#134 From Conflict to Connection with James "Fish" Gill (@james_fish_gill)
In today's episode, I'm delighted to be joined by James "Fish" Gill to talk all things conflict and conscious communication. Fish is a coach, teacher and facilitator whose work offers a compassionate paradigm for relating to and transforming moments of conflict in all of our relationships.
In today's episode, I'm delighted to be joined by James "Fish" Gill to talk all things conflict and conscious communication. Fish is a coach, teacher and facilitator whose work offers a compassionate paradigm for relating to and transforming moments of conflict in all of our relationships.
Our conversation covers a lot of ground, including:
Why we so easily end up in conflict and opposition with people we love
How we unconsciously escalate conflict
Using compassion and curiosity to understand someone else's perspective
Holding both positive intention and unintended impact as true
Reframing defensiveness, withdrawal and other assumed ill-intent......and so much more!
To connect with James:
On Instagram: @james_fish_gill
Questions for Discussion & Reflection
Reflect on a recent conflict you experienced. Can you identify any unconscious communication patterns, such as defence mechanisms or fault-finding, that may have played a role? How might recognising and addressing these patterns change the dynamic of the interaction?
Consider a time when you found it challenging to see the good intentions in someone’s behaviour that was generally condemned. What emotions did this stir in you, and how did it affect your response to the individual and the situation?
Think about an instance where you felt hurt by someone close to you. How did you react initially, and how might considering their pain and deeper intentions, as James suggests with his three questions, have altered your perspective and response?
Resistance in relationships can be a significant barrier to connection. Have you encountered resistance from someone recently? How did you approach it, and in hindsight, how could understanding and validating their experience have made a difference?
Analyse your own behaviour in conflicts. Are there ways in which you might inadvertently contribute to, or escalate, tensions? What steps can you take to become more self-aware and adjust your approach to conflict resolution?
Recall a time when your good intentions were misunderstood, leading to conflict. How did you address the situation? Going forward, how can you ensure that your intentions are communicated effectively, and how can you also acknowledge any unintended upset they may cause?
Think about the concept of compassion towards oneself and others during conflict. Do you find it easy or challenging to lead with compassion when facing resistance or hostility? How could adopting a more compassionate stance impact your relationships?
On a broader scale, consider an international or community conflict that is significant to you. Applying James' worldview of acknowledging the tender longings and pain of all humans, how might this perspective shift your understanding of the conflict and the parties involved?
Have you ever felt compelled to cut someone out of your life because they upset you? Reflect on the cultural misunderstandings around compassion that James critiques. Might there be a different approach that acknowledges your own boundaries while also striving for understanding?
When was the last time someone demanded that you make the first move to resolve a conflict? How did this make you feel, and what was the outcome? Reflecting on this, how might taking the first step yourself, despite the challenge, create new opportunities for connection and healing?
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Check out my couples course, Secure Together (& save $200 with the code SECURE)
Save $150 on my Higher Love break-up course with the code PHOENIX
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
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Episode Transcript
Stephanie [00:00:04]:
In today's episode, I'm so excited to be joined by my dear friend and teacher, James Fish Gill. Fish is a coach, yoga teacher and facilitator and his work focuses on conflict and using conscious communication and a compassion led approach to transform moments of conflict into deeper connection. His work has been incredibly impactful on my own work and I'm so excited to have him here on the podcast to share with you. Our conversation covers a lot of ground and there's so much wisdom in there, so I hope that you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed recording it for you.
Stephanie [00:01:14]:
Now, just before we kick off, a quick reminder that my signature programme, Healing Anxious Attachment, is opening for enrollment in a couple of weeks time. If you're not already on the waitlist and you would like to be, definitely head to my website or use the link in the show notes. The waitlist guarantees you a spot in the programme and also allows you to access exclusive early bird pricing. This is my signature programme that over 1500 people have been through in the past two years. So it's very near and dear to my heart and will be the last round that I'm running for the foreseeable future as I'll be taking some time away to have a baby. So if you are someone who's struggling with anxious attachment and you'd like some tools and a really comprehensive approach to understanding yourself better and learning a new way of being in relationship that is more spacious and freeing, I would love to see you inside healing anxious attachment. So definitely jump on the waitlist if you haven't already. Okay, now for my conversation with fish Gill.
Stephanie [00:02:21]:
Hi, Fish. So great to be here with you.
James [00:02:24]:
It's great to join you. Steph, I'm so always so moved by how articulate you are about the nuances of relationship and humanness. Yeah. So I hold you in very high regard, so it's beautiful to join you.
Stephanie [00:02:43]:
Likewise. We've been talking about this for about six months, I think, since I came to a workshop that you were running in Sydney and then I had to go and get myself pregnant and that put everything on the back burner for a bit, but we're finally doing it.
James [00:02:57]:
That's a reasonable excuse?
Stephanie [00:02:59]:
Yeah, I would hope so. But it's thrown some of my plans into disarray in the short term. But it's okay, we've made it. So maybe for those who are uninitiated in you and your world and what you do, you could give us a quick 101 of conscious communication. But I think that's like, even that is kind of a big umbrella thing. And I think you have such a distinctive expression of that work which I hold in such high regard. Obviously, I think we connected on Instagram maybe a couple of years ago now, but I was fortunate enough to come to a workshop that you ran, as I said, in Sydney last year and within about 3 seconds of that wrapping up, signed up for your facilitator training programme, which I'm doing at the moment. So suffice it to say, I'm a huge fan of your work and your way of doing things. So maybe you could give people a bit of a flavour of what you do.
James [00:04:00]:
Where do I begin? So many doorways that we could walk through. I think really the real essence of what I term conscious communication is realising that in the face of our inevitable relationship upsets, which, by the way, we don't necessarily relate to conflict, misunderstanding, hurts, fights as inevitable. We might even sort of relate to them as bad or wrong. But once we realise that relationship upset is inevitable, then we can start to get really quite skillful at how we meet it. And one of the essence of this work is really the realisation that to transform a moment of upset between us and others, we need to create open heartedness. And yet conflict will necessarily be characterised by closed heartedness, both in us and in them. And so the work that I teach and the invitations that I make to students at my work is, are you willing to be the one to recommence the opening between you and them? Because we can't evoke someone's openness by meeting them with our closedness. We have to evoke them with our openness.
James [00:05:45]:
And what I mean. So some people might be listening and going, what is this open and closed of which you speak? What I mean by openness is that sense that you get when someone reaches out to you and expresses their appreciation for you. Or someone sends you a message saying, I'm thinking of you, or I love you, or I care about you, or thank you, or I'm sorry, or you must have really been suffering recently and I can't imagine how it was for you. Like all these ways in which someone gets in our world, it opens us. Right. I've just received text message thread from my two sisters and we're organising to catch up this evening for a glass of wine. And as soon as they start to express how excited they are to see me, my heart naturally opens. And then what I mean by closedness is the other very natural state of the heart where something happens and we feel suddenly criticised by them, or misunderstood by them, or falsely accused by them, or cast out by them, or judged or unthought of or excluded.
James [00:07:04]:
And I don't even have to think about it, I don't plan my heart closing. It just naturally happens. I've recently been through a very tender experience where communication was cut by someone I love very deeply. And immediately upon that happening, I noticed this absolute stone cold closedness that arose in me. And so the work of conscious communication really begins by recognising that hearts have the capacity to be open or closed.
Stephanie [00:07:40]:
Yeah.
James [00:07:41]:
And to address our inevitable relationship hurts, misunderstandings, conflicts and upsets, we have to be able to create, evoke openness between us and between us and them. And we have to do that by evoking openness in us first, to meet them with our openness. Another way of considering conflict is my nervous system and your nervous system colliding in a state of distress. And as soon as nervous systems meet in distress, the distress amplifies, even if you're quite calm and I walk in the door home from work and I'm like, freaking traffic, you will start to feel a sense of distress in your nervous system that is responding to the distress in mine. So to be able to transform relationship upset, I have to create a sense of safety in me, in my nervous system. The absence of threat, that is, and meet you with that, so that I evoke your safety. And that might sound simple, but you know very well that that's not at all how we're hardwired. As soon as conflict arises, as soon as some uncertain moment surfaces, we immediately contract. And they immediately contract, and then we tend to start to communicate from that contraction. And that sounds like blame, it sounds like dismissal, it sounds like always or never statements. It sounds. What was that?
Stephanie [00:09:36]:
Why should I? And I think that so much of what you're saying, and I know we've talked about this, fish, is that it takes this openness, and I would say, like, immense courage to lead with openness when everything in our being is saying, like, close, contract, protect, defend. To be the one to open in the face of that, when you can't guarantee the outcome, it takes a lot of courage. And I think that certainly that fear based part of us, or the hurt, the pain can say, like, why should I have to be the one to open? Why should I have to lead resolution or lead repair? And I think that can in and of itself, be such a fruitful, juicy inquiry into our own stuff, our own pain and hurt.
James [00:10:33]:
It's a magnificent insight into humanness, Steph, that, you know, if I had a dollar for every time someone said, yeah, but why is it mine to do the opening? Listen to what they said or did. I'm not going to be the one to open. I've got to wait for them to do the opening because it's their job to do the opening for us because they are at fault. It's such a natural human response. And this is part of getting conscious, that is bringing our awareness to things that we're not aware of naturally, is we wait for the openness from them. We demand it. Think about the last time someone did something that really upset you. Chances are, metaphorically, even if not physically, you kind of crossed your arms and gave a bit of a.
James [00:11:30]:
And stood in the place of you. Better remedy this for us because look at how hurt I am. So we naturally adopt this stance of closedness and demanding them to be the one to reopen us. That's very natural. But when you consider that's happening on both ends of the argument, you start to realise why conflict escalates. Because the more I demand, if you and I are in conflict, the more I demand that you're the one to do the opening for us, the more you're going to feel blamed by me. And what does that evoke in you? Closedness, withdrawal, defensiveness, hurt, feeling villainized, feeling misunderstood. And the more you experience that, the more you're going to feel like it's my job to be the compassionate one, to get over there in your world.
James [00:12:33]:
And the more you do that to me, the more you demand that I'm the one to open, the more misunderstood I feel about how hurt I am and how it's definitely your job to do the opening. So it becomes like this mexican standoff where we're both just arms crossed in a hump, thinking, I'm only going to open when you do. With both human beings doing that, conflict is guaranteed to endure and to escalate. So, yeah, what a critical question. Why would I be willing to be the one? And as you know, another critical question becomes, how? Like, if I am willing, how on earth do I open and stand in a place of radical compassion? When I've been really seriously upset or hurt or cast out by someone who I have every right to be more loving than that, how and why would I be open? And this brings us to the fact that in our world, and I can't speak to whether this has always been true on the planet, but certainly in our culture or in our mixture of cultures, currently, there is this incredible misunderstanding of compassion, as if to be compassionate is to condone hurtful or unsafe behaviour. And so much of this is what I love about your work, Steph, is because you come from such a kindness and compassion and humanity about both people, what's the dynamic? What's going on for both people? What's their experience? But so much of the relationship, Instagram, pop psychology stuff around relationships and boundaries, takes the flavour of, if people upset you, then you deserve better. Cut them out of your life.
