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Relationships are the best mirror for our deepest fears and emotions. Although you may have been able to suppress these feelings as an adult, getting into a committed relationship can bring them to the surface.

Can love transform our nervous system and mend these wounds? The short answer is yes.

In this episode, Jessica Baum discusses core wounds and the emotional charge associated with that narrative. She also discusses co-regulation and interdependency and how they can be used to better understand your own and your partner's behavior.

Jessica Baum, LMHC, is the founder of the Relationship Institute of Palm Beach, providing couples therapy, family counseling, and addiction therapy in South Florida for over 10 years. She has helped thousands of clients with her unique approach to healing, the Self-full® Method. Through her sister company, Be Self-full (beselffull.com), Jessica offers transformational courses and online coaching services that support individuals and couples to form healthy, long-term relationships.

In this Episode

5:36 Breaking the anxious-avoidant dance in relationships: How Jessica's fascination with energy and system issues evolved.

8:01 Understanding Core Wounds: The underlying story and the energetic charge associated with it.

13:47 Understanding how your nervous system affects your relationships.

20:24 Patterns and themes: Distinguishing what is happening in the relationship from possible feelings you may have had before you met that partner.

24:50 How the nervous system responds to cues of stress and how co-regulation helps create a calm environment.

35:55 How to go from being anxious or avoidant to feeling secure.

48:12 Connect with Dr. Baum and learn more about her work.

Your Check List of Actions to Take

• Look for patterns and themes, and assess whether you experience the same emotion that may have existed prior to the relationship.
• Be willing to process your feelings about the past and consider it as an opportunity to grow.
• Ask for help. If you and your partner are unable to resolve the issue, seek out a person who is in a ventral state.
• Try to visualize the person you love and who makes you feel at ease. By doing that, you are modifying the hormones in your body that could lessen the severity of the experience.

Mentioned

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

Relationship Map To Happy, Lasting Love

Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication

Connect with Jessica Baum

Websites: beselffull.com/anxiouslyattached

Facebook: facebook.com/beselffull

Instagram: instagram.com/jessicabaumlmhc

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]

About Today's Show

Jessica, thank you so much for joining us. 

Thank you for having me. 

I really appreciate your background and the comprehensive approach that you take in looking at what gets activated in the nervous system and how that shows up in a relationship. And for people who maybe aren't acquainted with your work or haven't read your book. I'm curious if you'd be willing to share what got you focused on looking at relationships from this lens. 

Yeah. I mean, so many things. I started in this field working with addiction and working with codependency, and I kind of became fascinated with energy and system issues. I study interpersonal neurobiology. I also became an Imago therapist, which is a type of couples counseling that is very in-depth for couples and system issues. 

I think I am fascinated with different dynamics that play out in systems and what you can't see in energies and how our nervous system adapts and responds when it's fearful or scared, and how that can activate another person's nervous system. 

We can get locked in these dances, so to speak, and really help a lot of couples and a lot of families work through healing and really understanding attachment from an interpersonal neurobiology lens along with the Imago. So just really helping couples get out of the anxious-avoidant dance or just painful cycles.

Wow. And there's so much to be said to unpack what you just named and your background. So really recognize there's no way we're going to be able to fully do that justice. There's so much education and training, and experience that you have that you bring to this conversation. Now, I'm curious as you're describing your work. Are you mostly working with couples that are in a relationship and have gotten stuck in these disconnect patterns? Is that typically who you're working with?

I have a team of therapists and coaches. And the truth is my caseload right now is not all couples. I only have a few couples, but a lot of couples come to us, but also individuals who keep repeating the same pattern in their relationships and want to have more fulfilling relationships and do the inner work to make those changes. So I think we're about 50/50 with couples and individual work.

Well, that really mirrors my work as well. I know listeners who definitely consume the Empowered Relationship Podcast are both in a relationship and looking to improve their relationship and also have had relationships struggle and really looking at, “I want to do the deep dive to do the work to really set this up for success.” 

Well, as we're really naming those two, I guess I'm interested if we can just pivot towards the people that are maybe looking to do relationships differently because this, I think, gives us a little bit more of a sequence. Because you're, in some ways, helping people be conscious and awake to things that are operating that they maybe haven't fully recognized because it's just the water they swim in. 

They just don't know. Right? And as you talk about the nervous system as it relates to entering into a relationship, perhaps even choosing a partner, can we start there?

