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Many of us move through life repeating the same painful relationship patterns—feeling unsafe, unseen, or disconnected, even when we’re trying our hardest to “do everything right.” Invisible wounds from early experiences quietly shape the ways we love, cope, and relate as adults. Instead of recognizing these patterns as natural adaptations, we often blame ourselves inwardly, not realizing that our attachment styles and protective behaviors are rooted in the body and nervous system as much as in the mind. Real healing isn’t about forcing change or consuming endless self-help advice—it’s about reshaping your internal sense of safety on a deeply felt, embodied level.

In this episode, we explore how secure, nourishing relationships begin with understanding the implicit memories, sensations, and patterns that live inside us. Learn how to meet old wounds with compassion, honor the protective parts that once kept you safe, and gently build new internal anchors of stability and trust. Using tools like the Wheel of Attachment and the practice of “finding your anchors,” this episode offers both a clear roadmap and grounded encouragement for anyone ready to move beyond survival mode and experience connection that feels authentic, spacious, and truly supportive.

Jessica Baum is a licensed psychotherapist, certified addiction specialist, and Imago couples therapist with advanced training in EMDR, CBT, DBT, and experiential therapy. She founded the Relationship Institute of Palm Beach and leads a global coaching company supporting clients worldwide. Passionate about trauma, attachment, and interpersonal neurobiology, Jessica helps individuals and couples heal and reconnect. Her bestselling book, “Anxiously Attached,” has made her a respected voice in nurturing secure and fulfilling relationships.

Episode Highlights

05:55 How early experiences shape our sense of safety.

07:48 Implicit memories and relationship patterns.

11:09 The importance of somatic (body-based) memory.

13:14 Reconnecting with the body for healing.

18:42 Understanding and honoring protective behaviors.

21:40 Building trust in healthier relationship dynamics.

25:00 The essential role of anchors in healing.

26:06 Why healing requires relationships, not willpower.

31:43 Finding and cultivating emotional anchors.

35:05 The Wheel of Attachment: A nuanced approach.

37:45 Earning security through supportive experiences.

40:31 Moving toward fulfillment: Real connection and support.

Your Checklist of Actions to Take

• Slow down and take mindful pauses to help connect with your body and increase present-moment awareness.
• Notice physical sensations during interactions, especially in moments of emotional intensity, to access implicit memories and attachment wounds.
• Practice developing interoception—your ability to sense internal bodily states—to better understand your emotional responses in relationships.
• Identify and honor your protective patterns (“protectors”) rather than judging them; acknowledge they were there to support you.
• Seek out safe “anchors” or individuals who can offer emotional co-regulation and support your healing process.
• Use the “Wheel of Attachment” framework to explore how your early relational dynamics show up in current relationships.
• If you lack supportive anchors, resource on memories of secure figures (e.g., a teacher, grandparent) or pursue professional support.
• Engage in relationships and healing spaces where vulnerability, witnessing, and somatic attunement are encouraged, facilitating earned secure attachment over time.

Mentioned

Safe: An Attachment-Informed Guide to Building More Secure Relationships (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)

Anxiously Attached: Becoming More Secure in Life and Love (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)

SAFE (Interview and freebies link)

Nurturing the Heart (Dr. Bonnie Badenoch’s website)

Conscious Relationship Group (Facebook group) (link)

Relationship Institute of Palm Beach

ERP 342: How Love Transforms Our Nervous System — An Interview With Jessica Baum

ERP 276: Understanding The Need For Both Self-Regulation And Co-Regulation In Relationship – An interview With Deb Dana

ERP 261: How To Strengthen Your Relationship From A Polyvagal Perspective – An Interview with Dr. Stephen Porges

ERP 423: How To Transcend Trauma (And The Effects Of Experience In Relationship) — An Interview With Dr. Frank Anderson

12 Relationship Principles to Strengthen Your Love (free guide)

Connect with Jessica Baum

Websites: beselffull.com

Facebook: facebook.com/consciousrelationshipgroup

YouTube: youtube.com/@jessicabaumlmhc

Instagram: instagram.com/jessicabaumlmhc

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jessica-baum-lmhc-cap-038a1538

Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins

Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship 

Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins 

Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/

Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation 

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins 

Twitter: @DrJessHiggins 

Website: drjessicahiggins.com  

Email: [email protected]

If you have a topic you would like to be discussed, please contact us by clicking on the “Ask Dr. Jessica Higgins” button here. 