Stephanie [00:14:45]:
You know how that goes for you.
James [00:14:47]:
Yeah. If you take that path, you're just going to end up incredibly alone, while also just feeling justified that you're good and everyone else is not good enough. That's a lonely, lonely path. So to actually start to realise that we don't see all the ways in which we naturally contribute to opposition and upset in every moment, we don't see the ways. And as you understand the work that I do is, let's start to see all the ways. I was making a list the other day that was titled ways that we contribute to and escalate conflict. And my list is at 15. At the moment, there's 15 different ways that we usually can't notice that we actually make opposition between us and others, all the time thinking that we didn't do any of that.
James [00:15:51]:
It was them.
Stephanie [00:15:52]:
Yeah. And I think that, again, I've spoken to you about this in my own processes around this work. It can be really hard when you have a self image that is like, but I'm good. I'm the good one. I'm the one putting in the effort and trying to say the thing in the right way. And all of that stuff that we tell ourselves, how could my goodness, be misconstrued here and be landing so differently on this other person? And so there is this, I think, particularly for those of us who tend more towards that fawning response, or I'll fix it, and I'll very gently kind of manoeuvre around this to try and make everything feel really good and harmonious and connected, because that can look really sweet. We really can struggle to own or take responsibility for or get curious about how that might be received, or that there could be anything other than that good intention that we're kind of putting out there. It can just feel really unfair, like this sense of injustice, of how did this good thing become another conflict when that's the opposite of what I was wanting.
James [00:17:09]:
Exactly. Beautiful. So if we were to divide my work into two halves, you're speaking to one half of it, which is becoming masterful at having our good intentions land. Because all your listeners right now, if I asked you, what good intention thing have you done in the last week? You'd probably come up with 100. As human beings, we move from a place of longing and yearning for ourselves to be safe and well and happy and joyful and at ease, and also for others. So there's such upset that arises for us when we've taken some action or said something or even not taken an action based on some beautiful, valid intention that we had. Look how loving I was being. Right? Look how loving I was being.
James [00:18:10]:
And what we did or said was received so poorly by them. I'll use the example that I think you're familiar with. But when my daughter, who's now 24, when she was 22, I arranged a 22nd birthday party for her and we gathered around at a local bar and had this beautiful food and everyone was there. And midway through the night, I dinged my glass and I said, I just want to say a few words about this remarkable young woman before us. And I spoke to three of her greatest character strengths. She's also beautiful and accomplished, but I wanted to speak to the essence of her, like her character, the part of her that all of us get to witness and love. So I talked about her wisdom and I talked about her courage and I talked about her kindness. And there I am, just pouring out my heart and there's not a dry eye in the place because everyone feels like their love for my daughter also got recognised in my speech.
James [00:19:19]:
But down the end of the table, when I finally catch a glimpse of my daughter, her arms are crossed, her face is red, she's turned away from me. And when I go to speak to her after the speech, she's like, I don't want to talk about it, dad. And avoids me for the rest of the night. So there's an example where my beautiful, loving intention, which was to be fully expressed in my love for her and to leave her feeling deeply honoured on her birthday and make it all about her. I couldn't work out why it was a problem for her. And this is one of the unconscious assumptions, one of the two unconscious assumptions that we make. Because my intentions were so wonderful, they should have received it as wonderful in reality. It turns out, in every moment of conflict, that while I had beautiful intentions, they also experienced some unintended upset as a result of what I did or said.
James [00:20:25]:
So it turns out later on I find out, through getting curious, that she's left feeling unfairly put on the spot, ambushed with emotionality, dad's emotionality. She felt embarrassed and she felt like her needs weren't being considered. Like I was making her birthday all about me and my expression instead of feeling into her and what she wanted, which was just a light touch and a fun night. So once we start to look for all the ways in which we had such loving intentions, and our loving intentions landed as hurtful or distressing or upsetting for someone, we start to see, actually everywhere. That recipe is everywhere. Unconscious communication says once we can start to recognise that upset is characterised by I had a loving intention and my actions created an upset for you, then we stop resisting reality and we get connected to reality. Because only when I'm connected to that truth, that my loving intentions are real and the upset my daughter felt is also real. Only when I can get connected to those two things and hold them both and deeply honour them both to the extent that they both ache to be honoured, only then am I standing in reality.
James [00:22:02]:
And remember, back in the unconscious model, I'm standing there going, I don't know what your problem is, darling. I gave a loving speech. Get over yourself. How dare you respond that way? You should be more appreciative. Anyone would love a father who spoke so openly about his love for her. So can you hear how my natural response is to try and make her wrong for the experience that she's having? Whereas conscious communication says, of course you're having an experience, and it differs from the experience I wanted you to have. And both those things are true.
Stephanie [00:22:42]:
Yeah. I think that the speed with which we go to defend our good intention, it's so automatic. It's like muscle memory. And it's still something that I really struggle with a lot, because, again, it feels so true. Right. I've heard you speak about this before, fish. It's like, of course our reality feels true and of course we have infinite context for everything that we want and feel and everything we've ever experienced. It feels true because we're so deep in it.
Stephanie [00:23:23]:
And it can be unfathomable that there's this big disconnect between what we wanted and how we're being perceived or how something landed for someone else. I think that having that ability to hold both is not something that comes naturally to most of us and is something that we really do have to actively practise and cultivate because it's so counter to everything that we've ever really been taught about the world and in every story, in the media, in global politics, everywhere, it's just so deeply oppositional. We're always looking to figure out, okay, but who was worse and better or who was at fault or who was to blame. We just seek out that kind of clean cut certainty that invariably misses reality.
James [00:24:14]:
You can understand how, like, if I go back to my scenario with my daughter on her 22nd birthday, if the approach I take is telling her she shouldn't feel how she feels, then she's actually going to experience being dismissed by me and that's going to deepen the rift between us. She's going to feel like I'm completely unwilling to be responsible for the very real pain my actions caused her. But over here in my world, I'm just trying to convince her of my goodness, which is real as well. And so I think, Steph, you speak to it like a core ache or a core wound in us. Any moment that our goodness is not recognised, it fucking hurts. And we recoil from the accusation of being somehow bad or wrong or a pain causer or a villain, insensitive or nasty or controlling or any other label that they might give us. So let's for a moment validate why. Let's look at a little bit more deeply why we find it so hard to stay open and present when someone else expresses the pain that our actions brought them.
James [00:25:33]:
Going back to my scenario, number one is that I'm sending the gift of love and it's not being received. And that's heartbreaking for us anytime that the love that we're trying to exhibit or transmit to others for their well being, anytime that doesn't land, it's distressing for us, right? Because it's like the channel of love didn't remain open, it got pinched off somewhere. Number two is because we care about them and they're expressing pain to us. We don't want their pain because we care about them. So there's also distress in the fact that they're sitting with pain. And number three, it's likely that when they're expressing their pain to us, they're taking the form of blame, like saying, you did this to me. Very natural. Most human beings naturally communicate their pain through the lens of blame.
James [00:26:38]:
Look at what you've done to me. So that's painful for us because they're asking us to be responsible for some pain that they've got that we don't want for them. That differs from what we were trying to send to them. It's like if I used a postal service analogy, it's like me sending chocolates to you and you opening your front door and ringing me and saying, how dare you send this bag of dog shit to me? And I'm like, hang on a sec. I don't want you to have the dog shit because I care about you. I'm not at fault for the dog shit you think I sent. And why didn't you receive the chocolates? Right. So it's like, that might be a really clumsy analogy, but it starts to really make sense of why we naturally recoil anytime someone comes to us and expresses their pain.
James [00:27:30]:
For as long as I recoil from my daughter's pain, the relationship goes untended to the gap between me and her widens the more dismissed or uncared for she feels and the more falsely accused I feel. So the only way that we can repair that is one of us has to bridge the gap and hold both of those things. Look at what I was hoping for and look at what she was suffering with and, you know, making that sort of jump over the bridge between our self centred view into the expanded view of me and you. You know what that takes because you've been practising doing it. And I really think that's a spiritual practise, because we're having to get out of our little ego seat, which is so sure, based on our own data. I'm so sure, as her loving dad, because of the love I feel and the words I'm speaking and everyone's teary eyes, I'm so sure that the reality of that moment is that I was being loving. So clearly the problem's over there with her interpretation. Right? That's how the ego, which is a wonderfully protective mechanism to keep ourselves distinct and safe and have our identity maintained.
James [00:28:56]:
But in that case, my ego, the way that I'm trapped in my own view, based on my own data, keeps me in disconnection with my daughter because I start to just make her wrong effortlessly. You're being ridiculous. You've taken things the wrong way. You're being emotional. Here we go again. You should be more appreciative. And fuel to the fire. Right? So what that has to sound like eventually, if I can expand my awareness, I can come to her and I can try to hold both of those.
James [00:29:34]:
Which starts to sound a little bit like this. My love. When I gave that speech yesterday at your birthday, I was so longing to be fully expressed for the extraordinary love I have for you. And I just wanted you to be the recipient of that love, not just mine, but everyone's. And I've started to realise that how I went about expressing my love may well have left you feeling embarrassed, unfairly put on the spot, like you're being ambushed with dad's emotionality and might have even left you feeling as if I didn't consider your needs. So maybe you felt hurt or angry or disappointed or frustrated. Can you hear that? In those two parts of my offer, what I call an offer, I'm speaking very fiercely to the love in my heart, to the goodness in me, but I'm also speaking equally fiercely to the unintended pain that my actions created. We can only do that if we are prepared to recognise that as we move through our world with beautiful intentions in our heart, we are constantly creating unintended upset for others, like, constantly.
James [00:30:56]:
And that's a little confronting because we think no loving intention should just be enough.
Stephanie [00:31:04]:
Yeah. I think that hearing that expression, that offer, you can see how. You can feel how it just melts defences. Right? There's not much to fight against in that offer. And so it really is so contrary to the default mode that most of us take to conflict. Right. And it is really, really disarming very naturally. I think, in the same way that the alternative is naturally going to increase conflict and opposition and closedness can see how openness sort of just cascades from that kind of offer to someone of like, oh, yeah, my goodness.
Stephanie [00:31:47]:
But also I can see that and I really didn't want that for you, but I can see that it's real and I'm so sorry about that.
James [00:31:54]:
Yeah. And this is how we use communication to bring emotional safety into the room, because can you feel if I go to her and say, I don't know what your problem is, you're being ridiculous, and she says, why don't you give a shit about my needs, dad? It's my birthday. You can feel the direction that conversation is going to head. And in that moment of conflict, there's no safety for me because I'm not having my goodness recognised. And there's no safety for her because it feels like her very real pain is getting dismissed by her father. So to generate safety, that offer says, hey, I'm going to speak fiercely to the goodness in me and I'm also going to speak very fiercely to the very real pain that you may well be in. So what's happening there is I get to be valid and she gets to be valid. So we're vacuuming out of the space all the natural unconscious tendencies about who's right and who's wrong, who's more valid than the other, what should or shouldn't have happened, who's being x or Y or z in terms of how I label your behaviour.
