Therapist Unplugged
A therapist-led podcast brought to you by The Montfort Group featuring Laurie Poole. Straight talk about life, relationships, and mental health. Each episode will feature the unplugged views of guests and fellow therapists as we navigate hot topics, therapy trends and the world around us.
Therapist Unplugged
Unpacking Attachment Styles for Healthier Connections with Courtney Strull
How do early experiences shape the way we connect as adults? In this episode, Licensed Professional Counselor Courtney Strull from The Montfort Group unravels the mysteries of attachment styles and their profound impact on mental health, from anxiety to relationship struggles. Through Courtney's insights, we explore how attachment influences issues like depression, anxiety, intergenerational trauma, and how family dynamics influence who we choose as partners.
Learn more about the five attachment styles in the How We Love quiz, available at https://howwelove.com/love-style-quiz/
Tune in as we share personal stories and expert insights on attachment work, revealing its transformative role in therapy and how understanding the past can lead to healthier, more fulfilling relationships.
Therapist Unplugged is brought to you by The Montfort Group. Each episode will feature the unplugged views of guests and fellow therapists as we navigate hot topics, therapy trends and the world around us.
*The Montfort Group provides a serene, calming setting where you can feel challenged, supported, and motivated. Our skilled therapists bridge specialized backgrounds and varied philosophies together to create one unified strategy. Rather than steer you away from your own natural abilities, we help you maximize your unique strengths. We do not view a broken history as the end of a story, we see it as an opportunity for a new beginning.
All right, here we are. Welcome everyone to Therapist Unplugged, and my guest today is Courtney Strull, Licensed Professional Counselor at The Montfort Group. Hi, Court, hello.
Courtney Strull:Hello.
Laurie Poole:This is going to be so fun because we're going to talk about my favorite subject, and yours too, which is attachment style, and as we were chatting just before we started today's podcast, you know there's been a lot more reference and material in social media about attachment styles. When I think back on the work that I've been doing in adult attachment styles when I work with couples, and now it's everywhere there are so many folks that are talking about it, and I know, Courtney, that this is an important element of the work you do with your clients, and so I'm wondering if maybe we could start off today if you just tell us a little bit about yourself and the kind of niche or clients with whom you work, and how this has come into the work that you do with with your clients.
Courtney Strull:Yeah, absolutely so, attachment work really started. It's so fascinating to me because, knowing what I know now, it's kind of shocking to me that you know, in grad school we spent probably 10 to 20 minutes on attachment. And, having learned what I learned, now I'm sitting here like this is the premise of everything I do with every client who walks in my door, whether it's depression, anxiety an eating OCD tendencies, trauma I think there's so much connection with attachment that before and I didn't know what, I didn't know until I learned it, and we'll get into how I learned it, what catapulted me into this journey of attachment? But yeah, I'd say to me it's really such an honor to see the progress with clients from when they walk in and to see them living a life of inner peace. And it takes a long time. Like this isn't a, you know, we come to therapy once or twice and we fixed it.
Courtney Strull:The way I like to talk about attachment is you know, we're going backwards, we're delving into what was happening in our most primitive years of development, zero to seven years old. And so many people say to me you know, Court, I don't know, I don't remember what happened then and of course I don't expect them to. But if we can help identify you know, even in their adolescent years, what was going on with your parents, what was their relationship like, what was it like when you came home from elementary school or middle school, what do you remember? And helping them connecting those dots. And what I have found is when we help people explore what happened, then we can really understand how and why we function the way we do now, in our significant relationships especially, but also at work with friends, how we view the world and truly like when I earned a more secure attachment, it felt like I was wearing a rainbow pair of glasses for the first time in my life.
Laurie Poole:Well, you know what I'm thinking, Courtney, for those of our listeners who don't know anything about attachment style or haven't been exposed to the information, could you maybe outline sort of the three very basic attachments, like what does attachment mean?