Sure, I think our modern society sets us up for kind of this idea that marriage and relationships are a portal, that bliss, and it's absolutely not the case. We get wounded early in a relationship. I don't know anyone who isn't traveling around with some kind of conscious or unconscious core wound. That is an adaptation that developed really early on. And usually, there's a narrative and a charge, an energetic charge, attached to that narrative. 

If you're listening, you might know whether it's “I'm unlovable,” “I'm not enough,” or “I'm going to be left.” When you really look at the core wounds, the story is second to the sensation that your body is storing. And if it's in the body, and it's sensational, and usually shows up in our deepest bonds, we know there's history attached. 

We can look at the science, and we really have the evidence to say, okay, this has embedded trauma, and it comes out, and it plays out in our adaptive strategies, which we can talk about, get reenacted in our adult relationships, the closer we get to someone that we care about. So the irony is when we attach deeply, the possibility for these deeply embedded patterns to the surface is there.

What I see so many people doing, myself included, I think we've all been there is a lot of projecting because there's a lot of pain that happens in the here and now, and we want to point the finger at what actually looks like what's happening in the here and now. 

And as a couples therapist, I know you know this. But you know, 80% is happening below the surface, and 20% is happening in the here and now. So it's not that it's not happening in the here and now. It's that it's touching or awakening a part of you and a response in you that is old and familiar. And then you're reacting to that. And you get stuck in these stories and these cycles with your partner that can be very hard to break.

Yes. I also want to normalize that, as adults, we tend to feel confused by this because perhaps we've managed our life in a certain way where we haven't confronted that core wound. Or, as you're saying, when we enter into a deep, loving, committed relationship, it's going to evoke or activate things in us that perhaps we weren't experiencing. So many times, people are like, well, and all my other relationships, I don't feel like this, or this doesn't happen. So pointing the finger, “It must be you.” And hence the projection in the story that we make up. But we're trying to make sense of what might feel so rattling and so confusing. We don't recognize it in the like, the way in which we've kind of crafted our life, would you agree?

Absolutely. I was talking to friends the other day who are going through marital issues. And one of the people in the marriage does a lot of things. And when you really look at all the behaviors, they're rooted in some fear, and the fear that he doesn't want to feel left again, abandoned again, or betrayed again, and so then the behavior starts to make sense. 

I think when we start to understand that we all don't want to feel a certain way. And then, on top of that, we all operate in ways or protect ourselves in ways to not feel that way. And it's just protection around our deepest core wound. We don't want to feel there that intensity or that pain or that terror that might be under there. So, we do this so unconsciously. 

I think certain relationships will bring up those sensations and those fears as an opportunity, as I would say, to heal and grow, although I think it's very hard to move from “This is painful. I hate this person.” or “This is painful. This person's doing this to me.” to “Wow, this person is awakening this inside of me.” 

And if it's having this extreme experience in me, I now know that neuroception and neuroscience are telling us that this isn't partly embedded trauma. I know that the common public kind of talks about trauma bonds, and that's kind of when you get stuck in the loop of these stories and these sensations with your partner. And it can be very painful on both sides. I don't think that anybody steps into anything saying, “I want to create a trauma bond.” but we stay for a reason, we behave for a reason, and all our behaviors start to make sense when you start to understand the science.

The keyword there is “understand” because, as you've said, if we don't slow down and we are reacting, we can make up a story and project. That can all make sense too. However, we're not necessarily looking at what's happening on the inside, that 80%. 

I just want to go back. You had mentioned energy. For people that haven't necessarily confronted this or felt activated enough to turn toward it. And it is so painful, right? That it might be difficult to discern what's happening there. Because you're talking about a deep level of connection with a core wound, that's not easy. 

There are usually layers and layers and layers and layers sometimes to slow down, and then even there, we can see the theme of it once we have that understanding. Do you want to speak to what helping people understand what you mean by energy and how to start recognizing that? 

Yeah. I mean, I think in my book I talk about the turtle and the octopus, but it's really Steven Porges' work on the polyvagal theory that talks about the nervous system and attachment and how the nervous system and attachment are interlinked in our body, you know, our embodied brain which is basically our whole body.

Anxious Attachment is one of the books on, but there's a tendency to move to sympathetic activation when you feel threatened, and that's fight-flight-flee. It's an expansion of energy. So I say to the octopus because sometimes you're trying from every angle not to feel the abandonment that's lurking below the surface. So you will reach out, you will expand your energy, you might get angry, and you're ready to pounce. 