James [00:33:08]:
So we're vacuuming out all the oppositional aspects of our unconscious way of communicating, which is attack and defend, right and wrong, you versus me, whose fault is it? And once we vacuum out all the oppositional tendencies, we're just left with two people having very real experiences.
Stephanie [00:33:28]:
So I wonder, because I think in the story of your daughter's birthday, your good intention is more readily discernible, and so no one's going to be looking at that and being like, what a dick, right? How could he have done that? So I wonder if we could talk about some more challenging examples where most people would look at a behaviour and go, not great behaviour. Where's the good intention in that? Where it feels a little bit more opaque or murky? Because I think that's where people struggle. It's certainly where I receive a lot of pushback online, and I know you do as well when you start to invite compassion for people whose behaviour is frowned upon, or that we generally condemn as being bad or unhealthy or whatever.
James [00:34:19]:
Toxic.
Stephanie [00:34:21]:
Yeah, toxic, everyone's favourite word. And as you said earlier, I think that misunderstanding that to be compassionate is to condone behaviour. And so people then have this big visceral response against, well, how am I meant to have compassion for that or feel into some positive intention there? Because that's such bad behaviour. And if I do that, doesn't that mean they're just going to keep doing that thing? And I don't want that. So I'll go back to holding my arms.
James [00:34:46]:
Yeah, exactly. Beautiful. Okay, so what we have just been talking about is the first half of this work, which is my beautiful intention, and the unintended upset that I created for my daughter and how they coexist. Now we're moving to the second half, which is the opposite. It's the very real pain I'm in and the deeper intentions behind what someone else did to me. Right. This is an extra challenging half, because the more pain we have experienced as a result of what someone did, the less we naturally have the capacity to be compassionate towards where their actions came from naturally our compassion goes offline under threat or in the space of unsafety or hurt or rejection or fear, et cetera, naturally goes offline. So I just want to say up front and you know this, but people listening to this kind of short little excerpt of this work might not know this.
James [00:35:59]:
Conscious communication has nothing to do with condoning behaviour that creates an unsafety or a hurt or a distrust in us. Nothing to do with condoning that behaviour and healthy relationship often will look like considering at what distance do I need to be from certain behaviours in order to still feel safe in myself? So let's get that kind of disclaimer up the front. And at the same time, there's some things hidden from our view. When someone does or says something that hurts us, there's a bunch of things that we can't naturally see that conscious communication helps us to see. I will use the example of a few years ago now finding out that my wonderful ex wife, she and I get on fantastically. It was just on the phone to her before we got on this call, finding out that my ex wife at some point had spoken to some people in my community that I don't even know, people sort of around and about, people who know me spoken to a few people and revealed some very kind of personal things that suddenly sort of spread like wildfire. And a client of mine came to me and said, hey, I've just heard some things about you and suddenly I'm just left a little bit unsure about whether I actually feel okay to work with you. So I was fortunate that this client came to me and shared that.
James [00:37:40]:
So obviously as you might be able to feel into that. What that left me with was feeling deceived, feeling unfairly revealed, judged, fearful of a judgement being in my community that I had no idea what it was or whether I could even have a chance to speak to it and really hurt. Actually, from that standpoint of being with my hurt, it's very natural for me to look at my ex wife's intentions and leap to some conclusions, such as she's being nasty, she's being controlling, she's being hurtful, she's being malicious, she's spreading rumours, she just wants to bring me down. It's very natural for me to leap to those conclusions. And that really is the world of unconscious communication where we immediately leap to our analysis about someone's intention that is wholly based on our pain. And by the way, our pain is very real. And if my pain is the only data I have access to, then it's easy for me to reach the conclusion that they must be a pain causer. Only when I can start to recognise that she would have had some deeper, valid yearning in her beautiful, tender heart do I ever start to get anywhere near the truth.
James [00:39:08]:
And that was difficult for me to start to do because I just wanted to say, what a such and such. What a such and such for bringing such ill repute on me and leaving me in such. How unfair, how unreasonable, when I look deeper into that, into her intentions. And here are three questions that I considered to go deeper into her intentions. Remember, I'm not condoning that behaviour. Number one, what pain might she have been wanting to express? And remember, we'd been through a divorce and I'd left the relationship. And me leaving the relationship was absolutely devastating and heartbreaking to her. She was left with both of our children to care for full time for a while before we could work out how to do that together.
James [00:39:58]:
It was heartbreaking. Heartbreaking for her. So much pain for her. Devastating. So question number one, what pain was she maybe trying to have expressed by sharing what she did with certain people? Number two, what pain was she trying to get out of or avoid or lessen? A good example of that is when we might deceive our partner, when we might not be transparent about something, which I'm not condoning. I'm not condoning an absence of transparency. In fact, I will champion transparency. But why we might deceive our partner is because there's some risk that we're trying to avoid.
James [00:40:46]:
The risk of upsetting them with the truth, the risk of being judged by being seen for who we really are, the risk of it being taken the wrong way and then plunging us back into conflict when we've just had such a beautiful couple of days after that big fight. So question number two is, what pain might they be trying to avoid? The risk of, or lessen or diminish by doing what they did. And question number three is, what pain of theirs do they need us to taste so that they feel much less alone and much more attuned to in the pain that they're in? And that question number three really goes to the very heart of the most malicious acts. If we look for a moment at Israel Palestine, the dropping of bombs, the shooting of people, the killing of innocent civilians, the holding of captives, on the surface, they just appear incredibly malicious. And, of course, the pain that they create, not just for the individuals involved, but for the whole world, is enormous. And I would never condone such actions at the same time. So many of those actions are based on that. Question number three.
James [00:42:17]:
Some of your listeners will know this in themselves. The pain that we've been through, some of the things that we've done in order to try and get someone else to finally taste what it's been like for us. I think I was sharing with you the other day that one of my wonderful clients that I worked with last year, when I got on a call with her, I said, how are you? And she said, a terrible, terrible. I said, what happened? And she said, I've just sent this terrible message to my ex husband on the eve of our court case to try and work out who gets the kids. And I said, me being me, me being a conflict nerd, I rubbed my hands together and said, let's read the text. Inappropriately fascinated by conflict. And she said, okay, I'll redid the text, but don't judge me. She said.
James [00:43:08]:
She read it out and it said, the day that I met you was the worst day of my life. So she'd composed this text, sent it off to her ex husband on the eve of their court case. Now, if we stand in his shoes, that just appears malicious, doesn't it? Just appears malicious. And he's probably going to reach the conclusion that she's a crazy bitch and the kids are better off with me. And here's how I'm going to add it to my court case, my legal proceedings, and I'm going to make sure that crazy mum doesn't get access like she wants. So things escalate that way. But when we stand in her shoes and obviously she's got regret and remorse for what she sent, but if we get under the surface of where it came from, where it was sent from, we start to realise, and it took her a little while to kind of feel into this with me, but I said, what were you ultimately hoping for? And where she got to was. She said, ultimately, I was hoping for my ex husband to feel the extraordinary pain I've been through since our separation.
James [00:44:10]:
And that's so human. It's so human. I'm not condoning the way she went about it at all. That was very unskillful because it didn't create. It didn't evoke in him an openness to her pain, did it? It immediately shut him down. So those three questions, what pain wants to be expressed, what pain is wanting to be avoided? And what pain do they want us to taste so that they feel attuned to in their pain? Those three questions take us deeper than the errant assumption that they are essentially bad or wrong and wanted our pain. And once we can start to feel into the fact that they wanted something valid and our pain is real, now we're standing in reality. Part of the beauty of that is once we can start to dissolve our assumptions about others as bad, something shifts in our heart in terms of our relationship with the world.
James [00:45:14]:
So the book I'm writing at the moment is called how to fall in love with humanity. Because what starts to happen over time, and I've witnessed this with countless clients, we can start to relate to someone's shitty behaviour as an unskillful way to go about what they were yearning for. That created very real pain for us that we don't need to be anywhere near. But that view of reality is far different than some people are just evil and out to get me and want bad things.
Stephanie [00:45:46]:
Yeah.
James [00:45:47]:
And I've never, in all the thousands of conversations, tens of thousands of conversations over the last 15 years of this work, no one has ever failed to find a deeper, more human yearning in the heart of someone who's hurt them. No one has ever failed to find something much more nuanced and rich and real than they wanted me to suffer.
Stephanie [00:46:16]:
Yeah. And I think that certainly in my experience, there is such freedom in that recognition because you can get really stuck in holding on to the story of, like, that person's just an asshole, that person is just bad, and they meant to hurt me. And we can just spin around in that for a long time. And I don't know about you or anyone listening, but that's never really helped me to feel better in a meaningful sense. It feels kind of juicy in the sense of a sugar hit. Temporarily it gives us something, but it doesn't really sustain us and it certainly doesn't free us from the pain that we're in. Keeps us in it.
James [00:47:05]:
Holding. Yeah. Latching on, being weathered to my assumptions of someone's malicious intent. The sugar hit of that, the kind of junk food aspect of that, that kind of feels zingy and tasty on the tongue is the fact that if I can label someone as bad, then it means that my pain must be valid. Like all the ex partners in the world now going, oh, it makes sense that I was suffering because turns out my ex partner is a narcissist. Like, everyone loves to reach for that, because it has this immediate flavour of validating the very real pain I've been through. Right. If they're the villain, then suddenly I must be valid in the hurt that I've sustained.
James [00:47:46]:
But you're right, it doesn't lead us into an interconnected world, an interrelationship. And if we're committed to interrelationship or inter being or interdependence, which is what relationship is, then we have to be able to move beyond the assumptions of malicious intent. If I come back to my story with my ex wife, it took me a couple of days to tend to my own upset of that. I felt really hurt, like really hurt and really falsely accused and really kind of, what's the word? Almost tricked, right? But when I started to really feel into the heart of the woman that for 15 years I loved more than anything, right? So it's like my heart can actually feel into hers if I allow it. I started to realise that what might have been behind her doing that was actually that she wanted her pain understood by others around her, even people who didn't know me. She wanted to feel like her pain that was still alive for her because of some things that had happened between us. She wanted to feel like she had allies. And so she achieved that by sharing what had happened between us that really left her pain.
James [00:49:02]:
And as soon as I can start to tune into that, I go, you know what? I also want her to have allies in her pain, just like she does. I also want her to have the experience in her heart that her pain is valid and not being dismissed. I want that for her as well. That is the essence of love, when you can start to feel into what someone was yearning for and realise that you would want that for them as well. Now, here's the thing. It might sound like I'm saying to her, it's okay what you did, but actually, no way. No way was that strategy okay with me. And I absolutely won't tolerate it in the future.