Courtney Strull:So you know, it's interesting because the ones that I think are talked about most often are anxious, avoidant and anxious ambivalent. So the anxious is probably someone who's consumed by their partner's behavior or overanalyzing everything that their friends do if they get canceled on. Or the avoidant is probably someone who doesn't check in with you when things are going awry, because they don't want to be checked in when things are going awry. They don't know how to identify what's going on for them, so they certainly don't know how to address what's going on for you, and this doesn't make them bad. These are, all you know, forms of self-preservation and the anxious ambivalence a little bit of both, being consumed by other people's behavior but also retreating on, you know, the other end of the spectrum at times. But the quiz I like to administer to clients is the How We Love quiz, and it actually delves into five different styles of attachment. There's anxious, avoidant, controller, vacillator and the victim.
Laurie Poole:So when we think about attachment, I want to go back even a little bit more and maybe throw in some physiological, biochemical, brain functioning fundamentals to attachment, which is that as human beings, we are really wired for connection, of course, and so that this element of attachment based in childhood is what we look for from our caretakers to know that we are safe, secure, that when we are distressed there will be a response of comfort and reassurance. And if we don't get that as children, if we are in an environment where there's unpredictability, where there is depression, addiction, chaos and trauma, other things going on in the household, and we don't receive or have the experience of what we're naturally wired for, then we find ways of surviving in that environment.
Courtney Strull:And then we seek it out, subconsciously.
Laurie Poole:Yes, we drift towards what's familiar, right? So if, as a child, I am in an environment where my mom is like a moving target because of her own distress or what's going on, and sometimes she can respond to me and sometimes she doesn't, I may learn that in order to get what I need from her, to take care of her emotionally, and then my focus becomes on all the externals, because the only way I can be okay is if the adults are okay and they can be okay if I'm taking care of them, and so on and so forth. So I just wanted to kind of map that out to give listeners an idea of how deeply some of these patterns evolve over time in response to our environment, in part because of how we're naturally wired when we come into the world right, because we do come into the world our birth order maybe an eldest child is much more attuned to what's going on than second born, who doesn't really give a shit. Or maybe, or maybe vice versa, because there's no predictor, necessarily, but.
Laurie Poole:but it's all of these variables and much more that can then contribute to the attachment style that evolves and that creates the lens through which we view relationships, ourselves and the world.
Courtney Strull:Yeah, and I think you know I'll go backwards for a second to talk about again what catapulted me into this realm. And I had been to several therapists before and they were all lovely and I found that they were super helpful during times of crisis. But I was always landing myself in these same patterns, in relationships specifically, and I always had long-term relationships, but they seemed I always ended up feeling the same way in every single relationship and then, when it ended, being so distraught and then, upon reflection and knowing what I know now, I was a common denominator not to blame myself, and that's a big piece of the attachment counseling that I love. It's like when we understand what was happening with our parents, what we've witnessed, like almost computer engineering your brain.
Laurie Poole:That's right. No, your brain becomes programmed in response to this. The environment okay, this is what I need to do to survive, to secure love, to regulate my own inner emotional experience in this environment, because we all want to be loved, we all want to feel loved.
Courtney Strull:We're wired for it and we need it we're wired for it Absolutely when we don't get that from our caregivers.
Courtney Strull:And again, I think part of the healing too that's so hard for people to go through is being angry or grieving what they couldn't get from their parents because they did, they weren't capable emotionally. Um, and and that is part of the healing process like you're, you might be angry, you might be sad, and then at the end of it we learn and come to understand how come they were the way they were, based on what happened to them in their childhood and and I think that's true healing is being able to maintain a relationship, understand they weren't capable of meeting my needs and now, as an adult, I get to do that for myself in the ways that they couldn't. But we can't negate or skip the part where we get to be sad for little me who didn't get those needs met. And I think that I avoided this for so long. It's like I could understand that these patterns existed in my relationships.