And then I talk about someone with maybe a more avoidant style when they're scared. They tend to contract their energy; I call them the turtle. They go inward. They shut down. More often than not, it's still a sympathetic response of shutting down. They are still activated. Sometimes, it can go into a dorsal response, which is like a complete shutdown. And it really depends on how scared their system gets. But we're connected nervous system to the nervous system. 

One partner might be scared and get activated and reach out, and that, no matter what couldn't set the other person's nervous system to shut down, and really, we can get stuck in all the stories, but our automatic nervous system is automatic. And if it's experiencing something that's threatening, it's going to respond in a way to protect us. And the ways in which we protect ourselves could end up kind of “triggering” or “awakening” the other person's nervous system. So a lot of this happens on a subconscious or neuroception type of level. 

So once you start to really understand that, it changes the conversation. It doesn't change the pattern, but it changes the way we start to look at the pattern. And we start to talk about the pattern. If you are lucky enough to have a partner who wants to have these conversations and to learn with you, you can really change when you're in the pattern, and you can change the dialogue. 

Your system might still go off, and it will go off, and patterns repeat themselves. But the way in which you communicate when you're in these patterns starts to shift, and that creates a space for healing and understanding, and empathy for both sides, both the turtle and the octopus.

Yes, because it's creating the safety to slow things down to look at that 80% of what's happening on the inside, and perhaps be able to look at, “Oh, when you turn away, or you get quiet and appear to shut down, I have a whole interpretation about that.” But if we can have a different conversation, and I understand you're actually scared or you're overwhelmed, that is a game changer. And similarly, perhaps for the turtle, that, “Oh, I think you are just thinking I'm bad. And you are telling me all the reasons why I'm wrong.” Like, I don't understand that you're feeling tremendous fear, and you're afraid that I'm not with you, and you're trying to engage me like that's not at all what it feels like. So, I absolutely agree with you. I love being able to look at the cycle and the dance and have a different conversation. That's so key in a relationship. 

I really love the octopus because, you know, that's just such a good representation of what it can feel like when we're grasping, like, it's almost free falling and trying to find anything to grasp, right? And so there are all these limbs that are like reaching. And so, I really liked that. And it also describes, if I'm hearing you correctly, that these are our tendencies. These are our moves. I think that that is usually what's most visible. We can recognize, “Oh, I'm getting quiet.” “Oh, I'm walking away.” “Oh, I'm getting really terse in my questions and really feeling this, like, I got to figure this out type of thing. Those are our tendencies. And those are usually our first moves. Is that right?

Yeah. I mean, awareness comes first, and sometimes the behavior can't change. But after you can reflect and start to see, okay, well, I started getting really angry at my partner or started getting really critical, and I was really scared or started shutting down. And that was really fear. And often, we can't. We develop something called dual awareness, which takes time and neuroplasticity to be in an activated state and also access your adult saying, you're in an activated state, and some days you're more resource, and you're able to express differently, and other days, you're gonna have a hairline trigger to anger, and that is also Interpersonal Neurobiology tells us that's going to happen. 

There should be a lot of forgiveness because underneath all these behaviors is usually a tremendous amount of terror. And when you start to really understand attachment theory, you start to really build compassion for the behaviors your partner's doing that might even hurt you on both sides. I think you're an EFT therapist, so you know, there's a lot of a Sue Johnson, you know, kind of builds the empathy as well as Imago to big step to healing is just really understanding why these behaviors that make sense in the first place and where the root of them lies.

Yes. And, again, just when you're talking about how quickly the nervous system reacts and how confusing this might be, and how off guard we might feel if we haven't done a little bit of work to recognize our patterns and our tendencies, it's really feeling sometimes blindsided by this intensity or this energy that you're describing or what feels might feel so threatening and terrifying. 

So, how do you help people shift the paradigm to my partner is doing something wrong, we're not a good fit, or this is incompatible and really want to push away the thing that hurts to look at and have that inquiry because I can recognize so many times where I was able to journal And the first line is like, “My husband's bad.” And it's like all this nasty just like, and it's real. It's my complaint and my story about it. But then I get to some layer that it's like, “Oh, I'm scared.” 

