's what that boundary work allowed me to do and got me to that point where I felt comfortable doing that, even though, though it was edgy, I didn't wobble, I didn't falter on the boundaries that I knew I had to set. Okay. And the last really key thing that I did in this journey of overcoming anxious attachment was I created a really clear vision for my life and my relationships in terms of what I wanted and what I was available for and really up levelled in terms of what I thought was possible. As I said, I was in this version of my life that was so cloistered and small and constrained by the job that I was in, the relationship that I was in.

[00:31:14]:

I, again, I don't use this word very much, but like I was settling big time. I was really putting a lid on what I truly wanted because it just felt so far away from my reality and I didn't really know how to get from. It felt like going from A to Z and there was a whole bunch of stuff in between that I couldn't even really contemplate. And I was so stressed all the time time that it just felt too hard. And so once I started to do all of these other things, it opened up this possibility of, like, how good could it be and am I going to be courageous enough to take steps towards something so much bigger and more wonderful than what I've been living and reckoning with? The fact that might mean letting go of a lot of the things that are familiar about my current life. It lit up such a fire within me, me that I was okay with that loss. I was okay with the letting go of things that were no longer really in alignment for me and believing that I could create a business and I could have freedom in my time and that I could really have a deep sense of love and respect for myself. That I could have a life that was characterised by joy and pleasure and ease, rather than stress and frustration and anxiety.

[00:32:38]:

Having all of those things that I could have a relationship that really felt like a resting place and a partnership where we were growing together and we had the same vision and all of those things I dared to dream on all of that. That sounds so cliche and so cringe, but that's really true. I went through this whole period of metamorphosis where I went all in on the vision and I held that vision and I really took steps towards it. I almost proceeded on the basis that, wasn't interested in anything less than that. So I really radically up levelled the standards for myself, for what I was available for. And I think part of what allowed me to do that was feeling more comfortable within myself and that, you know, I wasn't trying to fill a void as I had been previously. I wasn't just trying to grab onto anyone who would pay attention to me so that I could feel better about myself. I had started to feel better about myself from within.

[00:33:40]:

And all of a sudden, sudden, it opened up possibilities of what life could be for me. And gosh, I am so grateful to that former version of myself for doing that work. Because here I sit, having built a business that has helped thousands of people through my programmes and my coaching practise. I have a podcast that has reached millions of people around the world and I get to do work every day that truly lights me up and makes me feel grateful deep in my soul. And I really feel like I'm doing something meaningful with my life. And I have a beautiful relationship, not a perfect relationship, nobody does, but I have a beautiful relationship with a partner who I love and respect and admire and who loves and respects and admires me. We have a beautiful son together. Life feels really magical and I just want to emphasise realised that not that long ago, that felt like a distant dream.

[00:34:40]:

In fact, it was so far removed from reality that I couldn't have even dreamt it. So I share this hoping that it sparks something in you, the same way that I experienced that spark, that inner knowing, that little nudge or that little voice when I was at the start of my journey that said, there's gotta be more than this, it can't be this for the rest of my life. And. And I really hope that you feel inspired and that you believe me when I say that your anxious attachment, the things that you've struggled with in relationships up until now, it's not a life sentence. It doesn't have to be this way. You can learn and grow and evolve and create a life that is so much more wonderful and magical and freeing and easeful and than maybe feels possible right now. But if I can do it, the thousands of other people that I've worked with can do it. So can you.

[00:35:36]:

So I really hope that this is helpful. And of course, if you would like some extra support on this and you would like to invest in yourself through my tried and tested framework, my Healing Anxious Attachment course is very comprehensive. It distils down everything that I learned in my own journey and in guiding so many thousands of others through the journey as well into a very thorough but digestible framework for healing that will keep you accountable and that will allow you to not only develop so much more knowledge and awareness around what got you here, but also give you the tools to get you to that next stage and to support you on your path to healing. So if you would like to take that next step, I would love to see you in my Healing Anxious Attachment programme as well. Okay, I'm going to leave it there. As I said, I so hope that this has given you some inspiration, that it has lit that little fire or that spark in you and I'm sending you so much love as you venture down this path of healing. Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment. If you want to go deeper on all things attachment, love and relationships, you can find me on instagram @stephanie__rigg or stephanierigg.com and if you enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a review and a five star rating.

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Keywords from Podcast Episode

anxious attachment, healing anxious attachment, self worth, Black Friday sale, online programmes, breakups, relationships, Healing Anxious Attachment course, nervous system, self soothing, attachment styles, self respect, values alignment, therapy, somatic therapy, self validation, boundaries, relationship patterns, toxic relationships, career change, self discipline, gaslighting, self love, self trust, overcoming people pleasing, agency in relationships, attachment triggers, Secure Relationship Bundle, Secure Together course, personal growth

#215: Resentment, Real Repair, Conflict Avoidance & Navigating Dating With Kids — ft. James ‘Fish’ Gill

LISTEN: APPLE|SPOTIFY

If you’re in a relationship with… well, any human being, you already know this:

Conflict is inevitable.

It doesn’t matter how aligned, in love, or “on the same page” you are — sooner or later, you will bump up against each other’s edges. Needs will go unmet, feelings will get hurt, and misunderstandings will happen.

In this episode of On Attachment, I’m joined again by my dear friend and colleague, relationship coach and author James “Fish” Gill, to talk about:

• Why resentment lingers even after a “resolution”

• How to move from conflict avoidance to real repair

• How to express your needs in a way your partner can actually hear

• The very real complexity of navigating dating when you both have kids

Fish’s work is all about conscious communication and finding our way back to connection — particularly in those tender, messy, “we’re not at our best right now” moments that relationships inevitably bring.

Let’s dig into some of the big themes from our conversation.

Why Resentment Lingers After Things Are “Resolved”

One listener asked:

“Any tips on releasing resentment after a conflict is resolved, but the pain of the damage done is still there? I find it hard to feel better and often wait for my partner to make me feel better, but sometimes all they can do is apologise, validate and try to do better in the future. I get stuck struggling to let it go.”

If you’ve ever been in this place, you’re not alone.

Fish described something so important here:

Pain that doesn’t get deeply recognised stays alive.

On the surface, it might look like you’ve “resolved” something:

• You talked it through

• They apologised

• You agreed on what you’ll both try to do differently

And yet… your body is still holding onto hurt.
The resentment is still humming in the background.

Why that happens

Often, what’s really going on is:

• Parts of your pain never got fully named

• Some corners of your experience didn’t get touched

• You didn’t feel seen to the depth that you were quietly longing for

You might even have had a conversation that addressed one piece of the issue, but not the main thing that was bothering you — maybe because you didn’t want to rock the boat further or feared being “too much.”

Your nervous system knows that. And it will keep knocking until what needs to be seen is actually seen.

Two powerful ways to meet lingering pain

Fish talked about two key forms of “attunement” that help pain soften:

1. Attunement from others
This is when your partner (or friend, or family member) responds in a way that sounds like:

• “It makes so much sense that you feel hurt.”

• “Of course you felt uncared for — I really get that.”

• “You have every right to feel sad and disappointed.”

It’s not fixing or defending. It’s permission for your inner experience to exist.

2. Self-attunement (which most of us skip entirely)
This is your ability to turn towards yourself with the same compassion:

• “Of course I feel hurt — that really mattered to me.”

• “Of course I still feel anxious; this situation touched something very vulnerable.”

• “Of course I’m longing for more care and reassurance here.”

Self-attunement is essentially becoming the loving presence you most want in that moment.

And importantly:

You don’t have control over whether someone else attunes to you…
But you always have access to self-attunement.

Letting pain exist without rushing to “get over it”

One of my favourite things Fish shared was the idea of letting pain exist over time rather than treating it as a problem to eliminate.

That might look like:

• Lighting a candle for a grief or fear that’s still alive

• Keeping a small symbol in your space that acknowledges “this is still tender for us, and that’s okay”

• Speaking openly about an old wound that sometimes gets reactivated — without making it wrong that it still hurts

The goal isn’t: “How do I make this pain go away?”
The goal is: “How can I bring love to this pain when it’s here?”