James [00:49:45]:
So then I came to her with my pain in one hand and her deeper yearning in the other, and I spoke it to her. So I said something like, I've just found out that some things have been said about me into my community. It's left me feeling kind of ambushed, hurt, unfairly accused and set up and fearful also for my professional reputation. And I can understand that your wonderful intention behind doing and saying what you did is that I imagine that the pain of our separation, that might still be alive in you. I imagine that you just want to be surrounded by people who you feel get your pain. And so you do that by telling some very personal things. And it really makes sense that you might have been really longing for an alliance to have people around you who could support you by knowing what you've been through. And we had this conversation over a beer and she just opened and she said, thank you for being able to see that.
James [00:51:01]:
Of course. That's what I was hoping for, of course. And she had a bit of a cry. And then she spontaneously said, I didn't go about it very skillfully. And I said, absolutely not. I won't tolerate the telling of stories in my community. And I really understand that you're yearning to feel supported in your pain. So I said to her, how might we in the future, have you express your pain? So it's really understood by me in a way that doesn't involve telling stories to people I don't know.
James [00:51:36]:
And she said, maybe I could just come direct to you and express the pain that's still here for me. And I was like, that would be wonderful, let's do that. So there's nothing in this work that says feeling into another's deeper yearning is to condone their behaviour. In fact, only by feeling into their deeper yearning can we ever address the behaviour. Because in that moment, can you feel how I evoked her openness to seeing that, how she went about it and what she tried to do were kind of a bit of a mismatch. She didn't want my pain. She wanted me to taste her pain. She didn't ultimately want my suffering.
James [00:52:24]:
She wanted her suffering. See, now let's consider what I normally would have done, unconsciously would have done if I hadn't had this notion of holding my pain and her yearning in equal measure. I would have just gone in there with what my pain and it would have sounded like, how dare you? It's not okay for you, too. I won't tolerate it. This is bad and wrong about you. It's not okay. I know that your pain is your shit. Don't spell it into my world.
James [00:52:54]:
That's how 99.9% of us will naturally communicate. Because the only data that we've got is our pain and we haven't yet felt into the rest of the data, which is that they were wanting something distinct from our pain. The greater the upset, the more difficult it is to feel into some deeper yearning.
Stephanie [00:53:17]:
Yeah, I wonder if fish, before we wrap up. I'm mindful of the time and I think we could talk about this forever, but something that I think a lot of people listening will relate to and question and struggle with is when you're faced with someone's resistance to this work, or just to. If you're doing your part right. You think you're being a very good student conscious communicator and it doesn't work, quote unquote, they don't spontaneously open and it doesn't all dissolve into. Because I think the examples that you've given for a lot of people, they'd go like, wow, that feels like a level of mastery that I don't know that that would happen in my relationship. I don't think we're there. I think that's probably true. Right? It takes a level of trust and deeper safety to be able to have those conversations heartfully.
Stephanie [00:54:17]:
And the reality is that oftentimes we will still be met with resistance or closure in someone. They might not immediately come to the table in the way that we would have hoped. And when you've been courageous in trying to lead the repair and you kind of get the door slammed in your face, then it's really easy to go back to, well, they're just the problem, right? I'm doing my part. You're still being defensive. This is bullshit. Why do I even bother? And then we're right back where we started. And I know that you speak really beautifully about validating that, like just continuing to validate. Validate the defensiveness.
Stephanie [00:55:01]:
Can I get really curious about what they're experiencing, the conditions behind that, and just keep going a level deeper rather than extending the olive branch once, then going, well, fuck this, you're not playing along.
James [00:55:13]:
So I give up. Beautiful. And that tendency is for us to go, okay, I'm going to try this out. I mean, I get to witness this all day, every day, because I'm working with people who are new to this work and asking them to practise it. And without fail, people will start and go, I tried it and it didn't open them. And so it proves that they're the villain, right? And I'm like, wow, look how quickly. Look how quickly we go from expansion back into contraction. We're certain that the problem is them.
James [00:55:43]:
And how's that's going for you? We're back in just escalating the conflict. Right? So it's very natural. It's very natural. And so, yeah, if we specifically look at how to respond to someone not responding. You've heard me talk about this, but the notion that all behaviour is an expression of an experience, everything that everyone is doing all over the planet right now, without fail, without exception, is a natural expression of the experience they're having. So when we use this idea that behaviour is an expression of experience, then rather than getting oppositional towards their behaviour. That might sound like my partner is so withdrawn, why aren't they willing to have a conversation with me? Why are they so avoidant? Why are they so this and that? Why are they so judgmental? Why are they so defensive? We can get curious about what's the experience they're having underneath their defensiveness or avoidance or withdrawal. And we're not saying I'm okay with your behaviour, we're saying, I see where it's coming from and that becomes a very, very powerful way to meet others where they're at.
James [00:57:06]:
So, for example, there's a relationship in my life that's been difficult and disconnected for twelve years. And I have approached this person numerous times indicating my care for them and my love for them and my willingness to have a better relationship with them. And for most of twelve years they've said, screw you, no thanks, not interested. The problems over there with you, I don't need anything from you. Happy with how things are all the way to, yeah, that might be nice at some point. Maybe so. For a lot of that twelve years, I kind of have encountered my own resistance to their behaviour. Thinking, look at all the love I'm pouring into this.
James [00:57:53]:
And the problem is clearly there with them because if they were really a good person, they would recognise my care for them and they would open to me. That didn't go very well because I was actually just making them wrong. Can you feel that? I'm just making them wrong for how they're being. So it wasn't until I started to think, oh, their unwillingness to have conversations with me, to take this relationship deeper is actually an expression of them not feeling ready or not feeling safe or not feeling recognised. And I myself and your listeners could maybe think right now, just like think about the last time you were unwilling. It was valid. Your unwillingness was actually an expression of where you were at, of exactly what you were feeling. You might not have felt trusting to open to someone.
James [00:58:45]:
You might not have felt ready because you hadn't had time to kind of sit with what you were feeling. And you might have been worried that you were going to make it worse. You might have just felt unrecognised and felt like it's not even worth me going there because my experience won't get seen. And so once we start to realise that people's unwillingness to be in communication with us is a communication, it is a communication of exactly what they're experiencing. Like this person who's cut contact with me recently, it leads me into a deeper understanding of what must be present for them in their experience in order to have to do so. And if I can take the time, and it's been difficult for me because I've been so hurt by it and so misrepresented for what my beautiful heart was actually intending. But also once I can start to feel into that person's heart, I'm like, wow. How much they must have been longing for the protection of an open communication and how much upset there must have been in the communication in order for them to need to close the door.
James [00:59:57]:
Because we close doors in order to create a container around us. You don't go to sleep with the front door open because you're worried about what might come in and also go out. So we close doors for containment. And that when we really feel into the essence of someone needing to withdraw in order to feel safer, to withdraw in order to not feel overwhelmed, to withdraw in order that they transmit how much pain that they're in to us so that we can understand them, like their longing to have their pain recognised, you can really start to feel into the humanness now. I still feel very hurt by that recently. And at the very same time I have the deepest. I'm starting to generate this very deep compassion that this person I care so much about. Felt like closing the door was their desperate need to have their pain recognised and to have their safety enhanced so that they could continue be in their life and do what they really want to do.
James [01:01:08]:
And I honour the fuck out of that. I honour that so deeply while also suffering the consequences of it.
Stephanie [01:01:15]:
Yeah. And yet social media snippets would say, like, well, that's just immature and those people shouldn't be in relationships. That's the one I hear all the time. If you can't have a conversation, you shouldn't be in relationships. That might sound nice and it might make you feel good, but can we feel into what sits beneath that resistance or that defensiveness or that pulling away that isn't just I can't be bothered or I don't care which I guess that's a really easy read on something, but it almost invariably is inaccurate and there's something much more human underneath it that if we took the time to try and feel into, we could actually go, oh, okay, yeah, that makes sense.
James [01:02:02]:
Yes, that's right. Feeling into the deeper. Like when we really stop, when we really stop and slow down and ask ourselves the question, I wonder what they were longing to feel by doing what they did. And we really give that some time. Like we really look for the validity in what they were longing for. I promise what you find is so beautiful and tender and human. And if we go back to the part one, the first half, where my intention is wonderful and they shouldn't have pain, we start to realise that no matter how wonderful our intentions were like for me in this scenario, I had such tender, loving intentions behind something that I did, and what I have to start to realise, if I want to be grounded in reality, that cutting contact is a very clear expression of very real, very real upset. And it's not an upset that I ever wanted for them.
James [01:03:05]:
And I feel so deeply remorseful and regretful that the way I went about my yearning created upset for them. But it's like my responsibility from an expanded, conscious place. My responsibility is just to recognise and validate the reality of their pain. Yes, it's not what I wanted, and yes, it is true for them. And once I can start to feel into their pain and their yearning, then the cutting of contact starts to just be like a natural. It was a natural action that they took that caused pain for me that they never wanted. They don't want pain for me. They want safety for them and their pain to be recognised.
James [01:03:52]:
And so that's the deeper invitation that conscious communication invites us into. It's like, can we feel into the me and unice of this, which is so different to just the meanness that we normally have access to? What's the me and you in this? What's the tenderness in my heart, yearning and pain, and the tenderness in their heart, yearning and pain. And, you know, how difficult this is. So I speak about it as if it's kind of simple. But for me it is a spiritual path. It's my devotion, it's the thing that matters most to me on the planet, to stand in compassion towards me and all other beings in as many moments as they can. And I fall out of that all the time. I fall back into just like, what an asshole.
James [01:04:49]:
All the time.
Stephanie [01:04:52]:
Yeah. And I think that as we've touched on, there is such liberation in irrespective of what you get back, like actually just deciding to live from that place and frees up so much energy. And I find that I see the world so differently. There's just so much more ease and space and peace in deciding, really consciously deciding to live from that place as much as possible.
James [01:05:20]:
Yeah, it's a beautiful worldview, isn't it? It's as simple as realising that the planet is densely populated with billions of humans, all with tender longings in their heart and pain from the past, and either skillfully or much more likely, unskillfully, going about expressing that yearning and pain. And the more unskillfully we express our yearning and pain, the more we create pain for others that we never wanted to be creating for others. And when we just see ourselves as unskillful beings, longing and suffering, then the whole kind of hue of humanity changes. It's like things take on a different colour. Now, once again, it's important to discern how close or how distant I need to be from certain behaviours. But the behaviours that we might like to label and the people that we might like to pathologize and villainize, they're just like us. They're yearning and suffering and usually unskillfully trying to express it.
Stephanie [01:06:31]:
So beautiful. Thank you. As I said, I'm sure we could speak for many, many hours on this, but, alas, I don't know. I hope that everyone who's listening has gotten as much out of this and loves this work as much as we do. Where can people find you, fish? If they want to dive deeper into your world, which I wholeheartedly recommend that.
James [01:06:55]:
They do, they can find my little junk food nuggets, reels and posts on Instagram. James Gill that's a good place to get a taste of the work that I do, bearing in mind that it's little snippets of. It's like junk food nuggets instead of the whole nine course meal, you're selling.
Stephanie [01:07:21]:
Yourself short by saying it's junk food.