My whole body changes. And I'm like, this deep resonance of, like, that's it. Like, that's really what's happening on a deeper level. But that takes some practice. And like you said, time, how do you help people who are just even listening now and thinking, okay, there might be something to this, but I haven't really done any of that. Like, what are you suggesting here? 

Yeah. I mean, looking at patterns and themes. But really, if there's a big sensation that's going on in the body, and the body stores this, have you felt this way before? And if you can really slow down and say, “Oh, this is a familiar sensation.” and if you're able to link it back. 

Now remember, the bigger the sensation, the earlier the wound, usually. So sometimes, we have something called implicit wounds, which are only sensational memories. So sometimes, we can't link it back like infant wounds. But if it's living very large in your body, there's a good chance that it's old. 

And if you could slow down and say, “Okay, have I ever felt this way before? What is the story I make up about this? How has it shown up in my life other than in this relationship?” You can start to separate what's happening in the relationship from what pattern or sensation might have already existed before you met that partner.

I also want to acknowledge that this work that you're describing is probably the very opposite of what one might want to do. Right? And I can recognize in my own trauma work that some of it has been implicit, and it's very difficult to identify and start to process and metabolize because there isn't a lot of memory, there isn't a lot of languages. It's stuff that I feel in my body versus other things that I have felt that are very familiar that I can start to connect with the pain or the experiences that I've had that helped me start to look at that. 

I mean, I am practicing this work. I teach this work. I have two separate graduate degrees. I'm such a promoter of this. And when it comes to me doing my own work, I just want to say it's hard. It's really hard. So it sounds like what you're inviting is for people to think of the long term as far as what the benefits would be. Or help me. 

Yeah. I mean, so, if it's showing up, there's an opportunity to heal it. It's showing up for a reason. I agree with you. I think healing the really implicit is hard. You do need someone in another ventral state to really hold the container for you and re-experience that experience and start to connect to integrate it into your brain. There's some science to what we do and how things float up. 

Healing means being with more and more of yourself, the parts of yourself that you don't want to be with. But the more you are with them in the presence and the safety of others, the more you will not avoid them. So indirectly, you're healing, and you are changing your life. But yes, the paradigm is you are going into the storm. You can't even control the storm because there's an unfolding that happens when you're healing. 

I trust that, hopefully, you have it in others that as these embedded sensations surface that they can be held because it's in the holding of them that you didn't get early, early on. And a lot of people don't have a memory of this, and no parent is perfect. And we walk around with these experiences and sensations. And it's not about blame. It's about how I can bring trustworthy people in, even if it's not my partner. 

My partner doesn't have the capacity to hold it. How can I bring people in so I can hold it so that it's not operating on a subconscious level, or my neuroception learns to relax a little bit more around it, and I'm not activated so easily in my life? So, it does work. It just is work.

Yeah. Yes. I love that you're saying it's the growth and the healing, that when we're developing, most of the time, that learning curve is not comfortable. And so, because it really does go against perhaps the nervous system's protection or survival tendency to not feel that pain, right? So in some ways, it's activating that terror again, to be able to metabolize, to be able to integrate, to be able to heal, and that is very scary. I would love for you to just help people when you say someone's in the ventral state, I know what you're referring to, but I would love for people to get that a little more clearly.

Yes. So when we're talking about polyvagal theory, we're talking about different states of the nervous system. And, you know, one of the biggest discoveries that Steven Porges has made is the ventral state, which is our highest evolution. So, as human beings, we have evolved so much. We are meant to be in the safety of others. And when we feel safe with another, we are open, we are curious, we are attuning, we are coregulating, we are aware. 

He also coined the word neuroception. So, we can have inner and outer cues that can take us out of the state of safety. And so, what that could look like something different for me than you, like my partner could pick up his phone in the middle of dinner, and that could cue me and my nervous system or a roll of the eye or a tone, you know, there's a lot of information that we're picking up through implicit streams and our environment that will let us know, is it safe, or is there a potential threat? 

And people with anxious attachments tend to have an amygdala, which is part of your brain that is hypersensitive to abandonment, so there can be real or just perceived potential threats. And their system will shift out of the ventral calm place of connection, usually into sympathetic activation, where they shift into a protective mode, fight-flight-freeze-fawn. 

Actually, people-pleasing is born of that mode. So all of a sudden, they feel scared, so they start to try to make the situation better or self-sacrifice or self-abandon. That's a big adaptation that someone who is anxiously attached learned as a young child that I need to disconnect from myself in order to feel the room, to feel what my parents are feeling or my sibling is feeling. 