Courtney Strull:And then something terrible in my life happened when my dad got sick, and you know I go from eating dinner with my parents every other week or once a week and talking to them via text once a day, to being around them seven days a week, and there's nothing more triggering than that. So suddenly I'm living on the surface, like, oh, I've got a good relationship with my parents, you know, when I keep them at an arm's length and now I'm with you every day and, oh, my goodness, everything is coming back. And so I like to say the attachment therapy. You know, I mentioned my other forms of therapy prior to this. I didn't really go into detail about you know the theories or what we were working on, necessarily, but I found all those therapies to be a band-aid, and attachment is, I believe, what offered me surgery to be able to truly live life differently, like I've never felt like inner peace, consistency, I don't have these high, high, low, lows anymore. My life is kind of boring and I like it.
Laurie Poole:So your inner life? It sounds as though your inner life isn't an emotional EKG, that it might have been before you embarked in this whole process of inner healing and understanding that the ways you showed up were in response to environment or a number of factors, but that you actually could respond to things differently.
Courtney Strull:Totally. And to add to it, I'd moved in with my significant other. You know, we were four months into living together. My dad gets sick, so not only am I triggered by being around my parents seven days a week, but now I'm living with the partner that I chose prior to being securely attached.
Courtney Strull:So and we'll get into that because I have some examples that I really think are profound in terms of understanding attachment, and I love using personal examples without great detail because it's so much easier when it's someone else's story than when we're talking about our own.
Laurie Poole:You know, I will share a personal story that has been a recent aha for me, and it is very much about attachment, Court. My mom was a very, very reactive woman, so if I said I didn't feel well, if I wasn't happy and upbeat, then I was queer. You know, I was interrogated and so on. And so expressing what I needed or wanted wasn't safe that's what I told myself. It's not safe, I'll get in trouble.
Laurie Poole:As a result, I drifted towards men who were not emotionally available, so they initially felt really safe, but in the end they weren't responding to me either. So because they weren't, they weren't reacting the way my mom did, right, and so that sort of avoided, pursuing, anxious stuff is also what I watched between my parents. So you just end up in this. There's all these influences of what you witness in terms of how the adults treat each other in the household that you live in, and and also you may go towards a completely different scenario, thinking that you'll be safer there, when in fact your needs still are not being met.
Courtney Strull:Yeah, it's phenomenal how all of this plays out and how it's all connected.
Laurie Poole:It is it's fascinating
Courtney Strull:An example a very minor example. You know, when I come home from high school and, let's say, I was in a bad mood because, you know, human beings sometimes have bad days, or you know, just wake up not feeling so good and maybe we do have an attitude, and especially with the people we feel the safest with. But I can remember coming home from high school and you know how are you fine? What's wrong? Nothing. And that becoming something personal, more specifically probably to my mom than anyone, and then the volatility that was created from that like why do you have an attitude? I do everything for you. And then, 30 years later, I find myself in my relationship when he gets home from work and he's quiet and I'm like what's wrong?
Courtney Strull:Nothing, what's wrong Nothing and I'm like oh shit.
Laurie Poole:Oh, here comes the script.
Courtney Strull:How come it feels this way?
Courtney Strull:How come it feels this way and it felt so true to me because that's all I knew. That is my hardwiring and that's the word you know. You said programming. That is how I was hardwired when I am taught. This is a threat, of course. Now my nervous system believes this is a threat.
Courtney Strull:I think most people want to do better than what was done for them, and and I made a vow to myself like I will do better for my children than what was done for me. But then, like I said, my dad gets sick. I moved in with Drew and I see how I turn out like my mom in 30 years, or my parents relationship, if I didn't get access to this type of counseling. Because, again, I understand how it made her body feel now because I was starting to see it with myself. And you add in children and full time work and financial stress. I see how it happens. And so, in some ways, the worst thing that ever happened to me in terms of my dad getting sick is what led me or forced me to go find this peace, because I didn't think I was going to survive it, and so, again, worst thing that happened to me turned out led me to do the healing that I always deserved.