James [01:07:24]:
I post something on Instagram and a million people on the other side of the world go, yeah, but what about.
Stephanie [01:07:30]:
This extremely niche exception to that?
James [01:07:34]:
Yeah, exactly. You get it. And then on the web, I'm leadbyheart.com. And the way that I work with people now is welcome people into a nine week group coaching programme. That's where we form our foundational understanding of these tools and get some practise in the kind of warmth and security of doing it in the community of people practising. Then following a group coaching programme, you can access one to one support with me. Otherwise I'll be down at Layton beach in north Fremantle. You can also find me there.
Stephanie [01:08:21]:
Look, I have to say to anyone listening, as I said at the start, I connected with fish a couple of years ago, sort of as colleagues, but given the opportunity to jump into being a student of his through his facilitator training, and I've shared his work with so many people, including my mum, my mum did your group coaching nine week course recently. So I really stand behind this with every fibre of my being and it continues to be a really profound influence on my own work and my own lens. So immensely grateful for you, fish, and all of the work that you do and for coming on and chatting to me.
James [01:08:59]:
Well, Steph, I know firsthand the courage that it takes to consider the conscious communication pathway instead of just believe our analyses and pathologies of others in the face of our very real hurt. So I honour you for that. And I love the work that you do. I love the compassion that you bring to the conversation around attachment and relationship. And it's so what the world needs is that compassionate approach to the humanness behind our dynamics instead of the vitriol and the blame that is generated in so many corners of this world, this relationship world. So I honour you for that. It's beautiful.
Stephanie [01:09:41]:
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 at 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 sooner.
Keywords from Podcast Episode
unconscious communication, conflict transformation, good intentions, toxic behavior, personal betrayal, understanding pain, compassionate communication, relationship resistance, validating emotions, cultural misunderstandings, conflict escalation, intention versus impact, conscious communication, spiritual approach, compassionate living, attachment dynamics, Instagram engagement, group coaching, open-heartedness, relationship repair, hurtful behaviour, yearning behind actions, addressing behavior, unconscious responses, defence of intentions, love recognition, open communication, emotional safety, court case communication, yoga teacher.
#132 Cultivating Secure Love with Julie Menanno (@thesecurerelationship)
In today's episode, I'm delighted to be joined by Julie Menanno. Julie is a couples therapist, best known for her hugely popular instagram account @thesecurerelationship where she offers nuanced and insightful takes on attachment dynamics and how couples can overcome negative cycles to build secure relationships. She has just released her first book, Secure Love, which offers couples a roadmap for building thriving relationships that last.
In today's episode, I'm delighted to be joined by Julie Menanno. Julie is a couples therapist, best known for her hugely popular instagram account @thesecurerelationship where she offers nuanced and insightful takes on attachment dynamics and how couples can overcome negative cycles to build secure relationships. She has just released her first book, Secure Love, which offers couples a roadmap for building thriving relationships that last.
Our conversation covers a lot of ground, including:
A deeper look at the fear of abandonment in anxious attachment
Key challenges of avoidant attachment
Negative cycles in anxious-avoidant relationships
What to do when one partner doesn't want to go to therapy
The importance of validating your partner's emotions (even if you disagree with their position)
Julie's tips (as a mum of 6!) for raising secure kids
To connect with Julie Menanno:
Follow Julie on Instagram @thesecurerelationship
Questions for Discussion & Reflection
Reflect on your current or past relationships. Can you identify moments where you felt an emotional safety net was either present or lacking? How did this impact your communication and connection with your partner?
Consider the concept of first and second order change discussed by Julie. Have there been times in your relationship where consistent effort to change was clear, but a shift in the environmental context was necessary to see growth? How did you navigate this, or how might you approach it in the future?
When encountering triggers within your relationship, do you tend to react immediately, or do you take a moment to pause and observe your reactions? Think about a recent situation and how your response may have influenced the outcome.
Growing up, what was the attitude towards conflict and emotions in your household? In what ways do you see this shaping your approach to handling tension and disagreements in your adult relationships?
Julie highlighted the importance of validating each partner's concerns in a relationship. Recall a time when you felt your concerns were fully acknowledged by your partner. How did it affect your feelings and the resolution of the issue?
Upon facing adversity and conflicts in your relationships, do you notice a drive to immediately repair and resolve issues, or do you recognize the potential value in the struggle? How might embracing the messiness contribute to relationship growth?
Think about the last big fight you had in a relationship. In what ways did it provide an opportunity for growth and a deeper understanding of your fears and vulnerabilities? What lessons did you take away from the experience?
Reflect on Julie’s encouragement to recognise and address feelings during everyday activities. How might integrating this practice into your daily routine enhance your overall emotional wellbeing and the quality of your relationships?
Recall a time when you were navigating anxiety or big emotions. How did you handle that moment, and what strategies did you use to trust in your capacity to manage those feelings effectively?
Parenting styles can greatly influence our attachment patterns. Reflect on Julie's parenting approach after finding traditional advice lacking. How has the upbringing you experienced influenced your perception of emotional safety and attachment in your own parenting or in your intimate relationships?
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Check out my couples course, Secure Together (& save $200 with the code SECURE)
Save $150 on my Higher Love break-up course with the code PHOENIX
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
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Episode Transcript
Stephanie Rigg [00:00:04]:
For today's episode, I am so excited to be joined by Julie Manano, who many of you will know as the brains and the heart behind the hugely popular Instagram account, the secure relationship. Julie is a couple's therapist and she's just published her first book, Secure Love, which is now out and available. Julie is such an incredible source of wisdom on all things attachment and by far my favourite content creator in this area. So I was so, so delighted to have her on the show and I'm really looking forward to sharing this conversation with you, which is all about how couples can use an understanding of themselves and attachment and these dynamics to overcome the cycles that they get stuck in and how you can really start building bridges towards a more secure love with one another. So I have no doubt that this conversation will be hugely helpful for so many of you and I'm really looking forward to sharing it with you.
Stephanie Rigg [00:01:34]:
Julie, welcome. It's so great to have you.
Julie Menanno [00:01:37]:
Hi, Stephanie. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me.
Stephanie Rigg [00:01:41]:
So I absolutely want to talk about your new book, which I'm very excited to receive and read when it comes out. But before we jump into that, I would really love. I'm sure a lot of people listening follow you online, your account, and appreciate your content as much as I do. Something that I really value in your work is that you do such a great job at articulating the fears and the vulnerabilities that sit underneath the attachment styles and the behaviours that we see outwardly, which it's easy to be critical of or judgmental of some of the ways that these fears and vulnerabilities manifest outwardly, particularly when we're in relationship with someone and we're on either side of that.
Julie Menanno [00:02:34]:
Oh, yeah, so hard.
Stephanie Rigg [00:02:37]:
Maybe you could share for people. I mean, I think most people listening will be familiar with each of the attachment styles, but kind of going a layer deeper and sharing. What are some of those deeper fears, which oftentimes I think one of the beauties of your content is some of the things you put words to are things that people might not necessarily be consciously aware of very much in terms of their own. What is driving their behaviour so maybe you could just give a little bit of a feel for what sits underneath a lot of those behaviours for each of the insecure attachment styles.
Julie Menanno [00:03:13]:
Well, one thing that comes to mind is when we talk about anxious attachment, most people are kind of familiar with the idea that anxious attachment comes from this fear of abandonment. And when we hear the word abandonment, our minds just sort of go right to physical abandonment. Right. Which can be a real fear for someone with an anxious attachment, just that physical distance and not having lots of contact with their partner through the phone or through text or. However, because that physical proximity helps them feel safe. Like, if you're right there in front of me, I have this sense of safety in my body that you're not gone. Right. But there are also a lot of people with anxious attachment who actually don't really mind not being physically with their partner all the time.
Julie Menanno [00:04:06]:
And what they actually fear is emotional abandonment, which is probably a bigger piece of the puzzle for a lot of people, which is emotional abandonment is feeling emotionally validated, getting messages that your emotions are too much, or your emotions are unreasonable, or your emotions are illogical, or your emotions don't matter to me, which is huge. So what's really going to get someone with anxious attachment triggered is less. Well, I don't want to say less. For some people, we're going to see all of these posts about if they don't text back, things like that. Right. But there's this other piece of it where you hear from your partner, you're just making things up, or you know what? You need to deal with your feelings on your own, or you're seeing it all wrong, or you're just being dramatic. And so that's going to really trigger the heart of someone with an anxious attachment profoundly because of growing up in environments where those were the repeated messages, and that is emotional abandonment. And if you look at things like borderline personality disorder, which is this really extreme version of what I consider attachment insecurity, the only thing that's really common in studies to the childhood environment of people who develop borderline personality disorder, what would you think it would be? Serious abuse, something like this. But it's emotional invalidation. Just an environment of emotional invalidation is enough to create major problems.
Stephanie Rigg [00:06:01]:
Yeah, I love that you talk about emotional abandonment. It's something that I've spoken to before and I think that I can relate to it. Like, I lean more anxious and having that fear of, like, are you going to be there when I need you? Even though you're physically here, this sense of am I going to be left alone with these big feelings? Right. And I think that can be really terrifying. And when we see expressions of that various cycles in anxious avoidant dynamics, where you might have someone on the other side who goes the other way and withdraws or pulls away or becomes very defensive, then having that sense of I'm scrambling to try and get engagement from you. And even in this moment when my emotions are getting really big and I'm visibly distressed for you to still be kind of denying me what I need, that can feel like fuel on the fire. Right. It's no secret that I need you in this moment. So surely if you loved me, you would be responding to me the way I want you to respond. And I think, as you say, that can be really viscerally terrifying distressing for someone with more anxious attachment.
Julie Menanno [00:07:20]:
Definitely. And then we have this other side, which is the person who's not showing up. Right. And so what does it look like? It looks like they don't care. They're disengaged. It's irrelevant. I'm irrelevant to them. But really what's happening is they're getting overwhelmed with I don't know what to do. I never learned how to help myself in these emotionally hard places, so I really don't know how to help a partner. And the way that I did learn to help myself was to shove my feelings away, just make them go away or go into this fix it place in my brain. And so what I know to do to help you is what I've learned to do to help me. And really not recognising the impact of, well, you should just see it differently, or let's just do whatever I have to do to make these big emotions go away that I don't know how to deal with. And then eventually they get overwhelmed to the point that none of my strategies are working here, which doesn't make sense because they work with me.
Stephanie Rigg [00:08:27]:
Everything I say or don't say makes this worse. Right? Yes, exactly.
Julie Menanno [00:08:33]:
So then they shut down. It's like, where does this start? A chicken or the egg? It doesn't start anywhere, it just is as far as way they're interacting with each other.
Stephanie Rigg [00:08:46]:
Yeah. And it's something that I take very seriously in my work is not kind of creating a hierarchy of these different expressions and not, I think, particularly avoidant attachment gets a really bad rap in a lot of online content. And it's something that I'm really quite passionate about balancing that and giving people more kind of inroads into understanding that in a compassionate way and recognising everything that you just articulated makes perfect sense. Right. In the environment in which it sprung from, that's a really adaptive response.