From Explosive Conflict to No Conflict (And Why That’s Also a Problem)

Another listener shared that she and her partner used to have really unhealthy conflict — lots of shouting, him storming out, fights lasting for days. They broke up, then got back together.

Now, she says, it feels like they never have conflict.

They skirt around anything that feels like it could turn into an argument, stop midway when things feel heated, and never actually reach real repair. Underneath, there’s this simmering tension and growing resentment.

Fish named this so beautifully:

Avoidance is often an unskillful commitment to peace.

In other words, both people want harmony. They don’t want to go back to that chaotic, painful version of conflict. So they unconsciously decide:

“Let’s just not go there.”

Understandable…
But unsustainable.

The problem with never going there

When you keep avoiding the hard conversations:

• Needs go unspoken

• Unspoken needs go unmet

• Unmet needs turn into resentment

You might tell yourself, “It’s not worth bringing that up,” or, “I don’t want to ruin the night.”

But over time, those tiny avoidances accumulate into emotional distance, mistrust and disconnection.

How to re-open the door to conflict (in a safer way)

If this is you, you might say something like:

“I know in the past our arguments felt really scary and out of control. I can feel that we’re now avoiding anything that might lead to conflict, and I get why. But I’m also noticing that things are going unsaid, and that’s starting to build resentment in me. I’d really love for us to learn some new skills so that our conflicts don’t have to be destructive, and can actually bring us closer. Would you be open to working on that with me?”

Key pieces here:

• You’re naming the pattern, not attacking their character

• You’re acknowledging their fear of conflict as reasonable

• You’re inviting them into a shared project (“something we work on together”), rather than positioning yourself as the “evolved one” trying to fix them

Making Your Pain Digestible (Instead of Triggering Defensiveness)

One of the most practical parts of the conversation was about how we share our pain.

Fish gave a really relatable example of a woman who was frustrated with her husband coming home from work “in a mood.”

Her go-to way of expressing that was:

“I hate when you come home like this, it’s so unfair on me and the kids. You need to do something about it.”

You can probably feel how that would land:

• It frames him as the problem

• It labels his state as “bad” and “unfair”

• It gives him almost nowhere to go but defensive

Not because she’s wrong to be upset — her pain is real.
But because the way it’s delivered makes it much harder to receive.

How to express the same thing more skillfully

When Fish worked with her, they slowed things down:

1. First, she tuned into what she actually felt:

   • Unloved

   • Braced for disconnection

   • Anxious about his mood impacting the family

2. Then, she got curious about his internal world:

   • Overwhelmed from work

   • Longing for quiet and decompression

   • Wanting space before engaging with family life

From there, her message shifted into something like:

“When you come in the door after work, I notice I often start to feel anxious and a bit unloved, like I’m bracing for disconnection. And I imagine that when you come home, you’re exhausted and really craving quiet time and space after a stressful day. I’d love for us to talk about how we can take care of both of those needs.”

Same situation.
Completely different impact.

This is the crux of conscious communication:

We honour our experience and we honour theirs.

We stop speaking about them (“you’re moody”)
and start speaking from ourselves (“I feel anxious and disconnected”)
while still caring about what’s alive in them.

Dating with Kids: Conflict, Jealousy & Different Parenting Styles

One of the more complex questions came from a listener in a long-distance situationship of three years. Both she and her partner have kids from previous relationships.

He has ended things a number of times, often citing:

• Different parenting styles

• Feeling like his opinion around her kids “doesn’t matter”

• Feeling like she “doesn’t listen”

She, on the other hand, suspects that underneath his stated reasons is jealousy and discomfort with having to share her attention with her children.

Such a common, deeply human dynamic.

Step 1: Externalise the “enemy”

Fish invited us to zoom way out and acknowledge just how hard this setup is:

• Long-distance

• Kids from previous relationships

• Different parenting histories and values

• Very real limitations on time, energy and capacity

Instead of making each other the problem, we can name the external pressures:

• Distance is hard

• Blended family logistics are hard

• Competing priorities are hard

When couples do this, something softens. Instead of “you vs. me,” it becomes:

“It’s us vs. this really tricky situation.”

That alone can reduce blame and shame significantly.

Step 2: Translate accusations into pain + longing

When her partner says:

• “My opinion doesn’t matter.”

• “You never listen to me about your kids.”

That’s not an objective truth.
It’s a clumsy expression of:

• “I feel unimportant.”

• “I feel excluded from big parts of your life.”

• “I don’t know where I fit or what my role is.”

None of that means she’s doing anything malicious.

But his pain is still real.

At the same time, her reality matters too. She’s likely longing for:

• The freedom to parent in a way she believes is right

• Protecting and prioritising her children’s safety and wellbeing

• Reassuring her kids (and herself) that they still come first

Both are valid.
Both are understandable.
Both need to be seen.

What this can sound like in practice

She might say:

“When you tell me I don’t listen to you about the kids, I imagine you’re feeling really sidelined and unimportant, like you don’t get to have a say in things that affect you. That makes sense to me, and I don’t want you to feel that way. At the same time, I’m also trying really hard to protect and prioritise my children and make sure they feel safe and secure. I’d love to explore how we can honour your voice more, without me feeling like I’m compromising what feels right for them.”

Again, the magic is in holding two truths at once:

• Your kids are a priority

• Your partner’s experience also matters

And you don’t resolve this once and never touch it again.
It’s an ongoing, evolving conversation.

Hearing “You Never Listen to Me” Without Collapsing or Attacking

At some point, you will probably hear some version of:

“You never listen to me.”
“You don’t care about my feelings.”
“You always shut me down.”

These statements almost always land like an arrow straight into our shame.

The reflex is usually to:

• Defend (“That’s not true, look at all the times I’ve listened!”)

• Counter-attack (“What about when you…”)

• Or fawn and persuade (“I promise I care, here’s why you’re wrong about me…”)

But when we do that, we end up fighting over who’s right about our character, instead of actually tending to the pain that’s present.

Fish invited a different approach:

Translate the accusation into the feeling underneath.

“You never listen to me” becomes:

“I often feel unheard.”

And then you get curious:

“It sounds like you’ve been feeling really unheard by me lately. That must feel lonely and frustrating. Can you tell me more about where that shows up for you?”

You’re not admitting you’re a horrible person.
You’re not saying your intentions don’t matter.

You’re simply saying:

“Your experience is real to you. I care about that.”

From there, you can also share your experience and intentions.
But not as a way to erase theirs — as part of a fuller picture.

Conflict as a Doorway, Not a Death Sentence

If there’s one thread through this entire conversation, it’s this:

Conflict isn’t a sign your relationship is failing.
It’s the doorway to deeper understanding — if you know how to walk through it.

When we:

• See pain as something to be loved, not eliminated

• Allow multiple truths to exist at once

• Learn to express our needs in digestible, compassionate ways

• Stop looking for a villain and start looking for the unmet needs underneath

…our relationships don’t become conflict-free.
But they do become far more resilient, tender and deeply connected.

Fish’s work — and his book How to Fall in Love with Humanity — is such a powerful resource if you want to build these skills in a really grounded, practical, heart-centred way.

If this episode resonated with you, notice where your edges are:

• Is it hard to let go of resentment?

• Do you avoid conflict altogether?

• Do you struggle to hear your partner’s pain without collapsing into shame?

• Are you juggling kids, distance, or complex logistics and blaming yourself (or them) for how hard it feels?

Wherever you’re starting from, you’re not alone — and nothing about where you are right now makes you “bad” or “broken.”

It just means there’s more to see, more to name, and more love to bring to the places that hurt.

And that’s work worth doing.

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FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:

• FREE TRAINING: How to Heal Anxious Attachment and (Finally) Feel Secure in Life & Love

• Download the FREE Anxious Attachment Starter Kit here
  

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Episode Transcript

Stephanie Rigg [00:00:04]:

You're listening to On Attachment, a place to learn about how attachment shapes the way we experience relationships and where you'll gain the guidance, knowledge and practical tools to overcome insecurity and build healthy, thriving relationships. I'm your host, relationship coach Stephanie Rigg and I'm really glad you're here.

Stephanie Rigg [00:00:29]:

Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. In today's episode, I'm joined by James ‘Fish’ Gill, and we are talking all things conflict, repair and communication in relationships. For those of you who don't know Fish, he has been a guest on the podcast before, but he is a relationship coach, facilitator, teacher, and now author. And his work is really all about.