Thank you so much for your interest in improving your relationship. 

Also, I would so appreciate your honest rating and review. Please leave a review by clicking here. 

Thank you!  

*With Amazon Affiliate Links, I may earn a few cents from Amazon if you purchase the book from this link.

Episode Transcript

Jessica, thank you for joining us. I'm really excited to have you on the show again. 

I'm so happy to be back. Thank you for having me. Yeah. 

And as a licensed psychotherapist and running the Relationship Institute in Palm Beach, this is your second book that you've written, and you focus a lot on helping people understand the integration of neurobiology using polyvagal and attachment theory, as well as some of your other and, being trauma-informed and somatics. And do you want to name your most recent book here? 

Yeah. Safe: An Attachment Informed Guide to Building More Secure Relationships is the one that just got released. 

I love it. And again, I will put the link to your other episode, to your other book, and all of that on today's show notes as well. So, Jessica, what do you want to share a little bit about how this book became important and what prompted you to do this piece of work here? 

Sure. Yeah. I mean, so I wrote Anxiously Attached: Becoming More Secure in Life and Love, and it's done phenomenally. It continues to sell. My own healing continued after that book, and I dived deeper into interpersonal neurobiology. And a lot of people were telling me they have more than one attachment style, which is true. And a lot of people were coming to me with all these questions. And through my own somatic healing and just everything that I was learning, I wanted to give people a deeper dive into attachment, a more nuanced dive. I talk about the wheel of attachment. That's one of the freebies. But to help people really understand attachment theory instead of just, you know, anxiously attached is amazing, and it has healing qualities. 

But I would say this goes like five levels deeper in terms of the inner work and the somatic work that you get with the book. And it really explores all the attachment patterns. And you look at a wheel, so you're starting to look at it more holistically about how you move on that wheel. So it was just the evolution from the first book. 

I love that. And it sounds like you were responding to what your clients were sharing with you, what people were asking about, and just your own understanding. I've been talking about the attachment experience being on a continuum, so I'm so grateful that you've distilled some of this in a holistic view. Did you do research around this, too, or was it just compiling based on what you've gathered through all your work? 

Actually, the wheel is from my mentor, Bonnie Badenoch, and I credit her. She helped me a lot, and she wrote Heart of Trauma. I don't know if you're familiar with that book, but she's just brilliant. Since Anxiously Attached, I've been studying under her for a long time, and she introduced me to the wheel. And the wheel, when you really understand the wheel, and I don't know if we should go into it because it's detailed, but you start to understand attachment less from a left shifted hemisphere way and more from a way of like, oh, my God, this is so nuanced and layered, and you can move on the wheel and all that kind of stuff. 

Okay, well, I would love to ask more about that. And for people listening, some of whom I know are very familiar with some of the background and context of the attachment system, how we develop it early in early life develop it, but also for people who haven't really heard very much. I know you do a beautiful job of helping people understand how this relates to A sense of safety. Since we're going to focus on safety and relationships, how early experiences inform our experience in adult romantic relationships. 

Yeah, I mean, so a lot of safe we start talking about what we are like in the womb and early development, and we're this right hemisphere creature which, you know, and we're reaching and we don't have fully developed nervous systems yet. Like we are living more in sympathetic, and we don't have rest and digest fully formed. And so we're really one energetic unit with our primary caregiver. And so if our primary caregiver was struggling themselves with their own implicit world or their own wounding, or like the hustle culture or life, or relationship struggles, 

And so the internalization of the felt sense of safety is essentially the basis of secure attachment. So many of us, myself included, my mom was pretty anxious, my dad was pretty unavailable. So I internalized that kind of connection early on. And as you grow up, you know, you might have some abandonment wounds or you might struggle in a relationship, or you just might not feel as safe in the world. And a lot of this, I guess, felt sense of lack of safety comes from our earliest experiences. And you know, safe talks about it a lot because I get a lot from clients like, well, my parents were there and they loved me. But if they weren't emotionally present, which many of our parents weren't, we still feel an abandonment, we still feel a disconnect. 

And it's not until you start doing the work and getting attuned and being in co-regulation and getting what you maybe didn't receive when you were younger that you start to realize that you actually didn't receive what you needed when you were younger. But we can reinternalize people and earn security later on. So, safe talks a lot about doing the inner work and reinternalizing people to build some more inner security. 