And so they disconnect from themselves, and they usually are very attuned to the person around them. And so that's a way that they operated brilliantly to survive. But you know, the work would then be to get back in touch with self.

Right. And to that specific fond tendency or adaptation to perhaps do the terrifying work to identify and really connect with self, right? And to be able to take the steps to be able to occupy that and maybe express that a little bit more, which, perhaps, is going to trigger or activate all the danger signs, right? This was not safe to do in the past. 

Yeah. I mean, I think giving yourself grace around that, too. You know, at the end of the day, someone with anxious attachment is usually avoiding fear of abandonment, and there usually is the felt sense of disconnect or their biggest issues in consistency. So even if they get a connection, they're scared that the connection is gonna go away. 

Every different attachment style kind of has different fears in different ways they adapted, but for anxious people, they are usually self-abandoned, and they track the body of the other. So they're always kind of focused on what their partner is doing because they feel like they're never going to get enough because their first or earliest experiences were inconsistent in some way. And that is all your nervous system sent, actually, to all driven by the nervous system and trying to keep you safe. 

If you prepare that this person might be going away all the time, then you're kind of preparing for that when that might not actually be happening in the here and now. But your system recognizes that maybe it is. So it's going in. It's shifting into a sympathetic state.

And I really appreciate your acknowledging the strength and the resilience that this was developed in an environment where this was perhaps the best move, that for whatever the circumstances, the primary caregiver, or one of the caregivers, wasn't able to be consistent in that responsiveness and thus, the person in that environment, that young one, it was the best move to perhaps be hyper-vigilant or do the attunement and try to engage the parent, right? So that was very wise at the time. And yet that learned shaping perhaps is no longer necessary, or we're bringing that learning into like we would bring any learning into any environment, but that then might actually activate what you talked about when we were talking about with this dance and couplehood.

Yeah. I mean, I call it an adaptation. And yeah, it's a brilliant one. Connection is our biological imperative. And so, when we're young, we will do whatever we can to stay in connection, whether it's self-abandon, people-please, shut down. I mean, there are a lot of things that we unconsciously do because we have to stay in connection when we're small because that is our survival. It's our sense of survival. 

So those very adaptations when we attach to our romantic relationships, or just close bonds, as adults, we bring those attachment adaptations with us, and when fear kicks in, those behaviors in a way in which we cope early on tend to manifest again. They might look a little different, but the underlying drive is usually fear, pain, or terror.

And I'm just in such gratitude for what you're offering in this conversation because I think, largely, a lot of Western cultures have such an emphasis on individualism and self-reliance. And so many times, people in adulthood might think, oh, attachments about childhood, and like, I had a good childhood or like, look at just the things on paper. And this is so powerful. I don't think we're giving it enough credit. And that, really, the research and the theory are cradles to grave. This is our whole entire life. This is the wiring and the need that we have. Is that right?

Yeah, it's so frustrating because the message I got was to be independent. And we're really built for interdependency, which is also the message in my book, and what that really means because someone who struggles with codependency and is given the message to be independent is very much not setting themselves up for success, it's actually about learning to depend on dependable people. That is the healing path for someone who's more anxious. 

And yeah, I think, you know, if you're listening, and this isn't making sense, there's something called coregulation, and that is the energetic dance between baby and primary caregiver. And that is, we're not born with our nervous system fully developed. We don't have a parasympathetic system. We're not completely developed. So our mother could be doing the best job ever. And if she's stressed out, or she's anxious, or if she's going through something, we're sensing that. We're sensing beings. 

And as we develop our nervous system, we are also sensing into her. So that pattern and those embedded patterns get laid down so early by no one's fault. So you could have the perfect childhood. And if your mom was going through something, or your primary caregivers were going through something, you're likely to pick that up, and you are still developing in those times. That blueprint gets laid down so early. So you're probably not conscious that you get a little anxious when your partner doesn't pick up the phone or that these things are wired so early on that it makes sense that people are like, I have the perfect childhood. 

It's kind of frustrating, to be honest, as a therapist, and it's just a human because, as I said, I was helping my friends the other day, and it's like, people don't really have this information. They don't understand that they're repeating the same wound, or the wound hasn't been embedded, and it's showing up in this relationship to be healed. They tend to just go to their adaptive strategies, and then they end relationships. And sometimes, that's really sad. 