Julie Menanno [00:09:31]:
It really is empowering. I think for somewhere along the line I'm not exactly sure where, but anxious partners got this idea that they have these needs, the avoidance can't show up for these needs and so it must be the avoidance that's the problem. But how disempowering is that? Right? To think that you really can't do anything, that you're just kind of a victim to what this other person is doing. So I love that you said you balance this out because it's so important because when anxious partners really start to learn there's a lot of work they can be doing to shift the environment, I think a much more empowering message.
Stephanie Rigg [00:10:11]:
I agree. I think that as much as it might be a hard pill to swallow for people to recognise their part in the dynamic and what they need to take responsibility for, I think that it's ultimately much more empowering place to be than kind of throwing your hands up and saying well, you just don't meet my needs or you always do this or I'm doing all the work and you're the roadblock. And I think coupled with the tendency for anxious folks to persist in light of all of those criticisms or judgments it's not like they're reaching a decision of this isn't working for me and walking away. It's like, this isn't working for me, but I'm going to sit here and protest about it.
Julie Menanno [00:10:53]:
Exactly. I'm going to keep watering the plant with gasoline.
Stephanie Rigg [00:10:56]:
Yeah, exactly. And then feeling really frustrated and overwhelmed. Does this keep happening to me?
Julie Menanno [00:11:03]:
She can water the plant with gasoline?
Stephanie Rigg [00:11:05]:
Yeah, absolutely. So maybe we can pivot to talking about your book secure love, which is probably by the time this episode comes out, will be out in the world. So anyone listening, please go ahead and order a copy. If you haven't already. Tell us about the book. What's kind of the premise? What do you take people through?
Julie Menanno [00:11:25]:
Well, I wrote it for a lot of different reasons and every time I'm interviewed I give another different reason. Whatever comes to mind. But I have seen a lot of success in doing the type of work that I do with couples, working with attachment theory and my private practise and when I started my Instagram account, which is where I started putting out information, where I was starting from is, look, there are a lot of people out there who just don't have access to couples therapy and don't have access to quality couples therapy. And how can I kind of help people that are in that position in the best way possible through social media platform and kind of tie attachment theory altogether? Like, let's put it into context. You have an anxious attachment, you get your partner has an avoidant attachment. Now, how does it show up between the two of you? And more importantly, how is it creating these negative communication cycles, which is basically the anxious attachment partner being anxious and the avoidant attachment partner being avoidant? And now they're reinforcing all of these insecurities. They're speaking in a way that can go from kind of a normal conversation into a big fight and they're not getting problem solved. Those kinds of negative cycles block actual resolution to our talk about finances or our talk about parenting or sex or politics or whatever it is.
Julie Menanno [00:12:57]:
And in the process, they're also hurting each other emotionally and reinforcing the already insecure attachment. So I'm kind of leading with, hey, here's attachment theory. Here's a very detailed description of anxious attachment, the childhood environment, how it looks in adulthood, here's how it shows up in these negative cycles. Here's what you can do to interrupt them when they happen, here's what you can do to prevent them, here's what you can do to repair them. And then just lots of practical skills, lots of actual words, scripts, if you don't have the words and you haven't learned these words yet, it's just a concept. And it can be really hard for people to put concepts into actions, especially in these moments when they're kind of like on the spot and you got to say it the right way. And then some couples are blocked by attachment injuries, which is something I have to work within my practise too, which is kind of like these added layers of attachment wounds, major breaches of trust. Moments when you really needed your partner to show up for you and they weren't there.
Julie Menanno [00:14:10]:
And a lot of times these old wounds are blocking their ability to even put New practises into place, put new communication into place, because there's all this resentment and mistrust built up. So then I'm going to kind of say, hey, here are some ideas, here are the way that healing conversations go. Here's what a healing conversation looks like. Now that you've kind of learned to do that outside of these negative cycles. Let's see if we can start healing some of this, which is only going to make the work easier, then just goes into just different other considerations, like mental illness, sex, substance abuse, anything that's kind of layers to relationships that are more than standard fighting about money. And then I have a whole chapter of scripts. Just, you need to bring up a hard topic to your partner. Here are some things to say.
Julie Menanno [00:15:08]:
Your partner doesn't want to go to therapy. Here are some things to say and just multiple examples just to give people the words. And it's not just the words, we need to make words our own. But I also break down the phrases into elements, which is, this is why I validated at the beginning of this sentence, this is why I ended it in this way. So if you're not wanting to use my words, and sometimes they aren't even my words, they're just as neutral as I can be for people who are reading the book that all speak from in different ways, different cultures, it's just like, well, let's just help you integrate the elements here.
Stephanie Rigg [00:15:50]:
Yeah, and I'm sure that's immensely helpful for people who, as you say, just don't have that reference point. Maybe they grew up in a family system where things weren't talked about or they weren't talked about in a productive way, and you've just not had that relational environment either directly or you've never had it modelled. So I think that having those scripts can be so helpful. Something that comes up for me, as you say, that is, I hear from a lot of people with more anxious patterns who very much want the scripts. And something that I'm always minded to add in as a caveat is here's a script and you kind of have to surrender a little to the messiness of being in relationship. And I think that there can be this sense of if I say the perfect thing in the perfect way, then I'll get the outcome that I want. And if I do my part, then you have to do your part, you have to respond in the way that I want you to. And if you don't, then I'll go straight back into, well, you're. The problem is that something that you.
Julie Menanno [00:16:57]:
See, I do address this pretty extensively in the book, which is this change really does need to come from your heart. If it's coming from a place of, well, I'm only doing this because I really want to control what you're going to do, then it's really not change at all. So we really have to shift that heart place, which is why I put the scripts at the end of the book, not the beginning.
Stephanie Rigg [00:17:20]:
Yeah, I think it is. It's funny it can almost be like a covert extension of the cycle when it is.
Julie Menanno [00:17:29]:
That's perfectly worded.
Stephanie Rigg [00:17:34]:
Rather than shifting it, there can be ways that that cycle can come back in. And I think that that is a really challenging edge for people. Something that I still notice come up and I have to keep tabs on is that story of like, one person trying extending the olive branch, and then if they still get some sort of defensiveness or their partner doesn't immediately become a different person and respond totally differently, then it can spiral back. What would you say to people in that, like, kind of realistic expectations around how this change happens?
Julie Menanno [00:18:13]:
Well, I do address, this is another topic I do address extensively in the book, which is we're looking at the big picture here. We're looking for the end. This is a long game. When you start this work, there really are no guarantees that you can put the right term coin into the vending machine and push the button and you're going to get the bag of chips. Right. We have to look at it. The mindset has to be one. I really want to be the person.
Julie Menanno [00:18:44]:
I want to be in the world, right. I want to be a person who can communicate myself in the healthiest way possible, can kind of regulate my emotions before I deliver my messages. And if you look at it that way, you can't lose, right? Because every time you try something new that's going to help you grow as a person, that's a win, even if your partner doesn't respond in the exact way that you would like. Now, of course, we all really need and want for the relationship to be close, for our partner to be able to respond openly and positively to our shifts. But in most cases, that's not going to happen right away. It's a matter of environmental shift. Second order change. So first order change is I'm just going to start delivering my messages in a new way.
Julie Menanno [00:19:40]:
Second order change is when the environment starts to become new and you have to do a lot of consistent, repetitive first order change before second order change starts to become a natural way of being for both partners. And most of the couples out there that are working, they aren't necessarily working parallel to each other, growing at the exact same rate. So your job as a partner isn't to kind of make your partner grow. You want your partner to grow. You crave your partner's growth. You need your partner's growth for closeness in the relationship. But your real job is to do your part to clean up the environment. And when we have clean environments, and if one partner can start kind of getting the ball rolling on that process and putting emotional safety into the relationship even when the other partner isn't able to.
Julie Menanno [00:20:38]:
Right. Then people are their best selves when they feel safe. People start to reflect when they feel safe. So if your partner is going. I refuse to go to couples therapy. Couples therapy is for people who are about to get divorced. The typical anxious response to that is, what? You don't care about the relationship? I'm the only one doing the work here. Right.
Julie Menanno [00:20:59]:
Well, that's not really safe because it's not really taking into account the other partner's very legitimate concerns. If the other partner has this idea that if we go to couples therapy, we're going to end up getting divorced. Because I've have numerous examples of people in my life who are divorced who went to couples therapy. So my nervous system is kind of wired around the idea that this wasn't safe. That needs to be held and validated, right? Yes. The ultimate goal is to get the help. I want that for the couple as much as the anxious partner. But that avoidant partner really needs space to hear.
Julie Menanno [00:21:41]:
You know what? That makes sense to me. It really does. I mean, I believe that we should go to couples therapy. We're in a bad spot. We can't seem to get out of it on our own. But at the same time, if you have seen multiple people go to couples therapy and end up getting divorced, of course you don't want to go down that road. That's a threat to you. And I really do get that.
Julie Menanno [00:22:03]:
And then maybe some space later to kind of insert your opinion that is going to lead that avoidant partner into self reflect. There's a much better chance it's going to lead them into self reflection more than just pushing their needs to the side. And then what do people do? They usually double down.
Stephanie Rigg [00:22:23]:
Yeah, that's a lot. Sorry. I think that. No, it's really important, and it's something that I was going to ask you about, like this idea of almost invariably there's one partner who's more proactive and wants to do the work and has certain meanings associated with that. And I think for more anxious people, it's like, because I care about our relationship, it's very important to get ahead of all of the problems. It'd be plugging all of even the tiniest little leaky hole in the boat. Let's talk about it and make a plan and do it all the time. Right.
Stephanie Rigg [00:22:56]:
Process for more avoidant partners, like doing the work can have a very different meaning and association. And it can feel like there's always something wrong, there's always something wrong, and you're always unhappy with me, and we deal with that thing and there's another thing and that can kind of chip away at their sense of self, their sense of like, am I doing a good job as your partner? And when there's just really different conceptions of what it means to do this kind of work in a relationship, what it means about you as individuals, what it means about your connection, then I think when we project what it means for us onto them and go, well, it's important to me to do this work because I care about our relationship so much and you don't want to do it, so you mustn't care about our relationship, then we cause ourselves a lot of pain, right? Whereas I think when we can, and it's so much easier said than done in those moments of hurt and when we're so genuinely invested in a solution that we believe is the right one, but validating someone's resistance or defensiveness and getting curious about it and going, okay, what must this be about for you? What might be underneath your resistance? And how can I feel into that in a way that I can try and understand it rather than just making you wrong for it? Because I think, as you say, it's like if I make you wrong for it, is that going to open you or close you? It's going to close you, and that's going to get me again, we don't want to be always acting from a place of getting what we want from someone. But I think you can also look at that and go, what's the natural consequence of me blaming and shaming you for the way that you genuinely feel about this thing? That's a really big issue. I think someone doubling down, as you say, and digging their heels in, that's a really understandable, natural consequence of feeling like you're under attack. And I can also imagine you as a couple's therapist that a lot of people with more avoidant patterns would have this fear of, like, you're going to kind of drag me to the principal's office and sit me down and have someone just bolster your side of the argument. So I'm going to be under attack on multiple fronts.