Laurie Poole:Yes, that you always deserved and that by doing so there was, you kind of broke the paradigm of intergenerational trauma, attachment style, communication styles, expression of love, all of that.
Courtney Strull:I have a classic example in my relationship that perfectly I think not just in heterosexual- relationships, but I think a theme specifically with heterosexual relationships, and it's an example I like to use with my clients.
Courtney Strull:But when I first started doing this healing, one of my first awarenesses in my own relationship was Drew and I would get into an argument and he's the avoidant. He has some pleasing but definitely leads with avoidance. And I'm the opposite. I'm the over-functioner, I'm the pleaser, I'm the vacillator, I'm consumed by other people's energy, his behavior, and so we get into a fight and for two years it was like after we'd fight, he'd go retreat, similar to what my mom did. So you know, this is very triggering to me, of course. And after we'd fight, I'd be like this is you know, impacting my abandonment issues. This is how it made me feel when my mom would you know, slam the door when she was upset and I couldn't communicate with her.
Courtney Strull:And what would go on for me, or the story I would tell myself when Drew would walk away in these fights is if he cared about me, he wouldn't be doing this. We've had this conversation 100 times After every fight, we have this discussion. He promises he won't do it again, and what I came to understand is I'm begging him to show up for me and meet my needs in the ways that my parents couldn't, but I'm asking him to abandon himself, like his self-preservation techniques from his own childhood, in order to mitigate my own anxiety, and when I learned that I can mitigate my own anxiety, that I can deal with my distress.
Courtney Strull:In that moment it's so interesting how our dynamics shifted, so like I'm begging him to show up for me in the ways that I need, while I'm forgetting that he's a human with trauma and a childhood. Yeah, I'm not saying it's right that he walks away, but that's what he learned when he was a kid and what works for him, because he doesn't know how, another way.
Laurie Poole:That's right, and the other piece of this is that both positions in that feedback loop that the two of you have are ways of protecting the relationship.
Laurie Poole:They are protective moves.
Laurie Poole:So if I move away from you, then I'm not going to make the situation worse, and it's a way I deal with my anxiety at the threat of losing the connection. And for you it's let's talk about this, let's work it out. I need to come towards me, because when you walk away like that, it's scary. And then I'm left in this, in this sort of place of void, waiting for you to come back to me and I don't know when that's going to be. And so just let me know we're okay, cause if I think we're not okay, then my anxiety goes up and then I start to fill in the blanks and create this narrative.
Courtney Strull:And the story when he'd walk away, I think was the most detrimental thing for me and in the relat- now I can't speak to the whole relationship, but on my end of the relationship, because again the story was, if you cared, you wouldn't be walking away, and so my frustrations rising, I'm waiting for him to come towards me and then I hit a point of like I can't handle the conflict anymore.
Courtney Strull:So I'm coming towards him and abandoning myself because my belief is like well, you should be coming towards me, because now I feel wronged, right, and interestingly, when I learned how to mitigate my anxiety when I learned, okay, when he steps away, I'm going to work on my narrative and this isn't easy. I mean, this took months. I think I've been at the attachment thing for two and a half years now and I do feel as though I've mastered it pretty well. But that doesn't mean I don't have triggering moments where sometimes I'm like I know everything, I have all the tools and yet I'm having a very hard time accessing the ability to utilize the tools,
Laurie Poole:Listen, you're human.
Courtney Strull:Yeah, but it's just funny, like the level of conscious awareness and logic, and sometimes it's still so hard, but I'd say 95% of the time I've mastered this thing. So if he walks away in the middle of an argument, the story I tell myself now is like, okay, like I think of seven year old Drew, the kid who had to retreat as his own form of self preservation. And when I see it that way, when I'm talking to myself in that way and it's not personal to me, like he's not is Drew thinking, before he walks away, I'm going to do this to make Courtney feel abandoned? No, he's flighting, because that's what he knows. And when I came to understand that, what's interesting is he did come towards me when I wasn't begging for it, when I wasn't telling him why it was wrong that he was leaving, he did come towards me.
