#83 How to Navigate Addiction to Drama with Dr Scott Lyons

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If you’ve ever caught yourself wondering why you keep attracting the same type of person, this episode is for you. Today I’m joined by Dr Scott Lyons, a holistic psychologist, educator and author, to talk about addiction to drama, and why we may subconsciously seek out chaos and intensity in our lives and relationships (even when we think we're trying to avoid it). 

WHAT WE’LL COVER:

• Understanding addiction to drama

• Common characteristics of someone addicted to drama

• Big emotions don’t equal vulnerability

• What your “spark” really is

• Finding people who know how to love

FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:

• Use the code JUNE50 for 50% off 3 masterclasses or the Higher Love Course - www.stephanierigg.com

• Apply for my 6-month Homecoming Mastermind

• Download the free guide: Attachment 101

• Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment

• Visit my website

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Episode Transcript

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

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In today's episode, I'm in conversation with Dr. Scott Lyons. Scott is a holistic psychologist, educator, and author of the newly released book Addicted to Drama healing dependency on Crisis and Chaos in Yourself and others. Scott's also the creator of the Embody Lab, which is the largest online learning platform for body based trauma therapies. And as someone who's taken several certifications through the Embody Lab, I am a huge ambassador of Scott and what he has created. And I'm so excited to share with you the conversation that I had with Scott today.

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All around addiction to drama and how becoming dependent on chaos often subconsciously can really dictate our lives and relationships and how we can break those cycles to create more inner and outer peace in our lives. So I'm really looking forward to sharing this conversation with you, and I hope you enjoy. Scott, hi. Thanks so much for joining me. My pleasure.

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Thank you for having me. So today we're talking all about drama and Addicted to Drama, which is the name of your new book. It is. I love a good drama. Love talking about it.

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Yeah, well, you'd hope so. By this point, I'm sure you've done plenty of talking about it. I'm glad that we're having this conversation because I think it will be relevant and will resonate with so many people. One of the most frequently asked questions that I receive from clients and from people in my instagram community is like, why do I attract unavailable people? Why do I attract X?

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And I'm always quick to gently turn that back and ask, why are you attracted to what part of me is attracted to whatever person dynamic situation that I keep coming up against in my life? Because that's probably a more honest question and certainly a more empowering question than casting ourselves as a very passive character in the story of our lives and throwing our hands up in overwhelm and wondering why these things keep happening to us. So true. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, I've certainly heard the same thing.

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It's like, why do bad things always happen to me? Why do bad relationships continue to happen to me? Why do I keep attracting unavailable people or immature people? And I think the easiest way to sort of turn it back on yourself, the question is, if it's happened once, interesting information. If it continues to happen, what is the common denominator?

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It's you, boo. It's you. God love you. We all love you. And it's you. And you are part of this situation. You are not a victim to it.

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You are a participant. And the more you can identify how you are participant, the more you are empowering yourself to change it. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's right, because as much as it might feel like a hard thing to hear, and that's what I always say to people, it's so much more permissive and empowering to look at our part, because that's ultimately what's within our control. I think positioning ourselves as the one on the receiving end of all of the bad stuff with no active role in it, is not actually a very helpful story.

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Yeah. I remember by the third person I dated who was addicted to meth, I was like, this is an unusual series of events that I'm like, what are the chances? This is weird. When I really was like, okay, clearly it's not the meth addiction I'm attracted to, but the fact that they are in some type of avoidance, that they are filling the void with something else and not really able to be there for themselves, let alone be there for me. Yeah. And so it's a heart. You're so hurt, and I was so hurt. Excuse me. I won't say you. I was so hurt.

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I was so frustrated. I was so disappointed, and I couldn't possibly hold that within myself and take responsibility for that. So it's so easy to be like another one of you or this is your fault. It's not like, how was I a participant in my own suffering again? How was I contributing to my own lack of peace?

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And how might that pattern be playing itself out in other parts of my life? Which is the question for those of us who are investigating, are we addicted to drama? Yeah. So maybe we can take a step back and you can give a bit of a lay of the land of what are you talking about? When you say addicted to drama, what might that look like?

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What are the signs? How does it show up? Yeah, so we know that we don't necessarily know, but drama is essentially an unnecessary turmoil, an unnecessary chaos and crisis. And it looks like dysregulation, if you're familiar with that word, meaning there's an inefficiency of energy and attention and emotional expression. And thus, because it's so disproportionate, like, if I'm picking up a pen with the effort of picking up an elephant that's disproportionate, it's dysregulated, and it feels very performative.

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And so that's why we often think, oh, those who are addicted to drama, like, their intensity, their exaggeration is a performance for attention. It's not. It's underneath a very dysregulated ability to modulate how much energy, emotion and attention is needed to be in response to the world. And an addiction is anything that we become dependent on that both fills a void within us and masks a core pain. It helps us be avoidant to that pain.

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It helps us both create a numbness. And an addiction, if it's interesting enough, helps us rise above the threshold of that numbness to feel alive as well as distracted. So when we talk about an addiction of drama, it doesn't necessarily make sense because we're saying, wait, why would people be dependent on essentially more suffering? Like, why would anyone want more chaos and crisis in their life? And certainly why would their brain reward them for such a thing as part of any addiction?

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And the reason is, well, stress is empowering, literally. Like the first aspect of the first stage of a stress response, you get activated. It's a release of all these hormones. You feel powerful, you feel strong in that first stage and there's an endorphic release, you get a pain relief. So all of these things when you feel helpless, when you feel like a victim in life, when you feel like there's no power agency, then you're going to move towards things that give you that.

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And if stress, which is readily available, if you seek or create it or manifest, it gives you exactly that. It gives you this boost, this charge in your life. It's like drinking ten cups of coffee at any time of the day or night you want, and it's getting free. If it gives you that, you're going to become attached to it. So this is what we mean by addiction and drama.

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And it plays itself out as the pattern of all the ways we might become just avoidant, of our own stillness, of our own peace, of our own contact or relationship with ourselves. So, I don't know, you're walking down a street, nothing going on, and all of a sudden you're thinking of a story about your ex. Why are you doing that? Why are you doing that? And you might even know, like, this isn't going to make me feel better.