Julie Menanno [00:25:23]:
That is so true. And I could have used that as an example, and I definitely use that in the book, too, which is their avoidant partners or anybody who doesn't want to go to therapy, they have really good reasons for not wanting to go it doesn't mean at the end of the day, sometimes the conversation at some point might need to get to look, this relationship is in a really bad spot. It's not working for me and we're either going to have to go or I don't know what, but kind of setting a little bit more of a firmer boundary around it. But we need to just lead with just figuring out and validating your perspective because it makes sense on some level. Even if it's. I don't agree. I don't agree with your opinion. The emotions behind that opinion are always valid. And to your point, when you're approaching it in that way, you are actually working on the relationship.
Stephanie Rigg [00:26:24]:
Yeah. And I think that being able to have that conversation and say I understand why this feels, might feel a certain way for you. For me, I've seen you reference this before and I talk about it as well. It's like shifting into that. This is a problem that we are facing together. Right. The things that exist in our relationship feel bigger than our ability to solve them at the moment. And clearly what we're doing isn't working and it's tiring and it's exhausting speaking to some of those what are likely to be shared experiences of the problem.
Stephanie Rigg [00:27:08]:
This really sucks. I hate feeling disconnected from you all the time. I hate feeling like we're always at each other's throats and I just don't know what to do anymore because it feels like the things we're trying aren't working. And I think that shifting into that immediately just brings the temperature down a bit.
Julie Menanno [00:27:25]:
It really does, like you said, opens people up. And I'm in the business of behaviour change, but I'm in the business of getting to that behaviour change with open hearts. And that comes from communicating in a healthy way. There's no way around it.
Stephanie Rigg [00:27:45]:
Yeah, I think, as you say, it's about creating safety and I think we have to really have that at front of mind at all points in relationship is the thing that I'm about to do. All of my default modes of being in relationship is that likely to contribute to or detract from the safety of the person that I'm in relationship with or the broader environment and culture of our relationship. And I think when we ask ourselves that and kind of pause and cheque in so many of the things that we do on autopilot, if we have more insecure patterns, wouldn't pass that test. They're about our safety, but from a very survival driven place that's probably not well suited to the kind of relationship that we really desire and are trying to build.
Julie Menanno [00:28:36]:
Absolutely, yes. It's actually blocking that relationship that you're longing for.
Stephanie Rigg [00:28:42]:
Yeah. So something that I'm curious about is how much of this work do you think in terms of insecure attachment and repairing and moving towards a more secure relationship? Is that work that you think people can do solely in a relational context, or is it doing your own work and doing it relationally? Is it sort of just whatever presents itself to you is an opportunity to do that work?
Julie Menanno [00:29:12]:
I think so. I think that probably the most effective way to look at it is every interaction with a person. It doesn't really matter if it's the clerk at the market or your partner. Every interaction has the potential to trigger you. Right. And it's your triggers. That's where the work lies, is when you're triggered. And ultimately the work is when you're triggered.
Julie Menanno [00:29:41]:
What are you going to do from that point? Are you going to do something? Are you going to snap at the clerk at the market and then feel bad about yourself for the rest of the day? Are you going to snap at the clerk in the market and then forgive yourself and help yourself make sense of that and think about what you may have done differently? Are you going to take that moment when the clerk snaps at you and step inside and take a moment to go, what's going on with me? Okay, I'm feeling kind of disrespected right now, but I'm going to choose to not show up in a way that I don't want to be in the world. And so if we just take that into the relationship, I mean, every interaction gives you the opportunity to grow. Every interaction. But you don't need to be in a romantic relationship to examine your triggers. We have relationships with family members. We have relationships with friends. I do think it's important to have someone in your life that's a secure attachment for you, whether that's a therapist or someone that you meet at an Al Anon group or a friend who is dependable and can be there for you in kind of a good enough way. When we get that dependability and that support, that emotional support, it's co regulating to our nervous systems, and it does help us grow as a person. Right. But I think it's like you said, you're taking every opportunity to grow and to start doing things differently with your feelings.
Stephanie Rigg [00:31:19]:
Yeah. And a lot of it is really kind of mundane and unglamorous. Right. I think that people expect healing to be this big, dramatic moment of epiphany. But as you say, it's just like chipping away. It's like putting a coin in the jar a day at a time.
Julie Menanno [00:31:38]:
I go on walks with my dog and I start noticing these feelings of, like, I just want this. Normally, I love walking, but sometimes I'll think, I just want to get all this stuff done. I wish this walk was over. And that's an opportunity for me to cheque in and say, what's going on right now? That this sense of urgency is getting in my way of enjoying this walk, enjoying this time out here and being present in nature. And that can help me sort of reground myself. And now the walk becomes this more pleasurable experience, instead of just getting in the way of my compulsive need to work. So how does that show up in my relationship? Well, I have just taken that moment to practise getting into my body, finding that sense of urgency that kind of shows up in my chest, paying attention to that, soothing it, and then kind of being able to go into a different place in my heart where I'm more present. So the next time my husband triggers me, I have had that practise going into my body like that.
Julie Menanno [00:32:45]:
And now, because I've practised that in these other parts of life, it's easier for me to step back and go, all right, what's going on? What about what he said is kind of stirring me up inside? And how can I kind of ground myself and get more present and show up in the healthiest way possible? That's not going to lead us down this rabbit hole of a negative cycle.
Stephanie Rigg [00:33:06]:
Yeah, I love that you share that. I think having that capacity to pause, and it is such a practise just to pause and go, how interesting that this thing is stirring this response in me. And I think as soon as we do that, we sort of rise above it and we create that distance that allows us to observe it, and then maybe gently question it, and it just feels less all consuming and true. And I think when it feels less all consuming and true, then we're not so propelled to just act from that place, which so often, as you say, is this kind of heightened, dysregulated place of I have to do something or something dissociative. But it's just like I lose the ability to kind of bring myself back when I can't see what's happening. And so whether it's like walking the dog or waking up in the morning and noticing some anxiety, being able to turn towards that with a level of, like, interesting. I'm feeling anxious today. What might that be about for me, and what do I need? How can I support myself to feel a little bit more grounded or a little safer in my body or whatever it might be? I think that process is so repairing in our own self relationship. Right. It's like, oh, I can tend to myself in those uncomfortable moments or those big moments.
Julie Menanno [00:34:36]:
Even when what's going on around me might not be perfect, I'm still able to stay with myself, and I think this is important too. And you kind of touched on this earlier, which is, these are subtle shifts. Right. My walk isn't going from, oh, my gosh, I just want to get home to, oh, Zen. This is such a glorious walk. It's just going into this step of a little bit more present. And I think sometimes people do this work and they kind of expect to go from one extreme to the other, and we're really not. We're just trying to feel better. Whatever better looks like it isn't this glamorous big shift. Sometimes it's just more subtle.
Stephanie Rigg [00:35:22]:
Healed.
Julie Menanno [00:35:23]:
Yes.
Stephanie Rigg [00:35:23]:
Congratulations. Yeah, I think that's true. Such a big part of it is, like, changing the way we relate to ourselves and our feelings as well. I work mostly with anxiously attached people, and it's like, on the other side of this work. Does that mean I won't experience anxiety anymore in my relationship? It's like, sadly not. That's a human thing. But I think just, like, having a level of openness to the full spectrum of experience and the messiness of being human and being in relationships. And I think really critically, like, trusting in our capacity to hold ourselves through that and to navigate whatever that might look like rather than fearing the big emotions because we don't trust ourselves to experience them and we think, oh, no, if that happens, I won't be okay. And so I have to just frantically try and prevent any of those, and.
Julie Menanno [00:36:23]:
Then it's just such an exhausting way to live.
Stephanie Rigg [00:36:25]:
Yeah, absolutely. And it's kind of ironically, your whole life becomes about the thing you don't want to happen. Right. It takes up so much bandwidth.
Julie Menanno [00:36:36]:
It does. And then you've created the self fulfilling prophecy because you're having a hard time trusting your future self to handle when things don't go well. And if we can do nothing else in our line of work, it's helping people develop that trust. I can learn to handle my own feelings.
Stephanie Rigg [00:36:58]:
Yeah. And just kind of surrendering to the uncertainty of it. All right. Even secure healthy relationships are going to have hard times and they're going to have bumps in the road. And I think having this very idealistic perception of if I can again, control for all of these things and I'm going to eliminate, totally derisk my relationship to the point where I won't have to ever feel hurt or disappointed or any of those things, I won't ever have trust broken. And that's the bar that we're setting, I think, again, is unrealistic and it's really setting ourselves up to fail.
Julie Menanno [00:37:41]:
We are. And the growth lies in the ruptures. Right. I would never want couples to not have ruptures because that's how they learn to kind of take it to that next step. Maybe this is a topic that we haven't been addressing and so now it's kind of overwhelming our coping mechanisms and we kind of got lost in that negative cycle not being our best selves. Well, coming back together in that repair process opens up space for the vulnerability that was tapped into that might be surrounding this hard topic, deeper layers of our fears and who we are. And it provides opportunity to bond and become stronger.
Stephanie Rigg [00:38:29]:
Yeah, absolutely.
Julie Menanno [00:38:31]:
When I see couples, I see these patterns and they're going along and their relationship is getting better and then all of a sudden, out of nowhere they're feeling so confident and out of nowhere they have this big fight. And almost always, once we work through whatever that big fight was, there's a big growth spurt.
Stephanie Rigg [00:38:53]:
Yeah. I think it's also like giving ourselves a lot of grace and not treating that fight as like, oh, it's a major regression in the trajectory that we've been on. I think recognising the absolute inevitability of these ruptures and kind of working that into our expectation of what it means to be in relationship with someone. Because it's messy. Right. It's like two people coming together with all of their own stuff and kind of two lives and we're trying to build something together. Like, of course we're going to stumble. Of course the person I want to stumble with and get up with and kind of do that messy work of rebuilding, I think that's really the much healthier mindset around it, rather than really.
Julie Menanno [00:39:41]:
Is it so much more realistic and the expectations are more appropriate and it's like, as long as we don't want that messiness to take over the relationship and define the climate, there's so much value in that messiness. So much value. Yeah, I mean, a lot of the partners that I see some of them are actually struggling, not so much because they grew up in a high conflict household, but because they grew up in a no conflict household. So now they get into a relationship with more of a norm, which is, hey, we don't see eye to eye about everything. And so what they experienced growing up was that usually it was like, one partner who was making all the decisions. And the reason that there wasn't conflict is because one partner had all the power in the relationship, or they switched power. But still, somehow, this couple, these parents, managed to just not have overt conflict. So what happens to someone who doesn't experience their own parents having rupture and repair, then now they think that these ruptures that are now happening in my relationship, there must be something wrong. They have very little skills to actually repair the situation. So we do want some adversity.