If the wounding is really big on both sides of the relationship, it can be a hard relationship to repair, especially without a professional, and sometimes there is too much co-dysregulation in the relationship. But often, I feel like people just don't have the information to even start to understand what's really going on on a deeper level and give the relationship a real chance.

No kidding. I love what you're describing around interdependence. Even as you're describing this very early coregulation between typically mother and child, and she might be doing a great, even perfect job, that sometimes there are even wider influences whether or not it's a pandemic, or perhaps even some strife politically, or even more like family health illness, like there are so many things that in life will disrupt the regulation. 

And so, there's a lot to consider here and really emphasize around how we've been shaped as it relates to our attachment system. And if we can be cognizant and even give this some credence, I feel like it changes the outlook when we enter into a relationship. It's like we would be perhaps so much. I mean, I feel like sometimes the romantic, more popularized messages or it's “Find the one.” Your list. Of all the things and you got to love yourself first. 

I actually do. I'm being a little facetious. I do really feel that there's a lot of merit in how to regard oneself and, how to take care of oneself, how to be mindful of what's important. I don't discredit any of that, but when we put that emphasis that that's the golden key. We're missing what a real relationship is.

Exactly. To caveat that, you got to love yourself. If you didn't have great coregulation, if you didn't have a nurturing loving voice, and you probably did at some point, but if you're not accessing that, because self-regulation and self-love is born out of experiences of coregulation and healthy love from the external. We don't just wake up and learn how to love ourselves. It's through healthy interactions that we can resource. I call it inner community. 

And sometimes, you need to develop the outer community, especially if you're anxiously attached. You don't have self-regulation. That's the missing developmental link when you're born. So the coregulation wasn't there. So you were missing the tools to self-soothe. So it's then finding the people who can help you coregulate that gets internalized and the healthy relationships that get internalized that give you the ego state or the voice that says, “Okay, now this person has been pretty loving, or what is this experience? Can I cultivate that from within?” 

We cannot just pull it out of thin air. We must resource it. We must have an experience of something to resource in order to develop that internal experience.

And can you give people an example of this inner community? I have a few ideas, but I would love to hear from you around what that might look like in someone. 

Yeah, I really liked that question. I talk about inner community in my book. I think when you're moving from anxious or avoidant to more secure when you're in the abandonment wound for an anxious person and for an avoidant person and be when you're really shut down, and you feel like you can't trust, but for an anxious person, you are able to be in the wound and also access the people who care about you. So it cradles the wound. 

It's an expansive feeling because now you can experience the wound and the support. And it's very, very hard to put this into words. But you can be not alone in the feeling that you felt alone in because you trust enough people, and you can feel that trust while you're going through the experience. That is true healing. And it is an experience. 

It is so hard to really verbalize. It's one of those things that unless you're in the midst of healing, and you're kind of, “Oh, wow. I was in a really low place, but I was able to access what it would be like if my therapist was in the room. What would my therapist say to me? What would my best friends say to me? What would that teacher, who I actually did, really trust? What would it be like? 

When you're around healthy people enough, you start to be able to access them, their energy, their warmth, and their non-judgmental care when you're not even near them. So that way, you bring their essence in. From a developmental lens, we internalize our parents. We take in the essence of our primary caregivers. And if there's wounding there, usually our caregivers have many parts, and that's where the repair needs to happen. 

But if there's a critical parent, there's a good chance we're going to be critical inside. So, it's having those non-judgmental, safe friendships, people who are holding space for us, having those experiences enough to trust and let the things surface and then access that inherent trust, again, that builds the neural plasticity to earn security.

I'm feeling very touched by how you're describing this because it is so necessary. It's almost as if the way I'm thinking of it, too, is if I have had positive attuned experiences where there's that love and that bonding, I might call up for me. It was my grandmother and some warmth, or like, she would knit these blankets and the warmth and the comfort and the stability and the safety of that, or like you described a best friend. 

And so sometimes it's not just, oh, a specific memory that's like one-dimensional. It's like, what is it that felt a sense of being around them, the way they look at you, the way they might hug you, then what it might feel like to just be next to them? Or what they might encourage or how they might lift you up? Is that right?