Stephanie Rigg [00:00:53]:

How we can find our way back.

Stephanie Rigg [00:00:54]:

To connection through conscious communication. And in this episode, we're actually giving advice and guidance in response to questions that were submitted by listeners about ongoing conflict and communication struggles that they're having in their relationship. So I have no doubt that you'll get a lot from today's episode, particularly given the fact that conflict is absolutely inevitable if you plan to be in any kind of relationship with anyone in your life. And so becoming more masterful at how we communicate, engage in conflict, and ultimately repair when things go awry is an absolutely critical life skill. Just before we get into today's episode Episode, a quick note to let you know that my Black Friday sale, which is the biggest sale that I run all year, is now live. Now I know that it's easy to feel bombarded by all of the Black Friday stuff. I am as guilty as anyone at getting swept up in the madness and adding so many things to my cart that I definitely do not need. But if you've been listening for a while and you're curious about going deeper into my work, it's a really, really wonderful time to do that.

Stephanie Rigg [00:01:54]:

I have two bundles this year. I have a Secure Relationship Bundle and a Breakup Bundle and they are an opportunity to get two of my best selling courses. Healing Anxious Attachment is in both bundles and then either Secure Together My Relationship course or Higher Love, which is my breakup course. And you get all of that at a massive 65% discount for the bundle. So if you're feeling called to invest in something a little more meaningful this Black Friday, something with greater return on investment rather than just accumulating more stuff that you will probably not even remember you bought by the time it arrives.

Stephanie Rigg [00:02:26]:

Definitely check out my Black Friday Sale. I would absolutely love to support you in deepening your relationship with yourself and the people in your life.

Stephanie Rigg [00:02:34]:

Okay, now for my conversation with James Fish Gill. I hope you love it.

Stephanie Rigg [00:02:38]:

Fish, welcome to the podcast. Welcome back to the podcast. It is so, so great to be here with you.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:02:44]:

So good to be with you, Steph, as always.

Stephanie Rigg [00:02:46]:

So for anyone who hasn't listened, Fish was on the podcast. It must be almost 18 months ago because I was heavily pregnant the last time you were here and I've now got a 16 month old. So it's been a while. But it's great to have you back and for anyone who doesn't know you and what you do in the world, maybe you could give a quick introduction and then we're going to dive straight into some questions that some people have sent through to me on Instagram, all about conflict and repair and how to navigate that so that we can take it out of the abstract and really dig into some people's real life problems.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:03:20]:

Great. Well, I have the great privilege of being invited into people's lives in the most tender relationship upsets. And you know what we discover actually if we get curious about relationship is that we see that upset in relationship is natural and conflict is actually just the uprising of unmet needs. So all relationship experiences conflict, although out there in the world do we think that conflict means the relationship's not going well? But actually conflict is just a characteristic of trying to relate and noticing unmet needs arising. So yeah, I have the great privilege of being invited into these incredibly tender moments in relationships of all kinds for people all over the world, individuals and couples, and bringing skills so that each of those conflict moments can actually illuminate unmet needs so that those unme needs can be skillfully communicated and can be wrapped in love. And when our most painful moments can be wrapped in love, then healing takes place and the relationship goes deeper. We don't often think of conflict as a positive, but actually conflict is the only way that our relationship goes deeper.

Stephanie Rigg [00:04:50]:

Yes. Which is very much, as you say, the opposite to what most people assume and experience. It's not even just a story. Oftentimes conflict, as you well know, goes in a way that does deepen the divide between us because we don't do it very skillfully and the way that we most of us by default, habitually do. Conflict is very much prone to making things worse rather than better. It does not deepen the connection between us. It deepens the rift. And so I think maybe we go straight into these.

Stephanie Rigg [00:05:26]:

And I'm sure as we go you can illuminate for people what your framework looks like and the four truths. I know you Spoke to the last time you were on the podcast, but maybe we can kind of chat through all of that in real time rather than in theory.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:05:41]:

That sounds really great. Yeah. As we go, I will be speaking to what would naturally, habitually lead us deeper into conflict and then what the alternative that leads us towards repair.

Stephanie Rigg [00:05:54]:

Yeah, perfect.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:05:56]:

Let's jump in.

Stephanie Rigg [00:05:57]:

All right. The first question I received was, any tips on releasing resentment after a conflict is resolved? But the pain of the damage done is still there. I find it really hard to help myself feel better and tend to wait for my partner or my friend, whoever it may be, to make me feel better. But sometimes all they can do is apologise, validate and try to do better in the future. But I get stuck struggling to let it go. So, relatable, what's your take?

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:06:25]:

Yeah, super relatable. The first thing I want to say to this person who's been generous enough to let us into this is any pain that doesn't get deeply recognised stays alive. So, you know, when this notion of, like, why am I still in pain? When we've resolved things might actually point to the fact that while we've. While we've strived to resolve things, while we've had some really good conversations about it, while we've reached some agreements, while there's been some apology, while we've been able to name some of the impact, there might still be some pain that didn't quite get recognised, or didn't get recognised to the depths that I wanted to. Because pain has this habit when it doesn't get loved. It sits there in our system, demanding to be seen.

Stephanie Rigg [00:07:29]:

Yeah.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:07:30]:

So, one. You know, the first thing I want to say is that the conversations you have had with your partner or with your friend or whoever it is that sought to bring awareness of the pain that you're in and sought to find a way forward, may not quite have touched all the corners. So I would invite this person to consider what are the feelings that are still alive in me that didn't quite get recognised to the. To the depth that I ache for? This is very common, by the way. There's always kind of corners that. That. That the conversations haven't quite reached into. And so they sit there, persistent, like thorns in our side.

Stephanie Rigg [00:08:20]:

Yeah. It reminds me of someone in one of my programmes recently who was struggling with ongoing breaches of trust in their relationship and they shared that this thing they'd been struggling with, which they'd sought some input around, like, we resolved that and I decided not to raise the Thing that I had been aware of that was really bothering me. So we resolved that and we moved on, but I'm still really bothered by it. And I had to sort of gently reflect that you might have had a conversation about one piece of that, but to say that you held back the main thing that was really worrying you and resolved it. Those. Those things are kind of incongruent as far as I'm concerned, because you can't resolve the thing that you're still really holding and holding back. So maybe there's elements. It's sort of the same thing, like when the pain's not really been fully seen and attuned to and understood and you've not.

Stephanie Rigg [00:09:24]:

You've not really deeply expressed all of it, such that it feels like, okay, this has been truly, deeply, comprehensively resolved. And it makes sense that your system's kind of jumping up and down and going, but wait, it doesn't feel like enough. It hasn't cut the itch, right? Yeah. Yeah.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:09:43]:

Because when pain gets seen, it tends to shift. And when pain doesn't get seen, it stays stuck. Exactly. And we can even. Steph. We can even have the thought of, like, we can even think that, you know, because. Because me and my partner had a conversation about it and reached what felt like resolution in that moment, then I shouldn't. I shouldn't then days or weeks later still have this pain come up.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:10:09]:

But actually, that's not how healing. Healing doesn't happen just by one and done.

Stephanie Rigg [00:10:15]:

Yeah.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:10:16]:

It doesn't even necessarily happen by, like 10 and done. Like, you know, there's some pain in my relationship with my beautiful woman that we've been talking about for a year, and it's really just our ability to recognise that that pain can come sometimes, come up in different forms, and each time it does, it's inviting us to bring love to it. So if we think that resolution looks like one conversation and then I shouldn't feel this way, then we'll be pushing away that pain. And when pain gets pushed away, it tends to push back. So it's a good reminder that pain that's alive now is pain that still wants love. It still wants love. Now, there's a couple of ways that we can bring us that love. One is by attunement from others, which sounds like this person got some attunement, some recognition by them of the feelings that are alive in us that might have sounded like God.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:11:28]:

It makes so much sense to me that you feel hurt. You have every right to feel so sad. I Understand that you might have felt really uncared for and of course you did. That's kind of the language of others attuning to us. It's really. Attunement is just permission for our experience to exist and to be met with their loving awareness. So it's natural for us to seek attunement from them. The problem is we don't get to make them attuned to us.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:12:00]:

Like it's. That's not within our realm of control. I can't make someone attuned to me, but I can invite them. And one of the practises that I work on with my clients is how do we express our pain to others so that it's digestible for them. So if I come to you, if you and I are in conflict, Steph, and I come to you and say, I can't believe you were such a fucking selfish cow yesterday. I've just. I've just made my pain undigestible to you.