Yeah, thank you so much, and for just giving a little bit more description here for people to orient. And as you talk about felt sense and also the reality that some people may be functioning in the world and appear to have many domains of their life working well, but also still see some gaps in this healthy, relating, and intimate relationship. As you say, they might look back in their early life and think, Oh, all of my needs I was cared for, was stable, and yet there's still this lack of attunement or misattunement. Do people come to you with curiosity around here's what my result, I continue to attract a certain type of partner or keep participating in healthy dynamics. 

Or do you see people who are just really internally not feeling settled in themselves, not feeling able to really relax or receive because there's a body component to this? Do you want to speak to the felt sense body, and then also how people recognize when there's an opportunity for like, inner work here? 

Yeah, I feel like both are true. Like, I think it's hard because those are two big questions and they're both very relevant. I think that often what happens to us, for myself included, is when we're young, we experience a lot of things that get stored implicitly in our body. And sometimes we're not even conscious or in. I tend to think we are more conscious than we think, but we're not connecting to it in the way that we're making sense of it. And so often when we meet people, even if in the beginning it doesn't appear that way, but they resonate with something that's familiar to us, we will move towards them. And if it's unhealed, dynamics and patterns and way of relating and familiar, we might think, oh, this is the one. Right? Like, this feels so much in resonance with me. 

This feels familiar. 

We're feeling like we're not enough. We're reliving everything all over again in our relationships. This happens to so many people. And then the other thing that can happen is that we can be in a relationship with someone, and it can be going okay. And then something can happen that can reawaken old implicit memory as well. So it's not always that we're attracted. Sometimes, like maybe we have more of a secure base, and there's some disorganization and all that. It's hidden. 

And you get cancer or a life event or stress gets thrown at you, and then your relationship with me changes. And now it's awakening more disorganization or a lack of safety that's familiar to me. So it can come up in certain dynamics. And we can also very much be gravitated towards people who feel familiar to us. 

Thank you. I want to unpack some of what you're describing. So, for people who aren't familiar with implicit memory. This is what we may feel like we have cognitive memory or brain knowledge about. Can you talk to people about how this plays a part in the attachment system? 

Yeah, I mean, and I would say that safe focuses so much on implicit memory, and like, it's such a hard thing to really grasp. But when we're born, we're not born with explicit memory. So, like the type of memory that we all think is memory, like, oh, you know, like a movie in our brain, that's what we think of as memory. That's not how we store memory. When we are like zero to four, we're storing sensation. So all of our earliest attachment experiences are stored as sensations in our bodies. And we are taking in implicit information so much more. 

Like every second, like you and me, Jess, are taking in implicit, like what we are eye contact, our body language, our energy, everything implicitly is coming through these streams in our body versus explicitly that we're both on a screen and we're talking to each other. We're doing this podcast. So we're storing so much more implicit information through sensation and experiencing so much more. And that information and that memory so much more drives our choices, our behaviors, and what we choose in life. So a lot of the book is getting conscious of that because that is usually what's driving most of our choices. 

Thank you. It's so powerful. And I appreciate that you even mentioned in utero that this impact on the environment and the experience in pre-relationship, like in the womb. And then also, just as one gets born in the relationship, there's so much that's happening. And you're describing how this is developing our brains, our nervous systems, our attachment system. It's quite profound. And so to the question around awareness, how would somebody begin to look at their sensations as it relates to a relationship? And also, we may want to talk. This is a follow-up on how we might not be in contact, whether or not it's our protective coping strategies. But where do you start with people around awareness? 

Yeah, I mean, I talk about it in chapter five, like I was a pretty bad workaholic for a while, and I use Iian McGillicryst's work, but I talk about the hemispheres of the brain and that I was hiding out in my left hemisphere. I'm pretty disconnected from my body. And the research says that about 75% of Western culture is living like this, where we're just go, go, go. And we are not connected with our body, and we need to live like this to survive. If we don't have the capacity to be with, and we don't have the support to be with what's going on inside. In the book, I talk about developing interoception, which is usually a missing link. 

So first we have to slow down. I had to slow down. Most people have to slow down, shift out of the left a little bit, and get more in touch with the body. And that can be a process. I mean, a lot of people meet, like numbness or dissociation or a wall, for a while. So I talk about finding anchors, but learning how to develop interoception is spelled out for you. And it's so important that we learn this capacity. It's a missing developmental link, and it's how we get in touch with our attachment wounds. 