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But then you get on social media and you look them up and you're adding logs to that fire of drama, of unnecessary turmoil. You're sitting in a bathtub or relaxing somewhere on like, a lawn, and all of a sudden you are playing a scenario out about what's going to happen next week at work and it's the weekend. Why are you contributing to your own suffering? Why are you rushing down the street when you have nowhere necessarily you have to be? Why are you playing a song that's really sad when you're already feeling tender?

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Yeah. So there's this question we're asking, and I think in our everyday spectrum of experience, why are we contributing to our own pain? Why are we contributing to the intensification of our own emotions? And what purpose does it serve for you? Yeah, thank you for that.

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And I was going to ask exactly that because I think with all of these patterns, we have to go, okay, what am I getting out of this? Clearly there's a part of me that's meeting a need, serving some sort of adaptive purpose, or at least it has an intention to do that. Absolutely. All survival responses do. Yeah.

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They're all strategies to navigate something. And it's unfortunate that if you've ever been around someone addicted to drama, it's exhausting, it's tiring, it's energy depleting and it's annoying, it's boundary list, it's annoying. And so there's not a lot of space for empathy. And so in the lack of empathy, we typically just brush them off as needing attention or they're just some drama queen as opposed to going, oh, this is their survival adaptive strategies to something else that looks hard and painful. They are contributing more pain to themselves to mask other pain.

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What a terrible addiction to be in an awful cycle. Yeah. And is there I mean, I'd I'd love to know a little bit more about what you've found to be the origin of that. Whether there's a common origin story or whether what gives rise to this addiction to drama? When do we become dependent on that as a strategy?

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Yeah, well, there is certainly common symptoms like those who have an addiction drama often feel isolated, alone. They feel like the world is against them as opposed to for them. They'll typically say things like why is it always me? Or why is it there always something? There's a real negative bias.

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They're unable to really attend to the positives in life. They over generalise. So I had a frustrating moment in my day, I had the worst day. So you'll see exaggerated language, intensified language, lots of exclamation marks where they perhaps do not belong. You'll see them feel like there's a constant sense of urgency, like there's not enough space and time.

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They feel rushed, they feel burdened. There's a sense of disease or anxiety that is pervasive. It creates their baseline tone. So these are things that are pretty common amongst everyone who has this propensity or addiction to drama. And in terms of the origin, there are several sort of major contributors.

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We could look at transgenerational trauma and trauma as a factor of where that initial pain comes from. That's being when we have pain, it gets locked off in our body, gets sealed off. We call that oedema, essentially like it's a way of protecting ourselves from further injury. And that edemic response cuts that part of ourself from ourself. And whether it's emotional pain or physical pain, the same thing is happening.

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So we either disassociate or we cut off parts of ourself that have been hurt and that trauma stays in the body. And so as we get more cut off from ourself, we exist in a void. We are scattered or we are disconnected from the place where that pain is residing. And that becomes what's called a void. And I talked earlier about how addictions form is a way of filling the void, literally pouring into the empty vessel of where I should be residing.

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And if you grew up in a household of chaos, that becomes the normal. You have to speak at a certain decibel to be heard. That becomes the void, the decibel to which you speak. If to be heard and seen and felt, you have to be big and exaggerated or you have to always be ill or sick or something always has to be wrong. Where that becomes the currency for love, then that's what you internalise.

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If you have a parent who's addicted to drama, you have two choices. You either join the fight and rev yourself up with them, or you collapse and become very repressed and very closed off as a means of protection. And that repression ends up leading to cathartic explosions anyways. Kind of leads us down the same path. Yeah, I mean, I think that as you describe that, it's clear that this is big, right?

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This is kind of culturally pervasive. This doesn't feel like a niche problem. As I'm reflecting, while we kind of entered this conversation, talking about relationships like workplace, this feels big as well. So many of us, I think, form an identity around how busy we are and how stressed we are at work, but almost as a badge of honour. And that becomes like, oh, I've been so busy.

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And that's just like how we greet each other. How have you been? Busy but good. And we can ask like, why are you over scheduling yourself? Why is the tasks at work more complex than they need to be? Why are you overcomplicating things? Why are you engaging during work and after work? Gossip. It is throwing logs on a fire of drama.

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You're participating in it. You're either enabling it, you're participating in it or you are it's in our. And relationships become the perfect depository, the perfect place where these challenges around drama show up. Because those with an addiction to drama from attachment work, we know that this style, this stance, so to speak, or this behavioural patterns are not just the behaviour. They're also demonstrating some challenge with intimacy.

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So if you feel isolated all the time, which those with an addiction to drama do, you're already not in relationship to yourself, let alone able to then be in relationship to other people. If you're avoiding yourself through suppression, repression or some disassociation because there's underlying pain, then you are not home to be in relationship. And vulnerability, intimacy leads to vulnerability. And vulnerability means that I'm going to come closer into contact with my own self, not just someone else, but my own self. And the emotions and the pains and the joys that all reside here.

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And if there's like an allergic reaction to that, and that allergic reaction is a reflex that I call the revving reflex, which is as soon as I get too close to myself or too close to stillness, I'm going to rev myself up. I'm going to find and seek and create all those stress possibilities. I'm going to over schedule myself, I'm going to go gossip, I'm going to go doom scroll, whatever it takes to avoid contact with myself, which literally feels dangerous, because if I'm attending to myself, if I'm too vulnerable, I will not be available to address the next possible threat in my life and I will die. That is the underlying script. I will die because I will not be available.

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I will not be vigilant enough to deal with the next threat. Because those of us who've had trauma, early developmental generational, whatever it is, are always on the lookout for the next threat to protect ourselves because we weren't able to the first time. Yeah. You mentioned attachment and how that can play into it. I'd be curious to know whether and to what extent you notice trends in attachment styles and addiction to drama.

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Is there overlap there? Is there any kind of themes that emerge? Yeah, I mean, the main theme around attachment is we know attachment wounds start where there isn't the ability to co regulate. So meaning if there is not a present caregiver, and that can be community too, it doesn't have to be a single entity. But if there's not a present caregiver, who is able to be available in themselves to hold space for an infant, because we don't come into this world with the ability to regulate our own emotions and attention and energy.

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That's modelled and it's modelled through a shared experience. So it's not like a baby's watching the caregiver and going, oh, I like how they process that emotion. Nothing like that. It's literally it's like is a parent expressive? Can they be with their emotions that's felt in the room?