Courtney Strull:And it changed everything.
Laurie Poole:That's so interesting. So tell me, how do you, with your personal experience, with your therapy experience, how do you work with clients on this? Because, like you said, it's not an add water and stir process.
Courtney Strull:So one of the first things I like to do when clients come to me is one I like to do some activities just to get to know them, background information about what's bringing them through the doors, and after probably the third session, I like to administer the how we love quiz (https://howwelove. com/love-style-quiz/) and start talking to them about what they score high in, to start connecting those dots. And then we really start delving into family of origin. So not only does the quiz address like maybe what was happening in childhood, but probably how you function in a relationship, and the accuracy is astounding.
Courtney Strull:It's almost scary, I mean, I can remember when I got my results and I'm reading it and I'm like I feel so heard and validated and yet I feel so sad.
Laurie Poole:What was the sadness?
Courtney Strull:They were calling out my childhood for the first time. It wasn't - Okay, one of my favorite quotes by David Schnarch in Passionate Marriage is we think we know who we are before we are in relationship, and the truth is is we find out who we are and we don't like what we see, and instead of being curious about how come their behavior makes us feel that way, we tend to point our fingers and say that they're the problem. And that is everything I ever knew and did, and that is what I witnessed in most every relationship.
Laurie Poole:Yeah.
Courtney Strull:And that quote like almost sealed the deal for me, put the nail in the coffin. I'm like a year into my attachment counseling I read that and I'm like, oh my gosh, like I do better when I'm single because I don't like who I am in the relationship. Like I don't like my own behavior but I tend to blame him.
Laurie Poole:That's right.
Courtney Strull:You walked away and now this is, I feel, out of control. I don't like how I feel and it's your fault.
Laurie Poole:You know, Court, everything that you're describing reminds me of how important it is to evolve the relationship with ourself, and that's really what you're talking about.
Laurie Poole:That, this attachment work that you've been doing is really about recalibrating the relationship with yourself as an adult and going within and healing from things that you experienced as a child, but really discovering who you are, in addition to acknowledging and appreciating what you went through and how your little brain you know, I say little because you're a kid, right, you don't have an adult brain until you're 25.
Laurie Poole:But that young, that child in you did her very, very best to make sense of. And of course we all create narratives, because that's the way we make sense of and we really aren't brought up with a focus on going within. We look at what's going on around us, particularly those of us with anxious sort of propensities I'm raising my hand on that one and so, yeah, it's really about that relationship with ourself. Gabor Mate says something really interesting for anybody listening who's interested in his book the myth of normal. Interesting for anybody listening who's interested in his book The Myth of Normal. He says we marry people who trigger us and we get into that relationship and we, you know, we, partner with people who trigger us.
Laurie Poole:There's this initial attraction, but ultimately there's also these triggering experiences because, they bring out in us those parts of us that we don't like, when we find ourselves in playing out those same scenarios like you talked about. How was your day? Oh fine, what do you mean?
Courtney Strull:Yeah, or I think you know, I even go back to as my brothers having kids, Drew's siblings having children. I think about when we're with them, the toddlers, and when they're throwing a fit. Or if I'm at Target and I see a kid throwing a tantrum on the floor, how I hope, as a parent, that I deal with this and I actually think I talked about this on the first podcast we did together is being able to look at my kid and say you're really mad right now, I'm going to be right over here and whenever you're ready, I'll be here. I love you.
Courtney Strull:And I'm going to walk a few feet away while they're throwing their tantrum on aisle three. I'm still going to be able to see them. I will not be far, far away, but it won't be personal to me.