Stephanie Rigg [00:12:34]:

Yeah.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:12:35]:

Because what's it evoked in you? What. What do you feel like when I approach you with that.

Stephanie Rigg [00:12:40]:

Defensive Immediately. Right. You want to say I wasn't a fucking selfish cow to you? Are you serious? You're the one who. Yeah, I didn't even minimise, deflect, defend.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:12:51]:

Exactly. So I've evoked that in you. I've evoked that in you. That's not your behaviour, your reaction is not my fault. But I have actually created the conditions that make my pain, my expression of pain, undigestible to you. So it's on me if I want to be conscious in my communication, it's on me to make my pain digestible. So if I instead come to you and try and make my pain digestible, I might say something like, steph, yesterday, when you did that thing, I imagine you are actually trying to, you know, get your own needs met, or you're actually trying to alert me of some upset that you had and it left me feeling unconsidered. And I imagine you wouldn't have wanted that for me and can we tend to it together? So I've made it infinitely more digestible.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:13:43]:

I've invited you in to tend to some pain that's alive in me that you would never have wanted for me. So then there's another option, which is that we can always offer ourselves self attunement.

Stephanie Rigg [00:13:58]:

Yes, it feels like the self attunement piece should. In my mind, it kind of always has to be there. And ideally we get attunement from them, but even if we don't, we always want to try and find it for ourselves because, like, that's always within our control, right?

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:14:17]:

Yes, yes. Self attunement is critical because I only have my loving awareness to spend. So if I have my loving awareness to spend and I've got pain that wants loving awareness, why can't I bring me the loving awareness that I ache for? That doesn't dismiss the fact that it's beautiful to have other people really get in our world and really love on and recognise and be accountable for the pain that their actions caused us. That's beautiful. But we don't have agency over. We don't get to spend their awareness, we get to spend out. So self attunement. And by the way, self attunement is very rare.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:14:56]:

It's rare to find someone who's very skillful at self attunement, but when you find them, they have a steadiness in themselves that's kind of unfuck with the ball. Self attunement looks like recognising the pain that's alive in us and bringing love to it. Like fish, of course, you still feel so sad and uncared for about what happened the other day. Of course you do. And I'm right here acknowledging the validity of what I feel. So recognising my pain and also recognising my longing. Look. Look at the extent to which you are hoping to feel cared for.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:15:39]:

Of course, of course your tender heart would long for that because it feels so nurturing and safe when other people can acknowledge you. So self attunement is this kind, compassionate conversation with self that acknowledges our pain and our longing. Very powerful. It's been a practise that I've been immersed in for the last few years and it's really helped me deal with pain that others don't have the capacity to acknowledge.

Stephanie Rigg [00:16:11]:

Yes. And I love what you said around. It kind of confers upon you this steady presence and I think that that arises from someone. Like when you have that depth of self attunement, self compassion, then I think you naturally have more grace and compassion for others and I think that that allows you to naturally be less reactive, less judgmental, less all of those things. There's just a little bit more space within someone who's developed that skill set, Right?

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:16:44]:

Yeah, exactly. A little bit of space, a little bit less reactivity, a little bit more responsiveness.

Stephanie Rigg [00:16:49]:

Yes.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:16:50]:

I've got an upset in my life right now where I'm attuning to the pain that someone's actions are bringing me. So I'm leaving myself feeling, like, recognised and nourished in my upset. And that's helpful because I want to have my pain recognised and they are not currently in the space to be able to recognise my pain. What they're doing is an expression of their own pain. They're too busy caught up in how real their pain is to recognise that their actions are causing me pain. So I still get my pain loved, even if they don't have the capacity to. Currently. What that does is that it stops me from hating on them, from feeling like a victim and feeling like the victim of their lack of attunement, when in reality they currently don't have the capacity to get over here in my world because they're caught up in their very real suffering.

Stephanie Rigg [00:17:54]:

Yeah.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:17:55]:

So I'm kind of just aligning with reality there instead of fighting them, telling them they should be a certain way.

Stephanie Rigg [00:18:02]:

Yes.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:18:03]:

And the third thing I wanted just to say to kind of close this little question, is that I think it's really powerful if we can give pain the permission to exist ongoingly, to not need to be rid of some feeling.

Stephanie Rigg [00:18:21]:

Yes.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:18:21]:

And we can ritualize it. Like, there's been times in my life that I've either towards myself or towards someone else, I've said things like, why don't we just light a candle for this fear while it's here? Why don't we just create. Why don't we choose a symbol to put in the lounge room to just represent the fact that pain is still alive? We don't need it to be gone. We're actually going to honour it that it's here. And I. I know that this is not. Is this being video recorded?

Stephanie Rigg [00:18:57]:

It is.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:18:58]:

Okay, well, for those of you who are watching your pain candle video recording. No, I've got.

Stephanie Rigg [00:19:03]:

Here's one I prepared earlier.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:19:05]:

You might have seen that. Have you seen these cards from my door? So for those of you who are listening but not watching, I'm holding up a. A Happy Father's Day card from my daughter when she was 12. And it's got a little yellow vehicle on it. That yellow vehicle came to symbolise the pain of her mom and me divorcing because it was the yellow car that I bought after the divorce. And then I'm holding up a series of other cards that involve my daughter still referencing that symbol of pain. There's another yellow car and then a yellow horse and cart. This is the years are passing by the way months and years are Passing a yellow fish on a happy Father's Day card.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:19:50]:

A yellow sled on a Christmas card. A yellow star the next Christmas notice. What's happening to that image is it's transforming, it's changing shape and size, but it's still there. Payne's still there. A yellow balloon for happy birthday. Tiny little yellow bird. And then at the end, when I turned 50, I got a card from my daughter and there's no yellow on it. And we specifically had a conversation about how much healing had taken place.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:20:24]:

By the way, all that's happening there is she and I are allowing the pain that existed to exist. I'm not trying to tell her, come on, it's been 10 years since your mom and I divorced. You should be over it by now. I'm actually saying, saying, of course it's still alive. So we got to the point where there was no yellow on the card. This, this birthday, there's more yellow again. And what she's really acknowledging there is the conversations she and I are having about the divorce now that now that my daughter's 25 instead of 12, it's still bringing up pain of the divorce, but we're giving it permission to exist because it's here.

Stephanie Rigg [00:21:08]:

Yes.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:21:08]:

So let's bring love to it.

Stephanie Rigg [00:21:11]:

Yeah. And I think that for the vast majority of us, there is that, you know, how do we make the pain go away? It's just. Well, of course, why wouldn't we want the pain to go away? The pain is bad. That's very deeply woven into most of us. That pain is unwelcome. Anxiety is unwelcome, fear is unwelcome. All of the so called bad or negative emotions, you know, we should be urgently trying to get rid of them because they're uncomfortable. Paradigm shifting to actually, you know, turn towards rather than turn our back on whatever the emotion might be.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:21:49]:

Yeah. And that's a. That's a good way to understand the work that I do is I just, I help people create the conditions for pain. To receive love.

Stephanie Rigg [00:21:59]:

Yes.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:21:59]:

And to want pain to go away is not to love it. Whereas giving this pain that's alive between us right now, permission to be seen and loved and acknowledged. And we can light a candle or we can have a seed pod from the local tree that represents the upset between us, or we can draw pictures on birthday cards that acknowledge that there's pain between us and can we just continue to bring love to it? Some of that pain may always be there. I mean, we've got scars on our body that we'll never completely heal. We've got scars in our heart that will never completely heal. But can we meet them with love, like, all day, every day?