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Can I hold my infant while the infant is crying or upset and be present for them? That's co regulation. Oh, I'm learning through someone else's ability to be grounded and present and expressive, that I too can do that and that leads to self regulation. If I never get the opportunity to co regulate, I never get the opportunity to learn self regulation. And that looks like an inability to regulate my energy, my emotional expression and my attention.

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And those are the exact ingredients that I talked about as part of an addiction to drama. The symptoms of an addiction to drama. Yeah. So I suppose then it is kind of a common origin story, but maybe it just manifests differently for different people. Most of the people that I work with lean towards more anxious attachment patterning and I think there's certainly elements of this addiction or gravitating towards drama in a lot of those behaviours.

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But it's interesting to observe that and to also observe that. As you describe, at the heart of addiction to drama is avoiding our own stuff, avoiding that emptiness or the bigness of that void inside of us. And I think that, again, it's something that I point out to people that emotionality or loud and big emotions is not the same as vulnerability. And I think that oftentimes there can be a misunderstanding around that. People thinking, yeah, I'm good at vulnerability because of how emotional I am.

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But I think when our emotions are coming out in whether it's a performative way or a way that is a distraction or is some sort of avoidance from the tenderness that sits underneath it, I think we again have to get a little curious about what's really going on for us there. Yeah. When the emotion is disproportionate to the experience and that's a little tricky. That is tricky to navigate what disproportionate means. But if the emotion is what I call it, a secondary emotion, which is a place where all emotions, sad, happy, whatever get deposited in to become rage.

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Like, if I don't have a big emotional landscape and I feel a little disappointed, and it becomes rage, and I feel a little joyful, and it becomes gleeful, those are my only two emotions. And it feels very polar and extreme. It's like every subtle, nuanced emotion, and there are hundreds of them, get deposited in these major emotional containers or depositories. They're called secondary emotions. And if those emotions that I'm experiencing are primarily based on revving myself up from the past or the future, as opposed to what's actually happening in the present moment, it also seems performative.

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So just because you have big emotions does not mean you are in contact with your emotional truth. You might be just relating and replaying stories from the past or projections of the future to get yourself to that emotional high to which you feel something with. So again, it takes you above that level of threshold and the level of numbness that's there, and you feel alive. Great. And you feel like the burst of catharsis, which ends up just actually leaving you into withdrawal symptoms from it like any addiction, right?

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It's the plunge. Yeah. That disregulated emotional expression is not actually metabolising and processing it because often in those big experiences, you're feeding off the emotion to rev yourself up more, as opposed to using the emotion to direct and guide you towards your needs and processing and metabolising it once you've arrived at your needs, it's very different. And so for people who experience this, I'm sure by this point in our conversation, a lot of people are nodding and sheepishly raising their hand.

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So I guess the question then becomes and again, I hear this a lot from people, it's like I'm not attracted to healthy, quote unquote, stable, healthy people. When I date someone who seems really reliable and available and kind and caring, I don't feel the same spark as I do with that person over there who doesn't text me for two weeks, but then shows up and I get the rush and the hit and the spark. So what do I do? Well, first, let's name the spark for what it is. It's called a trauma single. Okay? It is Red flag. Couture, my loves. It is not attraction. It is the mistake of what intensity is misplaced for intimacy.

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You are chasing your red flags in that moment when you are following the magnetism of your Trauma Tingles. Okay, I love trauma tingles. I love it feels so visceral. It's so visceral and it's true. And there is a big difference of when you have healed and you can find the nuances and the flavours of love that do not feel escalated and intense and extreme and roller coastery.

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And when the attraction feels grounded in your body, I promise you it will not feel as exciting. Sorry. Loves that's your trauma tingles. If you need excitement, go on a fucking roller coaster.

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Maybe don't go chasing waterfalls of bad relationships to get it. But it's confusing because we often think, oh, excitement of love. Yeah, that's your stress response. It takes a couple of months to work your way into the groove of a relationship. And that's often when people are like, oh, now it's boring.

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No, now you are in the truth of relationship. If you can make it there, the first couple of months are more stress induced. They're exciting. Stress doesn't mean bad, it can also mean exciting. But it is an activated experience.

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It is a charged experience. And especially if we're following our Trauma Tingles, it is like there's a part of us that says, yay, we're back in the familiar. Yay, this feels like home. Home is great. And so it can be challenging because we're listening to these signals, so to speak, in our body.

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These signals that say, like, OOH, there's just such deep attraction. And we have to learn to discern the difference between a Trauma Tingle and a present grounded, anchored, bi directional sense of flow that does include some nervousness and some vulnerability and some topsy turvy feelings as well. But also you don't lose yourself.

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Yeah. And I think discernment is what emerges from that. It's like the thing that we so want to be able to cultivate, because I think a lot of people hear that and they go, oh, chemistry bad. Spark bad. Does that mean as soon as I feel excited about someone, I need to red flag myself the hell out of there.

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And we can get a bit extreme and not trusting of our own judgement because we know we've got a pattern. And so we're so suspicious of our own feelings that we're like, oh, no, red flags. Go, is it a red flag if I really like someone? It's like, okay, maybe just back crisis hopping. Stop crisis hopping.

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That's your addiction to drama. It takes some nuance, it takes some experimenting, and you won't know. And you don't have to go to the polar opposite of like going to a nunnery because you have traced your Trauma Tingles before. Yeah. It just takes a good coach or therapist to help guide you into the clarity and discernment of it.

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Yeah. It's that hanging out in that messy place of finding our way is really hard for people who want to believe that there's a black and white three step formula way to know. No, I was in a relationship this summer. I repeated the same pattern I've done a million times. They literally said they're not available.

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And I was like, that's okay. I'm here for you. We literally had that exchange, and I'm so grateful for it, because in this 40th time of repeating this pattern as an adult this year it's may. It's may, and I have repeated it, but it opened up a whole new access point to healing for me to have repeated it. I'm so grateful I repeated it.

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And I've gone on dates with people since, and I was like, oh, trauma tingles aren't here. Yeah. This pattern that they're doing doesn't seem sexy anymore. Oh, they're not available. That's weird.

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I don't feel turned on. Well, am I too old to feel turned on now? No. I have worked it out where I'm like, oh, it just doesn't it's not attractive anymore. And that feels like such freedom.