So, so powerful. So you're directing people to the book to have a little bit more guidance around that. Is there anything you want to say about how somebody could begin to develop? And just a small, firm, 

I would. Say, like, if you're fighting with your husband or your wife or your boss and you feel like something in your stomach or something in your heart, if you have these sensational experiences that are really big in your body, we also know that there's a memory attached. We usually know, okay, this pattern. Or for me, I use this example in the book. Like, whenever my partner would, like, turn their back towards me, it woke up all my abandonment. I could feel it in my body. It hurts so deeply. And so when we're having these interactions with the people that we're close with, and they wake up, a lot of sensational experiences, like your heart hurts or tightness in your chest, blockage in your throat, your stomach feels queasy. We know that we're now getting in touch with the implicit world. Great. 

And that. That if one's trying to look for an actual memory in the traditional sense, like explicitly the way that we think that perhaps that is gathering a lot of information and it is extremely valuable. 

Yeah, a hundred percent. Like, I'll be with a client and she'll be like, I don't remember. And I'll be like, what does your heart feel? Or what does your body feel right now? And she'll be like, I just had this tightness in my chest. And I'll be like, can you for a second trust the science that is the memory. And so I have to do that over and over. But once I do that enough with a client. They start to build a relationship with the sensations going on. They start to kind of relate to themselves differently, and they start to see the gravity of what these sensations are speaking to us and how we have to hold and heal them. 

Yes. And the compassion around how it perhaps even makes sense. I mean, this is probably weaving in some of the left brain, but in the context of the family system, like how it makes sense that would have been the experience. 

Yeah. I mean, so the left brain is needed. Right. And I provide so much science in this book because my anxious self needed the neuroscience to understand the healing process to help anchor me through the healing process. And I actually think it's really important that we do understand this. It's not just like inner child woo. It's like that's opening sensations memory. What really happens? What does holding space really mean? What does that mean between nervous systems? Like, if you keep showing up, will you heal? You know, people want to; they want the left-brain information to just ground them in. Because it can be challenging. 

Oh my gosh. And it can feel potentially like approaching an abyss and stepping off a cliff, and what's going to happen. And like I am. I've had so many clients, I'm like, I'm not going to be just like a unfunctional pool on the, a puddle on the floor. It just feels like it takes away. But to have that context. But it also doesn't alleviate, I will say from my own experience, it doesn't alleviate the fear of confronting and going there, and what feels very perhaps unknown in the way of being attentive to it in this very conscious way. But it's been to your point, it's with us, and we know on some level that it's operating. But to be attentive to it. 

Yeah. And I think like, you know, as much as I can explain the science, everyone's unique inherent wisdom, and I think that's really important. If you're listening and you're in your healing journey, or you want to start your healing journey in the context of safe relationships, when we could talk about what that means from nervous system to nervous system in the context of safety, your own inherent memory system and wisdom will help unfold in the way that it needs to unfold. And that trust is really hard. We sometimes need anchors and professionals to say no, you are actually right in it. 

And it's okay because the unfolding is kind of like there's a little bit of uncertainty there, but 

Absolutely. Because, as you've already mentioned, perhaps our tendencies might be to seek the familiar, seek intensity, or ways in which we protect ourselves, or feel like we have to over function to earn love or this way of distancing to feel safe that makes sense in the context of learning and also perhaps interfere with developing more of the safe, secure functioning. So, can we talk about that before we talk about developing safer relating when you are helping someone who is recognizing ways in which they overfunction or certain patterns that they do that they might label as problematic, or I need help with this? How do you help people hold their that in this, in the context, in the healing process? 

Yeah, I mean, and I talk about this in chapter three, but I call them your protectors. And a lot of people want to hate their protectors, like if it's, you know, an eating disorder or like a non-glamorous one. You know, mine was workaholism, which is totally glamorized in our culture. But we have so many protectors. And in the book, I talk about turning towards them because we've needed them. So a good example is if we can't process what's going on inside, we will develop obsessive behavior of some kind to try to cope with what we've not been able to cope with. And so instead of hating that behavior, we actually have to turn towards it and say, You are protecting me from something, and you're actually welcomed here. And so welcoming our protectors is actually a vital part of healing. 

And like you have to. I know it's hard because people are like, I don't want to welcome that part of me or I don't like that behavior. But it's like that behavior is trying, it's probably not doing a great job, and sometimes making you miserable, but it's trying to protect you from your original wounds. And so it can stop working so hard when we can start to be with them. 