Stephanie Rigg [00:22:39]:

Yes. And I suspect, going back to this person's question, that what often stops us from being able to relate to pain in that way, in the context of conflict in our relationships, is that so often we take the existence of someone's pain as, you've done something wrong, therefore you are bad. And so their pain elicits out offensiveness. And in so doing, you know, the pain becomes a problem that needs solving. Or, you know, I need your pain to go away because it makes me feel bad. Or you want your pain to go away because you feel like there's no one, you know, giving it any love or attention. And so pain becomes a problem when really it's just the way that we're relating to it.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:23:23]:

Yeah, that's right. My daughter will always be able to contact the fear and sorrow and panic of her parents divorcing, no matter how old she gets. And I've got two options. One is I push that away and tell her that's her shit. And the second is that I say, yes, my darling, let's revisit it. Let's. Let's. Let's explore corners we haven't spoken to.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:23:53]:

Let's just hold it together. I'm here with you, of course, that pain is still alive.

Stephanie Rigg [00:24:02]:

Okay, let's go on to the next one, because God knows we're at question one, and we'll just go on forever. Yeah.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:24:07]:

Yeah, we will.

Stephanie Rigg [00:24:08]:

My partner and I used to have really unhealthy conflict. Lots of arguments, shouting, him leaving the house, conflict lasting for days. And we actually split up because of it. We've since gotten back together, but it now feels like we never actually have conflict. We seem to skirt around conversations when it feels like conflict is coming. Or we might have half an argument, stop when it starts getting more like an argument, and then never actually resolve or repair. It feels like a lot is going unsaid and there's a lot of tension inside both of us. Or maybe it's just me and I'm projecting.

Stephanie Rigg [00:24:37]:

I also feel like it's starting to cause some resentment because things aren't being dealt with or resolved at all. So from one extreme to the other.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:24:46]:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So beautiful insight in this question that resentment is here. Resentment is growing. We're not trying to grow resentment. We're actually. Can you feel the deeper longing behind not having difficult conversations? They've Moving more towards an Avoidant tendency of like, let's not have those conversations.

Stephanie Rigg [00:25:18]:

Because we don't look what happened last time. Why would we want more of that?

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:25:21]:

Yeah, let's try and be less argumentative. It's actually they're longing for greater peace. It's just that avoiding the situation is an unskillful commitment to peace because avoiding it never transforms what needs to be. It never resolves anything.

Stephanie Rigg [00:25:39]:

Yeah. Which I think is such an important thing for my listeners to understand because so many people come from the let's urgently resolve everything and talk about it a million times, often in the face of resistance from a partner who adopts that. More like, must we go back there again? Nothing good is going to come of this. It's so easy to interpret that as you just don't care about my feelings or my pain. And so framing it as an unskillful commitment to peace, I think is much more honest and a much more generous interpretation of someone's behaviour rather than if you cared, you'd want to talk about this, which is obviously a very understandable but self centred view of the situation.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:26:25]:

Yeah, we will avoid. We will naturally avoid that which we don't feel confident to resolve. And for those of us, and there's many of us out of 8.2 billion people on the planet, for those of us who never felt confident in moving towards relationship upsets because talking about painful situations always goes shit shaped. One of us leaves feeling made wrong or maybe we both end up feeling made wrong. It increases the distance between us. It upsets our otherwise joyful night in. So the alternative becomes, well, if we can't do it skillfully, let's hope that it just resolves itself and let's try and have a beautiful night just watching this movie and not have to talk about the upset yesterday. Because is it, do we really need to? Or can't we just enjoy this moment without having to dig into something and ultimately get all upset again? So unskillful commitment to peace.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:27:42]:

But here's the thing. Needs that go unspoken will go unmet.

Stephanie Rigg [00:27:48]:

Yeah.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:27:49]:

And that's different to the kind of romanticised Disney version of relationship where if you love me, you'll just magically know my needs and you'll meet them without me ever having to ask for them. If you really love me in reality, if I can't speak my needs, you don't have a chance of meeting them and I'm going to resent you for that while not having had the courage to know how to speak them. So unspoken needs go Unmet. And that is the recipe for resentment.

Stephanie Rigg [00:28:25]:

Can I just interject there? Because, sure, a lot of. Again, my more anxiously inclined listeners will protest and sort of say, but I've, I've declared my needs so many times, I always tell them about what my needs are. And maybe you can speak to better and worse ways of voicing a need, because I think often we can. You know, our expression of a need can come from a very guarded place, and it's almost like a demand. And again, naturally, that can evoke defensiveness or distance from someone who feels like I'm being, you know, backed into a corner here. I feel like I'm losing my agency or my selfhood or whatever it might be. So maybe you can just briefly detour into what is a. What does it sound like to express the need in a way that is likely to create the conditions for someone to step forward towards meeting that need.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:29:29]:

Beautiful. I love how you call it a brief detour. Knowing. Knowing that it's. Actually, I know that's a year's worth of work, but let's, let's, let's see if we can kind of just lay some of the groundwork here for how to skillfully express an unmet need. And I'll give the example of one of the women that was on an online masterclass I ran recently. She decided to work with me. And I said, okay, so what's the unmet need? What's happening that's upsetting you in your life? And she said, it's my husband.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:30:04]:

Whenever he gets home from work, he's just in this mood. And it's actually just fucking unfair that he walks in the door in this mood and expects me to just deal with it. And I say, I said to her, how have you been expressing that? I said, have you been talking to him about it? She was like, yeah. And I said, how did he respond? And she was like, he gets all defensive. And I say, okay, let's look at how you're expressing me.

Stephanie Rigg [00:30:33]:

I could have just sounding eerily familiar.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:30:36]:

I think this woman was many women.

Stephanie Rigg [00:30:38]:

Yes.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:30:44]:

So I said, how. How do you naturally go about expressing that to him? And she said, well, I just said something basic like, I hate when you come in the door with this mood. And like, it's not fair on me and it's not fair on our child, and I want you to do something about it. And I said to her, well, that's, that's a very natural way that you'll go about expressing you're feeling, I imagine, to you, it feels like you're being very explicit about your experience and you must be confused by his defensiveness. And she said, yeah, I think I'm doing everything right. He's just not willing, so the problem is over there with him. And I said, okay, let's look at how that communication might be received by him. What does that leave him being in your story? And it took her a while to get to, but she realised that she was framing him as the problem.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:31:43]:

And she actually, when she got really honest, she said, actually I say to him, you're in one of those moods again. So when we worked together for a little while, we focused on a couple of things. The first was instead of speaking her analysis of him, you're in a mood. We started to get more skillful in expressing how she felt. When he walked in the door after work, what feelings came up in her? And she kind of resisted for a while in this. She was like, oh, what do you mean? He was just being moody. But I said, what?

Stephanie Rigg [00:32:24]:

He's in a mood?

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:32:26]:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so eventually she said, I actually feel unloved. He walks in the door with a certain energy and I immediately feel unloved and braced, like fearful, fearful of disconnection. So I said, okay, beautiful, let's hold that in one hand. Feel, feel how you're actually now touching your emotional truth. Instead of projecting your emotions onto him as if he's the emotion causer, you're owning them. Those feelings are real and true in you and they're happening in you. They're your subjective experience of him.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:33:11]:

They're not the truth about him. He's not dangerous and neglectful. It's that you're feeling these things. So that's holding in one hand and then in the other hand I said, get curious about the experience he's having because reality comprises of your experience and his experience. And we tend to speak from our one sided, self centred view and then dismiss theirs and then hate them for defending their experience. So I said, what do you think your husband is coming home experiencing? What is this energy he enters the room with? And she's like, I'm not really sure, I haven't really thought about it. So we dug into it and she started to realise that he's probably, probably coming home feeling overwhelmed and feeling irritable and longing for a bit of quiet time and a bit of space, a bit of time free of demand. And as she started to feel into that, can you feel how much he would start to feel recognised by her if she was actually able to name the experience that he was having behind what she labelled as his moodiness.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:34:29]:

So where she got to in the end was she was able to express her pain and also honour his what he was longing for as. As coexistence. So she said something like, sometimes when you come in the door I notice I start to feel fearful of disconnection and I feel a bit lonely and unloved and I imagine as you come in the door you're wanting to get out of the overwhelm and the stress of work and just you're longing for some quiet time to yourself before you jump into family mode. So suddenly can you feel how much more digestible that is? It's gone from you're moody to your needs for space are leaving me feeling disconnected. So that's how we start to express our unmet needs skillfully by recognising the two sidedness of every moment. Because every moment is two sided and we normally only have access to one side. We normally express our experience or our need and we have no regard actually for the very real experience that is happening over there in them that's giving them the behaviour that they're behaving with.