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Yeah. Where I'm like, I've just got up and walked out of a date. I'm like, yeah, you're great, and I just need someone who's more emotionally available. And you actually haven't asked me a single question about me, so I'm giving you some information about me now by leaving. Bye.

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You must have felt so on top of the world walking out of there. I followed up with them and I was like, hey, I just want to make sure you understood where I'm coming from and not to leave you hanging, but that was my boundary. It doesn't work for me. And I'm sure you will either read a good book called Addicted to Drama or find whoever signed copy and here's my assigned copy. Yeah, I think that's the way it can go, right?

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When we take responsibility, rather than going. I think the old way would be, why didn't they ask me any questions about me? Why would that what does it mean? What is that? Oh, yeah.

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I would say that I'm not interesting enough or like, yeah, all the internal scripts, those internal skips are like glue to the pattern. They help just seal it in, and as you remove the pattern and the trauma tingles no longer feel enticing, those scripts also just begin to drip away. It's like they didn't ask me any questions. They don't know how or they weren't interested. And that's also okay, they don't have to be interested in me, but at least I'm clear that that's not what I want.

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Yeah. I think that when we notice ourselves going into that detective mode and trying to analyse someone and make their behaviour make sense or find some sort of way to reverse engineer the outcome that we want or we are is it that they are avoidant or they have this type of trauma? And maybe also I should try this strategy to get through to them and this is how I'll make them feel safe so that they open up. It's just like, can I take all of that as feedback about what's going on for me rather than meaning anything about them? Can I deal with that first and foremost?

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Yeah. And if any of those scripts are happening, that's not relationship. That is not the foundation for a healthy, secure relationship right there. So if you find yourself in it, you got a little work to do, and that's cool. Welcome to the club of getting our shit together whenever we're getting our shit together.

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And if you're making it all about them, guess what? You got some work to do as well. And that's okay. We are an emergent experience. As humans, we are never complete.

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So get comfortable with where you are in your emergent healing journey and just rock it. Yeah. So what would you say then, when we notice that tendency in ourselves? Is there a way that we can rather than going into that urge of retreating and going into those extremes of, oh, I just have to isolate myself and do all of my healing in a very serious way until I'm healed enough to go and do this? What are some kind of tangible in between steps as we walk the path so that we can still exist in the world while acknowledging that we have some work to do?

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Yeah. Well, here's another bullshit comment like that, which is that I have to love myself before I can be loved. I've said that before. Bullshit. When you were a baby, you did not fucking love yourself.

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You didn't even know you existed really, yet you didn't have all the systems in place. So find people that know how to love friends, therapists, people who are co regulating professionals and hang out with them and just be like, what's this like? What's this like to be in an environment and ecosystem in a room where someone is present and available? Oh, that's scary. For me, whatever it is that's the experiment is, it does not have to it can be with a significant other, but it gets complex and messy sometimes when we try and do that.

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So you don't have to go retreat, go to a nunnery, you don't have to shut yourself off to the world, you don't have to stop dating, but do find the resources that are available of people who know how to be available and present with you. That is not the same thing as people who are enabling your addiction to drama. If you're talking about you're shit talking so and so and they did this and they did that, and then that friend goes, oh my gosh, and what happened next? That is not someone who's actually being present with you. That is someone who's jumping into your bonfire of drama.

0:35:12.04 → 0:35:28.98

Someone you have pulled into your crisis through your vortex of drama. Different. Very different. So. Find people who are sturdy, grounded anchor. Put a newspaper ad out there for that.

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Looking for a sturdy co regulator in my city. Looking for a sturdy co regulator. Here's my IG information. Like a really good embodied somatic coach has hopefully done that work for themselves so that they can be available for you and you use that as a petri dish to rewire and that's so important. And then you keep dating at the same time.

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But does it feel like when you're with that person that you've hired from the newspaper or a therapist or a coach or whatever, when you have built the place where it feels safe to feel safe I'm going to say that again. When you have built the place where it feels safe to be safe in those conditions, then you are ready to find that and use that as a beacon to be in relationship with other people who can offer you that and where you can offer them that. Yeah, that's beautifully said and I think that you're so right using. If we see relationship, intimate relationship, particularly when we've got all of those old patterns that we know are not working for us, we see that as kind of top rung of the ladder up there with maybe like family systems. It's like, can I take some in between steps that aren't going to be so heavy on my system, that aren't going to go straight to those buttons and push them frantically?

0:36:59.13 → 0:38:02.20

Because it's so familiar, there's so much muscle memory around it, it's like I could just go straight there before I even realise it. Can I take those in between steps with safe people and build up the capacity in a way that feels a bit more contained, rather than throwing myself into the lion's den and just trying to figure it out on the fly and then being exasperated and deflated when I wind up right back where I started? Yeah, it's funny you say the Lions Den, that's my last name and my family had on the garage door to Lions Den was a long lineage of drama addicts gathering in that home. So it holds special and I love that you said the hierarchy even to get to the place where you can trial these skills that you're learning with a family system. And I'm laughing at that because it's like, to me, that's the ultimate place of the ultimate adventure course.

0:38:02.65 → 0:38:45.13

That's the arena. That is the arena with the gladiators right there. If you can get through a family holiday period without the drama, my therapist says, like, your family created the buttons, they know how to push them and they're operating on an older version of you, not the healed version of you, because they haven't healed to ascend to the same level. So they are working with their familiars, which is challenging. So you're going in with all your new tools and you're like, fuck, I've done all this work.

0:38:45.19 → 0:39:16.23

I'm amazing. I even have a successful relationship now and I'm going to go practise that in my family Christmas party. And then you get there and there's things that are thrown and doors that are slammed and food fights and suitcases that are packed five days earlier than they should have been and whatever the chaos exists in that and you're like, wait, but I did all this work. I paid all this money. Why did it work?

0:39:16.40 → 0:39:38.32

Yeah, so I just want to normalise in those cases. It is about them, it's not you. Yeah. So I guess then that leads to one other limb of all of this. Which is, if you are maybe not the drama addict yourself or you have done work around it, how can you be in proximity to or?

0:39:38.34 → 0:40:15.89

In relationship with other people who maybe haven't done that work in a way that feels boundaried and where you are taking care of yourself in that space without going to extremes of cutting people off or again, going to that thing of like I can't be in relationship with you at all, which in some circumstances might be the last resort. That might be the right thing. But I think there's a lot of in between space. So how can we safely be around people who maybe are still in that mode? Yeah, well, first you got to take care of you, which is their drama is contagious.