Stephanie Rigg [00:41:03]:
Yeah, I think that's a really important point. It's something I can relate to. In my family. There wasn't a lot of loud conflict fighting, but I was definitely acutely aware of when there was tension.
Julie Menanno [00:41:16]:
And that can be really hard.
Stephanie Rigg [00:41:18]:
Yeah. And I think that that then, for me, has I developed in that environment where I'm now very sensitive to energetic shifts in a dynamic and can experience those. And I've had to do a lot of work around it, like, experience those as really threatening and as some precursor to something very bad, something that's really going to rock the boat. And that feels quite threatening to my system. And so having to kind of disentangle all of that body memory that says, like, oh, this is bad. And you need to kind of get on the front foot and figure out what the problem is and stop it before it becomes something bigger. There's a lot of really, just as.
Julie Menanno [00:42:05]:
You talk, I'm just feeling that anxiety in my system when you're in those situations and, you know, there's this tension, but it's not being talked about. Sometimes that can feel worse than actually hearing people fight.
Stephanie Rigg [00:42:20]:
Absolutely. And I think it does create that hyper vigilance, too, the elephant in the room. And it's something that still now, really, I have such a strong reaction to is, like, there's a thing that's being avoided. There's a conversation that's being avoided or an issue that's being avoided. And I have such a visible reaction to that perception because it has all of the weight of that history behind it.
Julie Menanno [00:42:48]:
Well, what's coming to mind? It's interesting. I'm sure you're familiar with the strange situation. The original, I don't know if you remember this piece, but the children who were labelled as anxious attachment were crying and they were kind of inconsolable when they got triggered. And the mom was kind of anxiously trying to calm them down, but it took an extended period of time compared to the babies with secure attachment. The avoidant children, on the other hand, were just blank. They didn't show much emotion at all. They weren't showing any signs of distress, they just kept playing with the toys. But it was the avoidant children who were more physiologically aroused, even more so than the anxious children.
Julie Menanno [00:43:30]:
So there is something to be said for at least with anxious attachment, that energy is somewhat getting expelled. Not that it's all got its downsides in different ways, but I'm just thinking of you sitting there as a child and know you didn't grow up in this high conflict home, but yet you still have this sense of anxiety and it probably took you a while in your life, I'm guessing, to recognise, hey, that was painful, too.
Stephanie Rigg [00:43:58]:
Yeah, absolutely. I think having that, being able to really honestly look at the environments that we grew up in, not in a way that's trying to lay blame or create a trauma that wasn't there, but to go, oh, okay, yeah, that had an impact. That kind of makes sense that this grew from that and that I adapted in that way and that made a lot of sense in that environment. But maybe that's not serving me well in this new environment that I'm trying to create. I think finding that middle road is really valuable in doing this work and having more context for ourselves and the way that we show up in relationships.
Julie Menanno [00:44:41]:
So true. I love how you said you're not looking for problems, but you are looking at the problems that might still be alive today. And I say this in the book, too. It's like, look, I'm not trying to take away your happy childhood memories or your love for your parents at all. All of it can be true. You can look at your child and say, hey, I was basically a happy kid. I felt loved, I felt supported. And here are some things that maybe didn't go well that are still kind of getting.
Julie Menanno [00:45:14]:
That are getting in my way in this relationship. And some people have the other experience where they're like, no, it was absolutely awful. I felt horrible. All of it can be true. There's no one thing that we can say. You have to have this set of trauma in order to be suffering now.
Stephanie Rigg [00:45:35]:
Yeah, that provides a nice segue. I was going to finish by asking you a very self interested question, because I know that you have. Do you have five kids?
Julie Menanno [00:45:45]:
Six kids.
Stephanie Rigg [00:45:47]:
Six kids. I'm six months pregnant with my first. It is very exciting. I'm very curious to ask you, coming from all of this work, and obviously with having six kids, what would you say is kind of attachment? How has doing this work, I suppose influenced the way that you have approached being a parent?
Julie Menanno [00:46:12]:
Well, it dramatically influenced the way that I am a parent. I mean, just dramatically. I mean, I started off in a really bad foot. This information wasn't available to me. I was not in the field at the time. I did not grow up in a home with much positive modelling and lots of stuff there. So when I had my first son, I was just dead set on figuring it all out. But I was reading all these parenting books, which this was 2001, so they weren't as progressed as they are now. And a lot of them were just kind of giving different contradictory information. I felt like an absolute mess. I did not know what I was doing and I definitely did not get at all the emotional support piece. In my mind, it was like, you create a structured environment, you send them to the right school, you feed them a really healthy diet. I was a stay at home mom and you just kind of put all these things into the recipe and everything works out. But my kids were really lacking in emotional support until I went a little bit before going back to grad school. I started discovering work on self compassion and that was a real shift for me. And then from there, that got me into attachment theory.
Julie Menanno [00:47:34]:
And before that I started doing more of that attachment parenting style, which seemed to be very helpful for me as far as bonding. But my kids are all teenager. Well, they're twelve to 22, so teenage, young, preteen to young adolescent. And the relationship that I have with my children is profoundly healthy. It is probably the biggest achievement I think, of my life, is what I have been able to create with my kids. I have it down. I know how to be emotionally supportive, I know how to be validating. I know how to get them to understand themselves on a deeper level. And for anyone out there who has kids that you have had strained relationships with, or you feel guilty because you hear all this attachment information and we're always sort of blaming the parents, right? There is a way to turn it around. Just keep going with this information, keep going with learning. Truly, it all boils down to learning how to be emotionally supportive. And I hope I answered your question.
Stephanie Rigg [00:48:49]:
Yeah, no, absolutely. It's funny I wanted to ask you because people have been asking me, and while I have my ideas about how I plan to approach parenting, knowing what I know about this work, I'm also very ready to be humbled because I think that going into it, ideals are one thing, and I'm sure the reality of it will be challenging and beautiful and surprising in so many ways. Something that I keep coming back to for myself is like safety, factual safety versus the perception of safety. And I think for babies, infants, children, the perception of safety, and frankly, adults is so much more rich and important in having that really felt sense of security. And I think so much kind of more traditional parenting stuff is just about like, is the baby factually safe? Right? Do they have their physical needs met? Rather than all of that emotional nurturance and validation which is like, do you feel that? Do you perceive yourself to be safe? And really leading with what would a child be wanting from me in order to feel safe in this moment with whatever behaviour they're presenting, I think is a really helpful kind of North Star on a lot of decisions around that.
Julie Menanno [00:50:12]:
It's so true. We really do need to put emotions first. And I think in this culture we're putting achievements first, we're putting school first, we're putting sports first, and even maybe physical health sometimes first, which is, as we know, all those things are wonderful and important. But what needs to happen first is emotional safety. Truly, the parents that I've worked with throughout the years that have become parents as we're doing this work or after they've done all this work, just goes my blanket. I have seen them be very successful from day one, so there is hope, you know, so much. I just want to reassure you that what I see is that people who are going into parenting doing this work, that the experience is just so pleasurable for them because they get to feel so successful. And for me, when I had my first, I was learning, oh, you have to let them cry it out.
Julie Menanno [00:51:17]:
They've got to be on this sleep schedule. I mean, to this day I have PTSD symptoms around listening to my son cry, I just. Horrible memories. With my third, I learned this attachment parenting where I was carrying her in a sling and sleeping with her. And to me that was a beautiful experience. Not that everybody needs to take it that far, but for me that way of living was far less exhausting than the other way. I was getting sleep at night. I felt the felt sense of emotionals.
Julie Menanno [00:51:45]:
Everything just felt safe and right and then. Are you familiar with gober mate?
Stephanie Rigg [00:51:52]:
Yes.
Julie Menanno [00:51:53]:
Okay, so have you read his book on add scattered no, I haven't. Okay, well, there's a chapter in this book, kind of near the end about parenting, and it feels a little, I don't know if I want to say random, but it's a parenting style that he's bringing to life and describing that is exactly the way I've learned to parent. And whenever he's describing it in this book, in this add book, which it doesn't have to be about add at all, to me, that's the way to go, is that chapter of the graph latte book. And I have seen that way of being with children be so successful.
Stephanie Rigg [00:52:33]:
Yeah. A lot of his stuff around parenting really resonates. He has a section in his newest book, the myth of normal around parenting, and there's another one, hold on to your kids, which he co wrote with another guy, which is direct. Okay. Yeah, well, no, but he's so prolific that he really covers such a broad scope. But yeah, a lot of his stuff makes a lot of sense to me and everything.
Julie Menanno [00:53:00]:
You're going to be fine.
Stephanie Rigg [00:53:01]:
If you're already is hoping again, I'm very ready to be humbled, but I'm feeling better prepared than I certainly would have been without all of this work. It's an exciting time. Julie, where can people find you? I think I suspect a lot of people listening will already be familiar with you. But for those who aren't, what's the best way for them to engage more deeply with your work and stay connected with you?
Julie Menanno [00:53:30]:
Well, my home base, because this is where I kind of started putting this information out, is my Instagram account, which is at the secure relationship. I also have a website where you can go to just see my podcast that I've done, not mine, but guest appeared on. That is where you'll find links to the book. I do have a team of therapists working for me, coaches, actually, that work all over the globe. And then my book, secure love, which is now out, not as I speak. When this airs, you can find it anywhere. It's all over the world, lots of different places. But I always say we'll just go to Amazon and that seems like an easy one.
Julie Menanno [00:54:20]:
So, yeah, secure love by Julie Manano. I'm really proud. Really proud. I really think I've put something together that is going to really have a lot to give to the world, and that feels really good for me. But if you don't want to buy the book, definitely go to my Instagram account because all of the information is there. I mean, it's disjointed it's not as organised, but as you know, my posts are very lengthy, very much in depth. So Instagram account is an actual book, if you don't mind kicking around a lot and reading the same thing over and over.
Stephanie Rigg [00:54:54]:
Thanks, Julie. We'll link all of that in the show notes and absolutely, I think your Instagram is invaluable. But I also very much look forward to receiving a copy of the book. Julie, thank you so much for a beautiful conversation. It's been very insightful and I'm sure will be hugely valuable to everyone who is listening.
Julie Menanno [00:55:13]:
All right, well, great. Thanks for having me and congratulations and I'm so excited for you. Glowing. Now it makes.
Stephanie Rigg [00:55:21]:
Well, I think it's because it's the middle of summer here. People keep saying to me that I'm glowing and I think it's just like light sweat. But I'm happy to take the compliment on glowing, the word that is reserved for pregnant women.
Stephanie Rigg [00:55:35]:
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 at 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 sooner.
Keywords from Podcast Episode
communication in relationships, emotional regulation, personal growth, first order change, second order change, emotional safety, validating concerns, anxious partners, avoidant partners, empathetic conversations, behaviour change, secure attachment, self-regulation, self-improvement, navigating emotions, self-trust, managing negative emotions, relationship adversity, conflict resolution, relationship growth, low-conflict upbringing, childhood impact on relationships, attachment theory, self-compassion, Gabor Maté, parenting advice, couples therapy, attachment styles, negative communication cycles, practical relationship skills