Yes, that's so essential. I know IFS – Internal Family Systems does a lot to support people, and I appreciate just the compassion that you're offering to many people, myself included. When there are parts that are operating that I find extremely challenging, I want to push them away, just like, oh, okay, don't want to do that anymore. But to recognize it sounds like you're saying there's a real value and purpose and way in which they're serving. And that if we can be intentional about showing up for the felt sense and what's living in us from that implicit place and that early understanding of relationship, then they don't have to. They're like, you got it. You can take it. 

Yeah. I mean, you know, like an alcoholic or an addiction, you know, if we didn't have the capacity to process and feel at the time, we're going to turn towards things that can help us cope with life. And it's gonna make sense when we go back into your childhood. If you didn't have people to process, if you didn't know if that was the only way to regulate your nervous system. But when we can be with the original pain more, and you and I can develop the capacity to hold it, and you can get what you didn't get, then you won't need to use quite so much. You know, I'm not saying on a bad day you're not gonna reach out for this, and I'm not saying that this happens overnight. I'm saying we need these protectors for good reason. 

Like, I needed workaholism for years of my life. I had no idea what I hadn't faced. And workaholism was like the perfect distraction. I was miserable, but I was surviving. I was in survival mode. And I just said to myself one day, like, I want to get out of survival mode. I understood the science of slowing down and being with what was going on inside of me. And I got out of survival mode, you know, and I got out of workaholism. And I have much more space in my life for a meaningful connection. And I have much more meaning and depth. But I. I couldn't have done that without slowing down and doing the work with the right resources. 

Yes. And for people listening, I imagine the invitation here is to perhaps acknowledge how the attachment systems got developed, honoring the protective parts and the tendencies, and also for the healing journey, exploring from this grounded felt sense, self attunement, a new way of operating. So it's almost like letting the old age age a bit, maybe lessening its being in the driver's seat and giving more space. But this can be difficult to trust. Right. So this is where you slow.  Well, and even people's how fast sometimes they might be experiencing the world or encountering a new potential partner. So how do you help people trust when somebody is perhaps feeling a sense of excitement or this level of intensity with a new person? 

But perhaps they know and they're right, or there is a part of them that recognizes there are some big warning signs here, but they don't trust that the other way or the new way is going to be successful. Because they haven't had the experience. 

Yeah, I mean, usually they start having the experience with me or anchor. I talk about finding your anchors in the book. So once you start to get people who are in a vengeful state more often and can hold you and co-regulate with you, and anchor your nervous system starts to register that as love and starts to register that as like real emotional showing up. That doesn't happen overnight. There's a lot I could talk about, dipping into vulnerability and being really present. And I remember my therapist being one of the first people to really be present with me, and how hard that was for me for a period of time. Like, I didn't want to show up for therapy. 

But after a while, my nervous system started to recognize that people showing up in this capacity, willing to hold me, not fix me, not tell me what to do to stay with me, that this is love. And my nervous system had to register that over and over. And I have not just therapists, but anchors, I call them anchors, people in your life who have this capacity. And I talk about finding your anchors and the importance of that because you know that early wounding can't be healed without adult anchoring. But it's reorienting to understanding that being slowed down and being present and being connected in that way is what my nervous system didn't get. 

So I need to start to receive that more and more to start to register that this is my new norm, or this is what I need from people, versus going towards my familiar, which is usually intensity and emotionally unavailable. And so actually, the reorienting was very hard because we have a strong pull, yes, the other, and the other can be like an escape. So once we start to kind of slow down and get really anxious, anchoring, it's hard because we have to be present with what we've been avoiding, and we have to show up. But after a while, our system starts to register that kind of holding. And then after a while, we start to expect that and then become more secure. So we're like literally reorienting to a new familiar. But it takes time, you know, and it happens really slowly. 

I hope that the listeners aren't listening and like, this isn't like that far out there. I know you're shaking your head cause you're a trauma therapist and you and I speak the same language. But it's like in the experience of someone who has the safety that you need, eventually your nervous system starts to recognize that as what you need, and you start to gravitate towards more people who can have that capacity and more people who are emotionally available. It's like a reorienting, too. 

Absolutely. This is the reorienting, the rewiring, the learning that is occurring to give scaffolding to this earned, secure functioning. So you've mentioned anchorings a few times, and I know Deb Dana talks about it, but you have your own way of helping people understand this internal, external. What would you like to share here? To help people? 