0:40:16.55 → 0:41:04.32

I'm not just saying that metaphorically. I'm saying that from as a neurophysiologist, their stress response stimulates your stress response and part of their mechanism for feeling safe, quote unquote, safe in relationship is pulling you into their drama vortex, pulling you into the crisis, into the hurricane, the tornado that they create. And that is ungrounding, that is dysregulating to you. So you need to spend a lot of time building up the capacity to be anchored in yourself, aware of your own emotions when they start to pull you or a mesh, you're able to use different tools to say, I'm not participating in this. That means things like, I'm not enabling them.

0:41:04.85 → 0:41:17.08

I'm not going to say things like, oh, and then what did they say? How could they? How dare you? It's like, that sounds really difficult. Sounds like you had an aspect of your day that was really hard.

0:41:17.45 → 0:41:30.04

Notice I took the over generalised language and made it specific. Yeah. In that moment, I had the worst day ever. Tell me about your worst day ever. What were some of the components of your worst day?

0:41:30.73 → 0:41:59.26

Can you also tell me about some of the things that worked for you today or that were decent? So I hear you had some decent aspects of your day and some hard parts. Sounds like a really mixed bag in that way. I mean, look, I'm a therapist, that's how but those are boundaried language tools. Somewhat like, I know my aunt's coming over and she loves to gossip and she loves to just go in the realm of drama.

0:41:59.32 → 0:42:22.49

She loves to talk about her shows and what's on the news and it's catastrophe left, right and centre. It's the catastrophe games and I'm not interested in participating. That is boring to me. And for me, just a side note for me to say it's boring. That's been a lot of work to get there.

0:42:22.64 → 0:42:31.45

I was going to say, that's a sign, right? It's like, oh, thank God. It's boring to me. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.

0:42:31.87 → 0:42:59.22

When I say drama play out, I just sort of giggle at this point. I'm like, Yay, I see you, I see you, it's all good. I will say, hey, I have 15 minutes for you, or if you want to talk about what's happening in your life, we're going to go on a walk. So I'm not stuck in a space with you. With limited space, I might say, oh, I'm happy to listen, but we got to play foosball while we talk or something.

0:43:01.13 → 0:43:54.68

Or, I'm happy to listen to the challenges of your day. I also, for my own preservation, need to hear some things that are not challenges, or I also need us to talk about some things that are positive in the world. If you're just going to talk and catastrophize the news, things like that, of setting boundaries, it sounds like one of the aspects of that that might feel challenging for people is that particularly in a family system, when belonging to the system has meant participating in the drama. We will have to come face to face with the fears around not belonging and going like, oh, okay, there might be consequences of this and I might just have to prioritise my well being above, I suppose, recognising what it costs me to belong in a system that is addicted to drama and chaos. Look, you will lose people.

0:43:55.53 → 0:44:19.21

That is the existential real thing of life. You will lose people. As you heal, people will not be able to use you to drama bond in the same way, so you become unavailable for them. Sorry, not sorry. That's for your own health and loss is real.

0:44:19.33 → 0:44:34.42

I acknowledge that they also meant something to you, if that's the case, and they may come back after they do their own healing too, or they may not, and that friends come and go.

0:44:37.03 → 0:44:59.48

It is a real aspect of life. Like, how many of your high school friends do you still talk to? Yeah. Like, how many of your elementary school friends do you still talk to? Yeah, I just want to kind of normalise, because the other piece I didn't say is you can walk away if you have tried all of these other strategies and they're really laid out in the book for you as well.

0:44:59.61 → 0:45:22.52

If you know someone addicted to drama and how to take care of yourself, if you have tried all these other strategies and it's a no win situation, you're locked in to their crisis. No matter what you do, walk away. It's okay. You are entitled and allowed to take care of yourself first. Just like on an aeroplane.

0:45:22.63 → 0:45:36.76

Put the oxygen over your mouth first. Yeah. That might mean walking away. Yeah. Look, I'm saying that having known people who have walked away from me in the long run, I'm glad they did.

0:45:38.35 → 0:46:11.34

First of all, they were enabling me. I'm glad they did. I'm glad they took care of themselves, because it was also a wake up call to me. At a certain point, after enough people are like, why aren't they texting me and asking me to go out with them every Friday night? I did recognise there was something I was doing that maybe was not giving them the peace that they deserve in their life.

0:46:11.52 → 0:46:25.44

Yeah. It goes back to that common denominator point that we started with, right? Yeah. Being an invitation to look in the mirror and get a bit curious and honest. That mirror is hard.

0:46:25.62 → 0:46:36.62

It is, absolutely. It's so much easier to blame everyone else. So much easier. Oh, my gosh, I wish I had the naivete to still do that.

0:46:40.29 → 0:47:26.55

Although I think, as we said, there is something really ultimately empowering and liberating about getting into the driver's seat and I suppose recognising that we are responsible and capable of taking care of ourselves and owning our part and deciding who we're going to be in relationship to others and how we're going to be realising that that is actually within our control in large part is very, very empowering when we have gone through life feeling like all of that is not within our control. Absolutely. Well said, scott, thank you so much. This has been such a great chat and I'm sure it's going to be hugely valuable to everyone listening. So thank you so much for being here.

0:47:26.59 → 0:47:37.44

We will link all of your work and your book and everything in the show notes. Where can people find you if they want to come into your world and work with you?

0:47:40.61 → 0:47:50.44

You can go to Drscotlions. So dr. Scott Lyons.com. It has some quizzes that are fun, like short little quizzes. Are you addicted to drama?

0:47:50.47 → 0:48:24.03

Do you know someone addicted to drama? It has information about my book, has links to all my trainings on the Embody Lab, the Somatic therapy platform, which I should interrupt and say, I've taken several programmes through the Embody Lab and I highly, highly recommend it. So if anyone is kind of working in this space and wants to learn more about this, I couldn't recommend those programmes more highly. Thank you. Yeah, that platform is my baby and pride is not something I had experienced for most of my life.

0:48:24.10 → 0:48:35.66

It was not something I allowed myself to feel because I wasn't feeling much besides extremes. But I really feel proud of what the Embody Lab has done in the world. Yeah. Really grateful. Yes.