Stephanie Rigg [00:35:48]:

Yes. Beautiful. I think you did very well as a quick detour in this conversation. So maybe we can then come back to the question of this person and going from heaps of conflict to no conflict and how they might approach a conversation, naming their concerns and the fears that they're having around. You know, I understand that maybe that we've both probably been tiptoeing a little or pulling back from conflict because of everything that we've experienced in the past. And I'm noticing for me that that is leaving me feeling like certain things are being unaddressed and I'm worried, afraid of the disconnection that that might be causing between us. So on I'll pass it over to you because you do this so much better than I do.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:36:43]:

Well, I think what you're expressing that Steph is really skillful. We're actually saying what I want for this relationship is for us to be able to talk to the various upsets that we will definitely experience with each other. I want us to learn how to do it skillfully so you and I both feel completely recognised. So you and I both feel like our experiences get sane so we both feel cherished so our needs go cared for rather than uncared for.

Stephanie Rigg [00:37:18]:

Yeah. And I think for this person really key in my mind would be framing that as a joint endeavour and like we were here, like we were there, now we're here. We both want like obviously we're back in this together, we're trying again. Neither of us want it to go the way it went last time and that's going to require us to develop some new skills because just turning our backs on it and pretending that we're never going to have conflict again, probably not. Not going to work out well for us. And I'm noticing within myself that that's starting to create some worries and anxiety and fear around how we're going to tackle that when it inevitably arises. But I think that like that spirit of collaboration and this is, you know, our mounted to climb together. So let's try and do it in a way that feels good for us both.

Stephanie Rigg [00:38:16]:

I think that's really key.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:38:18]:

Yeah. Do you, are you committed to or are you interested in working with me to develop the skills where our conflicts actually become the moments where you and I both can get our needs fully met? You know, we used to have this method of just hurling our shit at each other like a who's right, who's wrong, who's the victim, who's the villain? And that used to go shit shaped and we hated it. Now we've settled into this kind of like, let's not say anything because we don't want to upset the apple cart. That's also probably not working for us. Are you interested in developing the skills with me? The thing about that conversation is it acknowledges that it's a skill set and it's a skill set that quite frankly, most of the world never received. Like really? I mean, I've been in this work for like 16 years now and I've never met a person on the planet who is masterful in resolving conflict. We're all trained in the method of someone's right, someone's wrong, someone's valid, someone's invalid. Me versus you, that's what our adversarial political system trains us in that and our adversarial legal system trains us in that.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:39:40]:

So it's just a skill shortage. And can you and I, do you and I feel ready and willing to invest in building those skills so that our conflicts become moments where our unmet needs become illuminated and you and I get more of our needs met.

Stephanie Rigg [00:39:58]:

Yes, yes. And I think that validating someone's possible resistance to that and really recognising that not trusting conflict makes a lot of sense, particularly for this person's question against the backdrop of like, you've got a lot of evidence that Conflict between us is, is never good and in fact is very bad. Because I think it's, it's really easy doing any of this work when you build up the courage to share something like that and to kind of make that invitation extend the olive branch. If someone meets that with like resistance or shutdown, it's so easy to then quickly flip into like, well, fuck you. Like, yeah, now you don't care. I've tried the conscious way but it's all quickly unravelled. So now I'm going to turn on you and go back to judging you or labelling you or whatever, saying you don't care. But in those moments, if we can reach for like, what about this might feel really genuinely scary to them and can I give them again a really generous interpretation of why that might be? That isn't you don't care about me.

Stephanie Rigg [00:41:09]:

It's actually maybe you care so much about me in this relationship and you're struggling to trust that that's even possible for us.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:41:16]:

Yeah, exactly. What you're touching on, Steph, is underneath someone's unwillingness, there's actually very real pain for them that makes them unwilling or unready. And underneath their unwillingness is a deeper longing that says, I want things to be relatively okay and having difficult conversations, things are going to go shit shape. So I'd rather, I'd rather actually just try not to. It's actually a commitment. It's a commitment to us not being really upset with each other all the time.

Stephanie Rigg [00:41:58]:

Yeah. It's almost like if we can avoid the extreme, I can tolerate this stuff being swept under the rug and it not feeling totally clean between us, but at least it's not so bad.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:42:10]:

Yeah, and we are, we are. Like there's a section of book of my book when I talk about this. We are as a culture really conflict tolerant now. Like as in we put up with rupture and disconnection and alienation. It's seen as normal because we kind of like, okay, I'll hang out in this tolerable space of like, things not feeling great because I don't want things to be really shit. But when you become skilled, like when you dive into the skills, you actually realise that every single moment of upset becomes a moment of very, very profound understanding where you'll be grateful. Like me and my partner. I'm lucky to be in partnership with a woman who is as committed to resolution as I am.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:43:03]:

Every single upset we go through and we've been through some really fucking upsetting, like really, really, really really painful situations that neither of us maybe thought that we could survive. But every time we go through it, our love deepens and our trust deepens and our sense of deeply respecting and honouring who we each really are deepens. But most of us have never tasted that. And that's why in my work, I feel like I'm. I feel like I'm offering something that people don't even know what the offering is because no one's ever experienced it. So I say, I say transform conflict and people hear like legal resolution. It's like in another realm altogether. It's actually deep mutual open heartedness is what I'm offering.

Stephanie Rigg [00:44:02]:

Beautiful. Okay, the next question. My partner and I have been together in a situationship long distance for three years. It's been very on and off with him ending things unexpectedly and irrationally with no real reason. But in between those moments, he is like my soulmate. And we have the best time together. The last 11 months has been the longest we've been together without him leaving. And the biggest difference this time is that we haven't reintroduced our kids.

Stephanie Rigg [00:44:29]:

We both have kids from previous relationships. The breakups have quite often been centred around the children and in his opinion, us having different parenting styles. But to me it feels more like a jealousy of him having to share my attention. It's very hard as I don't always believe what he tells me is the problem is the true problem. But there's a lot of conflict around my children, how his opinion doesn't seem to matter and how I don't listen.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:44:55]:

Got it. Beautiful. So first thing here it's really worth. When we are in painful situations in relationships, it's really worth considering asking ourselves the question, what are the external pressures here that make you and me a bit unwinnable? Like what's, what's the shit that's got nothing to do with you or me that is exerting pressure on us that are forming little cracks between us. So the first thing to be honoured here that like, if I was sitting with this couple, where I would start is look at the hardship you're up against. Look at the fact that like, how enormously stressful it must have been for you guys, that for three years, three years you've had to do long, long distance. My woman is 18,250 kilometres away from me right now. And it's extraordinarily painful.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:46:12]:

When we're together, when we're skin on skin, when we're in the same house or the same neighbourhood, we have a sense of Ease and safety between us. And with that distance, it just becomes unmanageable. I mean, we manage a bit, we manage it, but it's like this external villain, this external enemy of distance. There's also the external enemy of, like, the fact that we're trying to have, we're trying to do togetherness, while we've also got independent families and kids raised in very different situations that are also requiring our attention. That makes connection between you and me a little more unwinnable. There's also the difficulties of how we might communicate long distance. Like, you like it more like this and I like it more like this. So the communication becomes the external enemy.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:47:12]:

All I'm doing here is seeking to externalise the enemy. So we don't internalise, like, we don't make it the problem between me and you. It's actually, look at the suffering inherent in the circumstance. There's a kindness to that. I'll often sit with a client couple to begin with and I'll say, look at the pressures of being parents. Look at the enormous drains on each of you of your work scenario. Look at the external pressures from your family. Look at the ways in which you feel unsupported in your parenting.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:47:49]:

Look at the stresses of the global situation right now on your psyches. And I'll list all the pressures around the outside. And as I do that, I'll notice them, like, move closer towards each other. They'll interlace fingers, they'll kind of lean on each other. They'll start to feel like it's us versus the world instead of us versus each other.

Stephanie Rigg [00:48:12]:

Yes. Validation of, like, it's hard. Feels hard. Because it is hard.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:48:16]:

It's hard being you.