Yeah, it's like very different than Deb Dana's work. I know she wrote a book, Anchored, and that's about the nervous system. And she has a whole process. This is more about, like, I would say Bonnie Bananach's work, but like, coming from the lens that we. We can't build inner security without anchoring first. So we weren't insecure babies because we didn't have the adult anchoring. We couldn't. We didn't get the co-regulation to develop the self-regulation. So there's a big theory here, which is that we need safe people, safe nervous systems to anchor us. So the paradox is that we become more secure with more dependency on the right people. And that's how we internalize. Through mirror neurons and resonance circuits, we internalize new people, thank God, throughout our lives. We didn't have safe people as kids. 

We get to pick people now, and we get to be anchored by them. And I show in the book, like, their nervous system is still gonna be shifting through different nervous system states, and ours will be dipping into the implicit world and coming up. And they're holding us, and they're literally anchoring us. You know, why we move through this stuff. And so that's what we needed as children. We needed our adults to anchor us through our emotional process. Most of us never got that. I talk about intergenerational trauma. I never blame our parents. I even talk about healing those parts. But

Yes. And it's hard to reference, it's hard to internalize if we haven't had the relationship to support that. And for people who just have the audio, Jessica was holding one hand, very consistent. You were saying maybe there's some slight fluctuation, but in a very supportive role. And that consistency that the one that's still learning and accessing these implicit memories, these fault sciences, and then being able to co-regulate or have some place of relationship that feels stable, reliable, consistent, that we can start to feel more safety in that, and also in turn start to feel our own regulation and then have more internal reference to security. 

I'm a big believer that co-regulation, the ability to self-regulate, is due to really wonderful co-regulation. Yeah. So, for your listeners, those of you listening who are like, I need that drink or I get so disappointed, regulated, I need to have this perfect nervous system, and I'm watching all that. No, we need more co-regulation. You need to depend on dependable people. You need people to help regulate you. And when you get enough of that, you develop your own capacity for self-regulation. That self-regulation is really born out of really healthy co-regulation. 

I'm so glad you are a voice for this because so often, as you mentioned, the Western world and the emphasis on being functioning and optimizing and efficient, there's this almost illusion that we can willpower ourselves into it because people sometimes have a lot of intellectual insight and understanding, but it doesn't always translate to the lived experience. So it's this sense of like, people want to willpower their nervous system, and the nervous system's going to win every time. 

Yeah. I mean, you can extend your exhales. There are things you can do to try and help yourself, but the reason why you're so dysregulated and have a hard time regulating is because you didn't get enough holding and proper co-regulation. So give yourself a break. I know, like, it's healthy to reach out to a friend if you're upset, if that friend can hold space for you, and be there for you're gonna get back into connection. I mean, and sometimes you can't do it alone, sometimes you can't get yourself back to baseline alone. And that's okay. Like that's part of the healing process after a while, when you're around enough co-regulating people, you do the science shows you internal and you internalize that co-regulation. 

So you actually do develop self-regulation, and it's really born of co-regulation, and I'm a firm believer in that. 

So am I. I'm so grateful because this isn't, I mean, people can listen and read until we get into a relationship and have these co-regulating experiences and these, this holding. It's hard to have a real significant change because the nervous system isn't experiencing anything different. 

And like the last thing I want, and I talk about this, is I was a young girl and I wrote Anxiously attached for that 19-year-old. I talk about it in my first book who was in the hospital for panic attacks. I read every single self-help book. I mean, I just cleaned out my bookshelf behind me for those of you who are watching. But I've read every single self-help book under the sun, thinking that I wrote two books, thinking that I could figure it out, right? Like, I can figure this out. And the truth is like 

And so this idea that like you can be independent and badass and read a self-help book, and like I'm an author of two, and I try to be with you as the author in the book, but the truth is you can't heal these things alone. You must heal. What was wounded in the relationship needs to be healed in the relationship. And I don't want people spinning their wheels like I did for years. And the books helped, they soothed me, they gave me like face of codependency. It was like Oh my God, I finally found a word to describe how messed up I am. And I, you know, and that's why I wrote Anxiously Attached for anybody who like thinks they're codependent, let's like dive deeper, and the information is so important. 

But like I talk about this a lot in safe, and like even my publishers are like Really? We have to put this in there. And I'm like, you guys, I keep having to drive people to find their anchors to do this work because it's one thing to have the information, and then you have to actually move the trauma out of the body. And you need adult anchoring or human or nervous system anchoring in order to heal. So it's an important message, and I think people might be like Oh, I don't wanna do this. If I need that, I get that. 