0:48:35.68 → 0:48:43.15

You should. It's making its impact. Yeah, it's really one of a kind. Thank you. So.

0:48:43.19 → 0:48:54.36

Yeah. The Embody lab, drscotlines.com. I'm on Instagram, I have a very fun, spicy podcast called The Gently Used Human that launched today.

0:49:00.35 → 0:49:24.72

Other than that, I'm writing books and I'm just rocking my own addiction to drama. Well, thanks so much, Scott. We'll put all of that in the show notes for anyone who wants to cheque out Scott's work, which I can highly recommend, but otherwise, thanks so much for being here. My pleasure. Thank you.

0:49:26.53 → 0:49:49.08

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

#82 Am I Being Unreasonable? (Part 1)

LISTEN: APPLE | SPOTIFY

One of the things I’m most often asked is “How do I know if I’m being unreasonable in my relationship?”. This can be a really tough enquiry to determine for yourself, particularly when you’re getting a lot of pushback and self-trust may be lacking. 

In today’s episode, I’m offering my take on your specific examples as to whether certain expectations, requests or situations are reasonable (or not), to help you to be able to build your discernment muscle and ultimately feel equipped to make that decision for yourself in your relationships.

WHAT WE’LL COVER:

• Should someone text me everyday after 1 or 2 dates

• Asking my partner to stop speaking to his ex because I compare myself with her

• Asking my significant other to not like scandalous or seductive pictures online

• Asking my partner to check in with me when they get home safely after drinking

• Wanting regular sleepovers when he sleeps better alone

FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:

• Use the code JUNE50 for 50% off 3 masterclasses or the Higher Love Course - www.stephanierigg.com

• Apply for my 6-month Homecoming Mastermind

• Download the free guide: Attachment 101

• Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment

• Visit my website

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You might also like…

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Episode Transcript

0:00:00.09 → 0:00:33.45

You're listening to On Attachment, a place to learn about how attachment shapes the way we experience relationships and where you'll gain the guidance, knowledge and practical tools to overcome insecurity and build healthy, thriving relationships. I'm your host, relationship Coach Stephanie Rigg, and I'm really glad you're here. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. Today's episode is titled am I Being Unreasonable?

0:00:33.63 → 0:01:16.88

And it is inspired by a question that I get asked all the time, which is just that how do I know if I'm being unreasonable in my relationship, in what I ask for, what I expect, what I need from my partner? This is a question that I get asked all the time and unfortunately, it's really challenging for me to answer that in the abstract. And that's what I always say to people. I'm not able to give you some sort of rule of thumb that is going to be generalised enough to apply in every situation in a helpful way, because it's just so dependent on context. So I had the idea to ask people on Instagram what are some examples of situations in your relationship where you ask yourself that question, how do I know if I'm being unreasonable?

0:01:16.94 → 0:02:18.00

And I got inundated with responses and so I recorded all of those responses and have selected some to chat through in today's episode as specific examples to share my take on whether and when and to what extent that thing might be reasonable or not to expect of a partner. So I'm hoping that in taking it out of the abstract and in giving you almost, like worked examples, that that will not only give you a bit of a steer on how you could approach those specific situations, but in filling in the blanks a little in colouring in the picture that might help you to build up your own muscle of discernment so that you feel better placed to make that assessment for yourself going forward in your own relationships. It's sort of teaching someone to fish and enabling them to then eat for a lifetime, as the saying goes. So that is what today is going to be about. And I've got at least two parts to this episode plan because, as I said, I received a lot of responses from you guys.

0:02:18.10 → 0:03:12.29

And if it's a format that you enjoy, as in me speaking to specific questions that you've sent in, do let me know by leaving a review or sending me a message on Instagram or leaving a little comment on spotify, which you're now able to do under the episodes so that I know that you like the format and I can take that on board when planning future episodes. Before we dive into that, a couple of quick announcements. The first being that you might have heard me say, for the month of June, I'm offering 50% off my Higher Love Breakup course, as well as my free Master classes with the code June 50 so you can go to my website and save 50% off any of those programmes. So if you've been interested in delving a little deeper into my work, now is a great time to do that. I've also been meaning to mention this is a very delayed announcement because it's definitely not new, but about a month ago I launched a standalone website for the podcast.

0:03:12.34 → 0:03:49.07

So you can now go to onattachment.com and scroll through all of the episodes. There's resources there and you can also ask a question. So there's a form that will allow you to submit a question. As you would probably know if you've been listening for a while, I have frequent Q and A episodes where I'm addressing a community question and now there is a way for you to do that that's a little more organised than sending me random DMs and stuff that can get lost. So it's a nice centralised place for you to submit a question if you'd like me to address your specific concern or situation that you're in in a future episode.

0:03:49.15 → 0:04:15.39

So on attachment.com, it's got lots of resources and we are at the very early stages of that and have plans to build it out into a really helpful resource. So go cheque it out if you're a fan of the podcast. Finally, just to share the featured review, which is I just want to let you know how grateful I am for your podcast. For me, it was a revelation that all those types of attachment exists and knowing mine and my partner's attachment is helping me a lot in how to improve my relationship. Thank you so much.

0:04:15.54 → 0:04:53.69

Thanks so much for that beautiful review. If that was yours, please send a message to podcast@stephanierigg.com and my team will set you up with free access to one of my masterclasses as a way to say thank you. Okay, so let's dive into this conversation around am I being unreasonable? Now, the first one that I want to speak to, and there were many, many, many versions of this that I received, were am I being unreasonable when I expect someone to text me every day after one or two dates? So by far and away the most frequent theme in the responses that I got was around texting texting frequency.

0:04:54.43 → 0:05:46.09

Things like I want my partner to text me every morning, text me every night, I want text throughout the day when we're at work. So there's clearly a lot of expectation happening here around texting frequency. And without knowing, with certainty, my strong assumption is that this is mostly coming from anxiously attached people who, as we know, have a strong preference for very frequent communication, being in contact. And in the absence of that contact, there can be a lot of storytelling and meaning making and stress and anxiety that takes hold pretty quickly and can escalate. So there are a few things that I would say to this I think that expecting someone to text you every day after one or two dates, it's really important to distinguish between a reasonable expectation and a legitimate desire, we might say.