Courtney Strull:You know, so often I'm walking through the grocery store and I see kids screaming or yelling and the parents responses. There's a little alarm bells going off in my head and I understand most every parents doing the best they can with what they've got. But a kid's tantrum isn't supposed to be personal. They're communicating in the only ways that they know how and they simply don't have the verbiage or the ability to communicate. And I think too, like starting at age two and three, so like when we're talking about these tantrums in grocery stores, if you have the parent who says like I know you're frustrated, you really want that Barbie doll and you're not allowed to have that Barbie doll today and you're allowed to be mad at me and I'll be right over here. I love you so much, I'll be here when you're ready Versus the parent who's stopping a spoiled brat or get in the cart right now, or it becomes personal. I think about these experiences in the early stages of development and how this impacts you in your adulthood, because how can it not?
Laurie Poole:It does, and I think there's such a thing as cellular memory, so that, even though you don't maybe recall a specific event, it all contributes over time.
Courtney Strull:I think of another example. So, knowing what I know now again, I understand this came from my mom's own insecurities. But even in kindergarten, from as early as I can remember, I was not allowed to ask if people could come over, if I could go to people's houses in front of them, so not in front of the parents, not in front of the kid. This was like an unspoken secret right.
Courtney Strull:Like I might get a pinch on the shoulder or a not very nice look, starting at a very young age. And when I reflect on that now and actually that example I feel like led to a lot of my pleasing, a lot of my speak when spoken to mentality, because I understood and I knew I'd be in trouble and I didn't want to be in trouble. And when I reflect now, my mom was so insecure that she didn't want to say no because she didn't want to be the bad guy. But it's okay for our kids to be mad at us sometimes and when we're solid at the core, we have an understanding of who we are. It doesn't matter if the other parent is judging us for not letting our kid come spend the night because of whatever we have going on, and I think most people probably aren't judging. But I'm just speaking to now, I can understand how and why she was the way she was. But man, I was mad for a long time.
Laurie Poole:It's very true, and I think that doing the family of origin work can shed an awful lot of light in terms of patterns that get repeated and give us an insight and understanding. Then the deeper work becomes on how do we change some of that hard wiring, how do we adjust it so that we can show up as our most authentic self in a way that just feels so much lighter and gives us that inner peace and freedom? Can you sort of get into a little bit more about how you work with clients once they've done this, once they've done the questionnaire, and you look at the results and so on? What are some of the things? I mean I know, listen, we have seven minutes left, so I know there's not a lot of time but just a high level overview, Court, of how you use attachment as a theme or tool in your work with clients, regardless of what the presenting issue is.
Courtney Strull:Yeah. So you know, moving through the quiz, I obviously have some book resources that I like some clients to read, depending on their circumstances, because it's not one size fits all. Even if we both score high and vacillating, it still can present differently, even if there are some similar patterns. So I do like to do family genograms to understand generational patterns. I know you're very into that as well, but one of the things I say is even just the act of helping people understand.
Courtney Strull:So, before I get into what's going on in their current life, helping them understand what happened then. Because when we understand how and why we function the way we do, I think we move from a place of judgment and shame to understanding how and why we are the way we are, and with that comes profound change. So instead of, like you know, after that fight that Drew and I have and then I have so much shame for how I, how I have felt maybe not in that moment, but a couple days later I'm internalizing it. I don't like how I behaved. After, I'm mad at him. Then it's what's wrong with me? How come I always do this? Why do I feel this way? And again, when I help people understand what happened then and why it's this way now. Just even that level of understanding offers so much peace. The hard part is the being triggered, having the conscious awareness and not having the ability to do anything quite yet.
Courtney Strull:It's like such a process and I can remember to the beginning of the healing it was like I've never felt this way.
Courtney Strull:I'm wearing rainbow colored glasses, like nothing was personal to me anymore and I felt so free. Literally I can't describe it in any other way but my body felt at peace literally for the first time ever.