That's 1,000% right. I love that you use the felt sense. People are like, what is the felt sense? It's the body experience of being around someone who really loves you. And that if you are imagining that or accessing that, you're changing the chemicals, the hormones, everything that's going on in your body is changing at that moment. And that is what's going to cradle your amygdala so that the experience becomes less severe.

Right. And so, it's not as though we're trying to bypass or push away the fear. But it's almost this sense that one can hold the space in the container gently so that the other can be processed.

Yes, absolutely. It's not that we're avoiding it anymore. I don't think people are conscious that they're avoiding them. It's coming up, and it's being perceived as a problem. It's that now we're starting to build the resources so that when it comes up, we can have a relationship with it differently when we can hold it with these other experiences and with these other people. 

For many people who are starting to do the healing work, this type of holding needs to be done on the outside before you can really start to cultivate it on the inside. But sometimes, once you even touch that a little, and you experience it, that grows and grows and grows. It's where you're at and where your wounding is. 

Everybody's story is a little bit different, but our relationships are the biggest mirrors of our deepest embedded patterns and wounds. They are absolutely going to bring them to the surface. And as hard as that is, it's not a bad thing. It's just a hard process. I say it's a hard process because I've been through it myself. 

And it's like, “Oh, yeah, I want to heal.” Well, healing is not love and light. Healing is being with more of those shameful, unbearable, painful parts that no one wants to deal with. And a lot of people just don't deal with it. And that's fine. I truly believe that in the safety of the right people, that's when they get dealt with, or else you're not ready or there's not an environment in which you should deal with them, so you're going to stay in more protected places.

Yes! I'm going to underscore that and quote that because that is so so true that we need the environment to help us. It's almost like it helps us, you know, people have probably heard about the window of tolerance, right? That having enough safety and containment and regulation to be able to deal and work with and not get so overwhelmed or so flooded, that we like, have to, you know, put the exit button, and we can't tolerate it. 

As has people are listening too, it's likely that many people, and I'll just raise my hand here to say that I also have had the experience and believes so much. This is what my dissertation was about that relationship. It can be this opportunity for growth and big ways. And that it had taken me the relationship material that activated in me some of my deepest healings like it was the doorway, the entry point into my deepest healing that I wasn't conscious of.

There was no part of me that was intending to, like, “Oh, yeah, that thing that I just maybe one day, I'll focus on it.” I legit did not know that depth and continue to work with it. I want to also just say that as we look at the relationship and enter into a relationship, oftentimes, we might not even be aware that we don't have the ability to regulate internally. 

And then we partner, and then we have these neurochemicals that support the bonding and the infatuation and that sense of this person's amazing—the honeymoon period. And then when things are subtle of that, and we're confronting with differences and how to negotiate that, all of this gets then emerged. And it is quite tremendous.

And it's so sad because that's why the divorce rate is so hard, because everything is so wonderful in the beginning, and then the patterns or the pain come up. And then the resources or the consciousness isn't there, that willingness, but sometimes it's not even willingness. Sometimes people aren't capable. But yeah, then you know, the patterns emerge, and you're lucky. 

If you can't work it out, and you're listening, if you can't work it out with your partner, bring it to someone who can hold it and help you heal it, so you don't repeat it. If it's coming up, there's a good chance there's an opportunity to heal. And that's the most empowering thing I've ever told myself or a client who maybe didn't have a partner who they could heal with. Well, bring it to me. We can still heal this. If it's coming up, it's coming up for a reason. 

And that makes healing in partnership, not always in a relationship with your romantic partner but always possible with a person who has the capacity to hold that space. Be in ventral, like we said, become non-judgmental, not always fix. A lot of therapists want to fix. It's really about holding and holding and holding and not judging but being a container where you're not trying to take your client out of the discomfort, but you're in the discomfort with them and the sensations with them. 

That's how they get a shift from the right sense, felt sense, or the embedded part of our brain to a more integrated part of our brain because when we hold them, we can connect them backward, and we can bring up more of our history. And then, integration happens from the right hemisphere to the left hemisphere. 

A lot of our operation operates a lot in the left. And that's a protective mode as well that can go into epigenetics and how we're kind of all wired that way. But the felt sense of the right and being held in the right and being in these experiences with the people who actually are capable of holding them, not fixing them. 

I see people try to go to their partner—which is no shame in that. We've all been there—to fix these parts in their partner is activated or they can't hold these parts. So then you have to bring it to someone else. I think a lot of people are like, “I don't want to.” It's because you want to get them fixed because they're so uncomfortable. But if you could get them held, then we can start to dissolve them and integrate them. And it's kind of like starting to understand that on a deeper level.