Stephanie Rigg [00:48:18]:

Yeah.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:48:18]:

And it's extraordinarily hard doing what you're doing. And there's an inherent difficulty that I want to acknowledge that you guys must be suffering with. So I think that's a really handy place. And, you know, I say this to my partner all the time. I say to her, look at what we're up against, the distance between us, the fact that I've got commitment to my daughter over here and you've got family over there. Look at the extraordinary limitations around your chronic health issues that most people don't have to deal with. Look at how unwinnable our situation is. Go us.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:48:57]:

You feel the. Like, make the enemy be out there instead of between us. This kind of fortifies us a bit.

Stephanie Rigg [00:49:06]:

Yes.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:49:08]:

So that's the first thing when it comes to the conflict around kids, I love at the very end of this question, she says. She says how his opinion doesn't seem to matter and how I don't listen. Now that's him speaking unskillfully. My opinion doesn't matter to you and you don't listen. Can you feel how difficult that is for her to receive? She wants to push that away. It's not digestible. Because she probably says, your opinion does matter to me and I do listen.

Stephanie Rigg [00:49:52]:

Yes. I think that. That, you know, there was a bit earlier in the question which was I have a feeling that the problem as he's saying it is not the real problem. Because he's saying it makes sense that we try and reach for something else and that we counterattack with like, you're not really. That we have that coming in our direction. It's like we want to push it away.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:50:12]:

Yeah, we typically, yes, human beings, we tend to identify the problem and we'll either say the problem is you in some way. Your perspective, your behaviour, your attitude, your feeling or me. But the problem is never you or me. The problem is inherent to the unmet needs that are arising for both of us. So if we translate. Let's translate his accusations. My opinion doesn't matter to you and you never listen to me about the kids. Right.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:50:46]:

What's the pain he's actually expressing? I feel what.

Stephanie Rigg [00:50:51]:

I feel. Maybe disrespected or I feel unimportant. I feel unheard. I feel almost like I don't know what my place is with respect to you and your family. Yeah, yeah. What else?

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:51:12]:

Yeah. I feel unconsidered in my needs around how you parent your children. I feel uninvited. I feel as if I don't get to have a say in situations that impact me. So now he would be starting to speak his subjective and yet very real experience of her parenting. So let's hold that in one hand. There's the pain and it's unintended pain because she never woke up one day thinking, how do I create the feeling of disrespected or unconsolted or unvalued in my partner? Like never. And yet here it is alive in him.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:51:58]:

The beautiful thing about understanding conflict deeply is that we understand that there's always some unintended pain for them, of the actions that we take based on our beautiful intentions. There's always some unintended pain. It's always there 100% of the time. So there's his unintended. There's the unintended pain that her actions create for him. In the other hand, we're going to hold what she's longing for in her parenting of her children, which I imagine is something like she's wanting to parent her children in a way that feels authentic to her, in a way that she acknowledges that she's the authority in their life, not him.

Stephanie Rigg [00:52:42]:

Protects and prioritises their best interests in.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:52:45]:

A way that protects and prioritises their best interest. To leave them feeling like they matter deeply. Even as she pursues her relationship with him, to know that they're the centre of her world, that she's not choosing him over them, that they coexist. Maybe she even wants to transmit the feeling that she will always choose them first in terms of giving them a sense of security and safety. So then we're holding her. Can you feel how beautiful all of her longings are? And this work says her longings are true and there's unintended pain that comes alive in him. And they're both true. They both need to be loved.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:53:29]:

So then where she can get to, at least as she develops skills such as what we're talking about, she can say, some of the ways that I go about trying to protect and prioritise my children, I see, can naturally leave you feeling undervalued, dismissed in your own needs, maybe excluded and unheard. So now we're holding reality. Beautiful, tender longings, unintended pain. Now we can start to look at. I wonder what ways I could go about prioritising and care of my children that would leave you feeling more valued, less cast out, more consulted. You know, that topic could be alive on the table for five years.

Stephanie Rigg [00:54:27]:

It's. It's actually a really very, like a very common one that I'm hearing from students in my courses and stuff a lot that, that juggle of coming into a relationship with someone who has kids from a previous relationship. And just like that whole competing priority thing and not knowing where your place is and not knowing what you're allowed to have by way of needs with respect to someone who, you know, by virtue of the circumstances, their. Their attention is divided and you may not be the priority. And that's just. That's not wrong, because it's. It's kind of right and as it should be, that someone's children might be their first priority. So I think that everything you've just kind of articulated there will probably resonate, albeit from the other side, but give people a bit of a steer on how to juggle that, because it is again, really easy to just project and assume that someone doesn't care.

Stephanie Rigg [00:55:28]:

I Think so many of these things come back to, like, you just don't care when really, like, there's a lot of caring there, but it's. It's a challenging thing. I'm sure something you can speak to because you've done a lot of this is navigating relationships and having kids. It's like figuring out what that juggle looks like in a way that there's space for everyone and that's not easy.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:55:50]:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, here's an example of where I know in my own life, with my woman who doesn't have children yet and me who has adult children, there is. There is the potential for that pain of. For my woman, not saying she does feel this, but she has every right to feel unprioritized sometimes. For as long as we grow a life together, it's quite likely that that pain will come and go. We're never going to get rid of it. We're never going to get rid of the opportunity for that pain to come up for her. So I've got two options in that relationship.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:56:37]:

I can either tell her she shouldn't feel that way when she does, and that's going to actually leave her feeling very alone and unseen. And eventually, just like she won't feel safe in the relationship if I'm not prepared to acknowledge when there's pain for her, or in this approach, I get to recognise it every single time it comes up for her. I get to be on the front foot with it and say, is this a moment where you're feeling unprioritized again? It would make sense to me if that's coming up for you and I'm right here with you in it. Of course you're having these feelings. This is inherently really tricky for us. Here I am pouring attention into my kids and of course you're naturally feeling like you don't get the awareness that you're craving right now and that you have every right to want that must leave you feeling frustrated or alone or resentful. And I'm right here with you in the feelings that are here for you between us.

Stephanie Rigg [00:57:45]:

Yeah. And as you're speaking fish, I think it's just so much of that. Your ability to do that, quite apart from your incredible skill, I think has got to come from your inner environment not being really heavy, heavily laden with shame. I think when we've got a lot of shame that we're carrying around, we're much more naturally quick to push away anything that might touch into that.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:58:11]:

Yes.

Stephanie Rigg [00:58:12]:

And then we go, oh, you're making me bad. I already made myself bad. And so I have to flip it back on you and say that your pain's invalid. Right? Yeah, there's lots of. There's lots of pieces to that work and that ability to receive someone's pain, that is an unintended consequence of something that we may have done or not done without collapsing into our own shame around it.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:58:38]:

Yeah, exactly. And, you know, if. If my beautiful woman ever listens to this podcast, she'll probably hear this discussion and she'll remember times where I've been really unskillful with that. You know, I can remember a time where, like, I was acutely aware of my daughter's needs and acutely aware of my partner's needs, and I was so. Kind of felt so stuck between them that I did. I didn't communicate with anyone. I just did what I thought was the right thing and left them both really upset. And then what happened in me was I just naturally stepped into a place of like, oh, God, what a bad person I am.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [00:59:11]:

I'm not only am I being a bad dad, but I'm also being a bad partner. So collapsing into shame and that place, if we go there, we become very unpresent to the people who need our presence. So there have been times where I've just thought, oh, God, you know, I've got to. I've got to get it right, I've got to fix it, I can't win it. But actually, what's been required to mend, to start to repair even that moment, was just to expand my awareness, to say, of course my partner was feeling disappointed, and of course my daughter was feeling upset, and of course I felt overwhelmed and ashamed. Of course. Can we bring love to all of that? Because this is me just trying to do my best to be just a very present father and just an incredibly present and reliable partner. And there's an unwinnability in that.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [01:00:03]:

And of course I'm going to get it wrong sometimes. And of course there's going to be hurt around me.