But like if I don't give you that message and I'm like here's a self-help book and go heal yourself, I'm just hurting you and not giving you the full picture of like what your nervous system and what your body really needs to move through this and get to that earned security. 

So appreciate that the authenticity and the real standing firm in the path towards this healing and more secure functioning. It doesn't just come from insight. And so for one that's listening, as you just mentioned, cleaning out your bookshelf, if they look at their lives and have a hard time identifying safe adults to have this regulating experience with, I mean, that can be confronting. 

I ask most of my clients, I'm like Who are your anchors? I have none. I think that's if you're listening, like, that's the majority of where people start. It's so sad. Like, it's so sad. And yet I encourage my clients to go through their Rolodex. I think sometimes there is an anchoring person that we are not thinking about. They might not be feeling, making us feel better, or fixing us, but they can have the patience or talk about how to go out and find people if you can. Not everyone can do this. I talk about co-anchoring. So, like, finding someone you can do the work with and you guys can co-anchor. As long as there's not too much dysregulation going on, you can do that. And yeah, like you have to process some of this stuff with another witness. 

That's how the science shows that it moves. 

Okay, so not all is lost if you can't identify its starting point somewhere. And that is No. 

And I, you know, I am your anchor as the author in the book. It's more. But like I started out, you know, so looking for that. And I think, like in my experience, I talk about my grandmother being an anchor who's no longer alive. Like we have inner anchors and we have outer anchors. And for someone who's listening, you might be able to resource an inner anchor. So it might not be someone in your life right now, but you might have had an experience, a friend's mom, a coach, a teacher who was, you know, secure that we can start to resource and then look for more of that. 

Yes, build on that. Excellent. I know we don't have a ton of time, and you mentioned the Wheel of Attachment. Would you like to briefly describe that? Because people who have been in the conversation and accessing relationship material are aware of attachment styles, and yet you're really helping us see this in a bigger way. 

And you should get a link to the freebie, which is beyond the labels, which is the wheel of attachment, and a 40-minute talk with me and Bonnie Bonino, and what it feels like to go from insecurity to security in your body. So that's really special because she's really special to me. But I'm going to attempt to describe the wheel in this way. So. But if you download the freebies, you will get a PDF of this immediately. So it's like a circle square. At the bottom is security. On top is disorganized. On the right is anxious. On the left is avoidant. So I talk about, in one household, you can have many different experiences, but let's say you had a mom who was secure and sometimes anxious. 

 

So you're going to slide on the bottom of the circle and up to the right at times, and you're going to maybe slide in between. Here, let's say your mom was anxious and then, like kind of got violent or really aggressive. You're going to keep going up the wheel, and you're going to hit disorganization. So with one parent, you can have, you know, that. So on the other side, again, the base is security. And let's say your dad was avoidant most of the time, so very little security. And you're in avoidance. And then he was neglectful and completely detached. Right. You're going to slide up more, and you're going to hit disorganization. So it's turning up the volume on each side, either the avoidance or the anxious side, that gets us to the top, where disorganization is. 

 
Now, in the book I talk about, you know, with your sister, you can have one relationship. With your mother, you're going to have all these embedded patterns and all these experiences in one household. And so you really kind of work on your wheel, and then you take that wheel and you place it over your current relationships to see if any of that is repeating in your life. So what early embedded dynamics did you experience early in life that now are showing up in your current world to try to kind of get readers to start to identify that, oh my God, when my husband does this behavior, it's bringing up the avoidance I felt with my dad, or making these bigger connections. Because once we make those bigger connections, then when your husband's doing that, it's not just about him. 

 
We can start with the implicit information. So, understanding the wheel makes sense when you're really looking at disorganization and how we get disorganized. And for those of you listening, you might have heard that as fearful avoidant, because that's like the layman. But the scientific world is disorganized, which is the most terrifying state, where we don't have anywhere to land. So, as we get either more anxious, turn to violence or anger, or just extreme intensity, or more neglect turns to turn back, or you know, just someone not there, as you move up that, as your primary caregivers do more of those behaviors, we move into disorganization. So on the wheel, you can kind of say, you know, with my mom, I remember her being really sweet at times, and then other times she was totally checked out. 

So then we're moving up to some avoidance. So you can start to kind of play with this wheel and put it overlay it with the relationships in your book. And I kind of walk you through that in the book, and really understand attachment more than these labels and more than patterns. But, like, this is how we move on. 