And what an important message that traditionally, when we see what looks like a symptom or a problem, we pathologize it. Something's wrong. And especially when we look at couple's work, that that is, you know, I know less now, but historically, it's often, “I don't want to go to therapy. I don't want to go to coaching.” That's going to be the beginning of the end, right? 

Or I'm going to be called out. It's going to be my fault, or I'm going to have to end. So, when we're really shifting the association to what feels painful, as how can we give more resource to hold this so that we can learn and process and heal, that's such a different message that this is like a warning sign. And to be fearful of that. And if I'm also hearing you, you're saying, as someone who's listening and perhaps looking for a relationship, or in the beginning stages of a relationship, that it's not about finding the right person.

Yeah, I mean, I am a little bit spiritual on that. There's an energetic signature that we put out in the universe. I would say, if you're dating and you're listening, and you're attracted to the person who disappears on you or is inconsistent or unavailable, then you're trying to prove your worth. 

I think, even if you're attracted to the super-hot or not that you shouldn't be attracted, but you want to start to look at what am I? What is it about this? If it's not consistent and reliable and loving, what is it about this that I'm really either trying to prove to myself? What is the lost part of myself that I'm seeing in the other? What is really excitement versus, you know, something that can actually build sustainable love? 

You want to be asking yourself those questions, but I do believe people come into our life for a reason. When things become painful, they're just kind of flashlights, and there's no one way to answer that question. I have clients navigate breakups, and then they meet someone, or they have to be alone for a while. 

It's so layered and so complicated, and there's no rulebook. It's really feeling into what is right and what is in alignment for you versus what is fear, or what is it you trying to fill a void, or fill something that you know, so kind of being honest with yourself or having someone help you really get honest, hold the space to help you get honest with what it is that is driving your need to go out and date or who you're picking. 

And, you know, starting to see if there's an underlying pattern that you're probably picking the really exciting person who goes to or doesn't respond to your call because it's familiar and it feels chaotic, and it has an intensity around it. And that probably won't lead to a sustainable relationship that has longevity. So if that's what you want, you want to kind of look at why am I picking the unavailable type.

I hear, even though I love and agree with you, that there's no formula to follow as it relates to someone and their development, especially as you look at relationships that you can't prescribe. But what I hear as a similar message and an invitation is, can you use whatever you're experiencing as an opportunity to do the work to reveal and uncover and look at what is emerging? What is in this for you? What's the motivation and the tendency? That will be so informative as far as how to move forward in a way that is more.

If you're not attracted to someone who's boring or steady, that's okay. That's where your systems are at, and so, you have to just start to be in the presence of people who are in ventral states and not through, so your system starts to recognize this is safety. This is what unconditional love feels like or not. My system needs to recognize this because I confuse chaos and intensity with love rather than what safety really is. 

As human beings, we are always reaching out for warmth and nurturing support. Our natural inclination is to be reaching for those relationships, so when they show up in your life, grab them. I don't mean romantic. I mean friendships and support relationships that just can be present for you. And the more you can be around that, the more your system starts to recognize it, and the more you'll recognize that in a romantic partner. So, it could start in your immediate support system first.

There are building blocks here. 

Yeah. 

Jessica, thank you so much for everything you're offering. There's so much richness and depth in this. And for people that would like to learn more or do more like a deeper dive with this, what would you like to invite people to do?

Well, I just released my book in June. So, Anxiously Attached: Becoming More Secure In Life And Love. I really explore and unpack both anxious and avoidant. So it's not just for anxious people, though I target them. But there's a lot of understanding and growth for both people. If you're in a relationship, you can actually do the book together. Or you can do the book if you're single. There's just so much wisdom in that book. I would say that that's the best bang for your buck. 

I'm on Instagram at @JessicaBaumLMHC. And then my company, I have two companies, but BeSelfFull.com is where you can find me, and I have a group of coaches that are trained in attachment theory. And so we help couples and individuals, kind of worldwide but mostly in the US, work towards earned security.

Well, I'll make sure to have the link to your book, as well as your institute and all of the channels and things you want to provide us, so people have easy access to connecting with your work. And again, it's been an honor. Thank you so much.

Thank you for having me. It's been a great conversation.

Signing Off

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