Courtney Strull:And then I hit a pothole and I can remember being so overwhelmed because it's like I've I've access to this peace feeling and I don't feel peaceful at all and it's lasting like a week and I'm almost internally freaking out because it's like I went and did this rewiring I'm malfunctioning back to my you know, the, the original hardware, and it's not working and it's really overwhelming. And I think too, just being a human who's been through this experience and when I watch clients through this journey, it's almost helpful to be able to say it sounds like you hit a pothole and I want you to to know you're gonna get through it. And here's how like being able to give them some predictability like this isn't going to be linear. You're going to have weeks where you're feeling really good and then you're going to have a triggering event and you're going to feel activated and it's going to be so difficult to pull yourself out of that pothole. I almost like giving them that preparation.
Laurie Poole:It's like expectation management.
Courtney Strull:Yes, so I'd say the quiz, genogram work, yeah, moving from the place of shame and judgment to understanding why we are the way we are. What are some of the other things I like to do, like the present moment criteria and examples, and interpersonal relationships, whether it's a significant relationship or I've got a lot of ideas about how come people choose certain professions based on their attachment versus teachers police officers firefighters, therapists myself.
Courtney Strull:Yes, I got a master's in this thing because I wanted to understand right.
Laurie Poole:Yes.
Courtney Strull:Yeah, it's connected to everything.
Laurie Poole:Absolutely, absolutely connected to everything and it's it's, I think, that clients are so lucky to have you, Courtney, to really dive into this work, because it is deep, deep work. It is. It's not going to be all done in 10 sessions. It requires commitment and curiosity. And I think the piece about self judgment is so important, because there's an awful lot of self judgment that we all experience and things we tell ourselves about our responses and ways we just don't like that part of ourselves that we don't like, when we get triggered and into these places where we're so uncomfortable.
Courtney Strull:Totally. And the other thing, you know, you asked what my approach is with clients. Once we've identified, once we've come to understand a little bit about what's going on in childhood, who we've selected or the job profession that we've selected, and whatever's going on in these worlds and connecting those dots. When triggered, I asked them to write down four questions, and this isn't easy. I can remember exactly where I was standing the first time I tried to do this, but okay, when you know, Drew snapped at me and I have a negative thought. So the second I realized I have a negative thought. It's what's going on for me right now? Where do I feel this in my body? Because I want to start creating mind body connection, because, if I can identify, okay, I feel this in my chest. I don't know what's going on for me. I might be able to access these things more quickly.
Courtney Strull:Did Drew just say this to make me feel blank? Insert whatever negative feeling here. 99.9999999% of the time, the answer is no. And so then my next question is okay, so what's going on for me right now? If we know that this wasn't intentional, as much as it might feel that way, even if we've had the conversation 100 times, I can go, leaving the dishes in the sink. This was something I had to like again rewire my brain. It's like I told you 20 times. This really bothers me more than 20, 200. And now when I see a dish in the sink and I'm like, oh, mofo left the bowl in the sink, it's more like huh, okay, did Drew sit here thinking I'm going to leave this bull in the sink to make her curse me out in my head? Or was he probably running late for a meeting and had to throw the bowl in the sink and log on? And what I've come to understand is, more often than not, it's option number two.
Laurie Poole:Yeah, it's not part of a plot.
Courtney Strull:And it's so empowering when we understand that and when other people can't consume us the way they once did.
Laurie Poole:That's right, Courtney, listen, we could talk so much more about attachment and we may have to do a part two, but thank, you very very much for all our time, because I think part two is about mind body connection.
Laurie Poole:Because you said something very important.
Laurie Poole:Where do you feel this in your body? Because our body speaks to us when we get triggered and when these attachment issues come up. Thank you so much for your time today.
Courtney Strull:Of course, it was lovely.
Laurie Poole:I look forward to another conversation.