It's so dynamic. And that's where I think people can get confused. So to give more range to the lived experience that it's not so categorical. Yeah. 

And you can have an avoidant, you know, an experience with an avoidant husband and anxious friend, like, and you can go back and be like, my dad was this way, and my mom, like, it starts to make sense of how nuanced and complex and layered you really are. 

Yes. Thank you so much. And as you said, if we bring awareness, we have an opportunity to slow down and start to do some of this anchoring work, or be able to. Do you want to say a little bit more about how one earns more safer, secure functioning? 

Yeah. I mean, for me and for most,

like we said, and making these connections around, like, oh, my God, this is. This is really how it felt in my body when I was little. And getting in touch with the embodied experience of our childhood is what most of us are disconnected from. So I think this is gonna wake you up, you know, and get you in touch. But that's how we integrate. That's how we hold and integrate. And by the way, all of this might sound like, oh, my God, but, like, there's so much freedom and expansion and, I don't know, an ability to be so much more myself now and connect more freely. 

And I have so many wonderful attachments, rather than being hyper-focused on trying to get my needs met from an unavailable partner. I have all these beautiful attachments, and it's been a journey, but it is so worth it. I always say I have like so much inner space. I have so much more appreciation and gratitude, and all these wonderful things that happen when we dive in and we do this work. So it's not all bad. The outcome is really wonderful. And healing really does have its benefits. But healing means feeling and relating, all of these things. 

Absolutely. And as you said at the outset, this is a deeper dive, and you're accessing a depth and an opportunity to access things that we typically haven't turned towards or haven't had the safety to turn towards. And so there's a real depth here that you're inviting. 

Yeah. And for me, it was a real coming to terms with my humanness. You know, I keep going back to Stephen Porges' words like “Connection is a Biological Imperative”. Like, we are so tender, we are so vulnerable, we so much need each other, and doing the work made me really realize that, you know, and how much we don't live enough in connection or in community. And many of us are very isolated. So it's very true if you're feeling that way. It is, it's really real. Like, we're pretty isolated. We're not living in enough connection and community and having enough of this holding happening for us, as little ones as well as adults. 

Absolutely. And I would just say I think our modern culture is giving these proxies, or like a kind of what could feel like fake connections through social media, or like. And not to say that I have an issue with any of those modalities, but it can be an easy low-hanging fruit or reach of a tendency for connection. But it doesn't offer what you're describing in the way of real relationship role connection. And I think this can be difficult to start practicing. And also, the rewards and what they offer are tremendous. 

Yeah. And I think that, you know, we all want fulfilling relationships, and I think developing this inner security and developing these anchors like you do deepens, and you start to have really fulfilling relationships. In my experience, I've been pretty successful in my life. And don't get me wrong, I like nice things. I really like 

And I'm like a firm believer in that now. So, yeah, for whatever that's worth, I think the work is so worth it. 

Lovely. Jessica, you've mentioned the freebie, and people can get the Wheel of Attachment and also the interview. And will you say the name of your book again? 

Yeah, it's Safe: An Attachment-Informed Guide to Building More Secure Relationships. And yeah, the freebie. Also, check your spam. But, like, you should get. Jessica will get the link, and she'll link it. And there's a video of me and my mentor, Benny Matanac, who wrote Heart of Trauma, if you guys want to dive deep into even more. But she's like the person who teaches us therapists, so she's like my mentor, but she teaches us. So, like, it's a really sweet conversation, and it's really deep about what it feels like in your body to move from insecurity to security. And so I just wanted to give the world a taste of her because I've been able to experience her, and I want other people to experience her as well. 

So you'll get the wheel, you'll get her, and you'll get the book, because this is coming out in November, so it all works? 

Yes. Excellent. Do you want to mention anything else, like your institute or anything else that you're offering, or is this really what you want to direct people towards? 

I have a conscious relationship coaching group that's international, and then I have a private practice in Palm Beach, and I'm on Instagram at @jessicabaumlmhc. I've been saying this on every podcast, so I don't even know if I'm going to be able to do it. But, like, if you read the book, please reach out to me. Let me know. I try really hard to personally connect to every single person who reaches out to me, and the book touches them one way or another. Like, it is important to me as someone who has worked for years on this stuff, but that you feel comfortable enough to reach out to me and tell me what's going on for you and how it resonated with you. So I really encourage that. 

Beautiful. I'll make sure to have all the links on today's show. Notes. Jessica, thank you for joining us. 

Thank you, Jessica, for having me.