0:05:46.16 → 0:06:22.85

So I think that to the extent that someone doesn't text you every day after one or two dates and you are spiralling into that means they don't care about me, they don't like me, they're going to ghost me, they've lost interest, I wasn't impressive enough. They clearly don't really want to see me or invest in me. Because if they did, then they would be texting me all the time. There's a lot of meaning making happening there and that is projecting your own preferences and your own norms around texting onto someone else and then interpreting their behaviour through that lens. The reality is that not everyone likes texting all the time.

0:06:23.05 → 0:07:03.87

If you are, as I said, more anxious, then that's probably hard for you to wrap your head around because there is a strong preference to be in constant contact with someone, particularly in those early stages when you're very excited about it. But I think we do need to remember that not everyone has the same preferences. And frankly, what I would say to anyone who struggles with this whole thing around texting frequency is that it's not really healthy to be texting someone all the time and to be expecting that. And I think that if you were honest with yourself, you'd recognise that it is distracting for you. It probably occupies a lot of your field of vision to be in that constant back and forth texting.

0:07:03.95 → 0:07:43.11

I know that when I've been in patterns of that in the past, it's like I can't focus on anything else. I'm picking up my phone constantly, I'm anticipating the next text and you get a text and then you get that little dopamine spike and then you get the plummet afterwards and you're waiting for the next spike. It's very addictive and it's very all consuming and for me, at least, as I said, I've experienced this. It's really hard to be present with anything else that's going on in my life because I'm so absorbed by my phone and by the anticipation of the next text from this person. So there's this sense of reaching and never enoughness when it comes to super frequent texting.

0:07:43.16 → 0:08:23.33

So I suppose all of that to say my advice would be don't make meaning out of the fact that you're not getting daily texts from someone after one or two dates. That's a slippery slope and is probably going to lead you to personalise someone's behaviour when you don't really know anything about their behaviour. You don't know that that means something that might just be them being different to you. I think you're allowed to reach out to someone, you're allowed to want to talk to them, but you also can't impose your requirements in a really demanding way on someone else and particularly when those requirements or when those expectations are maybe not the most healthy thing either. So I think the advice would be try and take it slow, particularly at the start.

0:08:23.42 → 0:08:55.76

One or two dates is not that much. And consider putting boundaries in place for your own texting use and frequency. This urgency culture where we all expect everyone to be available to everyone all the time in this very unrelenting way, is harmful and it leads us to all be anxious and depleted and exhausted. So consider putting some boundaries in place for your own texting usage. So maybe you send a message to someone at the start of the day and then say to them, I'll chat to you tomorrow, or maybe we can talk later tonight.

0:08:55.90 → 0:09:33.57

So that you've put some boundaries and expectations in place in a more direct and overt way, and you're not just waiting for the possibility that you might get a text from them at any moment. And in so doing, being really tethered to your phone, being really anxious and waiting on someone else in a way that detracts from your ability to be present in the rest of your life. So that was a bit of a long winded answer, but I think there's some principles in there that will be relevant to a lot of people. And of course, the reasonableness will also hinge on one or two dates. That might be a different story if you've been dating someone for three months.

0:09:33.64 → 0:10:13.11

Right? I think it's reasonable to expect daily cheque ins if you've been dating someone for a little longer. But I think after a date we do have to just pull back a little and calibrate our expectations and remind ourselves that this person is more or less a stranger and we don't really have the right or entitlement to demand that level of attention and time of theirs in the specific way that we would prefer it. Okay, the next one is am I being unreasonable when I ask him to stop speaking to his ex as I compare myself to her and it makes me feel not good enough? So there's a few layers to this.

0:10:13.20 → 0:11:01.10

I think that what I hear in this question is the need to take a little more responsibility for the latter half of it, which is I need him to stop speaking to his ex because I compare myself to her and I feel not good enough. Right. It's like I need you to stop doing that because I have all of these other things going on and the insecurities that I have lead me to feel a certain way in response to your behaviour. So there's sort of two prongs to it right now. If someone is speaking to their ex several times a day in a way that just doesn't feel right, then I think that we are absolutely entitled to raise concerns or to say, look, I'm not accusing you of anything, but I'm not really comfortable with that.

0:11:01.23 → 0:11:52.57

It doesn't really feel good for me and I'm noticing myself experiencing some insecurities about it and it's something that I'm struggling with opening up a conversation in a way that's self responsible but also honest. I think that's a reasonable course of action. But if someone is in casual contact with an ex in a way that is, for all intents and purposes, pretty above board, and they just have a good, friendly, amicable relationship and they keep in touch from time to time. I'm not sure that in that scenario, it's reasonable or advisable to say you need to stop speaking to her because I'm threatened by the fact that you guys still have a friendship and that you are in contact at all. I think that is maybe crossing the line from a reasonable request to being controlling from a place of insecurity.

0:11:52.65 → 0:12:26.51

So I think that's kind of the line that we'd be looking to draw and querying is there something that feels off about this situation? And again, it's not really the kind of thing that I can give you any kind of objective marker about because it will be contextual, but that's the level of discernment that we want to cultivate. Is there something that just doesn't feel right about this situation? Does it feel disrespectful in some way? Does it feel inappropriate or do they just have an amicable friendship and that's uncomfortable for you because you really struggle with jealousy and comparison and insecurity?

0:12:26.69 → 0:12:55.82

If the latter, then I think that's primarily your work. With that being said, I think you can still either way share vulnerably with your partner, what you're experiencing. But I don't know that it's one you can demand they change their behaviour so that you feel less insecure. Because ultimately if it's not the ex, it's going to be someone else, right? And just controlling our partner, saying oh, you can't speak to that woman at work or you can't chat to the barista or whatever else, right?

0:12:56.00 → 0:13:37.17

We're trying to control someone else's behaviour so that we don't have to deal with our insecurities that are fundamentally ours to deal with. Okay, the next 01:00 a.m. I being unreasonable when I ask my significant other to not like scandalous or seductive pictures of other women online. So this is something that I hear a lot, women who struggle with their partners, following a lot of accounts on Instagram that are essentially very provocative, let's say, to put it lightly and feeling uncomfortable with that. And this is one where I would personally say I don't think that's unreasonable at all.