Stephanie Rigg [01:00:10]:

Yeah, yeah. And as you say, I think having that. Externalising the hard parts and going like, well, yeah, this is a hard situation and so it makes sense. Rather than I'm not doing it right or it's my fault or it's someone else's fault or it's stepping outside of that altogether.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [01:00:30]:

Yeah, exactly. So if we do come back to this woman's question and I'm gonna. It's as if I'm coaching Her. Because it's her question. Then I would say to her, your man is gonna need his upset recognised. So questions like, my love, how was it for you yesterday when I did this thing with the kids, or I drew a boundary with my children that was different from yours? How was that for you? How is it for you when I take the parenting into my own hands? Does it leave you feeling unrecognised, unvalued? And how would you love to feel what you really long for in how we navigate the parenting of our kids together? Those are just inviting questions for him to explore more of his experience and if we can meet him with loving awareness for the experiences that are evoked in him with our parenting. And then that's going to be the start of some really fruitful conversations.

Stephanie Rigg [01:01:49]:

Yeah. And even as you say that, it's like if. If at the heart of his gripe with the situation is feeling, you know, I feel like I'm not respected. Even the having of the conversation, you know, quite apart from any solution to whatever circumstances exist or like, just the fact of the conversation in that kind of way go so far in, like, feeling respected, feeling cared for, feeling like I matter, feeling like you want to understand me. It's like the conversation itself solves so much of that and goes so far in, like, bringing us back to each other.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [01:02:27]:

That's right.

Stephanie Rigg [01:02:27]:

Quite apart from any solution that exists outside of the conversation or, you know, down the track.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [01:02:32]:

That's right. We're just. We're actually. This work is about demonstrating that we care for the pain and longing that's alive right here, right now. Like, we can wrap it in love. I'll give the quick example of, you know, someone that I care about a couple of years ago said to me, you never fucking listened to me. Now that's immediately undigestible to me. I want to say, I want to recount the 10,000 times that I've specifically made space to listen to them, even when I haven't felt it's been reciprocated.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [01:03:09]:

So I immediately just want to get on the offensive and say, how dare you? But this work says, translate what's being said into the experience it's being said from. So you never fucking listen to me becomes I often don't feel heard. Now I can move towards them and say, ouch. Talk to me about how upsetting it is for you that you so often feel unheard. Does that leave you feeling angry? Do you feel sad? Do you feel alone? Do you feel as if I don't care for you. Talk to me more about this upset that's alive for you. All I'm doing in that moment, option one, is to defend against it and to dismiss their pain. That will amplify the conflict because they'll have to dig in to have their pain heard, and I'll have to dig in to not be made the villain.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [01:04:09]:

But in this plan B, I'm saying I'm gonna meet your pain with love, because it's here you get full permission to feel unheard. Even as I have been striving to leave you feeling heard, you can still feel unheard. And I'm here. And I'm here to love. I'm here to bring love, bring compassion to those feelings, because how painful it must be for you to consistently feel unrecognised, unheard, unreceived.

Stephanie Rigg [01:04:43]:

I'm smiling because, you know, I've done a lot of this work with you, Fish, and still when you say, like, you know, fucking listen to me. If I'm imagining someone saying that to me, I don't think, you know, it's like the. My. I think my way of responding to that, it's not like an overt counter attack, but it's like a fawn of, like, what do you mean? I don't think that's fair. And then go straight into, like, the persuade, and that's. That. That's always. I think my modus operandi is like, gently walk someone over to convince them as to why they are wrong.

Stephanie Rigg [01:05:21]:

Yeah.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [01:05:23]:

That they've taken. Good.

Stephanie Rigg [01:05:24]:

They rude me.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [01:05:26]:

Yeah. The problem is you've misconstrued my actions and I'm here to correct you on it. Yeah, yeah, that's. That's. That's natural. Well, I want to say, Steph, I mean, to be honest, my initial reaction is I want to pull someone's head off and shove it down their throat. Like, I. I still want to.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [01:05:44]:

I still want to injure the person who seems like they want to injure me. Yeah, that's natural.

Stephanie Rigg [01:05:50]:

That's my instinct. Sometimes if I don't care about preserving the relationship, I want to annihilate them.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [01:05:55]:

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Stephanie Rigg [01:05:56]:

If I about. I want to persuade them. But either way, the. The instinct is like, you are wrong in your opinion of me. And I have to make sure that we correct the record there.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [01:06:07]:

Yeah. Yeah.

Stephanie Rigg [01:06:08]:

It's really, really hard to linger in that space of like, oh, I'm just going to actually hold that and be courageous enough to look underneath whatever you're hurling at me and still step towards you lovingly without trying to change it.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [01:06:21]:

It's really hard to do because in this work we realise they're talking about some experience that's alive in them, just like we want to defend some experience that's alive in us. Neither of us are talking about the objective truth. We're just fighting to be understood. They're fighting for their pain to be understood. We're fighting for our good intentions to be recognised. That naturally escalates. So to get out of that escalation, we actually have to be willing to go over onto their side holding our goodness in one hand. Go over onto their side and saying, this person legitimately has the experience of feeling unheard by me right now.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [01:07:03]:

Can I bring my loving awareness to that? Can I stand by them, hold their hand and say, that must feel so painful for you right now between us. So, yes. It's not at all what the mind. The mind wants to just retaliate.

Stephanie Rigg [01:07:21]:

Yeah. And particularly when it's. Feels like an admission of defeat in some way. Like if I. That whole thing of if I apologise first, then we're resorting to this, like, oh, I must have been the one in the wrong. Right. It's also deeply ingrained in that find the bad guy game that we are also well trained to play.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [01:07:42]:

Yeah. Really? Yeah. And that the narrative we are replacing it with instead of I must be the baddie because you feel, apparently I never listened to you. So that makes me a horrible person. That's the first narrative. The second one is. And this is what I had to kind of practise in this moment. I had to recognise that all the ways in which I'd been striving to leave this person feeling honoured and heard had in fact had them feel unheard.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [01:08:15]:

That's the reality. Just like the flowers I sent you hoping to leave you feeling celebrated, left you reminded of the loss of your grandmother because they were the same flowers. It's like unintended pain everywhere. So we're just framing their pain as unintended but wholly real.

Stephanie Rigg [01:08:41]:

Okay. We had more questions, but I think that we'll go on for a million years if we keep going. So we might leave it there.

Stephanie Rigg [01:08:47]:

Fish.

Stephanie Rigg [01:08:47]:

Thank you so much. This has been so valuable as I knew it would be. It occurred to me when you mentioned the book that since you last came on, you've written and released a book. And I didn't mention that at the start. It is a brilliant book. I read it the day it came out. There it is. Beautiful.

Stephanie Rigg [01:09:07]:

How to Fall in Love with humanity. If anyone is listening, please buy the book and read the book. It really is magnificent. It's so beautifully written and it's very practical as well. So it blends that so, so wonderfully. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [01:09:27]:

Thank you, Steph.

Stephanie Rigg [01:09:28]:

Everything that we've been talking about today around conflict and compassion and repair, which I think is medicine, we all need. I don't know that there's going to be anyone listening who can't relate in one form or another to what we've been talking about. Fish's book and his body of work more broadly is just the best of the best. So go check it out.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [01:09:51]:

Thanks. That's very generous of you, Steph.

Stephanie Rigg [01:09:54]:

No, I mean every word of it. Thank you so much for joining me, Fish.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [01:09:59]:

You're so welcome. It's an honour.

Stephanie Rigg [01:10:01]:

Take care.

James ‘Fish’ Gill [01:10:01]:

See you next time.

Stephanie Rigg [01:10:02]:

Bye bye.

Stephanie Rigg [01:10:07]:

Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment. If you want to go deeper on all things attachment, love and relationships, you can find me on Instagram @stephanie__rigg or stephanierigg.com and if you enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a review and a five star rating. It really does help so much. Thanks again for being here and I hope to see you again soon.

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Keywords from Podcast Episode

conflict in relationships, relationship repair, conscious communication, attachment styles, resentment after conflict, self attunement, validation, apology in relationships, unmet needs, defensiveness, emotional pain, rupture and repair, expressing needs, long distance relationships, co-parenting challenges, blended families, relationship boundaries, shame in relationships, defensiveness in conflict, attentive listening, conflict avoidance, skillful communication, reactivity, self compassion, emotional triggers, relationship insecurity, relationship coaching, unspoken needs, relationship resentment, practical relationship tools, repair after arguments