0:13:37.32 → 0:14:36.19

I don't think that you can force someone not to do that. And I think that depending on their level of maturity, they might just get defensive and dig their heels in and really defend their right to do that. But I think that it's reasonable to feel uncomfortable with your partner consuming that content just so casually right, for their feed on Instagram or wherever else to be comprised of more or less naked women in a very provocative way. And for them to be not only curating their social media consumption towards that, but then to be engaging with it, to be liking commenting on that, that wouldn't feel comfortable for me either. I would feel personally that that was disrespectful to the relationship and I would certainly raise that if that were present in my relationship.

0:14:36.39 → 0:15:01.99

So I don't think that that's unreasonable. But I do think that there's probably a bigger conversation to be had there than just can you not like those pictures? And maybe if you can find it within yourself to approach that conversation, albeit a very vulnerable conversation with a level of curiosity rather than accusation and blame because I think if you just say what's wrong with you? That's so inappropriate. Can't you see how disrespectful that is to me?

0:15:02.11 → 0:15:30.35

Even though you may feel those things and again, I don't really blame you if you go at it with that energy, you might get defensiveness back. So maybe explaining it in a bit more of a vulnerable way, saying hey, I know that a lot of people do that, but here's how it impacts me, here's how I feel. Again, not saying that that was your intention, but this is what the impact is. Can we talk about that? Can I try and understand why that's appealing to you to do that?

0:15:30.44 → 0:15:59.72

Because it does have this impact on me and it doesn't feel good, doesn't feel respectful to our relationship and can we talk about it? So I think approaching the conversation in a way that is seeking to understand while also setting a boundary and making a request for a behaviour change there, I think that's absolutely reasonable. Okay, the next one is am I being unreasonable when I want my partner to cheque in and let me know they arrived home safely if they were out drinking? This one for me is reasonable. I do this.

0:15:59.82 → 0:16:41.67

And I think I've always done this. And yeah, I think that if you are wanting to know that your partner is safe and accounted for and you know that that can be an anxiety inducing experience when they're out drinking, I know that I can struggle with that. It's something that I don't know whether it's conditioning around, maybe more so for women that we're inclined to cheque in, that people have gotten home safe. I think that can be an element of it. But also, I know for a lot of people that there is anxiety around someone being out drinking and that's a whole nother conversation to be had at another time.

0:16:41.79 → 0:17:14.02

But I think that just a simple text to let someone know that you're home safe can really set one's heart at ease. And I don't think it's a huge ask. So if that helps to build and establish trust so that you don't feel anxious about those situations, then I think that that's a reasonable ask. Again, I don't think it needs to be delivered in a way that's controlling or demanding, but just contextualising how that is for you. And again, you can own that there's an anxiety piece to it.

0:17:14.07 → 0:18:10.96

I've certainly had that conversation with my partner saying, I realise that you don't necessarily care about this or you wouldn't think to do this without me asking, but I feel anxious when you're out drinking and it would mean a lot to me. If you could just keep me posted on where you're at and how you're tracking and when you expect to be home, all of those sorts of things. It really goes a long way in calming my system and I think that that is a reasonable ask for someone that you're in a relationship with. Okay, the last one for this episode is, am I being unreasonable when I want regular sleepovers, as he always leaves in the evening and says he sleeps better at home alone? So I think that this is one where we can find a compromise and that's really the essence of the messiness of secure relationships is we can meet in the middle and go, yeah, that's absolutely fine, that you sleep better at home alone.

0:18:11.02 → 0:18:34.86

I'm not going to judge you for that. I'm not going to make it mean that you don't love me or care about me or any of those other stories I might tell myself. I'm going to try not to feel too rejected or hurt for the fact that you don't sleep over and you prefer to sleep in your own bed. Fine. And I'm going to ask you to sometimes do the thing that I prefer, right.

0:18:34.99 → 0:19:02.95

Because I think that when it's just one person saying, I don't want to sleep over because I sleep better at home alone, therefore I'm never going to sleep over. Even though sleeping over means something to you and is what you desire. I think that's kind of being a bit selfish, to put it bluntly. So I think that to say I know that you prefer to sleep at home, but it would mean a lot to me if every so often you would sleep over, or even every other time. Right.

0:19:02.99 → 0:19:28.59

We can alternate between you sleeping over and not. Or maybe if it really is important to you that you get a good night's sleep before work, then maybe on a weekend you can sleep over, have the conversation in a way that is a negotiation. Essentially, you can advocate for your needs and preferences while not making someone wrong for their needs and preferences. But the point is that you find some sort of middle ground that works for both of you and that is how it works. Right.

0:19:28.71 → 0:20:07.43

I think that when there's sensitive things like this, and I think for a lot of people, something like sleepovers, particularly if it's after you've been intimate, that can feel really vulnerable. And you can really want the closeness of sleeping together, as in actually sleeping together after being intimate. And it can feel really painful for someone to just up and leave and say, oh, sorry, I sleep better at home. It can feel like a bit of a personal rejection. And so I think when we're feeling rejected, that we're probably the least inclined to voice a need because we already feel like we've been rejected.

0:20:07.48 → 0:21:09.47

And so to extend our request out when we don't feel like the other person's going to be receptive to it feels really risky and fair enough. So maybe this is a conversation not to have in the moment, not to have right then and there, but maybe to have at some other time when you feel like you've got a little bit more capacity and you've got a little bit more confidence and you can just share that. It would mean a lot to you if he could stay over once a week or twice a week at times when it is the least disruptive to his routine, if he doesn't get the best night's sleep ever. I think when we can give someone context for the meaning that it would mean a lot to us, then they're much more likely to cooperate with that and to compromise, because in the absence of you sharing that, he may just not know that it means anything to you. Sometimes we really have to make sure that we're giving someone the chance to meet our needs rather than just staying quiet and then being disappointed when our needs aren't met.

0:21:09.59 → 0:21:56.75

Okay, so that was the first part of this little series around am I being unreasonable? I hope that this has been helpful and has given you something to think about, has given you a bit of a sense for how you can approach these questions in a way that is not black and white. Unfortunately, black and white would be much easier, but it would be not in service of really building healthy, secure relationships because oftentimes there is a level of negotiation and nuance and context that's required to have these conversations and to make these assessments. But yeah, I hope that this has helped you to start building that muscle of discernment so that you can make those calls for yourself. And as I said, if you've enjoyed this episode in this format, do let me know so that I can bear that in mind when planning future episodes.

0:21:56.83 → 0:22:23.70

Thanks so much for joining me, guys. I look forward to seeing you again soon. Take care. 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 soon.